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#did you know the really neat picture of his death is called 'End of Suffering'???? DO U KNOW WHY

teenageread · 8 months

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Review: The Bad Seed

Synopsis:

There’s something special about eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark. With her carefully plaited hair and her sweet cotton dresses, she’s the very picture of old-fashioned innocence. But when their neighborhood suffers a series of terrible accidents, her mother begins to wonder: Why do bad things seem to happen when little Rhoda is around?

Originally published in 1954, William March’s final novel was an instant bestseller and National Book Award finalist before it was adapted for the stage and made into a 1956 film. The Bad Seed is an indelible portrait of an evil that wears an innocent face, one which still resonates in popular culture today.

Plot:

Christine knew her daughter was special. Rhoda, daughter of Christine and Kenneth Penmark, was unlike her parents in many ways. She was neat, obedient, and the perfect picture of what a 1950s daughter should look like. She was polite, and affectionate when needed, and she could make her tears come when needed. Rhoda had mastered the art of acting, gaining adults' affection and always getting what she wanted. Always. With Kenneth away most of the time, it was just Christen and Rhoda, living in their apartment complex run by Monica, who placed herself as Christine’s best friend. When Rhoda did not win the penmanship competition, Christine told her daughter that it was okay, that it was the judge's call to make, and sometimes we do not get everything we wanted. Days later, police found the penmanship winner, Claude, dead in the water with his penmanship medal missing. Days later, Christine found the medal in a box of Rhoda’s treasured items and could not make the connection. Could Rhoda, peculiarly yes, but still her daughter, be a killer? But Rhonda is only eight, and children cannot be killers, can they? Taking on the role of if she is writing a story, Christine is digging into her own past, and the story’s about other children killers, to see if she can figure out if Rhoda really is a psychopath, and if she is how many people have she killed, and if she is not, is Christine losing her mind, accusing her own daughter of being a killer.

Thoughts:

William March took the world by storm when he released his novel about an eight-year-old killer in 1954. By today’s standards, it is not a shocker, as stories about psychopathy and child killers have been in all forms of media and are available for most of the public. Yet, in 1954 it was still a novelty concept that March took advantage of when he wrote this story. Titled because of the gene passed into Rhoda to make her a psychopath, March takes the narrative of the mother, Christine, who is described as a weak woman trying to do what is best for Rhoda and missing her husband terribly. Christine spends her time trying to figure out why her child is acting strangely, half believing her child could be a killer and trying to convince herself that Rhoda was sane and that these mishaps were just accidents. March takes the book into two subplot lines of Christine figuring out her past by working on her “book”, and the current activities of Rhonda, having them tie up neatly in the end leaving you with an ending that is appropriate but not one you wanted. March really makes you feel for Christine as our mother figure is going into complete crises about her daughter and is someone to just generally pity for what she must deal with. Leroy, as a minor character, was extremely integrating, besides his awful rape-y thoughts about Monica and Christine, but his perverted dialogue with Rhoda always made you on edge, waiting to see which one snapped first. Rhoda, March’s most developed character, was interesting to see the act because March makes it obvious that Rhoda is not normal, and even when they have announced Claude's death you know Rhoda had something to do with it. This girl with her two braids and sweet smile had a bloodthirsty side that March wrote about from the beginning. The plot and writing itself, do not have the shocking twist seen like in today’s writing, but slower and more thought out, thus having a mild pace despite its hard-packing storyline. Overall, as a book for the 50s it is good, with an interesting story arc, and fantastic characters, it is worth the read if you are in the mood for some child-killing action.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

#The Bad Seed #William March #book review

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gukyi · 3 years

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love me or we both go down | kth

summary: after going through with an arranged marriage to please his parents and secure his inheritance of the family business, kim taehyung thinks he’s got it all figured out. he doesn’t. apparently just being married to you isn’t enough, not when everybody and their mother can pick up on the fact that the two of you absolutely loathe each other. but taehyung wants his inheritance one way or another, so he decides that desperate times call for desperate measures: the two of you need to fall in love, and you need to fall in love fast.

{enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, rich kids!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff, angst, smut (i know, crazy right?) word count: 32k warnings: oral sex (m & f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, multiple unprotected sex scenes (they’re married y’all), fat cock tae, tae has a wife kink, lots of praise, alcohol consumption (but they’re safe), minor character death (not explicit), mentions of heart attack, slow burn like there is no tomorrow a/n: hello and welcome to the fic everyone, literally everyone, has been waiting for! i am so, so, so excited to share this with you all, especially because none other than rose @kinktae helped me write the smut, and i am literally forever indebted to her. you all better go spam rose with all the love and support you can because this fic would not be here without her and i love her so much.

also, to all my readers who aren’t comfortable reading smut, please know that the smut in this fic is not imperative to the storyline, and you skipping past it will not affect your reading experience., enjoy!

Never in your life have wedding bells felt so ominous.

The sound of them is akin to the sound of strings, of a single piano note in a horror movie, right when the film opens and someone random is about to die on screen for the sake of proving to the audience that this is, in fact, a horror movie. Make no mistake about it; these wedding bells spell doom for you, too. And the most horrific part about them is that just like that poor, helpless soul in the movie, there is no way for you to escape your fate either.

With only seconds left to go before you have no choice but to promise yourself to the man waiting at the other end of the aisle, you desperately try to think of any last-ditch efforts to get out of this. Many, if not all of them, are utterly useless.

Feigning sudden illness won’t work, because then your parents will just reschedule the wedding to a later date. Running away is fruitless. Where will you go? The parking lot?

If only you had a lover out there in the audience somewhere that could object to the marriage when the officiant says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” A knight in shining armor that could whisk you out of the venue and off to a new life, far away from here. Too bad all of the people you’ve dated before hate you now.

Maybe getting married isn’t such a bad thing after all. Instead of having relationships with multiple people who will eventually despise your existence, you only have to have a relationship with one. And the feeling, as has always been, is mutual.

You bristle as your assistants do some last-minute prepping, fixing your sleeve and adjusting your necklace and making sure you don’t trip on your enormous train. They flutter around you like a swarm of well-meaning but ignorant butterflies complicit in the agenda of your family. None of them have said a word to you about the wedding ever since you arrived at the venue, choosing to talk more about things like the weather. Not that you were ever under the impression they had been hired to entertain you. Maybe they were told to not engage you, just in case you try to conspire with them.

As if they could be of any use in your wildly unrealistic escape plans.

The truth is that, unless you were to drop dead on this marble flooring right now, you’re getting married. Whether you like it or not.

The doors open.

You’ve attended red carpets, galas, award shows, and balls. You’ve had hundreds of cameras flashing in your face, the bright light capturing each and every centimeter of you. You’ve had paparazzi waiting outside the restaurants you eat at, the stores you shop at, desperate to catch a picture of you in sweatpants without a drop of makeup on. You’ve been on dates with ex-lovers that looked at you like you were a piece of meat with a credit card. And yet, for some goddamn reason, walking down the aisle in a white dress the size of Pluto, with the rest of your life waiting for you at the other end, makes you feel fucking transparent.

Face resolute, you clutch onto your bouquet so tightly the flowers feel like they’re about to pop right out of your grasp. Determined not to look at anybody in the audience, you stare straight ahead, right into the eyes of your future husband.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen multiple times drunk off his ass with hickies dotting his neck and jawline, cleans up pretty well. For someone getting married, at least. He dons a simple black tuxedo that still probably costs more than the average car, his caramel brown hair is pushed back off his forehead, and his expression is firm and still. He most certainly has had an equally expensive team prepping him, but they haven’t done too bad a job. The silver lining is that he doesn’t look any more thrilled than you are to be doing this, right here, right now. But to his credit, this is definitely the best he’s ever looked, as far as you’re concerned.

When you reach him, he offers his hand out to you, a hand that you only accept for the sake of professionalism. The bouquet in your hands is handed off to one of your bridesmaids, and the two of you take your position at the front. Your train drags along the aisle, draping over the few stairs you had to climb to reach the altar, this satin trail behind you that cements you to the floor. It may as well be a ball-and-chain. It’s about as heavy as one, anyway.

This is the longest you and Taehyung have ever held eye contact. Not that you’re really keeping track of how long the two of you have met each other’s gazes, but if you had to make an educated guess, this would definitely be the victor. Most of the time you end up sneering at each other ten seconds in, but to be fair, those other times you were also not getting married. To one another. In a ceremony attended by hundreds of people. And cameras.

There can be no sneering here.

“Don’t you look nice?” Taehyung whispers, loud enough so only the two of you can hear. He has that drawling, sickly sweet tone to his voice, the one that you hate because it makes him sound like he thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. “Surprised they were able to makeup that scowl off your face.”

This, of course, brings on a hearty scowl only he can see, your backs both facing the rows of attendees. “How much concealer are you wearing to cover up all of the hickies on your neck?” You quip back easily. It’s not like the two of you are going to pretend he doesn’t waltz around at every club or bar or private venue he can find, looking for his next treat.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Taehyung grins, and if you weren’t standing in front of hundreds of people about to get married, there’s no telling what next you would do.

The two of you would probably go on like that for another ten minutes if it’s not for the officiant, who coughs once he’s ready and opens the book in his hands. Next to you, Taehyung straightens, hands clasped together at his front, and lips pressed into a neat line. You do the same. There will be no giggles, no laughter nor smiles, nor any genuine emotion at this wedding. This is a wedding for the sake of politics, for economics, for security, and anyone in attendance would be a fool to think otherwise. Especially you.

“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, loved ones, and esteemed guests,” the officiant bellows, listing off as many groups of people as he possibly can in an effort to both include and compliment every person in the audience, “We are gathered here to celebrate the wedding, and future life, of Taehyung and Y/N…”

Taehyung turns to you, grinning in that god-awful way, the way he does when he feels like he’s got something over you. And sure, you can’t think of any punishment quite as bad as this, but what’s Taehyung got to smile about? He’s marrying himself off to a woman he hates, kissing goodbye his days as a free-spirited, heartbreaking bachelor, and promising what may very well be the rest of his life to loving you. That is not cause for celebration.

But perhaps, to him, your suffering is enough to bring a smile to his face.

Your vows are, to put it simply, total bullshit. Your family hired someone to write yours and there’s not a doubt in your mind that his family did the same thing. This nonsense talk, this complete and utter garbage that spews from your perfectly-glossed lips, shit about how you promise to love each other until the end of your days, how you promise to take care of each other when you’re sick and accompany each other at every event, every gala, every ball. Shit about how you promise to look only at each other, promise to uphold your family traditions and become a dependable spouse.

The words don’t belong to you. But the thing is that this marriage was never yours anyway.

When the kiss comes, there’s a part of you that thinks maybe you should have psyched yourself up a little more for this. When Taehyung pulls you in, placing a stiff hand on your lower back as he brings you towards his chest, your stomach turns and shivers run down your spine. The feeling of his hand on your body, the breath from his lips brushing against your own, are enough to keep you frozen in place.

He smiles at you, almost as if to ask, “Are you ready?”

And you squeeze your eyes shut, almost as if to respond, “Let’s do this.”

When his lips meet yours, there is almost nothing. Nothing runs through you, nothing explodes, nothing strikes. But when he pulls away and cheers and applause rings out throughout the room, there is something. A little heat, a remnant of a flame, left on your lips. A little sting, just to remind you it happened.

The entire hall is cheering but nothing about this is worth celebrating. The fact of the matter is that you and Taehyung will never love each other the way that you are supposed to.

“Ugh, finally.”

The elevator doors haven’t even properly opened by the time Taehyung is loosening his tie, tugging it off over his head as he stretches his head back and runs a hand through his perfectly-styled hair. As he rakes his fingers through his caramel locks, the hairspray and gel loosens, strands falling down by the side of his face, framing his temple.

“Don’t sound so relieved,” you huff out, deciding now is as good a time as any to start getting undressed yourself. Reaching down to lift up the hem of your reception dress, you tug off your heels, already feeling lighter on your feet. Who cares if Taehyung is watching you pull off your stilettos like a defeated movie heroine? You don’t think you can walk another step in those shoes. “We still have to live together, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” Taehyung says gruffly, brushing by you roughly as he stomps out of the elevator. “I’m just glad the fucking night is over. I swear, seeing that fake-ass smile on your face made me want to gouge my eyes out.”

You storm after him, refusing to be the helpless damsel in this situation. “Oh, like you didn’t also have that exact same fake-ass smile on your face. It almost made me think you were actually enjoying yourself tonight.”

“I was only enjoying the fact that I know you hate this just as much as I do.” It’s perhaps the only thing you will ever be able to empathize with him on. Mutually relishing in the other’s destruction. Taehyung fumbles with the keypad to the door to the penthouse for a moment before you hear the lock click, the door sliding open as the entrance lights flicker on.

The reason Taehyung’s penthouse is so clean is because he’s never lived here before. Neither of you have—Taehyung’s parents bought it just for the two of you. And as much as you absolutely despise the idea of having to live with him, at least it was not you who paid for your place of residence.

You can tell Taehyung’s never lived here before because it’s actually quite nicely decorated inside. The ceilings are high and the sleek velvet curtains are pulled open, revealing a shimmering skyline. The furniture is modern and functional, and the whole damn place smells brand new. You’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of entering the place Taehyung lived in before now, and it looked nothing like this. The furniture was worn and stained despite the live-in maid, the house reeked of five hundred different spices that wafted from the kitchen to the living room, and the bookshelves were covered with comics, graphic novels, and old textbooks.

If it weren’t for the fact that you and Taehyung are rich kids in their twenties that hate each other, you might have actually thought the place looked… homey.

You don’t have time to be impressed by the interior design and architecture skills of whoever designed this place. Right now, all you can think about is tugging yourself out of your airtight reception dress and passing out on the nearest bed. Which, hopefully, will be as far away as possible from Taehyung’s bed of choice.

“How many bedrooms does this place have?” You ask, shimmying along the floor so you don’t trip over the hem of your dress. From the looks of it, you can see one giant hallway to your right and a massive, double-sided staircase leading up.

“Enough,” Taehyung grumbles in response. The hazy stupor from all of the fancy champagne is starting to wear off for the both of you, leaving behind two grouchy, begrudgingly-married individuals who want absolutely nothing to do with each other and have no problems making that known. Whatever golden light of the evening that was making Taehyung at least a little bit more attractive than usual has faded, and now you see him for what he really is: an unceremoniously tired man in a suit. “You want upstairs or down?”

You gaze up at the marble staircase in front of you, then back down at your too-long dress. “Down.” The last thing you want is to trip in front of the man you have to see, every day, for the rest of your life.

“Fine by me.” Taehyung’s halfway up the stairs by the time he turns back around to say something else. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yeah.” There’s no point in being hostile now. The both of you are too exhausted to mean anything by it. Besides, what else can you say? Everything to complain about has already been complained about. At least the two of you managed to wrestle out from your parents the stipulation that you would not be going on a honeymoon together. Now that would have been your worst nightmare. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s as good of a goodnight either of you are going to get. Taehyung heads up the stairs and disappears around a corner, and you start wandering down the hallway. All the bedrooms look the exact same other than different colors on the walls and bedsheets, but they all look serviceable to you. Clean. Empty. Far away from wherever Taehyung is.

You pick the one at the very end of the hall just to be as much of a diva as possible, and don’t even bother drawing the curtains before tugging off your dress. It’s past one in the morning, and you’re so high up you don’t think anyone will be able to see you anyway. By the time you’ve stripped naked and are tugging up the too-tight sheets tucked into the mattress, your legs are about to give out beneath you. The bed could be made of rocks for all you care. Anything to lie down on is fine by you.

Sleep comes fairly easily to you tonight. Once your head hits the pillow you can already feel yourself drifting off, eyelids fluttering shut, but you don’t sleep quite yet. Not before you can think about how this is your life now, sleeping in a foreign bed in a foreign place with a foreign husband upstairs. This is what you will be living in now. Now and forever.

Living with Taehyung is, in both the best and worst ways possible, like living with a roommate that doesn’t give a shit about the fact that they live with another person. It’s good, because you and Taehyung hardly see each other and speak even less, which was pretty much the only thing you were asking for when it came to living with him. But it also sucks, because whenever you do happen to cross paths, Taehyung acts like you don’t exist, barely sparing you a hello or even that tight-lipped smile you send to drivers on the road when they let you cross the street.

Not that the two of you ever engaged in energetic conversation before you got married. But at least the two of you would acknowledge each other, even if only to shoot a glare and a scowl the other’s way from opposite sides of a hotel ballroom. Maybe it’s just because it’s him, but you did always find yourself actually relishing in those little interactions with Taehyung. In this strange, twisted way, it seemed to provide some sort of continuity to your ever-changing life. Like no matter what happened, at least you would know that the two of you would always despise each other.

To be frank, right now you’re not sure if Taehyung even remembers he got married at all.

Nights have been a lot more sleepless since your wedding day. After two weeks, the reality of it has finally started to settle in. This is your life now. And ever since you realized that, your bed has felt much less comfortable.

“But the place is nice, right?”

You look around the living room from where you’re sat on the sleek, white suede leather couch, eyes glossing over the bookshelves, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the draping velvet curtains. From here, you can see the entire city skyline, flecks of gold from the windows of skyscrapers against a navy blue background. Slowly, as the moon creeps over the sky and the clock gets later and later, those lights will soon begin to flicker off, one by one.

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” Nothing to write home about. That is, if home were a place other than here.

“That’s good. At least you don’t live in, like, a total dump or anything,” Victoria says on the other end of the line. “How’s Taehyung?”

His name alone elicits this deeply-exhausted sigh from your lips, like it’s been ten years since you married and every day has felt worse than the last. “Fine.” You can’t really complain about anything yet, considering that you hardly ever see the man.

“Just ‘fine’?” Victoria sounds skeptical.

“Yeah,” you draw out the word, as if trying to convince yourself of its truth. “I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even live here. I barely see him. And when I do, we don’t even speak to each other.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it? You hate him.” Victoria says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And in a sense, it kind of is.

“I mean…”

“I know that your life hasn’t exactly… gone the way you had planned, but isn’t this your best case scenario when considering everything?” She asks. “If Taehyung is as distant as you say he is, isn’t it almost like you never married him in the first place?”

As if on cue, you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, heels clicking on the marble as they make their way to the entrance. You whip your head around to find Taehyung, all dressed up in loose, flowy slacks and a flowery silk button-down, strolling down the staircase as he scrolls through his phone, paying you zero attention whatsoever.

He notices you briefly when he reaches the bottom, meeting your eyes with his own. He offers this measly, unenthused half-smile your way before he grabs his wallet and some house keys from the table by the entrance, opens the door, and vanishes off into the night.

If you hadn’t been in the living room, you probably wouldn’t have even realized he left. Not that you being present as he’s planning on leaving would have stopped him anyway. This is the sixth night he’s done this in the past two weeks. You could stand by the door and stare him down as he emerges from his bedroom, all dressed up for something you’re definitely not invited to, and he would offer you that same goddamn smile and walk out the door without even blinking. Who he was before you got married and who he is now are no different. Not even a ring could change that.

“I guess,” you tell Victoria. At least Taehyung hasn’t turned into a helicopter husband. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wish that I didn’t have to deal with him at all.”

Wish you could turn back time. Wish you could worm your way out of an arranged marriage before it was too late. Wish you could go back to the way things used to be.

You and Victoria talk for another couple of minutes before she regretfully has to end the call, citing both her beauty sleep and an 8AM meeting tomorrow morning as her reasons for hanging up. The moment you put the phone down, you sink back into the couch cushions, staring out the windows at the world below you.

Here’s the deal. What Taehyung does in his free time is none of your business. But also, it’s totally your business, because you are his spouse. A spouse who is an equal amount in the public eye as he is. What he does and does not do has a direct impact on what you do and do not do.

It’s no secret that when you catch Taehyung sauntering down the stairs looking like a Gucci runway model, it’s not because he’s planning on catching a movie with a college friend and then playing video games for four hours on a couch in a basement. He is going out. To clubs, to parties, to exclusive events that he’s been invited to by his equally-rich friends, all of whom are acting like he’s the same bachelor he’s always been.

And maybe that’s the real problem with your whole marriage—other than the glaringly obvious issue that it’s a marriage wholly unwanted by the two parties involved in it. Despite the ring on his finger, Taehyung is going out and pretending that nothing in his life has changed while you’re trapped at home, desperate to save you and your family’s reputation by keeping as low a profile as possible. You would give anything to march around the city all day, flashing middle fingers at paparazzi as you shop at your favorite high-end stores and frequent your favorite clubs. But you can’t, because your family’s fortune and influence is on the line.

And apparently, Taehyung’s isn’t.

It sort of makes you wonder why it was even Taehyung you ended up marrying anyway. His family isn’t any richer or more powerful than yours. Your spheres have always been sufficiently separate. What was it about him, and perhaps more importantly, his family that drew your parent’s eye? And what was it about marrying you that prevented him from saying no? Money? Prestige? Influence?

You suppose you’ll never know. But whatever mystical force that convinced Taehyung to agree to this must not be as important to him as your reasoning is to you, because it’s become exceedingly apparent that Taehyung does not care that he’s married. He doesn’t care about the ring on his finger, he doesn’t care about his public image, and he most certainly doesn’t care about you.

Perhaps you were naive for thinking this, but you actually believed marriage might tone him down a little. Might age him into a real adult with real world obligations. Instead, it’s only given you a firsthand look into who Kim Taehyung has been and always will be: a selfish rich kid.

You don’t bother waiting around in the living room until he gets back, but you are still awake by the time you hear the door creak open. Taehyung makes no efforts to hide his return. You can hear him chattering loudly on the phone as he stumbles up the stairs, can tell from his gait alone that he is most certainly wasted. You don’t want to know what he did tonight. You’ll probably be able to figure it out anyway when you wake up tomorrow morning and check your social media.

What were you thinking, marrying him? That he would change? That he would suddenly become someone that you could rely on? You had no choice when you said, “I do,” but you were at least hoping that maybe one day, one day in a long, long time, the two of you would finally see eye to eye. Maybe there would even come a time when you would genuinely love him. How foolish.

You close your eyes and try to imagine a world where you have married someone you love, someone who loves you back.

Not unlike the many nights preceding it, tonight is sleepless.

Unlike your marital status and general disposition, one thing that hasn’t changed about you is your love for extravagant events. Call you conceited, but there is something so much fun about putting on a fancy, expensive dress that you love and getting your hair and makeup done before going to an exclusive gala and posing in front of five hundred cameras.

Actually, now that you think about it, maybe your wedding could have actually been pretty good, considering it let you do all those things. It’s a real shame there happened to be a storm cloud in the form of Kim Taehyung there to ruin it. Otherwise, you think you would have rather enjoyed that day.

Tonight is the first event since your marriage where you and Taehyung are both required to show up and act like a happy married couple. Which would probably be a lot easier if you and Taehyung had exchanged more than ten words over the past two weeks. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but there was a part of you that thought you could use your arranged marriage to actually cultivate some sort of meaningful relationship between the two of you. So events like these wouldn’t be such a drain on both of you.

When Kim Taehyung comes down the stairs, he actually doesn’t look too bad. You don’t know why this sort of thing keeps catching you off guard—like you don’t expect him to look that good whenever you see him. The problem is that you can’t even chalk up the surprise to him wearing tailored clothes or having his hair done. He just looks… good.

Well, you suppose you do have to look at him every day for the rest of your life. It’s a good thing he’s attractive. At least he’s not sore on the eyes.

Taehyung and his unfortunate attractiveness aside, the two of you don’t say a word to each other as you join up at the entrance, grabbing any last-minute items like house keys, chapstick, and whatever dignity you have left to spare. You send forced smiles and tight nods each other’s way in the elevator, staring straight ahead in the lobby of your building as the car pulls up to the front door.

By the time the two of you sit down in the back of the limousine, the built-up tension between the two of you is so thick you’re almost positive that even the chauffeur can feel it through the closed partition.

If you were any more idyllic, you’d probably spend the drive over to the gala staring out the window and imagining yourself in a different life, on a train to nowhere, flowers in your hair and a journal in your hands. Or perhaps you’d be the CEO of your family’s company instead of having that responsibility passed down to a husband you don’t even want, sitting in an office at the top of a skyscraper overlooking the city. Anything. Anything but this.

But the idyllic part of you died when you realized that fantasies like that are nothing but distractions and that daydreams are for romantics and optimists and losers.

“What’s our plan for tonight?”

Taehyung scoffs. “What do you mean, ‘what’s our plan’?”

You frown. “Well, we’re married, so we at least have to act like it, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t standing there and smiling enough?” Taehyung asks, an unimpressed eyebrow raised.

You bristle. Maybe that sufficed for your wedding, but there was so much going on it was easy to distract yourself from the gravity of it all. But this event is not about you. It’s not even about either of your families. It’s about someone the two of you are, at best, distantly connected to, through work, through fame, through power. Which means that though the focus will not be on you, there will still be eyes looking your way. Eyes watching your every move.

“Do you think it will be?” You challenge. Doesn’t Taehyung realize that things are different now?

Taehyung’s lips curl downwards. “What do you expect us to do, shower each other in kisses? We don’t even sleep on the same fucking floor.”

“Maybe I just expected you to act less like a stranger and more like a husband!”

Taehyung sighs. “Don’t.” The word is clipped, short. “Don’t tell me you actually want to be married.”

“I don’t.” It’s a response that you hardly have to think twice about. “But we are, and nothing can change that.” Unfortunately. But it’s a fact that you and Taehyung have both had to grapple with over the past few weeks, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you are more aware of it than he is. If Taehyung could have his way, he would ignore you for the rest of his life and keep partying with the rest of his bachelor friends until he keeled over and died.

He huffs next to you, eyes staring straight ahead. You don’t think the two of you have met each other’s eyes in a week. Maybe more. They’re starting to feel as soulless as your marriage itself. “Whatever. What do you want me to do?”

“What do you think?” You cross your arms over your chest. “Just act like you don’t hate me. Can you do that?” The way Taehyung’s behaving right now, you expect that will be a challenge for the both of you.

“Only if you can. I’ll even hold your hand to prove that we love each other.”

“Fine.”

The idea of holding Taehyung’s hand makes you want to implode. The mere thought sends shivers down your spine. But it’s better than nothing, and that’s good enough for you. At least you won’t have to kiss.

The rest of the ride there is silent. You drive to this gorgeous mansion just outside the city, bathed in lights hidden amongst the bushes, illuminating both the architecture and the enormous fountain that sits in front of it. In a house this size, you imagine you could probably go your whole life without ever having to come across Taehyung. It actually makes you consider investing in a home that big.

Taehyung helps you out of the back of the limousine, a cold hand clasping your own as you rest your palm against his. You can feel the way his fingers hesitate as yours make to intertwine with his as you walk towards the entrance, smiling at whatever camera flashes you encounter on your way. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were holding hands with a ghost.

The moment you step inside and are ushered out of the door’s view, Taehyung’s grip relaxes on yours. For a moment, you think he’ll actually spend the rest of the night like this, a gentle hand wrapped around yours, but then he pulls it away entirely and shoves it back into his pocket. Oh. You frown quietly to yourself. So that’s how tonight’s going to go.

You don’t make an effort to reach out towards him again.

For an event concerning people you don’t know a damn thing about, everyone sure seems to know things about you. Other than greetings, you don’t think anyone’s said anything to you about anything other than your recent marriage to Taehyung. Every conversation is punctuated by a Congratulations! you do not feel that you have at all earned, considering you and Taehyung could barely look at each other on the way here.

Maybe Taehyung was right. All you really can do is stand there and smile.

“Oh, don’t tell me… Y/N, is that you?”

The champagne swirls around in the flute between your fingers as you turn towards the sound of your name, looking up to see a familiar face headed your way.

Kim Seokjin is nice enough. He’s terribly handsome and got a flawless smile, but you know better than to trust those pearly whites of his. The sight of him alone is enough to make your body tense up. There was a reason you had explicitly told your parents not to invite him to your wedding.

“Seokjin, what a surprise to see you here,” you say, forcing a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be in Switzerland right now.”

“Change of plans,” Seokjin grins back in that awful, awful way, the kind of grin that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you. “I came back early. It’s a shame, though, I missed your wedding.”

You shrug. “It was a humble affair.” It wasn’t. And you’re positive that Seokjin knows it wasn’t an accident that you didn’t extend an invitation to him or his family.

“Ah, I see,” Seokjin says, nodding his head. He turns to Taehyung next to you, who is making no effort to hide how wholly uninterested in this conversation he is, and holds out a hand. “You must be Kim Taehyung, then. I’m Kim Seokjin. Congratulations on your wedding.”

Taehyung shakes his hand firmly, the air between the three of you growing unbearably palpable.

“Seokjin’s father is the VP of News Daily,” You explain, eyebrows raised as you try to signal to Taehyung what exactly it means when Seokjin is speaking to the two of you. “And his mother is a popular journalist for the city’s post.”

Seokjin grew up in the world of media, and it seems he’s picked up his parent’s affinity for sticking their noses in places they don’t belong. You know he’s not talking to the both of you out of the goodness of his heart.

Seokjin laughs, his hand waving away the mention of his parents. “Oh, please. That’s them. I’m just a bored socialite like the rest of you.”

You resist the urge to scoff.

“Marriage treating the two of you well?” He changes the subject to what he really wants to talk about: you.

“Of course,” you say quickly, preventing any hesitation on your end. Your empty hand reaches towards Taehyung’s, fingers searching for his between the two of you. But his refusal to join hands does not go unnoticed by you nor Seokjin, who is eyeing the space between your bodies with an eyebrow raised. “It’s just been—well, it’s just been difficult to adjust to a new life. That’s all.”

If you were to describe the face of a non-believer, it would be the exact expression on Seokjin’s face. “Perfectly understandable,” he says, that same toothy smile lacing his features. “But it must be nice, you know, to marry someone you love.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” you say, almost challenging Seokjin to say something even more inflammatory. He must know that all you’re trying to do at this point is save face. Love? Ha! As if.

“And Taehyung?” Seokjin motions to your husband.

You can feel the way Taehyung is stiffening beside you. “I suppose we are both lucky and unlucky in many ways when it comes to who we love.”

It’s enough of an answer to get Seokjin off your tail. For now. He bids the two of you a tense goodbye before sauntering off to go poke his nose in someone else’s business, fish for drama, a thread of a rumor he can pick apart with nimble fingers. You wonder if anybody actually likes him.

The moment he disappears from earshot, you grab Taehyung’s wrist tightly and pull him close to you. “What the hell was that?” You hiss into his ear.

“What?” You can’t tell if he’s playing dumb or if he really is that dense.

“You!” You exclaim. “Kim Seokjin is the one person who could easily expose how fake this marriage is and you pull away from me? Right in front of him? You can’t even hold my hand for two seconds, that’s how much you hate me?”

“Who cares what he thinks?” Taehyung says. “He’s just another media rat. No one will even remember we were here tomorrow.”

“But if you keep acting like this, people will start to notice! Why can’t you just act like you don’t hate me, for one night? Is that so bad? Is it that torturous, to spend one night with me?”

“Do not turn this on me,” Taehyung orders harshly. “You’re making a scene. Come on.”

You don’t have time to shout at him for bossing you around like you’re a toddler throwing a tantrum before he drags you out of the venue, the two of you finding a back door to the building that leads outside. The cold air blows against your body, goosebumps popping up against your skin, but you find that the chilly night provides quite the respite after practically overheating indoors. Taehyung makes fire rush through your veins but at least the air can cool you back down.

Nevertheless, your conversation is not over. It’s just been moved to a more private location.

“You do realize that our marriage isn’t going to suddenly go away, right? That we’re going to have to keep doing this for the rest of our lives?” You remind him, eyebrows raised. There’s a part of you that genuinely thinks he’s completely forgotten that your marriage is permanent.

“Oh, and not holding hands for five minutes for this one event is totally going to change the course of our lives, isn’t it?” Taehyung fights back.

“Don’t act like you did the right thing,” you spit out. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me. I know you don’t give a shit about our marriage.”

“What marriage is there to even give a shit about? Just because we had a wedding and signed some documents does not mean there is a real marriage between us. Look at us,” he motions between the two of you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We hate each other. Is this what you would call marriage?”

“But at least I’m trying to get past that!” You exclaim. “You make it seem like being as miserable as possible is some sort of badge of honor. Do you actually want to spend the rest of your life hating the person you married? Or do you want to grow up and try and move on?”

Taehyung frowns. “What I want is for the person I married to stop acting like they’re doing me such a huge favor by pretending to care about us. Especially when all they really care about is their family’s goddamn reputation.”

“No,” you tell him sternly. You are doing him a favor. He just can’t admit that he actually needs help from you. “You are putting zero effort into this. What am I supposed to do?”

“Let it go!” Taehyung shouts. “Maybe one day we’ll actually start getting along, but right now it’s obvious that neither one of us can stand the other. I don’t need you to do favors for me. I can handle it myself.”

You look away, rolling your eyes. “Doesn’t look like it to me,” you mutter to yourself.

Taehyung cracks. “Fine. You want me to pretend that I actually care about us? I will.” Thank God. Maybe now the two of you will finally start seeing eye-to-eye. “But make no mistake about how I feel about you,” he spits. “Getting married to you ruined my life.”

You stare straight at him and his eyes are swirling, so obscured in the darkness of the night that you might even think he doesn’t have a soul at all. His pupils bore into yours and for once, for once in your goddamn life, after so many years of staring each other down at debutante balls, so many years of witty refrains and snarky insults hurled each other’s way, it feels like the two of you might actually snap.

Then, a camera flashes.

Trouble in Paradise! would be a suitable title for the front page of the city’s biggest tabloid… if anything about your life with Taehyung could be considered paradise. Unfortunately for the both of you, that is not the case.

You don’t need to keep reading the rest of the trashy article on the front page of the daily tabloid to know how much trouble you’re in, nor do you even have time to scroll beneath the terrible photo of you and Taehyung literally shouting at each other before you hear your phone ring.

You don’t even bother saying hello to whoever’s on the other end. You know it’ll go in one ear and out the other.

“I assume you know why I’m calling,” your mother’s harsh tone spits from the other end of the phone. There’s no doubt in your mind that she’s standing in the middle of her office, snapping her fingers at her fifteen secretaries as they partake in the worst damage control your family’s had to deal with since your cousin two years ago was caught with a mistress outside a high-profile restaurant.

“Can I take a wild guess?” You’re about to be scolded into the next century, so you might as well enjoy your last few moments.

“Don’t get cheeky with me,” your mother warns. “Care to explain why you and your beloved husband made the front page of the Daily Post today?”

“I know,” you sigh, a hand coming up to rub at your temples. It’s eight in the morning, you’ve barely looked at your phone, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet. It feels like you’re still asleep, and most certainly lack the energy to deal with this right now.

Your mother, on the other hand, thinks otherwise. “You know? You know, and you still go out and do this? For everyone to see?”

“We tried to take our argument outside,” you begin to explain, but your mother isn’t having a single word of it.

“The fact that you thought it was even appropriate to have an argument in a public setting at all astounds me, Y/N. We raised you better than that.” There’s no need for you to even see her face. You’ve grown so used to that disappointed frown over the years that it’s burned into your brain.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before marrying me off to a man I barely know so I could be someone else’s problem instead of yours,” you bite.

“We did this for your own good,” she hisses back. “You are married because we love you, and we want you to succeed outside of this family.”

“Then why do you care what the tabloids print about me?”

“Because being married does not mean you are no longer a part of this family,” your mother informs you sternly, lips smacking together. “Your marriage reflects on all of us, and you know that. What will people think of us when they see how terribly behaved you are?”

“Everyone acts like that, and you know it.” How could your mother preach good behavior when everyone, everyone you know, is just as spoiled and entitled as you? There’s no such thing as being altruistic when it comes to people like you. Being genuine, and good, and pure—that will get you ruined.

You can hear her breathing into the phone when your mother responds, “But not in public, and that is the point. We expect better from you.”

“If you were so worried about me behaving so badly, then why did you even marry me off anyway? You knew that I didn’t want to. What did you think would happen?” It’s a question you wouldn’t have dared ask three months ago. Hell, even a year ago, when it was first revealed you were to be engaged, you wouldn’t have dared open your lips. But things are different now. You’re married to a man that hates you just as much as you hate him. He is making no effort to improve your relationship and seems hellbent on despising you forever. There is no way to get out of it. And if your parents really foresaw all of that, then what was the point in the first place?

“Your grandmother.”

Your mouth shuts.

“You know she wanted to see you married before she passed,” your mother says, words clipped and biting and harsh. “She cares about you. She wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” you mutter to yourself like a petulant child. In a way, you sort of are.

“If you want to stay in her will, I suggest you change that mindset.”

You freeze in your tracks. The will?

“Is that a threat?” You ask, positively dumbfounded. Are you being coerced into staying in this marriage because of your grandmother’s will?

You can hear your mother laugh, that muted, knowing chuckle of hers. “It was the deal all along, remember?”

Vaguely, you do. You remember fighting your parents tooth and nail over getting married until your grandmother revealed it was her dream to see you wed. You remember the look on her old, wrinkled face, that soft, sad smile that said she knew she didn’t have much time left. You remember agreeing, because how could you deny her? You remember her promising to remember what you’re doing for her.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“But—”

“That’s the end of this conversation, Y/N. You fix things with your husband or you’re out of her will. She’s made that clear. I expect you’ll make the right choice.”

She hangs up.

Well.

There are a lot of ways to describe how you’re currently feeling, and you most certainly had an expensive education that would provide you with plenty of the vocabulary, but you think the most appropriate words for the current situation would be: you’re fucked.

At least the feeling is mutual.

Hardly two minutes after your mother’s brutal phone call, Taehyung comes storming down the stairs, hair still mussed from the night prior, his own phone clenched tightly between is fingers. Even from where you stand in the middle of the living room, you can see the way his eyes are glinting with anger, the veins popping out from his skin.

“I just got off the phone with my parents,” Taehyung begins, not even bothering to spare a ‘good morning’ your way, “and they are fucking furious about last night.”

You shrug. “Join the club,” you mutter, arms crossed in front of you. What, does Taehyung really think you got off scot-free?

“Don’t act like this means nothing to you,” Taehyung says as he approaches you, footsteps calm despite his demeanor being anything but. “You’re the one who’s so obsessed with keeping up their family’s perfect reputation. You’re the reason we’re even in this mess in the first place.”

“What do you mean, ‘I’m the reason’?” You ask, astounded. Like he’s totally absolved of all blame and just an innocent third party. “You are the reason we went outside. You are the reason we had that argument, because you refuse to accept the fact that we’re actually married and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Right, because holding hands is really gonna show all those people how in love we are. I bet your parents are so thrilled right now.” Taehyung drawls.

“It’s a start!” You shriek. “God, you’re just so—so infuriating! You can’t accept that this was your fault, too. You just have to turn everything against me and you always, always have to get the last word. It’s like you think you’ll die if you don’t.”

“Like you’re any better,” Taehyung huffs back. “You think I’m the villain because I don’t want to pretend to be in love with someone I’m not in love with. You act like us not holding hands is going to ruin our lives. It was one event! One! It’s obvious we hate each other, so why even try?”

“What, do you expect me to just sit around and do nothing? To act like everything’s fine? Like I’m happy?” As if. This marriage is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. “While you prance around the city with your rich boy friends, going out to clubs and parties and pretending that I don’t exist? Is that what you expect from me?”

Taehyung laughs, this loud, disbelieving sort of noise, like he’s never heard such nonsense before. “Just because we’re married doesn’t mean the rest of my life has to change. Am I not allowed to enjoy myself with my friends? Or are you determined to keep me chained to your side for the rest of our lives?”

“What I want,” you punctuate every word, “is for you to stop acting like you haven’t got stakes in this, too. You think I don’t know how your family works? What being married to me means for you? Because I do. And I know that if we were to divorce, it would be you who would get the short end of the stick. Make no mistake.”

That’s enough to shut Taehyung up for a good few seconds. And it shuts him up, because he knows it’s true. Taehyung’s family may have a little more money, a little more power than yours, but you’ve got a family intimately more connected with the media. One phone call and Taehyung may have a rather messy, rather public breakup to deal with.

“You wouldn’t,” he says, calling your bluff.

“Are you sure about that?” You say, sticking your ground. You would never really divorce him, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I am,” Taehyung says firmly. “Don’t think I don’t know what being married to me is in it for you. What is it? Money? Power? Your father’s CEO position?”

“That’s none of your business,” you snap quickly. Maybe you’re more transparent than you thought. Bristling, you straighten your shoulders and turn back to meet his eyes. “Regardless, it seems we both have a reason to stay in this marriage.”

“It seems we do,” Taehyung agrees with a thin, contained smile. “Then I suppose we can reach some sort of agreement.”

“As in…?” Your interest in piqued.

“I’ll stop going out with my friends if you stop picking fights with me all the time,” he says economically, like he’s killing two birds with one stone.

“Only if you agree to also act more like my husband when we’re in public,” you tack on, because you just can’t settle for anything less.

“Public only,” Taehyung specifies.

You scoff. “Like I’d even want to pretend to be your wife when we’re in private.”

“Good. It seems we’ve come to a deal.”

“What’s in this for you, huh?” You prod, just to be annoying. Taehyung’s right. There’s a reason you’re not divorcing him the second you get the chance. But there must be a reason why he’s not doing the same thing.

“Does it matter?” He challenges, a single eyebrow raised. “My life is just as awful as yours.”

Fair enough.

“Do we have a deal?” Taehyung asks, holding out his hand, that sneaky, devilish grin lacing his features.

Taking his hand in yours and grasping it firmly is the easiest decision in the world. His palm presses against your own, hot hand meeting your cold skin, and it feels like the two of you are finally finding some sort of balance. You look up into his eyes, burn your gaze into his pupils, watch them glint in the white ceiling light of the living room.

“Deal.”

For two people raised on the values of reading the fine print and making educated choices when it comes to business deals, you and Taehyung sure haven’t worked out any of the intricacies of the deal the two of you agreed to. Unlike those business deals your parents constantly agreed to, however, knowing all of the stipulations and provisions of your strange, strange agreement with Taehyung may prove more harmful than helpful.

Like right now.

“Wait, we don’t have to be by each other’s side the whole night, do we?” Taehyung asks you, eyebrows furrowed in a knot, as you sit in the back of a big, black van on your way to a mutual friend’s twenty-first birthday bash.

“There are going to be a lot of cameras there,” you respond.

“Yeah, outside the entrance to the damn club. You know they won’t be allowed in, so who cares?” Taehyung rebukes.

You huff out a little sigh, not wanting to get into an argument when you’re literally minutes away from your first public appearance since the whole tabloid debacle from three weeks ago. You and Taehyung could both do with being a bit more relaxed than you normally are when you’re around each other.

“Hasn’t Clarissa invited hundreds of people? They’ll all notice if we aren’t together,” you remind pointedly. The girl whose birthday party you are attending is an heiress who grew up on the money of two people with a monopoly over the current artificial intelligence market and has millions of followers on social media. There will be notable people there. And people will know the two of you, as well.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “That’s the point, Y/N. There’ll be so many people, no one will even care. It’s her twenty-first birthday. Do you think people are going to be sober?”

You purse your lips together. He’s got a point. “How about when we are together, we hold hands. But if you see a friend or something then feel free to say hi.” Taehyung can be afforded that luxury. Especially because the chances of him not bumping into someone he knows is exceedingly low anyway.

Taehyung nods in agreement. “You too. But I won’t leave you unless I know you’re with someone you’re close with.”

“You don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine,” you say with a small chuckle. What, is Taehyung suddenly worried, or something?

“Yeah, but it would be in bad taste if I left you with someone you didn’t know well. Or alone. Just wanna make sure you’re taken care of.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turning back to look out of the window on his side of the car.

“Okay.”

You don’t really have anything else to say to that. You’re sure you can handle yourself if you’re left alone for a few minutes while Taehyung says hi, but you actually find yourself rather appreciative of his resolve to look after you. Or, at least, make sure someone else is looking after you. It’s quite… chivalrous. Strikingly out of character for the Taehyung you’ve become well-acquainted with over the past couple of months.

By the time you arrive, it’s obvious that Taehyung was right about there being so many people you two practically don’t even exist. Other than the herds of camera crews waiting outside the joint, photographing everyone that steps out of a black car to see what they’re wearing and who they’ve come with, no one seems to be paying you any attention. And in a way, that sort of nonexistence, that anonymity, it’s refreshing. Your entire life you’ve felt like all eyes were on you, like there was constantly a spotlight above your head, but here, the party centers around someone else.

Despite that fact, Taehyung keeps his promise. He keeps himself pressed closely against you when there’s not enough space for you two to stand side by side, and he makes sure to have a hand gently intertwined with your own as you weave your way through the dozens of bodies in the room. He doesn’t say anything, of course, always looking up and forward instead of beside him, where you stand, but you find that you’re actually quite relaxed with his presence. He spots a bit of a clearing near the back of the first floor of the club, where a whole bunch of leather couches are pressed up against the brick walls, where the two of you can take a breather.

“Damn, Clarissa knows a lot of people,” you say when you finally settle down, happily plucking a martini from a tray held by one of the many caterers wandering through the venue.

“I doubt she’s even spoken to half of them,” Taehyung comments. “She and I have maybe spoken once… three years ago.”

“It was enough to get you invited, wasn’t it?” You point out with an eyebrow raised.

Taehyung nods, chuckling a little. “Touché,” he says, clinking his own cocktail glass against yours.

You take a swig of the drink, letting it wash down your throat. You’re not exactly sure how else you’re supposed to survive the night. “You must enjoy this, huh?” You muse, looking up at Taehyung from where you’re seated on the couch. He’s standing next to you, looking around the room with a distant gaze in his eye.

“Enjoy what? The drink? It’s nice,” Taehyung says, having another sip.

“No, I mean this,” you say, motioning toward the crowd. “The clubbing, the dancing, the drinking. I’ll bet that if you could do this every day for the rest of your life, you would.”

“I’m honored that you think so highly of me,” he deadpans.

“Just making an observation,” you say, holding your hand up in surrender. “I mean, isn’t this what you used to do every weekend before we got married? Get wasted and party? Wake up in someone else’s bed the next morning? Muscle your way through the week just so you could do it all over again?”

Taehyung shakes his head, a knowing grin on his face. “Looks like someone keeps up with her tabloids. Let me guess, you would scroll through all of those trashy articles on your phone whenever you woke up so you could see what your future husband was doing?”

“I could have never even met you and I would know that that’s exactly what you do,” you say, even though you definitely did do those things before your engagement was announced to the public. “You’re a heartbreaker, Kim Taehyung. I don’t need to read a tabloid to know that.”

“Well, you must be quite the lucky girl, then,” Taehyung comments. “You seem to be taking up so much of my energy that I don’t have the time for that anymore.”

You place a sarcastic hand on your heart. “I didn’t know you were always thinking about me. I’m touched.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Taehyung huffs out, making the two of you both shake your heads as you chuckle to yourselves. First civil conversation you’ve had with each other in a long while, even if there may have been a few blows exchanged.

The privacy doesn’t last long. Soon after, a huge crowd of people that could honestly still pass for teenagers herds towards the back of the club, all of them wanting to take pictures with each other. You and Taehyung do your best to stay out of the way, but one of the girls recognizes him from the Elle photoshoot he did about a year ago and begins to strike up a conversation with the both of you about your recent marriage. If she was paying attention to anything the tabloids leaked three weeks ago, she doesn’t mention it. Taehyung smiles and happily answers all of her questions, and even offers to take a picture of the group for them. The conversation ends before the two of you even catch her name.

You’re standing by the line of buffet tables laid out against the staircase leading up to the second floor, no doubt as crowded as this one, when the opportunity for you to speak to someone other than Taehyung finally presents itself.

“Y/N!”

You’d recognize that voice anywhere. You turn around to see Victoria barreling towards the both of you, not even caring when she accidentally spills a bit of her piña colada on the floor as she does.

“Hey!” You exclaim excitedly. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure Clarissa invited everyone on her, her best friend’s, her best friend’s cousin, and her best friend’s cousin’s dog’s contact list,” Victoria says with a laugh. “It’s nice to see you. I feel like you’ve been holed up in that big ol’ penthouse for weeks.”

“Damage control,” you remind her succinctly. Victoria knows enough that that’s all the explanation she really needs.

“I don’t know if the two of you have ever met formally,” you say, thinking back to your wedding, where Victoria spent most of her time schmoozing with your parents (who love her) and didn’t even engage with any of the people who Taehyung’s family had invited. “Taehyung, this is Victoria. Victoria, Taehyung.”

“Pleasure,” Victoria says in that loud, unabashedly forward way of hers, holding out a friendly hand. Taehyung smiles back curtly, taking her hand and shaking it gently, so as not to spill any more of her drink.

“Mine as well. I remember you were at our wedding.” Oh? So he does know her?

“That I was. Oh, I miss that day. The food was excellent. Tonight’s isn’t too bad either. Hope you’re doing well, the two of you. It’s nice to see you getting along,” she says, always the observer.

Taehyung’s eyes widen a little when he picks up what Victoria is not-so-subtly putting down, but you place a hand on his upper arm to calm him. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “She won’t say anything.”

“My lips are sealed,” Victoria adds.

“If you wanna go spend time with some of your friends, you can,” you say, giving Taehyung a nudge. He looks positively helpless standing in between the two of you as Victoria out-extroverts him.

“Alright,” he says hesitantly, even though you know he’s already spotted at least ten people you’re sure he’d want to spend time with over you. “I’ll come find you soon, okay? Don’t go too far.”

You nod, and Taehyung disappears off into the crowd. Not two seconds later, you hear someone else call his name in a familiar tone.

“I thought you said you hated him,” Victoria points out as the two of you watch his caramel brown hair makes its way throughout the crowd.

You take another sip of your drink. “I do,” you say.

Victoria looks at you like you’ve just told her you’ve sworn off custard-filled doughnuts.

“What?” You ask, feeling suddenly defensive.

“Nothing,” Victoria singsongs. “It just doesn’t look like that to me.”

“We just need to keep up a good appearance in public, that’s all. You know how mad my parents got when the tabloids leaked all that shit a few weeks ago,” you explain. You’re not sure what all the fuss is about. Taehyung said he would do these things. And he did. That was him upholding his end of the deal. This is you upholding yours.

“If you say so…” Victoria says, not looking at all convinced. “I guess I’m just surprised that—that you two seem to be getting along so well. Maybe you being married isn’t going to be the worst thing after all.”

You stare back out into the crowd, scanning the top of people’s heads for Taehyung’s familiar locks. In the dim light of the club, you have a difficult time finding his, squinting your eyes slightly as you look around, but eventually you spot him, dancing happily with some old friends of his you recognize. He looks like he’s having a good time. And that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, this might end up alright.

“Yeah,” you say, though with the pounding of the bass and the alcohol already rushing through your veins, it doesn’t really feel like your voice belongs to you. You look back at Taehyung, knowing exactly where he is now, and you smile. Just a little. “I guess he’s not so bad.”

You never do get a chance to meet Taehyung’s friends that night. By the time he joins back up with you and Victoria he’s by himself, a little more drunk than when he left, and ready to go home. And for once, instead of fighting him, instead of insisting you stay an hour more just to make sure you’ve done all of your rounds, you let him take you home.

Taehyung has been spending a lot more time at the penthouse lately. Perhaps his family’s business happenings are slow, or perhaps he’s actually starting to get more comfortable with inhabiting the same space as you, but he has definitely found himself quite the rhythm in that house of yours. He even comes down to the first floor rather regularly.

When he’s home, Taehyung is a lot quieter than you thought he would be. Granted, you don’t exactly know what you were expecting in the first place, but it certainly wasn’t him ruminating in one of the home offices while the Beatles play softly on the stereo, nor was it him reading a book in French in one of those big old grandfather chairs in the living room. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably think he was still absent in that old way of his, ghostlike and silent, like he was occupying the space instead of truly living in it.

But you do know better, and even though Taehyung is just as noiseless as he used to be, the house already feels a little bit fuller.

Perhaps the reason you’ve become so keenly aware of his presence over the past few days is because of the notable fact that Taehyung has indeed held up his end of the deal, and no longer goes out with his friends in the evening. Or at all, for that matter. Which strikes you as rather odd, because he’s the epitome of a social butterfly, a thousand contacts in his phone and a whole group of friends he regularly spends time with. Maybe his parents told him to tone down the public appearances, too. And that’s understandable, but don’t they know Taehyung? Can’t they see how much he thrives on social interaction? It almost makes you feel… bad for him.

To remedy this, you suggest he invite over his friends. Just for a few hours, you swear you won’t mind.

“Seriously?” Taehyung looks positively shocked when you tell him he can, standing in the doorway of the office he seems to have designated as his own.

“Yeah, why not?” You say with a carefree shrug. Besides, you’ve never met his friends anyway, and now seems as good a chance as any to introduce yourself. You are his wife, after all. “Unless your parents say you can’t. But it’s not a problem for me.”

“You… don’t mind if I have my friends over for a bit? Honest to God, we’re probably just going to play FIFA for three hours straight,” Taehyung says like it’s some sort of warning. Like the idea of him and his buddies from college are going to sit in the living room screaming at the television, leaving you alone to do literally anything else, is somehow bad.

You laugh. “It’s fine, really. Call them. I’d actually quite like to meet them.”

Taehyung picks up his phone almost instantly, as if you’ll change your mind in the next five minutes so he better get them over soon, and already you can see the way his face is lighting up, the way his eyes crinkle as he chats to his friends and the way his lips curl upwards when they crack a joke back. Isn’t it obvious? He feeds off of the energy of others. Who are you to deny him such a simple pleasure?

As it turns out, Taehyung’s friends actually end up being quite nice anyway.

He invites over three, because four people is apparently the perfect number for a hardcore game of FIFA on his Playstation, and they are all very handsome men you have never met before. You suppose like attracts like, after all.

“You must be Y/N,” says the first one you see when you open the door to let them in. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-one—in fact, he could probably still pass as a college student—and has rather long dark hair that drapes over the sides of his face, covering the edges of his big doe eyes. “I’m Jungkook. This is Jimin and Hoseok.”

“Nice to meet you all,” you say, stepping aside so they can enter.

The shortest one, Jimin, grins in response, and Hoseok, behind him, gives you a wave. It’s refreshing enough as is, not having to exchange formal greetings and shake each other’s hands like you do with everyone else. Hoseok even gives you a bit of a nod, too.“You, too,” he says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

Oh, have they, now? Interesting.

“All good things, I hope,” you say awkwardly, forcing a small smile as Taehyung comes bounding into the room, ears perked up at the sound of his friends’ voices.

“Definitely. Thanks for having us over. We didn’t wanna intrude on the sanctity of your new place,” Jungkook says, gesturing vaguely to the house as a whole. He’s got this excellent, genuine grin on his face, the kind that people who are just happy to be alive always wear.

Already he’s said enough to charm the shit out of you. Who knew Taehyung’s friends could be so… friendly? “Please, you’re welcome any time. I was just thinking Taehyung was getting a little lonely.”

“There he is!” Jimin shouts excitedly when he spots Taehyung behind the two of you, looking a lot more casual than he normally does when he’s alone with you, having abandoned his usual silky button-down and wide-leg slacks for a loose shirt and some sweatpants. You didn’t even know he had those things in his closet.

“Hey, everyone’s here!” Taehyung exclaims, just as happy. He squeezes past you to give the three of them a big hug, and it almost makes you feel like you’re intruding on something you shouldn’t be in. Even though this is literally your house.

“Nice place you got here,” Hoseok comments, eyes drifting around the living room. “Very minimalist, I like it.”

“Sure hope you don’t spill anything on those nice leather couches of yours,” Jungkook says.

“Yeah, unlike Kook, who has spilled tomato soup on every shirt he’s ever owned,” Jimin jokes, earning laughs from Taehyung and Hoseok and a punch from Jungkook.

“Moved after we married,” Taehyung says simply, shrugging his shoulders. It’s an easy enough explanation for why it doesn’t look at all lived in. Here’s hoping none of them realize you sleep in different bedrooms.

“Yeah, congratulations on that, man,” Hoseok says, giving Taehyung a celebratory nudge in the shoulder. “Who’d have thought, out of the four of us, Kim Taehyung would be the first one to settle down.”

The way Taehyung’s body tenses up at that comment does not go unnoticed by you.

“Seriously, I would have never guessed,” Jimin adds on. “You’re showing us a new side of yourself, Tae. But I’m happy for you.”

Normally, you’d probably take offense at such blatant insinuations that your husband was a former playboy, especially from his equally noncommittal friends. But truthfully, it’s not like you were blind to Taehyung’s transgressions either. And what matters most is the fact that since it was announced publicly, you are the only woman he’s been seen with since your engagement.

“Me too. You seem to really like her. I’m glad,” Jungkook pipes up, sending a smile your way. You definitely feel like you don’t belong in this conversation. “I think the two of you will be good for each other.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” Taehyung says with a nervous chuckle. His eyes quickly shoot your way, the two of you meeting gazes, your hesitant expressions matching. At least the two of you are on the same page. “Alright, alright, enough,” Jungkook says. “Who’s ready to get their ass kicked in FIFA?”

“You’re on, Jeon. But when I win, you owe me a five-star dinner,” Hoseok challenges.

“Deal.”

Hoseok, Jimin, and Jungkook immediately crowd towards the couch, and you take that as your cue to leave. But before you can disappear down the hallway, you and Taehyung look awkwardly at each other, hands tied. It’s not like you can say anything to them.

The truth is that, sometimes, it’s easy to forget that not everyone else knows that your marriage is just for business. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are still people out there that believe you marry for love.

Isn’t it crazy to think that you used to be one of those people, too?

“Hey,” Taehyung says when you meet up at the bottom of the stairs again.

“Hey,” you respond.

“You look nice.”

You scoff a little to yourself. What, are you exchanging compliments now? “Thanks,” you say, looking him up and down. “You’re not so bad yourself.” Like he ever is.

“I knew you had taste,” Taehyung teases, and it’s the sort of comment that would have earned him a melon ball to the face back when the two of you were teenagers at a debutante ball, but today only earns him a roll of your eyes as you join hands. You don’t have anything big tonight—just a small dinner to celebrate some sort of business accomplishment for your family, which means that all you have to manage is not ending up in some sort of food fight by the end of the night.

“I didn’t have a choice, did I?” You retort easily as you get into the car.

You don’t normally speak a lot on the way to events. Not that you ever did, but even as your relationship has slowly faded from pure hatred to attempts at compromise, you both seem to relish in being able to stare out of your respective backseat windows and into the city that surrounds you. Just out of curiosity, about halfway through the ride you look towards Taehyung to see what he’s up to, and find yourself genuinely surprised to see him leaning against the window with his eyes closed. Is he sleeping? A couple more minutes of gazing at him tells you he is, because his body has gone lax and his breathing has evened out, soft snores leaving his mouth. This ride can’t be longer than twenty minutes. Has he not been sleeping well? Up in that enormous second-floor bedroom of his?

He’s awake by the time the car parks outside the restaurant, this fancy name brand steak place that was chosen solely because the biggest beneficiaries of your family’s new business deal are two sixty-year-old men whose entire diet consists of beef and beer. No cameras tonight, just a small family affair. You and Taehyung hold hands as you enter the restaurant and are led to the private room in the back anyway.

You and him are seated on the far end of the long, rectangular table, alongside all of the other adult children dragged along to celebrate something that has no effect on their lives. But it’s nice, because the space alone prevents your parents from actively speaking with you, and you and Taehyung can stay in your own little bubble, only chiming in for a toast when necessary.

“What are you going to get?” He asks you, the two of you gazing at the menu. No matter how fancy this place is, all the options seem to boil down to steak, steak, steak, steak, and caesar salad. Classic.

“Oh, so you actually care now?” You counter, an eyebrow raised in amusement.

Taehyung laughs. “Aren’t I supposed to?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, wise to his usual shenanigans. It’s hard to tell if Taehyung really means what he says, or if it’s all for show. But perhaps he’s asking because he’s genuinely curious, since no one else seems to be paying you any attention.

“The choices on this menu are simply overwhelming,” you say, motioning to the six options in front of you.

“I know, I’m so torn,” Taehyung jokes, making you huff out a little giggle. At least he’s still got that same sense of humor.

You both end up going for a pretty classic steak dinner, which neither of the two of you finish because the damn portions are the size of your head. Dinner is, in and of itself, absolutely mindless, all of your parents talking about things that don’t concern you whatsoever, leaving you and Taehyung to your own devices as you desperately try to make the night go by faster.

At one point, you notice Taehyung’s foot brushing up against yours, the leather of his loafers brushing against the toe of your patent heel. Thinking someone of it, you push back, foot nudging his back to his own chair. It’s not a second later that Taehyung retaliates, the two of you dancing around each other underneath the table.

If the two of you were any younger, or perhaps any less resigned to your fate, there’s no doubt in your mind you would be attempting to get Taehyung to fall off his chair in an effort to do the same to you. Footsie means war. But when the both of you know that, at the end of the day, you’ll still be going home to the same place, and waking up the next morning in the same house, it doesn’t feel like this is a battle.

It’s just life.

Eventually, you meet Taehyung’s eyes with a hesitant smile, shoe pressed against his, stuck in ceasefire. And for once, he doesn’t have that devilish look in his eye, that smug little grin on his face that tells you that he’s going to make you regret whatever it is you just did. He’s just smiling back at you, all pink lips, having found real fun in the little things.

And that makes you happy.

The rest of the dinner is uneventful, which, in your book, is about as good as a dinner can go. You cheers to the future of your parents’ relationship with their newfound partners and say a quick goodbye to them both, hurrying out of there before they can ask you any questions on your relationship with your husband. But you don’t spend the car ride in silence on the way back.

Instead, you say, “Have you been sleeping well?”

The question seems to catch Taehyung off guard. He was already getting in position to take a power nap on the ride home, head pressed up against the window of the car.

“What?”

“Have you been sleeping well?” You repeat. “I noticed you fell asleep on the way here.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess,” he says, a hand scratching the nape of his neck. “I mean, it’s been hard adjusting, I suppose. But I’ll get over it.”

Hard adjusting? You’ve been together for nearly three months now. Three months worth of sleeping in the same penthouse bedroom, on the same soft-as-a-cloud mattress, underneath the same weighted blanket. And he’s still having trouble?

“Oh. I mean, I just wanted to ask because you seem really tired lately.”

“I got a lot on my plate, what can I say,” Taehyung says with an empty smile, forcing a chuckle. “I’ll be fine, seriously. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Isn’t that my job?” You remind him. “I am your wife.”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything to that. He just lets out an audible breath, the kind you let out when you’re amused and have something snarky to say, but don’t have the energy to get the words off your tongue.

The rest of the ride is pretty quiet.

When you get home, you place your house keys in the bowl by the entrance and take off your shoes, just about ready to take a hot shower and collapse in bed, when Taehyung’s voice stops you.

“Hey,” he begins, almost hesitantly. You look back at him inquisitively. “I was thinking, maybe, if you wanted, we could start sleeping in the same bed?”

You scrunch your nose up. Not in disgust, but in surprise. In bewilderment. What brought this on, all of a sudden?

“Really?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. “I thought we liked the separate bed thing. Gives us privacy.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “but—I don’t know, it’s stupid. I just thought, you know, since we’re married and all. And it’s been three months.” He looks about two seconds away from backtracking, from shaking his head and going upstairs before you can say anything else.

“Alright,” you say quickly, nodding your assent. Taehyung’s eyes widen when he hears the word, like he had completely expected you to shut him down the moment he made the suggestion. “If that’s what you want. We can try it.”

“You sure?” He asks, that same hesitant smile from earlier lacing his features. It’s strange. He almost looks… sweet. Nervous.

You grin back at him. “Yeah, I am.”

Taehyung lets you grab some of your toiletries and your pajamas from your designated bedroom before you head up the stairs together, towards the bedroom he’s claimed for himself. Funnily enough, this is the first time you’ve been in his room. Three months of living together and you haven’t dared step foot on the second floor.

You don’t know what you were expecting when he opens the door to let you inside. Maybe a room that screamed ‘Taehyung’ a little more than this one does. One that looks like an actual human has been living here. But other than one of his classic silk button-downs draped over a chair, there’s not a shred of evidence someone has actually been sleeping here. You could honestly be fooled rather easily that the shirt, too, is just decoration.

“You can pick a side,” Taehyung says casually. He grabs his own sleepwear—an old t-shirt and some sweats—and heads into the bathroom to change.

You wonder why Taehyung has had such a difficult time adjusting. This room is about as lavish as a bedroom can get. And yet.

Sitting down on the left side of the bed, you begin to remove your own clothes, unzipping tonight’s dress and stepping quickly into your pajamas, hurrying to make sure Taehyung doesn’t catch you half-naked. How funny is that, you think to yourself. You’ve been married for three months and you still can’t bear the thought of Taehyung seeing you without a shirt on.

When Taehyung comes out of the bathroom, hair all messy and clothes all casual, he grins lazily to himself. “I sleep on the right anyway,” he comments mindlessly.

Within twenty minutes the both of you are about as ready to pass out as you have ever been, the only lights still on the ones on your respective nightstands.

“Goodnight,” Taehyung says, reaching an arm over to switch his off.

“Goodnight,” you tell him, turning off yours as well. And all of a sudden, the room is shrouded in darkness.

You fall asleep instantly.

When Taehyung wakes up the next morning, the first thing he says to you is that he hasn’t slept that well in ages.

“You slept together?” Victoria shrieks, so loud you actually have to move your phone away from your ear as you punch in the code inside the elevator for access to your floor.

“We did not sleep together,” you emphasize. “Okay, well, we sleep together, as in, in the same bed. But we are fully clothed. And not the slightest bit interested in doing anything other than sleeping.”

“I thought you said you liked having your own space,” Victoria points out. “When was the first time you—uh…” she pauses to find the right words, “shared a bed?”

“A couple weeks ago. It’s really not so bad, I don’t know why you’re so hung up over it,” you say, lips pursed. You squeeze the phone between the side of your head and your shoulder, hands full of shopping bags, the string of the handles burning your skin. Maybe you should look into getting a personal shopper.

“I’m hung up over it because, for the longest time, you have sworn off Kim Taehyung. Called him dead to you. Insulted him every chance you get.”

You scoff. You don’t need reminding of how much you hated him, how much you can’t believe you have to spend the rest of your life with him. “It’s different now. We’re married. And he said he wasn’t sleeping well. I felt bad.”

“He wasn’t?”

“Enough about him,” you say, shutting her up. You don’t feel like talking about him with Victoria anymore. “Word through the grapevine says that your parents are actually thinking of letting you start your own company?”

It’s enough to distract Victoria. For the rest of the ride in the elevator, she talks animatedly about a new streaming service her parents are considering letting her launch, under their parent business, of course, but it’s her own company nonetheless. And you’re proud of her. Proud she could do something your parents would never dream of letting you do. Proud she could make that happen.

You push open the front door with the side of your hip after entering in the security code, phone still snug between your ear and your shoulder, when you hear Taehyung call out your name.

He comes into view from the kitchen, which surprises you because you have, on multiple occasions, made fun of how much of a disaster chef he is, especially because he’s admitted to you he’s not a very good cook.

“I made brownies,” he says, holding out a plate of the chocolate treats in front of you. Instinct has you dropping your bags on the floor by your feet and reaching out, but you eye him first, suspicious.

“I have to go,” you tell Victoria, hanging up before she even gets a chance to object to your sudden departure. “You made these?”

“Yes, I did,” Taehyung says, rather proud.

“And the kitchen is… still standing?” You ask, skeptical.

Taehyung frowns at you, clearly unimpressed. “How bad of a chef do you think I am?”

“Pretty bad,” you admit with a shrug.

Taehyung pouts sadly to himself for a moment. “These are good, I swear. Nothing weird in them like vegetables or anything either. I used a box mix.”

“No wonder they look so nice,” you comment snidely, hesitant hand reaching out to grab one. They feel like brownies. So that’s good.

“Hey, I was the one who had to crack the eggs and shit. Three eggs! And not one eggshell in the bowl!” Taehyung says, clearly very pleased with himself.

You laugh at his enthusiasm, taking a bite. It’s good. And exactly what you needed after a long day of shopping. “I’m proud of you. They taste good.”

“I knew you wouldn’t doubt me.” Taehyung grins.

“They’re really good, actually,” You amend, genuinely surprised. And the best part is that you can count at least ten brownies left on that plate, which means that you get at least five more. Which, if you had any less self-restraint, you would probably eat all at once within the day.

“I’m glad you like them. They’re all for us, you know. No one else to share them with,” he says.

“Honestly, I’m probably going to finish them by tonight. You’ll have to make more tomorrow,” you say sheepishly.

“We can make some together,” Taehyung suggests.

“I’m looking forward to it,” you respond. The words come off your mouth easily, tumbling from your lips without you having to think about it. You aren’t saying them because you have to. You’re saying them because you want to. Because baking with Taehyung doesn’t actually sound too bad. Especially if it means more brownies.

“You’ve, uh, you’ve got something,” Taehyung says, gesturing vaguely to the side of his lip.

“Oh, I do? Yikes,” you say, a little embarrassed. Your hand comes up to wipe at the left side of your mouth. “Is it gone?”

“Wait, here, let me do it,” Taehyung says, reaching out towards you. He presses his palm against the side of your face, cradling your cheek and jaw in his enormous hands, and all at once it feels like your skin is on fire.

Your body freezes up at the touch, at the way his thumb swipes at the corner of your mouth, right against your lips, wiping away nothing but a goddamn brownie crumb. You look at him, look right at him, how can you look anywhere else when he’s right in front of you like this, and it feels like you are caught in his gaze, a rain droplet trapped on a web, a bee stuck in its own honey. His big, brown eyes sparkle from the ceiling lights, a chocolate sky that mirrors the food he just made for you. He looks at you and his eyes are so soft, so open, so happy to be looking right back at you. God.

“There,” he says, a moment too late.

“Thanks,” you stammer out, speechless otherwise.

You both stand there, looking at each other, wordless expressions drawn all over your faces, no idea what to do next.

After a while, Taehyung breaks the silence. “Do you wanna order takeout tonight?”

“Okay,” you nod, still a little breathless. Taehyung smiles before retreating back to the kitchen, leaving you standing in the entranceway, shopping bags abandoned by your side.

You look over to where he’s vanished. There’s a part of you that wishes he hadn’t left. A part of you that makes you want to see him again.

Phone calls from your mother are never good. The last time she called… well, you know how that went. So when you see her contact information light up your home screen, it’s only instinct that you feel your heart rate spike.

“Hello?” The voice that comes out doesn’t even sound like yours.

There’s no good way to put what comes next. Your grandmother has died. Heart attack. The paramedics got there too late. It was over before it even started.

For a moment, for a split second, it feels like everything is frozen. Like the world has come to standstill. Your mother’s voice echoes in your ears, suspended in time, the words turning into stone as they crash onto the floor. And when they do, it is as if everything comes back to life.

Truth be told, you don’t know how long you stay there, sitting on the edge of the left side of the bed, your phone resting lifelessly in the palm of your hand. It feels at once like an eternity and only a second in time. You spoke to your grandmother two days ago. You had promised that you and Taehyung would visit her soon. How can this be happening?

Your phone buzzes relentlessly in your hands, condolences pouring in from every person in your contacts, sorry’s and heart emoticons and If you need anything, I’m always here’s filling up your screen. There’s a part of you that vaguely registers your mother, alongside some of the other members of your family, trying to call you. But nothing can seem to shake you.

Until—

“Y/N? You still up here?”

You hear Taehyung before you see him. Hear his voice, hear his footsteps, hear the door creak open as he enters your bedroom. Slowly, almost sluggishly, you twist around to look at him, the mere act knocking the wind out of you. Or maybe you were already breathless.

“Hey, you alright?” Taehyung knows instantly that something is wrong.

“My grandmother died.” The words sit heavy on your tongue. There’s no point in not telling him. He’ll find out soon enough. He’s… he’s family, isn’t he?

“What?” Taehyung freezes in place. “I—I’m so sorry to hear that, Y/N. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, voice weak but steady. You blink up at him, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly you feel tears running down your cheeks.

Taehyung doesn’t say anything else. He rushes to your side and sits himself down on the bed next to you, arms wrapping around your body. And you don’t think about the fact that it’s him, about the fact that this is the closest the two of you have ever been. You just let yourself be engulfed in his frame, let yourself be enveloped in his hold as the tears stream down your skin, little hiccups jolting your throat. You close your eyes and press yourself into his arms, head resting against his chest, and wish so desperately that so many things about your life were just a little bit different.

It must be at least five minutes before either one of you dares to move. Your phone begins to rattle incessantly, that familiar and insistent buzz that the both of you are hard-pressed to ignore.

“I think you should answer that,” Taehyung whispers into your skin, lips right by your forehead.

“Yeah,” you sniffle, sitting up next to him and wiping the remnants of wetness by your eyes. Well, Taehyung’s seen you cry. There’s no going back now. “You’re probably right.” You look down at the phone. It’s your father.

“I’ll be downstairs, okay? Unless you want me to stay,” he offers, looking hesitant.

You shake your head. “No, it’s—it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me if you need me,” he makes you give him a nod of understanding before he finally gets up, hands slowly removing themselves from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. Remnants of warmth. Suddenly, you feel much colder. Hardly a minute later he’s out of the room, and you can hear his distant footsteps as they make their way down the stairs.

Sighing, blinking, and swallowing all at once, you pick up.

The call passes by in a blur. Your father says the will will take at least half a year to be executed, but that the funeral is already being planned. Your grandmother had hoped you would eulogize her. You agree, but you have no idea what you will say. He says Taehyung is invited but does not need to come if he cannot make it. He says a lot of other things too, about your mother, about your cousins, about your aunts and uncles and your poor grandfather, who passed five years ago, but you can’t even remember them moments after he’s said them.

When he hangs up, the tears on your cheeks have dried, patches of them left along your skin. You head to the bathroom, getting off your bed for the first time that day, and try to wash away everything that has stained the morning. A part of you doesn’t even want to bother, just wants to slug downstairs and eat as much sugary cereal as you can get your hands on, but you can’t go down there looking like this. Looking so helpless.

By the time you reach the kitchen, Taehyung is already standing there, on the opposite side of the counter island, a big stack of pancakes in front of him. They look mouth-watering.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Thought you might want something to cheer you up.”

“Did you make these?” You ask, a little endeared. That was thoughtful of him.

“Yeah. They’re still warm,” Taehyung says. He holds out a fork.

You grin.

The funeral is a week later. It sucks in every way that something can suck. But not in the same way your wedding sucked, or even the announcement of your engagement. It sucks because it’s a funeral, because you have to stare down your grandmother’s casket when a part of you still doesn’t even believe that she’s gone. Because everyone there is so sad, so melancholy, dressed in all black and looking down at their feet. Because everyone is so sorry for you, so sorry for your loss, everyone has nothing but condolences to offer you. What will those do? They won’t bring her back. They won’t change things. They won’t make you feel even the slightest bit better.

Taehyung comes. He comes because he offers, and because you want him to. You want someone whose hand to hold. Want someone to smile at you when you’re speaking in front of your entire extended family and trying not to cry. You want someone who is familiar, and warm, and there for you.

And most of all, you want someone who won’t keep the conversation going when you get home.

“Do you wanna order Chinese?” He asks, coming into the living room, where you have been sulking on the couch ever since you stepped foot inside the door.

“That sounds nice,” you force out.

“Okay. Your usual?”

“Yes, please.” You don’t bother asking how Taehyung already remembers what you like to order when you’ve only gotten Chinese twice in the last three months.

“I’ll call them.” He disappears off into the kitchen.

What you do appreciate about Taehyung is how he has defaulted to food as a comfort measure, and how the thought alone genuinely brightens you up a little bit. You don’t know each other very well—still, after three months, you couldn’t even say his favorite color—but he is doing his best, and he is trying his hardest. In some ways, you were unlucky to marry him. To marry someone you didn’t love. To be forced into a union you had no say in, with someone you had so much antagonistic history with.

But in some ways, your luck has changed. In some ways, marrying him was perhaps the best thing that could happen to you. Taehyung is snarky, a little devilish, and absolutely full of himself, but he is not thoughtless. He is not heartless. He has proven that he is willing to put in the work. That he can grow to care. To change. To compromise. And isn’t that the luckiest thing you could have gotten?

“I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing people tell you they’re sorry for your loss.”

His voice breaks your reverie, carrying throughout the wide open space of your living room. He’s grinning honestly where he stands, slowly making his way over to you.

“Kind of, yeah,” you admit. “It’s not going to bring her back. Most of those people probably don’t even mean it.”

“Don’t say that,” Taehyung says, sitting down next to you. “I’m sure they do.”

You look at him skeptically.

“I mean, they’re sorry for your loss because that loss is causing you pain. And that sucks,” Taehyung explains, albeit a little less eloquently than you thought he would. “I know it sucks for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like seeing you sad,” Taehyung says honestly, shrugging to himself.

You scoff a little to yourself. “I would have thought my downfall would be the exact thing the great Kim Taehyung would wish for himself.”

“Maybe a couple of years ago.”

You narrow your eyes.

“Okay, maybe even a few months ago,” Taehyung admits with a laugh, making you smile, ever so slightly. “But it’s different now. I like it when you’re happy. When you’re snarky and funny and a little evil. Seeing you like this… I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

“That’s called empathy,” you point out.

“I’m trying to tell you that seeing you sad makes me sad, stop being a smartass,” Taehyung chides, and that really makes you grin. “There. There’s that smile I was looking for.”

“You’re so annoying,” you say, even though there’s no malice behind it. You give him a little push, palms of your hand pressing lightly against his shoulder as you roll your eyes.

“Only for you,” he promises. He manages to grab a hold of your wrist as your hand meets his torso, pulling you into him as he wraps an arm around your torso. You gasp a little at the sensation, head falling against his body, fitting snugly in the crook of his neck. He gives your side a comforting rub. “I’m sorry today was so shitty.”

“It was,” you agree. “But Chinese food will make it a little bit better.”

Taehyung looks positively scandalized. “What? ‘Chinese food will make it better’? But not your loving, doting husband?”

You pretend to think for a little bit, tilting your head up to the sky as you tap your chin with your finger. “Okay. Maybe that, too,” you cave after a bit of waiting, just to be extra bothersome.

“That’s what I thought,” Taehyung says proudly, looking down at you, eyes sparkling. You can feel his grip tighten as he presses you against his body, letting you rest your head on his side. It feels like the longest hug ever, like you’re wrapped up in a weighted blanket. Only it’s not a blanket. It’s Taehyung. It’s your husband.

He’s your husband.

“Tomorrow will be better,” he says, and it sounds a lot like a promise.

You nod against him, letting your eyes drift shut. Things are pretty awful right now. Your grandmother’s dead. The funeral was the saddest family event you have ever attended. You have no idea what’s supposed to happen next.

But he’s right. He seems to be right a lot these days, actually.

Tomorrow will be better.

Taehyung lets you sleep in for the next few days. Next several days, actually. Every time you wake up it’s close to noon and your husband is nowhere to be seen, the right side of the bed cold to the touch. It’s nothing to be worried about, though, because you can still see the noticeable dip in the bed from where he lies upon it, sinking his weight into the mattress. Taehyung’s an early bird and you’ve been having fitful nights ever since your grandmother passed.

Today, you pull yourself out from underneath the covers around noon, sluggish and still tired, squinting as the near-afternoon light streams through the enormous windows of the bedroom. Taehyung must have thought to keep the curtains open today.

You pull on the first casual clothes you see in your shared closet, some wide-leg sweatpants and a drapey t-shirt, and trudge downstairs like a raccoon to a trash can, hoping to fish through the kitchen cabinets to find something to eat.

Taehyung is, as far as you can tell, nowhere to be seen. You can’t seem to hear him anywhere, and a part of you wonders where he’s at when you stumble upon the note left on the granite counter.

Had a meeting downtown, be back around 1! There should be smoked salmon and some cream cheese and bagels in the fridge.

Taehyung.

You chuckle to yourself as you read his flowy handwriting, amused that he thought to let you know of, of all things, the available breakfast foods in the kitchen. You check the clock. It’s nearly noon. Which means you have just over an hour of the house all to yourself.

Having the house to yourself for five minutes is infrequent enough as it is, let alone for a whole hour. So often is Taehyung around, somewhere, holing himself up in one of the dozens of rooms or mindlessly wandering down the hallways. And for how much Taehyung is present, the funny part is that you still have no idea what he gets up to most of the time. Despite your voluntary abandoning of the separate bedroom rule, the two of you are still firm proponents of the sanctity of your personal spaces. There are rooms in the penthouse Taehyung has never been in, rooms filled with your clothes and makeup and accessories for when stylists come over before an event. A sewing room that you had specifically asked your parents for, because a part of you never let go of that childhood dream of being a fashion designer.

And there are rooms in the penthouse that you have never been in. Rooms with dark wooden doors that have always been kept closed, that you have never stepped foot in. It’s not that you aren’t curious as to what Taehyung gets up to. He could have a goddamn evil lair in one of those rooms and you would be none the wiser. But you don’t go, because he doesn’t go into your rooms. Because you two, despite all the vows you have broken, promised each other you wouldn’t.

An hour to yourself is almost a good enough excuse for you to head back up to the bedroom and take a nap. Not that you don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis, or that you even had a fitful night last night—hell, you woke up near noon today and already you want to go back to sleep—but what else is there to do when he’s not around? What new freedoms have suddenly been given to you?

You head back upstairs, much less groggy after that delicious bagel of yours, when you catch a whiff of what smells like wet paint coming from down the hallway. It’s potent and immediately invades your senses, prompting you to wonder if that has always been there, or just magically appeared. Maybe you were so sleepy earlier, you didn’t notice it.

Well, you notice it now. Unable to help yourself, you start to wander down the hallway, towards the source of the smell. God, it stinks. It takes you back to those days in middle school, when you would spray paint projects inside a tiny little classroom, have to step outside for fifteen minutes while you cracked the windows and aired it out. It gets stronger the further down the corridor you go, like a thick, smelly cloud stationed firmly within the walls of the penthouse. And then you realize where it’s coming from.

It’s an art studio.

A very messy art studio, you amend to yourself, as you peek inside. The door is wide open, and all of the windows are popped too, but the extra air circulation doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the scent. And all over the floor, the walls, and the tables are canvases covered in paint, denim jackets and pants and shirts with these wide, unafraid brushstrokes. Open cans of spray paint lie discarded on the hardwood floor stained with splotches of red, yellow, and green.

Is this what Taehyung does in his free time? Is this where he goes, this bright, sunny room at the end of the second floor hallway? Is this what he is making?

You look down in awe at the clothes resting on the floor, splayed out to maximize dry time. Abstract faces, landscapes, and words are painted onto the backs of jackets, the fronts of old white t-shirts. What hasn’t made it onto the clothes has been put on canvases instead, blurs of color mixed together in this purposeful pattern, confidence emanating from every stroke, every dot. It’s not art in the way that the gorgeous landscapes of Monet, the picture-perfect portraits of Kahlo, the messy, unplanned splatters of Pollock are. It’s art in a different way. In a Taehyung way.

Who knew he loved it so much?

You almost feel like an invader encroaching on his territory when you lean down to start cleaning up some of the mess, throwing out empty spray-paint cans and tossing out grey paint water. You don’t dare touch any of the work, don’t dare try to move it. You do what you can, washing out the brushes resting in the water and cleaning up the wet splotches of paint on the hardwood. Over time, the thick scent of still-wet paint slowly fades, disappearing out the window as the fresh afternoon air seeps in. And you stand there, in a room full of art, in a room full of pieces that Taehyung has undoubtedly poured his heart into creating, and you smile to yourself.

That’s how Taehyung finds you ten minutes later, peering into the room after declaring that his meeting had ended early.

“Thought I’d find you in here,” Taehyung says with a grin as you jump at the sound of his voice, eyes widen when you turn around to see him standing by the door.

“Oh, hey,” you say sheepishly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Maybe because this is the farthest room in the house from the front door,” Taehyung teases lightly, coming up behind you. “I see you found my studio.”

“I know I’m not allowed in here,” you admit.

Taehyung scoffs. “Who says?”

“Didn’t we both agree on that?”

He shrugs. “Sort of. I think we just reached an unspoken understanding we wouldn’t invade each other’s personal space. But it was not in the fine print, no.”

“The fine print of what?”

“That deal we made.”

Right. That deal you made, four months ago, That deal, where the two of you agreed to pretend to be in love with each other during public appearances so you wouldn’t get burned at the stake by your families. Where the two of you agreed not to interact with each other otherwise because you hated each other so much.

“Oh, yeah,” you say distantly, feeling naive for already forgetting about it. It doesn’t seem to have slipped Taehyung’s mind whatsoever.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind that you’re up here,” Taehyung says, interrupting that piercing little voice in the back of your head that is asking you why on earth you forgot about that deal in the first place.

“Yeah, I—” You scratch at the nape of your neck, trying to find the words to say. “It just smelled like paint, so I wanted to see what you get up too. And it’s this, apparently.” You motion vaguely to the entire room.

“You sound… surprised,” Taehyung muses correctly.

“I guess I am,” you surmise. “I’m rather impressed, too, actually.”

“Really?” It’s Taehyung’s turn to sound surprised.

“Yeah,” you tell him honestly, looking into his eyes. “I—you know, I just came in here because the entire hallway smelled like wet paint and I wanted to know why. But I didn’t know you loved art so much.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Taehyung points out.

You suppose that’s true. You don’t know his favorite color. His favorite song. His favorite book. For a long time, you didn’t know what he got up to on his side of the penthouse. You don’t know how he met his friends. What he studied in university. Who he has loved in the past. Who he loves now. You don’t know why he does the things he does, and why he doesn’t do the things he doesn’t do.

But you do know his Chinese takeout order.

And you do know his hobbies. Well, one of them, at least.

Who’s to say you can’t learn more?

“Well,” you start with a smile. “I’m your wife, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I begin to learn?”

Taehyung picks up what you’re putting down instantly, grinning in response. “Only if you’ll tell me things about you, too,” he requisitions.

“I will,” you promise. It’s the easiest one you’ve ever had to make.

His face is light, bright, bathed in the rays of the afternoon sun. His eyes shimmer as they meet yours, golden flecks more pronounced like this, in this gorgeous, open space, daylight streaming through the windows. Looking at him makes you feel like you are surrounded by warmth, makes you feel like the sun is opening its arms out to you. He has always been gorgeous. Beautiful. But looking at him like this, standing in the middle of a room filled with all the things he loves, a yellow halo surrounding him—he is ethereal.

Taehyung smiles. “Then I will, too.”

The hand-holding comes naturally tonight.

The funny thing is, actually, you don’t need to hold hands at this gathering. It’s not an event. Or a public appearance. It’s not even a business dinner. It’s your aunt’s sixtieth birthday party, reserved exclusively for family. Isn’t that strange? That Taehyung is, technically, family now?

For so long you had vowed to stay as far away from him as possible. Vowed to stick it to him whenever and wherever you could, do anything you could to get on his nerves, rile him up. Vowed that when you, one day, took over your family affairs, you would never, ever invite him. Make it known that he wasn’t to be a part of your life. And yet, here you are. Clinging to him despite being well-acquainted with—loved by, even—every other person in the room. Holding his hand like a goddamn lifeline.

To be fair, Taehyung doesn’t look a hair out of place here. Dressed relatively casually, a smart sweater with a collared shirt underneath it, he smiles warmly at all of your relatives and presents your aunt with a beautiful and very expensive scarf the two of you had commissioned from a designer in Italy, which she absolutely loves. She pinches his cheek and proceeds to wear it for the rest of the night.

“Damn,” you murmur to yourself as you wander around your aunt’s house, hand wrapped around his arm. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”

“When was the last time you were here?” Taehyung asks.

The question actually makes you think for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe five years ago? Last couple of birthdays I was overseas or in school. Had to send her a card.”

“Bet your parents were real pleased with that,” he jokes, making you both laugh. At least you two will always be able to share your experiences of domineering and influential parents with each other.

“Oh, I’m sure. Just as pleased as they were when they realized how much we hated each other.” You expect that little jest to elicit a laugh out of Taehyung as well, but he just smiles tightly, huffing out a breath of acknowledgement.

“Eh, it’s not like that now, is it?” He offers up.

“I suppose not,” you muse, sitting down together on her ancient grandma couch in the living room. No matter how rich your family gets, she’ll never get rid of this thing, that’s for sure.

One thing you’ve picked up over time is that, for every second Taehyung spends basking in the spotlight, he spends an equal amount of time lingering by the wall, watching the rest of the world turn without him. He’s an observer. He is one by nature, feeling an irresistible pull to understand humans in a way only artists could ever do. He sits down next to you and watches your family in an environment where they can relax, where they can feel comfortable and be casual with one another.

Very seldom have you ever brought friends to events like these. Small family affairs. But Taehyung isn’t a friend, is he? No, he’s your husband. He belongs here just as much as you do.

“My family seems to really like you,” you point out. Not that anybody has ever harbored as much disdain for him as you. Your parents called him respectable and polite when they told you you were to be wed. Your grandmother had said he was a dashing young man. He doesn’t exactly have to reach far to be loved around here.

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” He replies snidely.

“Oh, just take the compliment,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Taehyung always has to be so difficult. “I’m surprised you aren’t nervous as hell. Last boyfriend I brought to meet my parents was shaking in his Louis Vuitton shoes.”

“Last boyfriend, huh?” Taehyung’s interest has been sufficiently piqued. “And, uh, how many of those have you had?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, smile twitching on your lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr. Heartbreaker.” Pretty rich of Taehyung to be asking you such a question when he’s probably had more girlfriends than you can count on both hands. “Not as many as you’ve had girlfriends, that’s for sure.”

“Guess I’m a lot different than all those trashy guys you’ve dated, aren’t I?” He asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks at you.

“You are?”

Taehyung nods assertively. “Well, yeah. First of all, I’m your husband. Second of all, your parents love me. Third of all, you love me, too.”

You scoff. “Don’t humble yourself. You don’t know me that well.”

“Speaking of which,” Taehyung says, eyes wide as he points to you knowingly, “how about you tell me a little fact about yourself? It’s my job to learn about you, isn’t it?”

“That is my line, watch it,” you sneer, pointing back at him. You wrack your brain for a fact that you can tell him, something more exciting than your favorite color but less weird than one of those terrible icebreaker exercises you had to do in college seminars. Something that has pertinence to who you are. Who you’ve become. “Alright. I used to want to be a fashion designer when I was little.”

Now that catches Taehyung off guard. “Really?” He says, genuinely intrigued.

You shrug. “Yeah. I learned to sew when I was really little. Been tailoring and hemming clothes all my life. But I always wanted to design my own stuff.”

“Is that what’s in your room?” Taehyung asks. “A sewing machine?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says. “I didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of this exercise?” You say, just to be smart.

Taehyung shakes his head, eyes rolling.

“What about you?” You ask. You can’t imagine what he’ll say. Astronaut. Veterinarian. Or, if he really wants to surprise you, a business executive.

“A museum curator.”

It is an answer that simultaneously surprises and doesn’t surprise you at all.

“Fitting,” you muse. “You could have put your own art on display.”

“Pretty sure that’s, like, super unethical,” Taehyung reminds you.

“So? You’re rich. Start your own museum. Put your own art on display. Live your dream,” you amend. “It shouldn’t be holed up in that studio of yours forever. It deserves to be seen.”

Taehyung smiles at you. “You think so?”

You nod. “Of course. You create beautiful things, Tae.” It’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. And that is not lost on Taehyung, either.

“Thank you,” he says softly, blinking as he looks at you. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.

Later that night, when everyone’s gotten a few drinks into their systems and Bruce Springsteen is playing low on the stereo, Taehyung disappears off towards the bathroom, no doubt because of the excellent soup that was served that night. All by your lonesome, you feel a little stranded, surrounded by your old relatives dancing on the hardwood floor of the dining room, your other cousins too young to actually spend time with.

In the commotion, your mother comes up to you, swirling a rather large glass of red wine in her hand.

“Where’s Taehyung?” She asks.

“Bathroom.”

“No wonder you were alone,” she says with a hearty laugh. “The two of you have been glued to each other’s sides all evening.”

“He’s my husband,” you offer as an explanation.

“I know, I know,” she says, shaking you off with a smile. Your mother is a lot more casual once she’s had her fill of wine, no doubt her favorite, Bordeaux. A lot more loving, too. “You really made your grandmother proud, you know? She loved you so much.”

“I know,” you say, trying not to get choked up at the mere mention of your grandmother.

“She was so happy to see you with Taehyung. It made her feel safe that you would be taken care of,” she continues on, barely paying you and your swimming eyes any attention. “She would be so happy to see you with him now, too. How much you love her.”

“I miss her,” you hiccup out, trying to compose yourself. Nothing kills a birthday party like some sad sack crying over her deceased grandmother.

“I know, darling,” your mother says, calling you by a nickname she has hardly used ever since you turned eighteen. She squeezes you tightly, a small hug of comfort. “I miss her, too.”

Someone calls your mother’s name, distracting her as she wanders off to your uncle, who is asking what the best way to cut the three-tiered cake on the dining room table is. She bids you a goodbye before disappearing towards the kitchen, no doubt ready to make the cutting of the cake an affair all on its own.

Taehyung comes back soon after, spotting you instantly as you stand around in the living room.

“Hey,” he says, noticing the wet shimmer of your eyes. “You alright?”

You nod, feeling better already now that he has returned. Now that he is by your side. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I hope those tears aren’t because you missed me,” he says, wiping away a stray one that has escaped from your eyes. You close them as his thumb brushes against your upper cheek, your eyelashes, opening them only when you’ve felt his touch vanish from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake.

“No,” you say. But the night makes you honest, and a couple of drinks, even more so. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Taehyung smiles. “Me, too.”

For all those days you have spent together, never have you and Taehyung had a night in. Which isn’t necessarily completely surprising, considering how many evening events the two of you have had obligations to attend, considering your differing work schedules and meeting times. Considering that, for a very long time, the two of you had no desire to spend any time with each other at all.

But tonight, there is nothing on your calendar. No galas, no dinners, no meetings, no schedules. There is only Taehyung, who has spent the entire afternoon up in his studio, inhaling spray paint fumes and doing what he loves. And there is only you, who has spent the entire afternoon wondering what the hell you’re going to do tonight when there is nothing else planned.

You knock on the door to his studio, catching him right as he’s finishing up another piece. This one is a single flower, painted in broad, confident strokes, bright green and red and sunflower yellow decorating the canvas.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, turning around to face you.

“Wanna order takeout tonight?” You suggest.

Taehyung grins.

Thirty minutes and your favorite Chinese food later, you and Taehyung have settled onto the couch, trays of dumplings and noodles and rice in front of you, an unfunny movie playing in the background.

You can’t remember the last time the two of you sat on this couch together. Maybe that night you had made the deal? Perhaps not even then. It wouldn’t at all surprise you if you found out that this was the very first time you and Taehyung have sat together on your couch, in your living room, in your house. So often is it occupied by others—Victoria, who sometimes comes over to ooh and ahh at your closet, Jimin, Jungkook, and Hoseok, who sit on this couch and play FIFA like it’s their job, your mother, when she wants to make herself at home in a place that doesn’t belong to her—but never you. Never you and him.

“This is kinda nice, isn’t it?” You ask, swallowing a bite of dumpling.

“Chinese food is always nice,” Taehyung responds over a mouthful of cold noodles.

“Not that,” you say with a sigh, “this. Sitting together. Watching this shitty movie.”

“It’s not that shitty,” Taehyung tries to reason. On screen, the main character is getting pied in the face during some weird college fundraiser. “Okay, it’s a little shitty. But it’s good background noise, right?”

You nod halfheartedly. “I guess.” Silence. You take another bite of your dumpling, not really sure how to continue the conversation. “We don’t really get to do this a lot, you know? Sit and eat dinner and watch a movie together. Like a date.”

“We’re on a date now, are we?” Taehyung muses, eyeing you snarkily.

“Isn’t that what this is?” You retort.

He shrugs. “I suppose it is.”

“Tell me another fact about you,” you request, looking over to him where he sits on the opposite side of the couch.

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Taehyung pauses, ponders for a moment. But he could never say anything wrong. Not when there is still so much you don’t know about him. Still so much you want to learn, so much you want to commit to memory. For so long you have stared at the planes of his face, the curve of his nose, the twinkle in those dark brown eyes. Those you will always remember. But what about who he is? What he loves? Those are things you still don’t know.

“The very first time I met you,” Taehyung begins, “I asked Jimin what your name was.”

“When was that?” You ask. Despite you being someone who has spent the better part of the last several years vowing never to give Taehyung the time of day, you sure don’t remember when it all started.

“That debutante ball,” Taehyung remembers fondly, “when we were fifteen. I asked Jimin what your name was because I wanted to ask you to dance.”

“Shut up, no you didn’t,” you say with a scoff.

“It’s true. You were standing there in that poofy white dress and I wanted to ask you to dance,” Taehyung points out. The fact that he even remembers what you were wearing is shocking.

Who knew. Who knew, back then, that you would one day grow up to marry him.

“And what did I say?” You demand more.

Taehyung laughs at the memory. “I came up to you, and I asked you if you wanted to dance, and you said, and I quote, ‘Who are you?’”

“No,” you say, aghast at your own behavior. Were those really the first words you ever said to KIm Taehyung?

“You did. Don’t you remember?”

You think back. Think back to every year you have ever known Taehyung, every year you have spent scowling at him from across ballroom floors, making some snide remark as you pass by each other in the hallway. Every year you have spent cursing his existence, willing him away from you so he could bother someone else. Every year you have listened to rumor after rumor of girlfriend after girlfriend. You think back and somewhere, somewhere in there, in those dusty corners of your brain and cobwebbed boxes of your heart, is that first memory of Taehyung, too.

Of him standing there in some generic black suit, black hair swept over his forehead, shoes too big. Of him coming up to you, trying to be as suave as a fifteen year old could be. Of you saying to him, instead of a hello, or even a what’s your name, “who are you?”

Of him saying—

“And you said, ‘your dream come true’.” Like a dam bursting open, the memories flood back to you all at once. “I remember that.”

Taehyung laughs out loud at the thought of him saying something so cheesy. “Unsurprisingly, you didn’t want to dance with me.”

“You were so—” you begin, but you don’t have the words. Don’t have the words to express how you felt about him that night. Don’t have the words to express how you feel about him now. Thinking about this, talking about it, it is a bridge. A bridge between what was then and what is now. A bridge between who Taehyung was and who you were and who Taehyung is and who you are. “—so unthinkable. I couldn’t believe you had come up to me and said that. I couldn’t believe you had the audacity. But something about that night made me remember you. Made me remember your name.”

“You thought about me after that?” Taehyung asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“There is something about you that is unforgettable,” you say, honest and real and true. What else can you tell him? The truth is that you have always thought about him. Whether you liked him or not.

You finish your dinner and place your trays on the end tables next to you, stacking your empty bowls and plates on top of one another as the movie rumbles on in the background.

“It is kind of a shitty movie,” Taehyung admits after a while of being wholly unenthused.

“Yeah,” you agree. “But it’s good background noise.”

Taehyung laughs at your little mockery, warm and deep and from his belly. You look at him. He feels so far away, on the other side of the couch. Feels like he’s miles apart from you. You have spent countless nights clinging to his harm, hand gripped tight in his. And sitting like this, a full couch cushion of space between the two of you—it isn’t enough anymore. So you inch closer.

And closer.

And a little closer.

Until you’re pressed up against his side, legs touching as they rest neatly in front of you, backs stick straight as you stare at the television.

Taehyung holds his arm up. An open invitation.

Without asking, you lean into him, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder, in the space right underneath his jaw. You pull your feet up onto the couch and curl into his frame, pressing yourself against him. He is warm and firm and inescapable. He smells of coffee and paint and Chinese spices. He wraps his arm around you and pulls you in, as if there were any other place you’d rather be.

You sit like that for a while. Wrapped up in each other. Lazing around on the couch as the stars twinkle above your head. The movie ends and the two of you don’t even bother skipping the credits, letting them and the cheesy 80’s pop song play on, a distant soundtrack.

“I never thought any of this would happen,” you breathe out.

Taehyung looks down at you curiously. “What? This?”

“All of it,” you admit. “Us. Getting married. That stupid tabloid picture. My grandmother. This. It’s all so new.”

“New things will happen all the time,” Taehyung muses aloud. “We can’t help when things change.”

“You don’t have any regrets?” You have plenty. Regrets that you’ll never become the CEO you wanted to be in college. Regrets that you’ll never become the fashion designer you wanted to be as a little girl. Regrets that you will come to resent this marriage, resent Taehyung more than you have in years past, all because you had no choice. Regrets that your grandmother couldn’t see you now. Regrets that there were so many things in your life you could have changed, but didn’t.

“I thought I did,” Taehyung tells you. “I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I wanted to major in art in college. I didn’t want to marry you. I know you didn’t want to marry me.” He looks down and you look up at the same time, eyes locking, inches apart. “But looking back on it, I’m happy where I am. With what I have.”

“I never thought it could ever be like this,” you say, words falling off your tongue before you even ask them to.

“What?”

“Us.”

There’s no need to elaborate. Taehyung understands. He understands that, half a year ago, you both would have thrown yourselves into a volcano before holding hands with each other. He understands that getting over your hatred for each other seemed like an absolutely insurmountable task. He understands that you had never wanted to marry each other, that you couldn’t believe you would have to spend the rest of your lives with each other.

And he understands that now, things are different.

“I’m glad things happened the way they did,” Taehyung begins. “I’m grateful for us.”

You press yourself impossibly closer to him, feel his grip tighten around you. Like this, you can hear his heartbeat. Hear it thump like a drum, steady and firm and unwavering. His heart beats against his chest and you wonder.

You wonder if he can hear the way yours beats for him, too.

There were lots of things that made your night in together special. But one of them is the glaring fact that you don’t get them very often. That their infrequency makes them all the more valuable.

This has become blatantly obvious to you, because right now you are not spending a night in together. Right now you are stuck at a gala that you have to attend for the sake of business, drinking thin flutes of champagne and mingling with people you barely speak to.

The one good thing about nights like these is that Taehyung looks positively gorgeous in suits. He sort of always has, but you’d never admit that to his face. At least not until now. And as his wife, you are lucky enough to have a front-row seat.

“I can feel you staring at me all the way from over here,” Taehyung deadpans as he helps himself to a chocolate-covered strawberry from the buffet table.

You’re too obvious to have any shame about it. “What can I say, I like the view.”

“Hard to believe I was the once the one being shouted at for being inappropriate in public,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. He bites into the strawberry and eats it all in a single go, tossing the stems into a bin nearby as you join back up in the heart of the crowd.

“It’s only inappropriate if other people hear,” you tease, letting him guide you, hand intertwined with yours, towards an empty corner where the two of you can snuggle up to one another in (relative) peace.

“I don’t think the champagne was very good for your filter, Miss Y/N,” Taehyung hisses into your ear, warm breath tickling your skin.

“Don’t you mean Mrs. Kim?” You pose, an eyebrow raised.

That seems to do something to Taehyung. It’s not very bright in here, with it being nighttime and all, but even still you can see the way his eyes darken. See the way his lips curl upwards, feel the way his grip on you tightens. It sparks something within you. Something deep in the pit of your belly.

Something that makes you want more.

You test the waters. “Mrs. Kim has a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Tae?”

Taehyung looks about a moment away from losing control. But instead of slamming you against the wall in front of all of these people and giving you what you really want, he growls out, low and powerful, “Home. Now.”

He doesn’t need to tell you twice.

You hail your car outside of the venue and it’s all the both of you can do to not jump on each other right then and there, in the backseat of this giant black van, overcome with want, with need, with everything in between. Taehyung’s leg bounces impatiently the entire ride back, and the feeling of your hand pressed against his doesn’t seem to be calming him down. He pulls you close to him in the backseat of the car, a hand resting on your thigh. You eye him carefully, as if challenging him to be any more daring. He grins.

Home cannot come soon enough. The two of you tumble out of the backseat and into the elevators, where you mash the top floor button after entering in the security access code, desperate and shameless. The ride seems to take hours, and the heat that surrounds you practically smothers you, covers you, fills up your lungs and chokes you.

There is nothing left by the time you reach your door. The moment it slams shut behind you Taehyung presses you up against the back of it, pins you against the wood as he hovers over you, eyes tracing your lips.

“Tell me something,” he demands.

“What?”

“A fact. Something I don’t know.”

It doesn’t take much thinking. “I want you,” you breathe out, watch it hit his skin, watch the way his eyes glint in the light of the entranceway. “Please, Tae. I want you.”

It’s enough for him.

This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed. The first time was nearly five months ago, in a chapel, at an altar, surrounded by hundreds of people. It was so unfun that you seem to have eradicated the mere thought from your memory. But you remember that feeling from that day. That feeling you got when you pressed your lips against his, cemented your marriage with a kiss. That heat. That sting.

Kissing him now—that feeling has returned tenfold. When his lips meet yours, it feels like fire is rushing through your veins, setting alight every nerve it passes, unforgiving and relentless. His enormous hands come up to cup your jaw, fingers pressing against the skin of your cheeks as they pull you close to him, keep you trapped in his hold. This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed but it feels like it is—it feels like there is a lotus blooming on a lilypad in your heart, it feels like you have been struck by lightning, it feels like nothing else you have ever felt before. It feels brand new.

Pressing back against him, he slowly releases you from the cage he has created against the door, spinning around so the two of you can tumble up the stairs and into your bedroom, unable to resist sneaking in pecks here and there as you make your way upstairs. Every step you take you stop, giggle as he presses you against the railing just so he can steal another kiss from you, put his hands all over your body. It’s a wonder the two of you even make it into your bedroom at all.

When you do, however, all bets are off. Taehyung presses you against the still-made bedsheets with a glint in his eye and a growl on his lips, pupils blown wide as he stares down at you, at your body.

"Aren't you a sight? Laid out so pretty for me," he purrs, robbing a breath from you.

It's a tone you have yet to hear from him. You find yourself growing impossibly hot under his stare, burning with an uncharted desire.

You can hardly wrap your brain around it. Here you are, craving the man you had spent the better half of your young adult life loathing. Maybe it’s the champagne; maybe it’s the way his fingers are running slowly up the length of your clothed torso. Whatever it is, your stomach does flips, unfamiliar to the way your body preens under his touch.

"Don't let it go to your head," you tease, simply because you could.

Taehyung hums disapprovingly, pressing kisses into your neck as he grabs one of your thighs and wraps it around his waist, riding your dress up in the process.

You sigh, exposing your neck further for him as he paints bruises into your neck. It feels like just yesterday you had called him out at the altar for his habit of sporting the very same marks you were soon to wear.

Perhaps you should have thought twice about letting the man you had married purely under business pretenses press his hips against your clothed center, but as he rolls his into yours, your mind falls blank, silencing any and all reservations you should have.

Whimpering, you beckon his mouth back onto yours, tongue meeting his wantonly.

You feel his fingers creep up the outside of your bare thigh, thrilling you in the most primal way. Reaching the band of your underwear after what felt like entirely too long, he runs the pad of his thumb against the lacy fabric.

You could scream. He is doing this on purpose. He must be. Surely he knows how badly you were aching for him? For him to fill you– whatever the manner may be.

You let out a whine before you can help yourself, frowning as Taehyung looks pleased with himself, confirming his knowledge of your prolonged pleasure.

"What's that? Did you say something?" he mocks, looking cruel and yet strikingly gorgeous as he smirks above you.

"God, you're irritating,” you huff, hips jerking up against his as he pulls at the band of your underwear, the elastic snapping back into the flesh of your hip. "Just fuck me already."

He tuts, clearly unimpressed by your impatience, "Now, where is the fun in that?"

Your eyes flutter shut as his fingers suddenly snake their way between your thighs. Mouth falling ajar, you grip his shoulders as he runs his middle finger against your clothed slit, trailing up and down your warmth. To think he was still dressed while he was touching you like this...

"No... I think I'll take my time with you," he says.

You mew against his hand, arousal forming against his long digits' ministrations. You have to hand it to him. Taehyung knows what he’s doing. The life of a bachelor has seemingly served him well.

You aren’t usually vocal in bed, but the way he’s purring words of filth to you, breath hot against the shell of your ear as he tells you how hot and slick your pretty pussy felt against his hand, has you gasping and sputtering, your own fingers wrapping around his wrist.

The fabric of your panties provides a friction that toys the line of pleasure and pain, making you thrust up to meet his motions, your humility slipping from you.

Taehyung watches you intently, cock growing hard under the constraints of his dress pants. You look better than he could've imagined, eyes watering and body shivering under his touch, his fingers soaking with your arousal. He can only imagine what you'd feel like with his fingers fully buried into you, rocking them against your velvety walls.

He lets out a groan of his own, turned on by the idea of you fucking yourself onto his fingers, whimpering out his name in ecstasy.

There’s this part of you that faintly recognizes that Taehyung has done this plenty of times before. Plenty of times with plenty of other lovers. But there is a different part of you, that part that bursts with light and hope, that reminds you that he was never married to those other ones. That his allegiance lies with you. And that thought, knowing that deep within you, he is yours, makes your jaw fall slack, pretty noises tumbling from your lips and your thighs clamping around him.

You were close, closer than you care to admit. Every touch against you is careful yet deliberate as he reads the signs of your body, the way it keens and arches into him, offering you words of encouragement as your climax finally hits.

"That's right. Good girl. Let go for me," Taehyung coos, eyes dark and focused on your writhing form.

You cry out into the familiar space of your shared room, head thrown back as you ride out the high, letting it wrack your body, send jolts throughout your veins.

You barely have time to catch your breath when he presses his mouth back onto yours, kiss still as eager as it was when you both first entered your home. You are alight with satisfaction as he pulls away to press a trail of kisses against your jaw.

"I want—f-fuck," you stutter as he finds your already hypersensitive clit once more, rolling his thumb over your now soaked panties in tantalizing circles, "want to make you feel good, too."

Admittedly, this fantasy had crossed your mind once or twice, brought on by the way he carried himself in a suit and the way his large fingers wrapped around the champagne glass; confident, collected, and entirely charming. Who are you to shy away from a man like him? He certainly has always been rather good-looking.

He pauses his motions, pulling his hand back to sit on your waist. Your dress is of the finest, most delicate satin, and after tonight's activities, completely wrinkled. You can almost hear your stylist's cries of dismay. Whatever. You have a steamer. And why focus on the dress when it’s obvious the two of you are focused on what lies underneath it?

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You nod, skin still burning from your past climax.

Helping you back up, Taehyung stands. You lick your lips as you sit back up on the edge of the bed, watching intently as he unbuckles his belt, audibly hissing as his pants fall to his ankles, cock visibly straining against the fabric of his underwear. Thank God you don’t have to stand. With the way your thighs still felt weak and how your husband looks like a goddamn Adonis towering above you? Your legs surely would give out underneath you if you rose.

Brows furrowed, Taehyung palms over himself briefly before pulling down the waistband of his underwear, his painfully hard member slapping against his torso.

Your eyes widened on instinct. While the last thing you wanted to do was help inflate Taehyung's already large ego, you were certainly impressed at his size; thick and girthy, his tip red and shining with precum.

He couldn't help but smirk, thoroughly pleased by the way you stared at him unabashedly, chest rising and falling heavily.

"Open up for me," he orders.

And who are you to deny a request from your dear husband?

Your pretty lips wrap themselves around his engorged tip, all remnants of lipstick long gone by now. Taehyung hisses, a hand finding the side of your jaw as you run your tongue against the underside of his cock.

"Fuck, you're so pretty," he grunts, fighting off the urge to grip the back of your head and fuck your throat. As much as he'd love your have you choking and drooling all over his cock – and boy would he – he lets you set your own pace, not wanting to overwhelm you.

It doesn't take long for you to sink your mouth further down, however, clearly set on making Taehyung feel as good as you could.

A low moan erupts from his throat, digits pressing into your jaw in request to take more of him in, which you happily oblige.

You had your eyes trained on him, completely obsessed with the way he panted through pink lips, hissing slightly every time your tongue rolled over his sensitive tip.

Lolling his head to a side, his eyes meet yours, gaze primal and wolfish as he watches the way you worked his cock.

"Doing so good, love. Doing so fucking good for me,” he murmurs.

You hum against his skin at the sound of the sudden pet name, an unfamiliar feeling fluttering in your belly. You push aside the feeling, focusing instead on the way he grunts at the new sensation you had just given him.

Giggling, you pull off his cock, opting instead to press a kiss against his leaking tip, making sure to hold his eyes as you run kitten licks against it.

"God, you're such a tease." He shakes his head in disbelief.

He looks so good above you, shivering and cursing out praises on how good your mouth feels, how well you take his cock. Running your tongue along the length of his shaft, you become certain that this is a display you can’t imagine yourself ever getting tired of. But you have all the time in the world, right?

"Y/N,” he gasps suddenly, hips jerking towards your face. "Love, I'm gonna-- gonna cum."

"Cum in my mouth, please." Your voice was pleading and desperate. Taehyung had never heard such words spoken more sweetly.

"Fuck's sake."

You let out a yelp in surprise as his fingers work their way through your hair, bringing your head back down onto his cock. You relax, though, when you feel the hot ropes of his cum hit the back of your throat, your hands finding purchase on his thighs as you do your best to swallow it all down.

Pulling yourself off him, you let out a small cough, eyes watering slightly as you hadn’t managed to prepare yourself with a breath before his release. His large palm runs across the top of your head as you caught your breath, expression flickering with something unfamiliar. Could it be... fondness?

Your heart stammers at the thought as you stand, slowly stepping out of your dress, letting it drape off of your figure. Taehyung looks absolutely gobsmacked, pupils dark as he gazes at you, eyes unabashedly raking your body. He’s shameless.

You both are.

Slowly, you step towards him, fingers reaching out towards his shirt, carefully undoing the buttons as you gaze at each other, expressions unreadable.

"Tae?” You ask innocently, blinking up at him. “Fuck me?"

Your polite request makes Taehyung chuckle.

"Please?" You bring your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes blinking up at him adoringly for good measure. You reach the last button, let his dress shirt drape open. He brushes it off himself, stands there for a few seconds just to let the way you’re ogling his toned chest go to his head. At least he’s good-looking.

He sighs, probably contemplating some clever rebuttal, but eventually decides against it as his cock is already twitching back to life.

"Alright, love. Turn around. On your knees for me," He orders, making your stomach flip.

To your surprise, you are hardly in place when the warmth of his large hands finds the soft of your tummy, pressing you back into his chest as he pressed a peck to the back of your neck.

You squirm in his hold, whining as that same hand of his grabs hold of your breast, long digit rolling your nipple between their tips. You can’t help but press your ass back into him. His cock feels hot and heavy, pressing against the back of your thigh, making your pussy clench in anticipation.

You want him.

You want him so bad that you don't know what to do with yourself, shuddering as his free hand runs along the side of your ass, leaving scorching hot trails on your skin wherever he kneads into your flesh. He's touching you everywhere – everywhere but where you need him the most, and the arousal that drips down your thigh mocks you.

"Dammit, please!" You exclaim, running out of patience.

"Please what?" He says, an eyebrow arched.

You shiver, committing the way his middle finger traced your pelvic bone to memory forever.

You puff out a frustrated breath, nearly at your wit's end. "Please fuck me, Tae."

Taehyung pauses, grip on your breast and hip tightening as he lets out a moan. You let one out yourself as you feel him readjust, cock pressing against your slick entrance.

"Fuck, you sound so pretty when you say my name," He grunts. "Okay, baby. I'll fuck you. Begging so nicely for my cock."

You let out a squeak as you're suddenly pushed down onto your hands, back arching as he pushes his fat cock inside your heavenly cunt. He's thick, so thick, that you instinctively grip the sheet underneath you, fingers curled around them tightly as if it means to hold onto your sanity.

Taehyung lets out a shaky breath, angling your hips up so that you could take more of him.

"You feel—feel so good," he admits above you, and suddenly you wish you could see him. See the way his bangs stick to his damp forehead—see the way his tongue swipes over his bottom lip wickedly.

You let that thought go, however, as he thrust into you, making your jaw fall slack and eyes flutter shut. Profanities roll off your tongue unabashedly, helpless under the way his thick member pulls out of you, only to slam back into you.

You weren't expecting this. The way he stretches you out further than anyone had before. Your pussy clenches around him, reveling in the sweet, sweet burn.

He digs into the flesh of your hips, holding you steady as you mew and cry out, pushing your hips back in time to his, trying your best to meet his movements.

"Tae... fuck, fuck, fuck—"

He was filling you to the brim. Filling you tight and deep.

God, the way he was panting behind you was music to your ears. His cock pulses every time you call out his name, voice muffled and buried as you had your head pressed into the mattress, hair messy and bouncing with every hard thrust.

"S'good! Fuck... so, ah, big..." you cry out.

You feel drunk. Intoxicated off this beautiful man and the way he makes you feel a way only he can.

You nearly let out a sob as the rough pads of Taehyung's fingertips suddenly reach around you and find your neglected clit, rolling light circles on the soft and swollen bundle of nerves skillfully.

You are a mess, whimpering and drooling into your expensive sheets, and he filled every inch of you, leaving no place undiscovered. Your high nears, stewing on low heat somewhere near the pit of your belly, waiting for a chance to erupt and wash all over you. Taehyung must be close to, you realize, as his thrusts began to slow down, slamming into you roughly as if chasing after his high.

"Gonna take this load? Huh? Gonna let me cum inside your pretty little pussy?" His voice is straining, as if trying to breathe evenly but merely moments from falling apart.

If only you could formulate an intelligent response, but instead, you are a blubbering wreck, thighs shaking as they threatened to give out underneath you. But somehow, Taehyung knew. He had you. Quicking his motions against your delicate pearl, he could tell you were close too, and he was going to make sure you got there.

Suddenly, you're crying out and convulsing, tears brimming at the ends of your eyes as you feel Taehyung empty into you, collapsing onto his hands as well.

You feel his hot breath against the back of your neck as he pants, breath growing more and more even as the two of you regain control of your bodies and minds.

Pulling out of you, he plops down beside you, and for a moment, the two of you hold each other's gazes, eyes speaking in ways words never could.

Finally, after what feels both like an eternity and just a moment, you work up the courage to say something, moving closer to him as you place a hand on his chest, cushioning your chin as you rested on top of it.

"Psst," you beckon, voice hushed.

"Yeah?" His voice is husky and tired.

"I’m grateful, too."

"Huh?"

"I’m grateful for us, too."

Taehyung's gaze is soft, and it lingers on you for a second before the sides of his mouth curl up tenderly. He grins down at you, eyes drifting shut. You feel him squeeze you closer, pressing you against his skin. And then, you hear his breathing steady, see his lips part slightly.

You lean into his chest, eyelids fluttering. “Thank you, Tae.”

Not unlike the many other mornings you have awoken in this bed, when you open your eyes as the morning sunlight streams through the windows, Taehyung is nowhere to be found. The sheets on his side of the bed are flipped aside, revealing that soft outline of his body from the night before left imprinted into the sheets, a dip in the mattress where he slept. You had fallen asleep all wrapped up in each other, tangled up like vines, but must have separated sometime during the night. Distantly, you register Taehyung’s voice outside, notice his phone missing from his bedside table. He must be on an early morning call.

You check your phone for the time. Ten o’clock.

A late morning call, then.

Still basking in the afterglow of the night prior, you slowly inch your way out of bed, shivering as you pull the covers off you and scoot your legs around so they hang over the edge of the bed. You rub at your eyes until you faintly remember you did not take your makeup off last night, and when your hand comes away covered with black streaks and flecks of mascara, you wince to yourself. There goes five hundred dollars worth of a skincare routine.

After washing yourself up and applying as many serums as you can to your skin, you wrap yourself up in one of his button-up shirts, the torso so wide that it drapes over you. The tips of your fingers peek out from the ends of the sleeves, and you cross your arms lightly over your chest as you make your way to the door, ready to entice your husband back to bed for round two. What? It’s Saturday.

You peer around the door to find Taehyung standing a few feet away, facing away from you. He’s shirtless, and as his wife you have absolutely no problems ogling him, the toned curves of his back, the muscles in his arms. He’s always been a looker. You just finally have an excuse to look for yourself.

You approach him quietly, not wanting to interrupt nor broadcast your sex life to anybody on the other side who may be listening. Already, the idea of crawling back in bed together sends goosebumps along your skin, makes you giddy with anticipation. You’re just about to tap him on the shoulder, lips curled upwards in suggestion, when he says—

“And my inheritance? That’s secured now, right? Because I said I would pretend to be in love with her in public—?”

And it is as if Medusa herself appeared in this room, turning you to stone as your heart thuds to the floor, a hollow, empty noise.

You don’t hear the rest of Taehyung’s conversation. You don’t even hear the sound of your own heartbeat. This terrible, aching sound rings in your ears, silencing everything in its wake, drowning out even the sighs of your own breath. It is as if you have been frozen solid. As if you have been shot in the stomach. You stand there, feeling absolutely nothing, and all you can do is brace yourself for what is to come. Taehyung’s words were the knife but his next actions will be its removal, leaving in its wake an irreparable wound.

He turns around, casual and cool, voice still hushed. As if you were still asleep. As if you hadn’t heard anything at all. But when he twists his body and sees you standing there, staring back up at him, lips parted in shock.

“I’ll call you back,” he tells whoever was on the other side of the line, looking more panicked by the second. He opens his mouth so he can explain himself, but you don’t need him to. You’ve heard everything already.

“I should have known,” you say, feeling angry and betrayed and sad all at once. “I should have known it was all an act.”

“Y/N, wait, let me explain—”

“What is there to tell me, Taehyung? What are you going to say? That you didn’t mean it? That you thought I wouldn’t find out? That last night was just a one-off?” You demand. The heat from your veins hasn’t left. Still, it simmers through your blood, burning you up from the inside out. “That you didn’t want to lie to me?”

“It’s not like that and you know it,” Taehyung says defensively, brows furrowed. “Just give me a chance to explain myself.”

“Explain yourself? How you pretended, every day and every night, just so you could get some more money in your bank account? So you could make sure you would get your father’s business when he died?”

Taehyung bites back easily. “Don’t act like you weren’t also faking it at some point. I know you were almost removed from your grandmother’s will.”

Your tongue is bitter at the mention of your grandmother. As if Taehyung ever even knew her. “My grandmother has nothing to do with this.”

“Really?” Taehyung challenges. “So you wanting to stay in her will was just a little bonus, right?”

“Don’t,” you say sharply. “It’s different.”

“Different how?” Taehyung spits. “Because right now, to me, it looks pretty similar to what I’ve done.”

“My grandmother died months ago,” you remind him. Her will is no longer the question. It has been written, settled, and executed. There was no reason for you to continue playing along once she took her last breath. No reason—unless you wanted to. “Meanwhile you’ve been keeping your inheritance a secret from me this entire time.”

“We made a deal,” Taehyung says. “A deal that said we would both act happy and pretend to be in love because we both had things we needed to worry about. Family things. Money things. You were a part of this, just like I was. You pretended, too.”

“Well, maybe I stopped pretending!”

You can’t take it anymore. All this anger, all this emptiness, it’s been bubbling up inside you ever since you heard those first words come out of his mouth. It spills out of you all at once, an eruption from your lips, your heart’s doors bursting open. You have held his hand tightly in your own. You have pressed your lips to his. You have laid yourself bare in front of him. What is there left to protect? What part of you has not already been stained by him, by his touch, by the feeling of his fingers against your skin?

The hallway is silent, but you can hear your cry echo down the corridor. Hear the way it bounces along the walls before fading away.

“Maybe I stopped pretending,” you repeat, softer this time. You blink and already can feel the streaks along your skin, the tears falling from your eyes. “Did you ever think about that?”

“Y/N, what are you talking about?” Taehyung looks like he’s in disbelief. Like he cannot believe the words you are saying to him.

Well, that makes two of you.

“Can’t you see, Tae? Can’t you tell?” You ask, the nickname falling from your lips before you can even help it. You must remind yourself to change that, later. “I’m in love with you.”

They are words you have never said to someone before. Not even your old boyfriends. Words that you always knew you would reserve for someone special. Someone who would touch your heart and make it their own, someone who would leave imprints of their fingers against your chest. Someone who would brighten you up from the inside out, leave you bursting with light.

Ironic, that Taehyung has become that someone. When he is the one person you never thought could.

When he has proven, time and time again, that you two just cannot mix. Oil and water. Pastel and acrylic. Satin and silk.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you spit out quickly, before Taehyung has a chance to respond. “I know it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Y/N, yes it does,” Taehyung begins, desperate and pleading. “I know you heard what I said, but I swear, it stopped being an act for me, too. Things are different now, just like you said.”

“Don’t. Please.” You pull away as he reaches out towards you. Faintly, you remember that it is his shirt you are wearing. Remember that no matter what you do, he will always surround you. “Please, Tae.” You have nothing left. You can’t bear to look at him, but where else will you go? You cannot believe the things he’s said, the things he’s done, but where else would you go?

“I love you, too,” Taehyung says, and a part of you wants so badly to believe him.

A part of you wants so badly to ingrain those words into your head, carve them into your heart, let him wrap his arms around you and promise that everything will be alright. But things are different now. Just like you said. You and Taehyung are not the same people you were six months ago. Or six weeks ago. Or even six minutes ago. You are helpless and he has proven that he does not care.

“I have to go,” you say, looking away. You don’t think you could handle turning back to him again. “Please, Tae.”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, and he reaches out once more but you are not there to meet him halfway. Were you ever?

“I know,” you whisper back.

You duck into your bedroom and pack a suitcase of everything you need. Being here is suffocating. Being with him is like setting yourself alight.

Victoria has no questions when you show up at her door later that day, suitcase by your side and this ridiculous bottle of Merlot in your hands. You had picked it up on the way over. You sort of figured you might need it.

“You don’t wanna talk about it, do you?” Victoria asks.

“Tell me about your streaming service,” you hiccup in response.

Victoria is happy to oblige. She even tells you that she still hasn’t picked a CFO, and that the position would be open for you if you ever wished to take it.

Funnily enough, what will become of you once your father retires and passes along the company is the furthest away from your thoughts.

You remember being so worried about that. Being so worried that, once they married you off like every good daughter should be, you would be absorbed into your husband’s life, cut out of your family’s. Your father would choose a cousin, an uncle, or even a friend to take after the business, bestowing upon you a thoughtful inheritance but nothing more than that. All of those years of schooling, finance in college, your MBA soon after, would be wasted, just so you could hang on the arm of your husband for the rest of your life.

It’s thoughtful of Victoria to think of you for the position. She knows just as well as anyone else that you would be an excellent fit. And if things were just a little bit different, you would be jumping at the offer.

But your future career plans are on the backburner, along with the rest of your life.

All you can really do, right now, at this very moment, is wait for things to change. As they always do.

“Don’t you have an event tonight?” Victoria asks about three days into your stay. She’s given you her favorite (her words, not yours) guest bedroom and an enormous closet to match, despite you only coming over with a carry-on’s worth of clothes.

You scoff to yourself. “Like I’d want to go to anything with him.”

“Have you even called your parents?”

“No,” you say, not even caring about the repercussions. There’s no doubt in your mind that they’ll be ringing you soon. And when they do, maybe then you’ll finally work up the courage to tell them what really happened. Tell them that you can’t go back there. Not yet, at least.

“I’m sorry that this happened to you,” Victoria says as she hands you a bowl of vegetable soup, homemade from a couple of days ago. You nod to yourself, sniffling as you curl into the couch cushions and wish they would absorb you whole.

There’s no need to ask her what she means by ‘this’. Everything. From your engagement to the marriage, from those tabloids to the deal, from your grandmother’s death to now. It has all been unfair. Life is unfair. And while you’ve always known that, it has been particularly cruel to you as of late.

Still, when you wake up sometimes, you can still feel him tracing over your skin. Feel his lips hovering over yours, breath fanning out over your cheeks. You turn over and expect to see him lying there, on the right side of the bed, sheets mussed as they cover his figure. You wake up and for a brief moment, for that split, split second, there is peace. And happiness. And love.

And then there is nothing.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Me, too.”

Maybe he really does love you. Maybe things really did change. But you have always been a pragmatic person, always let your head guide you rather than your heart. The secret’s out. Taehyung had an inheritance he needed to secure. You were his path to doing so. Those things haven’t changed. No matter if his feelings did.

“Hey, look at this,” Victoria says, brows furrowed as she holds out her phone in front of you, revealing a livestreamed interview from the event tonight.

You peer over.

It’s Taehyung.

Of course it’s Taehyung. Who else would she be showing you?

He stands in a clean-cut gray coat, draping over his figure, black dress shirt and slacks underneath, belt wrapped neatly around his hips. He holds his hand up in a wave and smiles politely to the cameras, to the reporters, letting the flashes wash over him like waves in the ocean.

“Mr. Kim! Mr. Kim!” Someone calls. “Where’s your wife?”

Oh, God.

Taehyung grimaces a little, pursing his lips. “My wife won’t be joining me tonight.”

“Can you tell us why?” They shout.

“Sorry, no more questions. Thank you for asking though. She’s well,” he says, quickly ushering himself along, entering the venue so no more reporters can bombard him. When he disappears, the livestream immediately moves on to the next guest, but you hardly pay them any attention.

“Huh,” Victoria says aloud.

Indeed. Taehyung’s response strikes you as rather odd. Why would he tell the public that? Why not make up a lie, say you’re sick, or you’re overseas, or you’re just late? Why simply tell them that you won’t be there? Surely, Taehyung is just as aware of the consequences of arriving at an event without you as you are. There’s no doubt that his parents will be in contact with him soon, too. No doubt that this will leave a stain on his family. His image. It might even threaten his inheritance after all.

So why not lie?

You frown to yourself, nose scrunching up in confusion. You don’t like where this train of thought leads.

“You okay?” Victoria asks when she sees the bewildered expression on your face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you say. Just completely befuddled. It escapes you, why Taehyung wouldn’t just make up some sort of excuse as to reasoning behind your absence. Why he would even show up at the event at all. Certainly, going to the event without you is worse than not going at all. It prompts questions. It spreads rumors.

Later that night, you get a call from your parents, demanding to know why you weren’t there with him. You say you got sick. You plead with them not to question anything.

You wonder what happens next. You and Taehyung still have two more events this week. A dinner and a ball. What will you do then?

Taehyung goes solo for the dinner. You suppose you could have predicted that, considering his apparent willingness to arrive alone for the first event, too. He hasn’t made any efforts to contact you and for once, you’re glad for his silence. Not that you even know what he would say to you, anyway, but at least he isn’t begging you to come back to him.

The sad truth is that if he did, if he got down on his knees right in front of you and willed you to come back home, you probably would. He has always been impossible to resist. Even when you first met him, when he sauntered up towards you and told you he was your dream come true. You didn’t know it then. But he was. He was everything you would ever want.

Why would he lie?

Why would he do that?

You can’t wrap your head around it. What is he getting out of it by telling the truth? By admitting to the paparazzi, to the reporters and the cameramen, that you won’t be there with him. That you will not be joining him. Nothing, certainly. His parents must be furious. His inheritance may be on the rocks. His image might tank.

So then, why do it at all?

Could it… could it be?

Is it true?

You have loved Taehyung for a long time. Longer than you probably even care to admit. You have always held your head high at events, spoken loudly and without fear, but being with him made you feel safe. Secure. You would hold his hand and know, know that he was holding yours, too. It grounded you. It soothed your worries.

Does he really love you back?

Taehyung smiles politely and laughs when he needs to at these events, but he doesn’t look the same. Even through the screen you can see those bags under his eyes, that spark that has faded. You hardly recognize him. He looks so lonely, without someone by his side. So distant.

When you know the dinner has ended, you almost pick up the phone and call him.

Almost.

Instead, when the ball rolls around, you ask Victoria if she’s got a spare dress she can lend you.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen covered in paint splotches, wearing old college hoodies, and fresh out of a restless night’s sleep, cleans up pretty well. For a married man, at least.

You wonder what the past few days must have been like for him. If they have been as empty as your own. Wonder what it was like, riding alone in a big black van to this hotel ballroom, no one to tease, no one to laugh with, no one to hold. No one to poke him awake if he accidentally fell asleep. No one to make sure he’s okay.

Taehyung stands right outside of the entrance, waving politely to all of the paparazzi, smiling as the cameras flash, giving them the time of day for a moment before he heads inside and muscles his way through another event without you.

Or so he thinks.

You spot him just as he opens his mouth, ready to repeat those same lines all over again.

My wife won’t be joining me tonight. She’s well, though.

And maybe it’s just because you haven’t seen him in nearly a week. Maybe it’s just because he is about to lie to those reporters once more, ready to face whatever consequences come his way.

Or maybe it’s just because you miss him. Miss him terribly, have been missing him terribly. Being away from him was necessary, but that didn’t make it any less unbearable. Not getting to hold his hand, see his smile, meet his eyes. You and Taehyung may not have always liked each other, but you saw him every day regardless. He became a constant in your life. Not an if, but a when. If everything went to shit, you always knew he would still be there.

And there he is.

“Wait! Taehyung!”

Taehyung’s eyes widen as he hears your voice, gaze darting around wildly, mouth parted in surprise. He looks around desperately, scanning the crowd, meeting the eyes of every single person in front of him until he finally looks to the left, sees you rushing up towards him, hiking up the skirt of your dress as your heels tap against the sidewalk.

And when he spots you, sees you running up to him, his body relaxes, a weight lifted from his shoulders as he beams back at you, relieved and thankful and filled with joy, all at once. And you know, then.

You know that everything will be okay.

“Sorry I’m late,” you say sheepishly, cheeks burning as he looks at you, takes in every inch of you, breathes you in and lets you fill him up.

Taehyung doesn’t respond. You reach out to hold his hand but he grabs your wrist and pulls you in, presses you against his body as he presses his hands against your cheeks, palms burning as they meet your skin, and he kisses you. In front of all these people, he kisses you.

And goddamnit, you will kiss him back.

It feels like lightning, like a thunderstorm, like the waves of the ocean are crashing against your heart. It feels like fire, like flames are licking at your veins, sending sparks through your blood. It feels like home.

You and Taehyung ignore the shouts of reporters, the flashes of cameras, the honks of the cars on the other side of the road. When you part, he presses his forehead against yours and lets the tip of your nose meet his. And you smile.

“Don’t be alone any longer, Mr. Kim,” you whisper, loud enough so only he can hear.

“When I’m with you, I never am, Mrs. Kim,” he murmurs back.

You wonder what those tabloids will be saying about you tomorrow.

The rest of the night finds the two of you pretty much inseparable. You wrap yourself around his arm and for the first time in a long time, he presses his hand against the small of your back, keeping you close. Like he’d ever lose you again.

One of your least favorite parts about attending balls used to be the dancing. As a young and eligible bachelorette, you would always have to lock hands with another, let him awkwardly guide you along to the music as you made the worst small talk imaginable, forcing laughter and smiles whenever he said something he thought was particularly funny.

But, like so many others, things have changed. Things are different now.

The waltz comes on and you and Taehyung are the first to reach the center of the ballroom floor, letting him rest his hand on your waist as you press yours on top of his shoulder. Let him twirl you around the room as the orchestra plays in the background, a soft, sweet, light little melody that carries you along.

“I missed this,” you say softly.

“I missed us,” Taehyung corrects. He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my inheritance.”

“I’m sorry for storming out. I should have listened to you.” you respond easily. You both have plenty to apologize for. But night is darkest right before dawn.

“I should have said something,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. “But I was just so—so worried that something would go wrong. And I didn’t know how to explain how I felt about you. I acted in the beginning, too, but then things changed.”

“They always do,” you muse with a grin.

“I couldn’t believe I had you,” Taehyung admits. “I mean, look at you. You’re gorgeous. And funny. And true.”

“Go on,” you tease, even though you do nothing to hide the smile inching its way across your face, the heating of your cheeks, the simmering of your skin.

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I just—I felt something for you I couldn’t explain. I still can’t.”

You don’t have to prod any further. You know. Deep within your heart, you know. There is love blossoming in his to match the garden that has bloomed in your own. The flowers that have sprouted in the ashes. He has them, too. And when those petals open and the light streams in, he will know. He will know, too.

“You make me crazy,” you tell him, whispering gently into his skin. “But I’m a better person when I’m with you. I know I am.”

“I meant what I said, that night,” Taehyung says. Makes you wonder which night he’s actually talking about. “That I’m happy that things have changed. That things happened the way they did. I’m grateful for us.”

“I am, too,” you say. And you are.

You rest your head against his chest as you dance together, swaying back and forth to the beat of the drums, to the strums of the violins, all wrapped up together like ivy, like vines. Those, too, sit in that garden of yours. Keep you tethered to his side, keep him close to yours. He holds you in his arms and he smiles, because he knows, too. Knows that that garden in your heart will soon have a matching one in his. A mirror image of who you are. Who you’ve become.

Things change. They always will. But so long as he is by your side, and so long as you are by his, you know. Everything will be okay.

It's different, this time, when Taehyung presses you into the mattress.

There is no rush. Because now you know for certain that all the time in the world is yours. He is yours forever. You are his.

The two of you are a mixture of tangled limbs and shared breaths, the feverish, irrepressible need to give yourself to each other nearly tangible. He breaks the kiss suddenly, and you’re about to break out in protest. That is, until you see him unbuttoning his shirt.

Inspired, you wiggle out of your own clothes, eyes locked on Taehyung's soft torso and the idea that you had married such a beautiful man, inside and out.

Looking back, you wonder if that was always inevitable. If you and Taehyung falling into each other had been written in the stars from day one, sealed as your fate from the moment he came up to you at that ball when you were teenagers. He was going to be a part of your life no matter what. Whether or not you ended up marrying him. But having him like this?

It makes it all worth it.

"Do you like what you see?" That old cocky smirk of his makes an appearance.

You raise a brow, choosing to omit a response as you unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your chest.

Taehyung swallows.

"Do you?" You tease.

His response comes in the form of bites down your necks and licks down your chest, stealing your breath from you.

Your clothes are somewhere dispelled beside your passionate bodies, growing cold beside the way your two hot bodies warmed one another.

"You are so beautiful," Taehyung praises, fingers coming up to cup your breast, bringing it up to his mouth.

You mewl, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as his tongue toys with your pert bud, teeth grazing it ever so often just to hear the broken gasp that'd always follow.

"And so sensitive too," he giggles, making you pout. His hands are gentle as if every touch means something. As if you mean something—no, everything—to him. And the most wonderful part is that he means everything to you, too.

"Shut up." You roll your eyes playfully, gasping as his palm comes down the side of your thigh suddenly in warning. You bite down your swollen bottom lip at the gush of arousal that dampened your underwear in response.

"Watch your tone, love. Of both our positions, you are in the most compromising one." He reminds you. It isn't a threat, and while usually, that kind of tone would thrill you, you couldn't help but want his mouth back on yours already.

"You talk too much." You flop back onto the bed with a sigh. Taehyung watches with interest as your pretty tits bounce in consequence. Extending your hands out towards him, you give him a pouty look. "Just wanna kiss you."

"Is that all I am to you? Just a pair of lips for you to mack on? I've got news for you, sweetheart, there's a brain behind these ravishing good looks." He scoffs in feigned offense, sitting back on his heels.

You giggle.

It seems as though even during the most intimate of moments, Taehyung still found a way to be, well, Taehyung. At least that hasn’t changed.

"Whatever, pretty boy. Why don't you come over here and put that mouth of yours to good use?" You purr, making his eyebrows raise in surprise.

"Oh? I don't remember you being this assertive when I was pounding you into the mattress last time."

“What, I can’t have a little fun as well?” You tease, grinning as you look up at him, raking your eyes over his figure.

"Wanna have fun, love?," He murmurs into your ears, hands gripping either of your plush thighs. "Then spread those pretty legs for me, and I'll show you exactly how much fun you can have."

God, you love this man.

You oblige eagerly, breath quickening as he helped you press your knees by your chest, leaving the wet patch in your underwear on full display.

"My pretty little wife." He sighs dreamily, making heat rush to your core.

Taehyung's cock stood loud and proud, a hot reminder of where the night would eventually lead to. Seriously, how did you get so lucky? You must've been a saint in a previous life, you decide right then. Or at least, the stars have chosen to be rather kind to you in this one.

"Gonna take these off," he mutters, mostly to himself, tugging the ruined fabric over your ass and down your legs, with your help, of course.

Despite your usual display of confidence, lying beneath your husband, spread out like this, has you feeling vulnerable and slightly insecure. But that insecurity vanishes, however, as he lets out a soft moan, fingers moving to spread your glossed lips apart.

"So fucking pretty, baby. Gonna make you feel so fucking good," he groans, leaning down to press his face near your most intimate part.

Pressing a tentatively lick against, his eyes flicker up to yourself, curious to see if you’re okay with him proceeding. And, well, it’s not like you’re going to say no, are you?

Embarrassingly, you rut against him, making him laugh as you drown in your own mortification.

"Need it that bad, huh?" He coos.

"Yes, please."

The rest of your plea is lost in a moan as Taehyung finds your clit, wrapping his pink lips around the sensitive muscle and giving it a generous suck. Your hands are in his hair before you can think to stop yourself, tugging at his scalp deliciously as his mouth makes its way with you.

Thank goodness for this apartment belonging to just the two of you as the noises that tumbled from your lips surely would've left a roommate blushing.

You're panting, begging for more even though you aren't sure how you'd even handle more. It comes as a delight and slight surprise as fingers suddenly slip inside, wasting no time to rub against your velvety smooth walls, curling themselves inside you.

"Fuck, Tae!" you cry out, eyes squeezing shut.

It was pure reflex. Up until now, you had been watching Taehyung intently, completely consumed by the way his mouth moves against you. How his tongue flicks against your needy clit cruelly. It just felt too fucking good.

You're so wet, positively dripping down his chin as he runs his hot muscle up and down the length of your pussy, devouring you like he hadn't eaten in months, and you were his first meal.

Taehyung’s nothing short of addicting, completely and utterly intoxicating, and you slip further and further to your demise with every lick he takes, every press of his tongue against your clit.

He has a hand pressed against the lower half of your torso, feeling the way you jerk and squirm as he makes a mess of you. You’re close and you know it, too, if not by the way you’re calling his name over and over again, then by the way your thighs tremble, hardly even strong enough to stay up.

"Let go for me, love. I've got you." He sounds so sweet, so angelic, despite how filthy what he was doing to you was.

His words are the push you need, and, like a rubber band that has been stretched past its limit, you finally snap, back arching off the bed as you come with a cry. White fills your vision, and your mind goes blank, only sounds of blissful static filling your ears.

His fingers hold up your quivering legs, mouth pressing kisses onto your pussy encouragingly until you simply can't bear it any longer, pushing his mouth away as you stutter out words of sensitivity and overstimulation.

“I’m going to have to request more of that throughout this marriage.” You manage to say once your vision and breath come back to you.

Grabbing one of your hands, Taehyung brings it to his mouth.

“All you need do is ask,” he replies, making you laugh as he presses a kiss to the back of your hand, always a gentleman

Not long after, you find yourself pressed against Taehyung, tongue running against his as he presses his hips into yours. He isn’t coy about his want for you, rolling his cock against your already sensitive center. Warm precum leaks onto your lower abdomen, and suddenly, all you can think about is having him inside you again.

“Taehyung?”

You don’t even need to ask. Hitching your leg around his thigh, he knows exactly what you’re seeking, lining up his leaking cock with your swollen entrance.

Pressing into you, he buries himself to the hilt, groaning out as your warmth envelopes him. You moan out so prettily for him, feeling tight and full with your first orgasm only minutes ago.

“You okay?” he hums, kissing your cheek.

You nod, ears warm at the intimacy of the moment. In many ways, this is nothing like your first time together. You are face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart. Between your bodies could be found more than just desire, but commitment. Devotion. Love.

“I love you, Tae.” You gush, sighing out as he begins to rock into you.

He falters slightly at your confession but recovers quickly, intertwining his hand with yours and pressing it by your head.

Faintly, you realize.

That was the first time you had ever told him that.

You look up at him, expecting some wide eyes or even a bit of a nervous tilt to his lips, but all you are met with is a glow. He beams down at you, and your heart swells.

“I love you, too, Y/N,” he whispers, but you hear the words in your ears loud and clear.

Soft noises fill the room as the two of you become one—hearts synchronizing with one another in silent promise.

It was a promise unlike the one you had made to each other that day at the altar, for this one was real. This one was true.

You shutter with every thrust of his hips, your abused clit finding itself in the crossfire of Taehyung’s passionate motions.

Whimpering, you cling to him, overwhelmed and emotional, like your heart was about to burst. Taehyung lights a fire in you, sends lightning straight through your core. Every word, every smile, every kiss, every touch, they send shivers down your spine, tingles throughout your skin. It’s like you’re falling in love with him all over whenever you see him, whenever his deep brown eyes meet your own.

You remember being so afraid of love that you broke up with all your old boyfriends because of it. Because you couldn’t commit, because you were worried about your career, because they just didn’t give you that spark. But lying here pressed against him, against your husband, you aren’t afraid. Wrapped up around him, tangled up in him, you know.

Between messy kisses and words of adoration, you find yourself growing closer and closer to your release. Brows furrowed and neck flushed, you come with a soft whimper of his name, coaxing his own orgasm out of him. He lets go inside you, painting you with his seed in a way that pleases you to no end.

Hand still in yours, he gives it a squeeze, pressing a kiss onto your damp chest, right over where your heart beats for him.

“I love you,” Taehyung says again when you meet his eyes, firmer this time, louder. Like he’s worried you didn’t believe him the first time.

“I know,” you say with a giggle, the words going straight to your head—and your heart.

Taehyung scowls. “What, no ‘I love you’ back? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Well, only because you want one so badly,” you tease, pressing a quick kiss to his round button nose. “I love you, too, Tae. Always will.”

“I think I knew, then,” Taehyung says with a fond sigh, nostalgia overcoming his expression. “That first time we met. I knew you would be mine, one day.”

“You got lucky,” you scoff slightly. “But I’m glad things happened the way they did.”

“You’re my dream come true, Y/N,” he says.

“And you are mine,” you murmur.

As the two of you drift off, all twisted up in each other, so mixed up you can’t figure out where you end and he begins, you think back to that night. That ball.

“Who are you?” You ask, nose scrunched up in distaste. Before you stood a boy you had never met before, wearing shoes that were too big for him and a suit that was a touch too small.

He grins at you, running a hand through his perfectly-styled hair fringe swiped neatly over his forehead, and he says, “your dream come true.”

And so it was.

don’t forget to message me! ~ and don’t forget to message rose!

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franeridart · 3 years

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Anon said: i love love love LOVE how you just draw gojo leaning onto getou, hiding his face in getou's neck or back or chest <////3 im just so heartbroken over those two

So glad to hear you like him clingy as much as I do!! TT^TT as far as I’m concerned he wasn’t clingy enough in canon, so I’m fixing it as much as I can with every new doodle haha

Anon said: whenever im sad i just come to your account and look through your art :")) it brings me so much comfort :')) also i gotta mention that the teacher getou art you've made has healed my broken heart bc of jjk and now that is the only canon i accept thank you very much gege akutami has nothing on me

GAH GETO-SENSEI MY ONE AND ONLY I’m happy he makes you as soft as he does me, he’s such a comfort to me ;;;; and thank you for liking my stuff!!!! Means the world to me to hear it ;A; <3

Anon said: I miss your krbk sm 😔 No pressure intended!!!!!! I still love and support u and ur art!!!

Man I miss them too!!!!! @ hori when are you bringing my loves back from the war I’m here waiting good sir!!!

Anon said: v v curious on your thoughts on what’s currently going on in bnha manga :)))

HMMM what are my thoughts on it? Well, let’s split it in two: Deku’s side and Todoroki’s side, because that’s how it’s split in my brain atm, and allow me to start from the second because it’s easier to get through for me

I’m in love with everything Hori is doing with Todoroki and everyone involved with him - that’s to say his whole whole family and Hawks and Jeanist too, all of it, I’m so into it it’s no joke at all. Always been in love with how he handles Enji’s character and his interactions with his family and the latest developments didn’t disappoint me at all, wasn’t very much into Dabi right after the “reveal” but the more I think about it and about the story from his pov the more behind it I am, forever and always head over heels for Shouto’s way of dealing with a situation that’s as complex as one would expect from a protagonist of their very own story you could really make a manga out of the Todoroki’s family plot from Shouto’s pov alone, it’s incredible I can’t state how in love with it all I am enough. And Hawks, don’t make me start on him I’ll straight up never stop, absolutely and most definitely my favorite pro-hero I would trust him with my money and my kids 100/10 just assume I’m constantly crying over him. Also Jeanist is just hilarious so bless him and his presence in an otherwise too heavy story

Deku’s side........ well, the main problems I have with it are that one, I don’t really understant the need to keep ofa a secret from the class for the biggest part of the story when the reveal wasn’t forced upon Deku, didn’t have a huge impact on him or his relationship with the others (his leaving wasn’t directly caused by him coming clean after all, he wouldn’t have had to leave earlier had he not kept it a secret and he would have still left at this point had the class already known all along) and didn’t, like. Matter. All that much. Two, this manga is called my hero academia and I’m genuinely starting to wonder why. What was the point of all the arcs set inside the school anyway? Most of the characters growth (Deku’s especially) and the progression of the main plot happened in the arcs outside of the school anyway, and at this point it’s clear we’re not going back to the school after this or even seeing anyone graduate. What of Shinsou? What was the point of his plot when we’re not even gonna see him being active part of the class in a school environment? I’m just confused about it all, I guess. Three, which is really my biggest problem with it all, is the way Deku’s set on saving Shigaraki. It’s not like I don’t like a story in which all the villains are saved and the good guys win and love prevails and all that, call it corny but they’re exactly my type of stories, but I’m not sure I can get behind it when Twice died like that, and Midnight did as well, and Aizawa lost a leg, and Nighteye died, and Hawks might have lost his wings, and Shirakumo ended up Kurogiri and it’s still unclear whether he can be saved, like... why does Shigaraki get to be saved when so many people suffered like that? And it’s not only about them suffering by his hands, it’s about Hori and how he was ruthless with so many characters but lets the story show arbitrary kindness to Shigaraki alone, it’s all... well. Unfair. The way I see it. At this point I at the very least expect kindness for Touya as well, here.

That said if I pick the chapters one by one by themselves I do enjoy them very much. I just don’t gotta think about the big picture lmao AH but it’s all a personal opinion, of course! I know people who enjoy the way the story is going and I can see where they’re coming from, this is all arbitrary tastes and preferences on my part, I’m aware of it!

Anon said: Hi hi! I finally got into jjk AND finally caught up on the manga and i appreciate your doods soooo much more now!! They’re so great!! But imcurious, is there one specific moment in the story where you Gojo and Geto became IT for you? Just genuinely curious!!

THANK YOU happy to hear you liked jjk!!!! And that’s!!! a great question, I’m not sure I have an answer actually? I binged the manga in a day and a half, you see, and when I binge stuff that fast I rarely stop to overthink things - I did ship them as I read too since, well. They’re in love lmao but I shipped them in the same way I shipped itafushi or yuutoge after I read the prequel, you know? Just a general aknowledging of how good they were together. The main point with satosugu specifically was probably that satoru has been my favorite character since the beginning of the story and suguru got there as well as soon as I read their backstory, so once I was caught up they’re the ones I ended up spending the most time thinking about, both by themselves and together, and that ended up making me a bit obsessed..... just a bit lol

If I had to give one specific moment that got me by the heart and squeezed the hardest it’d be... probably Satoru’s “my soul knows otherwise”. And the way his voice alone could bring Suguru back, even for just a single moment. The thing about satosugu for me!!! one of the many things about them, but the main thing for me, is that they love each other. Be it platonic or however you wanna see it, they love each other. Despite everything and after it all, even if Satoru had to kill Suguru, even if Suguru killed so many and betrayed Satoru and they went their separate ways in the harshest of ways, they love each other. It’s insane, isn’t it? That they’d love each other so much they could pass over everything and anything. I’ve seen the “best friends become enemies” trope so often in shounen manga, but this is the first time I see it treated like this - with love so strong that they never blamed each other or turned that love in hate. The way satosugu do it is all-encompassing! It goes beyond the world and their differences and death itself! So if I had to pick it’d be that one, because that scene happens after it’s all over, and it all went to shit and way beyond too already, and still their souls resonate with each other and answer to each other and that sends me insane, just thinking about it. Like, god, they really still love each other. Satoru’s mourned for Suguru for a year, Suguru’s been dead for a year, they’d been separated ten whole years before then, and still! And still!!! It’s so tender I don’t know how to deal with it

Anon said: “What’s a god to a nonbeliever?”—That tag is going to haunt me for a while. The entire tag section for your latest Gojo and Geto drawing is meta-worthy.

THANK YOU it’d been eating at my brain I had to write it down somewhere why are those two like that

Anon said: Do you take commissions? No pressure! ✨❤��

Not right now!

Anon said: How do you feel about sukuna ? like/dislike or thoughts on him

AMAZING QUESTION I love him. I have absolutely zero clue as of why so don’t ask me to elaborate, I’m literally that marge pic with the potato when it’s about Sukuna, I have no meta thoughts about him nor deep reasonings behind it - by all accounts, I should dislike him! But he shows up and I’m like nghhh king, so that’s where we stand. It’s Sukuna, you know. I just think he’s neat.

Anon said: sighs time to get into another fandom bc i simp too hard for ur art 😔

HAH thank you for the trust I hope you’ll like ror if you do get into it!!! hahaha

#fran answers #oh two of these are Long #.....#long post #in case the readmore doesn't work for whatever reason

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cygnetofthesea · 3 years

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Welcome Home, Part 1: Élite Fanfiction

This fic was inspired and dedicated to @sweetpeony200 and the request for a Guznadia reunion in NYC. Thank you for the inspiration!! It’s not quite what was asked, so apologies for that! (Hopefully @jasminejc4525 writes her version 👀 ) The writing ran away from me and I couldn’t help but delve into Guzman’s psyche. I love doing character studies so this was a way for me to explore the complexities of Guzman’s mind and emotions. I hope to write a second part with more of their reunion, more of their present-day interaction the day Guzman arrives. Hope this part is still enjoyable until then! <3 Part of the Moments Series.

Guzman sat still with his eyes closed, the picture of calm if anyone looked over at him, but inside his was an anxious mess. He wasn't a nervous flyer by any means as he's gone on countless trips overseas throughout his short life, but this was no ordinary flight and he was no longer that ordinary boy.

This was the flight that was taking him toward the rest of his life.

The past few months without Nadia had been unbearable. He had known it was going to be difficult but he hadn't been prepared for the constant tightness that sat on his chest. The only thing that loosened it was Nadia, talking to her, face-timing her, texting her. Every time he saw her name or face on his screen, his chest swelled with elation instead of pain.

It was with Nadia's absence that Guzman was forced to confront the pain that haunted him from Marina and Polo's death. He felt that out-of-body experience all too often, every morning waking up to a sense of loss and confusion. His sister was dead, his best friend had murdered her, and now that best friend was murdered too. It was too much for him to comprehend, his mind twirling with the reality of it because it just didn't feel real, couldn't be real.

But it was.

Every time he looked in the mirror, he saw the ashen face that became almost unrecognizable to him. He didn't know how it was possible to be still standing in the wake of all this grief.

It was Nadia who had made him feel human, who had centered him, quelled the raging storm inside of him enough to feel alive. Her simple presence felt like a balm to his soul, brought peace to his mind and combated the pain, the incomprehensible thoughts as he tried to make sense of his life.

It was with her Guzman felt like he could deal with everything. She was the tether that brought him to life and snapped him back to reality. Guzman had always been intrigued by her, since the first moment he set eyes on her simply because of the utter calm and resolve she emitted.

She was this young girl of sixteen and yet he carried herself with a sense of resolve and strength that was unlike anything he had seen in even some adults. Even Lu, who he believed to be tough, wasn't anything like Nadia, didn't nearly compare because it was Lu's privilege that gave her that strength. She was born into a world where everything was handed to her, her every desire was at her fingertips, effortless.

But Nadia wasn't like that. Not by a long shot. She worked hard for everything, every single step she took was a battle for her because of her race, her religion, her gender, her socioeconomic standing. She had everything working against her and yet she weathered through it, pushing her way not by aggression or iniquitous means but with a quiet fierceness, a calm gait.

He had to admit, his attraction to her was instant. That had been quite unexpected in of itself and it caught him completely off guard, but it was undeniable. He was pulled in by her demeanor, completely and utterly intrigued by her. He wanted to unwrap her, metaphorically and literally. He wanted to uncover the complexities of her, what gave her that strength, what made her happy, what made her laugh. And then as soon as that thought entered his mind, he knew he needed to see it, to hear it.

What did Nadia Shana's laughter sound like? What did her smiling eyes look like? Particularly, what did her soft eyes and smile look like when it was directed at him? And when by some miracle he managed to achieve that smile, he was addicted, pulled even deeper into her. He was lost and in love before he even knew it was happening.

If he thought it was a miracle that he made her smile, he didn’t know what to call her falling in love with him, her actually wanting and agreeing to be with him. Perhaps it was some divine intervention. Perhaps God had decided that he finally earned her love, that he had suffered enough and deserved something beautiful and miraculous. That she was meant to be his savior all along. Nadia Shana saved so many simply by existing.

And now as the eight hour flight was coming to a close, he couldn’t believe he was going to be reunited with his miracle at long last. He felt like at any moment he would open his eyes and wake up in bed with a heavy heart full of longing and tired, wet eyes. He opens his eyes now at the thought, wanting to get the disappointment over with, but instead of finding himself in bed, he’s met with the sign that reads Fasten Seat belt.

It flashes red just as a ding overhead sounds.

“Attention passengers, we are now approaching JFK airport. Please fasten your seat belt in preparation for the descent. Thank you for flying Air Eropa, we hope you had a pleasant trip.”

Guzman takes a deep breath, his sweaty hands immediately fastening his seatbelt. His heart is racing in anticipation and impatience. His leg bounces erratically as he looks out the window as though somehow he’d be able to spot Nadia from such great heights. He’s momentarily distracted by the view but soon wonders if Nadia was already waiting for him or perhaps she was still on her way.

He switches out the SIM card from his phone for the one Nadia had mailed him a week before so that he could call her as soon as he landed. He remembered the day he saw it in their mailbox. He knew to expect because Nadia had already given him the heads up, they had been making all the arrangements for weeks at that point, but he wasn’t any less excited when he saw it.

He had torn through the package that had her neat handwriting on it and wanted to immediately switch out the SIM cards but she had teased him it wouldn’t work.

“An American SIM isn’t going to do you much good in Madrid,” Nadia had giggled.

Guzman shrugged with a tilt of his head. “I know but I’m excited. I feel like I’m one step closer to you and I can’t wait until you’re in my arms.”

She had looked at him softly, a wistful smile on her face. “I know what you mean. I can’t wait either.”

Before he knows it, the plane lands and Guzman is out of his seat and grabbing his carry-on in record speed. His strides are long and fast and he feels like he’s practically flying at the rate he’s going. He can’t see anything in his periphery, his eyes ahead and only looking around to make sure he’s going to the right place.

He calls her as soon as he can, finally putting the new SIM card to use. The phone rings for a long and excruciating minute. His heart begins to sink when he hears the click on her beautiful voice on the other end.

“Guzman,” she says breathlessly as though she had been running. “Are you here? I just saw your flight landed.”

His stomach does a somersault, a beaming smile across his face. “Yeah, I just picked up my suitcase. Are you here?”

Nadia lets out an astonished laugh. “You’re really here? Where?”

Guzman looks around. “I’m by the Emirates line, where it says terminal 7.”

“I’m looking for you.”

His heart gallops in his chest and he sounds winded when he asks, “You’re here?”

“When you say ‘here’ you better mean JFK airport because that’s where I am now.”

Guzman spins in place, one hand on his suitcase and the other pressing his phone tightly to his ear. He can hear his own heavy breath loud in his ear.

“Yes, this is definitely JFK airport,” he laughs, looking at the crowd. He even spots a film crew on the other side and remembers how Nadia said it was a popular site for tv shows and films. That was probably why it was especially crowded and hard to see around the bodies.

Nadia lets out her own excited laugh. “I see you! You’re wearing your green jacket, the one with the orange lining inside, the one I gave you.”

The excitement mounts inside of him, he feels like his heart would either burst out of him or he would throw up right then.

“Yes! Yes, I’m wearing your jacket. You can see me? Where are you?”

“I’m coming toward you. Turn around.”

He whirls around and there she was, his eyes immediately finding her. It was as though time had stopped and everything, everybody had ceased to exist and there was only her. Nadia, Nadia, Nadia….

In every scenario he imagined, he had run toward her. No matter how wild his imagination, In every single version of his reunion with her, there was running involved: he’d see her as soon as he got off the plane, waiting for him at the tarmac and he’d run to her, their eyes would meet across the the luggage pick-up and he’d jump across and run to her, they’d see each other across the airport and run to each other, colliding until they fell to the ground.

But here, in this moment now, he was stunned. He wasn’t prepared for the breadth of her beauty so close to him, just mere steps away. It was almost overwhelming, his senses anticipating her, his mind unable to comprehend that she was here, that in just moments he would be able to not only hear and see her but actually touch her, smell her, feel her, kiss her...even make love to her if she was so inclined.

His arm falls to his side, limply holding his phone and his breath is caught in his throat as he stares at her in awe. She felt like a mirage but her sparkling eyes are drawing closer, closing the distance between them. She stops just inches away from him, a soft, achingly beautiful smile on her face that he feels his chest hurt at the sight.

She’s the first one to speak. “Hey.”

And just like that, he’s snapped back to reality, the emotions falling over him in one fell sweep that he feels like he’d buckle under the weight but instead he pulls her into his arms, holding onto her to tether him.

“Nadia.” His voice comes out in a choked sob and it’s only then he realizes that he’s crying.

He feels her warm body against him, soft and familiar and he finally feels what he’s been missing all along: home.

He wraps his arms around her tightly, encasing her and holding her close as though trying to meld their bodies together.

“Nadia.”

“Guzman.”

He buries his face in her neck, feeling the coolness of her silk hijab and the warmth from her skin simultaneously, the sensation so familiar and glorious he can’t help leaning heavily against her.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he croaks.

“I’ve missed you too.”

He pulls back slightly and catches her glittering eyes. She lets out a wet chuckle and wipes his cheeks with both hands. “I’ve missed this face.”

She leans in and kisses his damp skin and his eyes flutter close as he kisses his eyes next, basking in her touch even as it makes him breathless.

“Oh god, I love you.”

He lets out a ragged breath and pulls her lips to his before she can even respond, unable to hold off any longer. He needs to feel her, taste her and god, does she taste divine. He doesn’t mean to get carried away but the full weight of reality hits him: she’s really here in his arms, he’s not going to wake up because this isn’t a dream.

He kisses her hard, cupping the back of her head as it leans back against the force of his lips. His tongue slides against her desperately again and again, needing to breathe her in, needing her taste to fill him up because he has been hungry for so long, starving for her touch and he can’t get enough.

He wants to slide his lips against more skin, find the soft spot behind her ear that he knows makes her weak, before sliding down her throat, his tongue tracing the skin there. He wants to grip her until her clothes fall away and there’s nothing left but her skin against his.

He’s so desperate for her he feels he could weep and almost does when she pulls away with a gasp. He chases her lips with a soft whine at the back of his throat. “Nadia,” he pants, looking at her with hooded eyes.

Her eyes are just as intense but with a shyness that he certainly didn’t have. He had no qualms showing all his love for her for the world to see.

She slides her hand down to his chest to halt any further movement with a soft smile. “I love you too. Let’s go home,” she says.

And he wants to pull her in again, the word home echoing inside him, his body filling with elation. Home, he was home now, with her. He swallows thickly and nods against her. It takes a herculean effort to pull away from her but even then, he pulls away just enough to gather up his large suitcase that had fallen in his haste to embrace Nadia. He keeps an arm firmly around her, plastering her to him.

Nadia giggles at the gesture, shaking her head even as she stands on her tiptoes to kiss his jaw. “Is this all you brought with you? I was expecting more.”

“No, I just brought the essentials and figured Mama can ship the rest as I need them. Plus, I can always get new things here.”

“How was your flight?” She tries to reach for his carry-on. “Here, let me hold that for you, at least. You must be tired.”

“It’s ok, I’m not tired,” he says, looking at her with a soft smile. He was still reeling but he hooks the carry-on to the suitcase and pulls them forward, keeping his arm tight around her. “How did you get here?”

Her smile turns coy as she looks up at him. This time, she was the one dragging him forward eagerly. “It’s a surprise. Come on!”

She drags him along by the hand, practically skipping with excitement that he can’t help laughing with her. They make it out of the airport and immediately he’s bombarded with noise. He’s not unfamiliar with city life being from Madrid and visiting Barcelona often, but the noise here certainly felt different somehow. People chattering in so many different languages, cars honking, loved ones greeting each other with shouts and squeals.

He barely has time to register it all when Nadia expertly weaves him past the people and cars, crossing what looked like an island to get to a parking lot. He glances behind them at the long line of taxis waiting in a line, confused.

“Isn’t that where we’re supposed to wait for the taxi?”

But Nadia says nothing, simply squeezing his hand and continuing her trek to the parking lot.

“Is there a special taxi here?” he asks.

“Oh I can’t wait to see how this city is going to test your patience,” she says in amusement.

They finally stop in front of a grey jeep, clearly an older model but still in relatively good shape. Guzman looks at it, noting that it had been recently cleaned, a shiny gleam to the impeccable paint job. He peers inside and sees it’s neat and tidy in there with soft-looking seats and a backpack in the back seat.

He looks back at Nadia. “What’s this? Is this our uber? Where’s the driver?”

He’s looking around as though the driver was going to stride up any second when Nadia lets go of his hand and heads toward the trunk. She pops open the trunk and looks at him expectantly.

“What, am I going to be your bellhop and your driver? Get your suitcase in here.”

Guzman looks at her stunned, not comprehending what she was implying. He looks between her smug face and the car with new eyes. He points at the car and lets out an astonished laugh.

“This is yours? How?”

Nadia shrugs, dusting off invisible dust from her shoulders with a wink. “I bought it.”

His eyes bug. “But, you don’t even drive?”

She brandishes a card out to him, seemingly from out of nowhere. “I do now.”

He takes the card from her and looks at it in awe, seeing her name, birthday, and picture on it, confirming that Nadia, indeed, could drive. At least according to the state of New York and if his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

“Holy shit,” he laughs. He grabs her up into a hug, lifting her off the ground. “Congratulations, baby, I’m so proud of you! You never said anything when we spoke.”

She returns his happy kiss when he sets her back down. “I wanted to surprise you. Plus, I’d have been embarrassed if I ended up not passing so I didn’t want to get both of our hopes up.”

He shakes his head lovingly at her, placing more quick kisses to her mouth. “Nadia, I’d never be disappointed in you. I’d have been proud of you simply for trying.”

She kisses his nose. “I know you would and I love you all the more for it. I just wanted to surprise you and see the look on your face just now? Worth it.”

“Holy shit,” he says again, in awe. “I can’t believe you managed all this on top of everything else. I mean, I can, but I can’t comprehend how. And the car, I thought money was tight?”

Nadia shrugs. “It’s not the easiest, but I’ve been saving up well before Columbia even happened. I always wanted a car and I always thought college would be the best time to get one, in case I ended up somewhere near home and needed to commute.”

“Wow” He shakes his head again, this time with a dull ache in his chest. All these months Nadia had been painstakingly saving her hard-earned money not just for school but for freedom, she had been studying for her permit, took her test, passed, took driving lessons and then passed that too. All of this had been happening and he had no clue.

He knew she wasn’t trying to keep him out of the loop intentionally and his heart warmed at the thought of her wanting to surprise him but it made him realize once again how different they were. Not for the first time he wondered what she even saw in him. Would she ever wake up and realize that she could do better than him? Selfishly he prayed that she didn’t.

“You’re amazing,” he says. “So my suitcase can fit in here?”

She scoffs, “Please, it can fit at least three of the same size,” she calculates. She jumps in place and gestures to the open trunk. “Come on, stick it in there! Or do you want to check out more of this parking lot?”

Guzman pretends to look around. “Is a carnival going to pop up somewhere? I’ve heard they do that here.”

Nadia rolls her eyes and shoves him playfully. He catches her hand in his keeping her from pulling away completely. “Someone’s eager to get me home.”

“And someone’s not?” she challenges, sending him a coy look.

Immediately Guzman throws his suitcase inside haphazardly and slams the trunk shut. “What are we waiting for? I just had a long flight.”

He shuffles Nadia urgently to the driver's side, her laughter filing his ears pleasantly. He smooches kisses to her cheek as he helps her in before running around to the passenger side.

The drive is long and somehow short all at the same time. Perhaps Guzman hadn’t yet become jaded from the New York City traffic and he was too amused with Nadia’s bouts of road rage to notice how long they sat on the road.

“Did you see that idiot? You’re supposed to signal, how do you pass the driver’s test when you don’t even signal?” She mutters under her breath but he hears her anyway.

He stares at her in bliss for a moment, watching her practiced movements. He’s never seen her drive before. He remembers the one failed attempt at teaching her on one of their dates but she had gotten too nervous with all the functions in his car.

“Why are there so many buttons, where do I put the key?” she had asked nervously, looking around.

“This car doesn’t need a key. See here? You put your foot on the gas and then push the button?”

She had whipped around to look at him with wide eyes. “What?!”

“Surely this isn’t the first time you heard of an automatic car?” he asked in amusement.

“Well no but I guess we haven’t been in your car a whole lot for me to notice. I don’t know about this Guzman.”

“You’re going to be fine,” he soothed. “Press your foot on the gas lightly and then push the button.”

She does so hesitantly and oh so carefully that it’s a shock to both of them when the car roars to life. “No! No, I don’t want to do this anymore, Guzman. Turn it off, make it stop!”

He tried to muffle his laughter as he put a soothing hand to the back of her neck and pushed the engine button so it quieted down once more.

“That couldn’t have been so scary,” he told her, rubbing his thumb against her skin all the while. He couldn’t help teasing her because she looked so cute but he didn’t want to freak her out either.

“Um it was and I don’t want to do it again.” She moves to get out of the car before freezing in place as though it was going to blow up with the slightest movement. “It’s off, right?”

“Yes, it’s off.”

He had barely gotten the rest of the words out before she bolted out.

That had been the first and last attempt at teaching Nadia how to drive, but looking at her now, he wouldn’t have believed she had been petrified at the thought of it just six months ago.

He wants to continue staring at Nadia but she pushes his face to look out the windshield. “You’ll have plenty of time to look at me until you get sick of my face, check out the sights.”

He obediently keeps his face forward but glances at her from the corner of his eyes. “I’ll never get sick of your face.”

But he does finally comply and takes in his surroundings, after all, this was going to be his new home. He has to admit, the pictures don't do New York City justice. He remembers seeing pictures and even videos of the highly populated city, cars stuck in traffic, people walking carelessly across the street, but nothing is quite like being in the midst of it. He is now among those people in the photos and it felt so surreal.

It was hard to fathom that just a year ago, he had no idea what his future would look like. Had anyone asked him then, he’d have shrugged carelessly and likely joked about sitting on a beach or even sailing in the Balearic Sea or something. But never taking in the sun from New York City and certainly not with the love of his life. He knows he’s supposed to look around and be the wide-eyed tourist, and he will be, but at the moment, all he wants to do is look at the love of his life.

He tries to be subtle about it, leaning his head back and letting it lol in her direction. He does catch sights of the bridge and the gorgeous water gleaming under the bright sunlight, but he’s more entranced by how the sun makes her look ethereal, almost unreal. Guzman was a man of God so there were moments where he wondered if Nadia was an angel meant to guide him through light.

But then he’d really look at her, look past the beauty that rendered him speechless, and look at the person she was. She was more than a miracle, she was a person with her own hopes and dreams and he’d do everything in his power to ensure she achieves them.

Nadia somehow weaves through the bustling roads, carefully and patiently, now that they had left what was the main freeway. They seemed to have reached an area that she was more familiar with and as he paid attention once more to the world outside, he realized it’s vaguely familiar to him too. Nadia had taken pictures on some of these roads and sent them to him, even taking quick little videos to show him the madness that would take place on the streets. They must be getting closer to her apartment—their apartment.

He looks out the window, up at the tall building before it’s obscured from view as Nadia pulls into an underground parking space. He feels a little breathless suddenly, reality hitting him once more. This new, strange, and unfamiliar place would be his home now for the foreseeable future. All the things that he knew and was familiar with, the grocery stores, the arcades, the beaches, everything he once knew was gone. Well, not gone exactly, but would become a distant memory as he made new ones in a new place.

There’s a small ache in his chest, a sense of homesickness but more for the innocence of youth. But as he thinks about his future with Nadia, the ache eases and he’s filled with hope and endless possibilities. He once believed he could do anything he wanted but it was more due to an ignorant cockiness he had, born from privilege. Now, though, he knew that the possibilities only existed because of Nadia. Because she was by his side, Guzman felt like he was capable and worthy enough to deserve a beautiful future.

He looks over to her with a smile, “Is this it? Is this the apartment?”

“Our apartment,” she corrects and he feels like his chest would burst. “But yes, we’re here. Welcome home, Guzman.”

#Guznadia #Nuzman #Guzman x Nadia #Nadia x Guzman #Elite #Netflix Élite #cygnetofthesea graphics #cygnetofthesea writings #cygnetofthesea edits

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ffangirlingsince2001 · 4 years

Text

End of the Tunnel: I

Description: It’s almost been a year since Freed Weasley was lost to the Battle of Hogwarts, and for George Weasley it might as well be an eternity. He is lost in the dark, no color to be found. Until suddenly there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Warnings: (future as well as present) suicidal thoughts, smut, angst, fluff, depression, attempted SUICIDE, self harm, torture, mentions of torture

A/N: So, this is pretty dark, just FYI. There will be happy moments but a lot of the time it will get pretty dark. Trigger warning applies now, just be forewarned. Please enjoy though if you are willing to suffer through the tragedy to get to the light at the end of the tunnel.

MASTERLIST

***

The world ended on May 2, 1998.

At least it did for George Weasley.

He was not dead, of course. His mother and father still loved him. Bill, Charlie, Percy, Ron, and Ginny all still hugged him. His business was doing splendid, far better than it ever had before the war, Ron was even helping him run it. And yet, the world felt as if it no longer turned because Fred was gone and that was all that really mattered.

May 2 had been awful, but the funeral was even worse. Friends, family, and strangers wanting nothing more than to hug him or shake his hand when all he wanted to do was destroy everything that touched him. He hadn’t shed any tears that day. He figured he was all out, but now that he considered it, he was sure he had just grown numb.

He had never had a problem smiling before, and even in the winter he was constantly warm, denying every coat his mother sent his way. And now, he was sure he had forgotten how to smile and even in the hottest part of July he wore a sweater, fighting off the chills that ran along his spine.

His mother had pleaded with him to go to therapy, to talk to someone about the tragedy but he had refused. There was nothing a therapist could tell him that he didn’t already know.

He knew he was depressed; he knew Fred was never coming back, and he knew he needed to move forward. He had no interest in reliving the moments when he had witnessed the cold lifeless body of his twin lying on the floor of the school they had once attended. All he wanted to do was the lock the door to his new flat and never come out. He had considered returning to his home above the shop but every time he thought of the memories he had built there his stomach churned and before he knew it he was emptying the contents of his stomach into the nearest sink. So, he gave it to Ron and Hermione and bought himself a smaller one.

He was laying in the bed that occupied most of the studio flat, thinking about the day he moved in as he struggled to get up. The walls were grey, and the bedsheets were white. He hadn’t bothered to buy curtains, so the dingy light of the cloudy morning was highlighting the dust he had let build up over the months. No pictures hung on the walls; no Knick knacks sat on the shelves. Dishes were piling up from the last spout of motivation, not that he ate a whole lot these days. Most importantly, there were no mirrors. He had ripped the bathroom one from the wall and shattered it in the street the moment he moved in, completely satisfied with giving up his security deposit for a little bit of sanity. His world was completely colorless. His skin was pale and the warmth that had generally resided in his face had seeped away like water from a washcloth. In fact, the only color one could find in the small room was his hair, shining just as brightly as it had the day the world ended.

He had dyed it once. A dark brown, the most boring color he could think of, but the moment his mother had seen it she burst into tears and begrudgingly changed it back, if only to avoid the dirty looks that Ginny shot him through the very uncomfortable family dinner.

Today was the first of March, and George could feel the anniversary of Fred’s death drawing nearer with every movement of his body. His muscles ached and his bones creaked like an old rocking chair no one had touched in a century.

As he laid there he considered never getting up, but eventually with great effort he pulled himself from the cold sheets and pulled on the dullest clothing he owned. A grey tailcoat covered a white button up and black slacks, severely pressed hung a bit short over his ankles. The shoes were so old they no longer shined. He didn’t bother brushing his hair, sure that the howling wind would mess it up anyway.

He left the door without eating breakfast and turned down the street in the opposite direction of the store. He couldn’t bare to go to work today, and Ron could handle it.

Ron had gotten a lot better at handling it.

He was right about the wind, it battled against him like it was trying to force him to go to work, but he pushed on, determined to spend his day in miserable loneliness. Somedays he imagined Fred was screaming at him from the clouds, telling him to stop being a git and move on with his life, but he had never been good at taking orders. So, without any regard for the signs of the universe he continued to push on, wrapping his arms around himself as he tried to keep warm.

In honor of his mood, it began to pour and before he knew it, he was drenched to the bone, the neat he clothes he had donned pressing tightly against this skin. By now he was in a muggle town he had never been to. The streets were completely empty, no one wanting to get caught in the torrential downpour.

He was going to turn around, go home if not to work, when he heard a voice shouting through a roll of thunder. He glanced around, searching for the source, and was met with the sight of a woman hailing him towards her store. He looked behind him, checking for someone else, when he heard a sharp laugh.

“I’m talking to you, silly. Now, come in before you catch a cold,” she called, stepping into the rain to usher him closer. He walked quickly, ducking through the doorway as he followed her inside. He watched as she shoved the door closed against the atrocious wind, the bell jingling ferociously overhead. When she had succeeded, deadbolting it for good measure she turned to face him. She wrung out her blonde hair as she studied him with bright eyes (they reminded him an awful lot of what his used to look like). “What on earth are you doing out in this weather?” she laughed, and he shrugged, unsure of how to approach the situation. He had not been met with such glee in an exceptionally long time. When he didn’t respond he smile faded and concern rested heavy on her shoulders. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t think so,” he muttered, and she nodded.

“Then I think you need a drink.” She ushered him to barstool and disappeared behind the counter. “Butterbeer or tap?” His eyes snapped to her when she mentioned the magical drink. “Butterbeer then.”

“You’re a witch?” he blurted, and she laughed, shaking her head.

“Oh no, but I know my customers, and you are clearly a wizard.”

“How can you tell?”

“The wand in your tailcoat.” He glanced down and sure enough, a faint outline of his wand was visible against the fabric. “No need to obliviate me though, I’m no snitch. I’ve had all types in this little pub of mine, vampires, werewolves after a particularly bad night, wizards, what you call muggles, I’ve even had a couple goblins gamble in my back room, no bias here.” He didn’t say anything as she twittered on, setting the mug in front of him and leaning on her elbows as she took him in with earnest curiosity. A few minutes of silence before she spoke again. “Do you want to talk about it, that’s what bartenders are for to hear all your tragedies while you drown them in the best liquor we have?”

“Who are you?”

“Hannah Gladdis. And you are?”

“George Weasley.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen, twenty in June. You?”

“Twenty-one in April. How’d you come to own a magical bar at nineteen?”

“It was a tragic thing really, last year the owner died in a war with your sort. I was a waitress then, but he left it to me in his will, so now it’s all mine. Honestly, I’m surprised I survived long enough to own it, luck I guess.”

“What happened?”

“These men in masks came and tore the place apart looking for the owner, shouting something about blood traitors, but he wasn’t in. It was just me, hiding right behind this counter praying that they wouldn’t find me.”

“Did they?”

“Yes,” she whispered, fear creeping into her eyes as she thought about the night she was describing to him. “They used two spells. One made me feel like I was on fire and the other made me bleed, I can barely remember it. The whole thing was awful, by the time they were sure I didn’t know I could barely move. They set the place on fire and left me to die, still hunting for him, I guess since he’s dead now. Somehow someone saved me, I don’t even remember them but they must have performed a counter curse because I got out with only a few scars, but you would know all about those,” she said noting his missing ear. “Were you in the war?”

“Right in the center of it. Do you have any firewhiskey?” She nodded and dropped beneath the counter and pulled out the familiar bottle.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“How do you know I lost anyone?” he growled, and she offered him a sad smile.

“I lost friends and I’m not even a witch, I figured a hero right in the center of it wouldn’t come out unscathed. Also you’re missing an ear.” He grunted and threw back the shot of liquor she had poured. “You won though?”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way,” he mumbled, and she nodded, taking one of his hands into hers. He watched her hands cradle his as if he were the fragile one, but he could see the scars that were etched into her fingers. He ran is thumb along one of the more prominent ones. When he glanced up, she was biting her lip, eyes focused on the thumb that was stroking the harsh scar. He whispered her name, but she didn’t move. He said it again and this time her eyes met his. He wanted to say they were blue, but that didn’t seem quite right. Her dark eyelashes were hanging heavily over them, casting shadows into the two small pools of ocean that stared back at him. He was going to say something more, let the light buzz from the liquor take control and pull her against him, but she moved away before he could. With an awkward laugh she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and pulled herself a shot, downing it just as quickly.

“It’s not even noon,” she laughed to herself and he shrugged.

“I’ve been drunk before noon before, nothing to ashamed of.”

“Isn’t that a sign of alcoholism?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard of before.” He flashed her a tight, unpracticed smile that made his heart cringe against his ribs but it seemed to work. Pink washed over her cheeks and she was quick to busy herself among the empty glasses, searching for one to clean.

“So, what’s someone like you wandering the streets during a downpour?”

“Escaping.”

“By catching a cold?”

“Or something like that.” She laughed awkwardly, running a damp washrag over the top of the bar, avoiding eye contact at all costs, and it was killing him. He wanted to look into her eyes all day. He had to think of something, do something, say something that would draw her back.

“Why didn’t the Ministry take your memories?” he asked, and then silently cursed himself. Out of all the topics he could have chosen, he chose the one that terrified her. He hadn’t spoken to a stranger so domestically in such a long time it seemed he was out of practice.

“They don’t know, as far as I know they don’t even know I exist. And I would like to keep it that way if you don’t mind.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to forget?”

“To forget what?”

“All that pain and fear.”

“I considered it at first, but then I decided it was better to know what was coming then feel broken all over again.”

“No one is going to hurt you like that again,” he growled, far more aggressively than he had intended and she laugh, taking his hand and finally allowing their eyes to meet once more. She didn’t seem scared when she looked at him, it was if she almost wanted to believe him. She really seemed to believe the idea he could chase away her nightmares. He knew he would disappoint; he could barely chase away his own.

“You sound so sure, George, but alas, you won’t always be sitting in my little bar to protect me.”

“Then come home with me.”

She was shocked to say the least, at least that’s what her eyes said.

“I barely know you.”

“Then get to know me.”

“I’m working.”

“You said it yourself, no one is out in this rainstorm.” He sauntered towards the window and flipped the sign around and locked the door. “And anyways, it seems you’re closed.” She studied him closely, and he was acutely aware that she was still holding his hand. Finally, she nodded and for the first time in ten months his heart jolted with joy. He spun her around the bar and caught her in his arms. “Ready?”

“For what?” she began to ask but they were already gone, whipping through the air as he apparated them to the small flat.

She was laughing when they landed, clutching her stomach as she tried to catch her breath.

“My god, that was exhilarating,” she gasped. She was still holding his hand, tighter than ever. He watched her as she looked around and cursed himself for not keeping the place cleaner. “I like your place.” He was sure she was lying; it was so dull and lifeless it was almost a prison cell. The counters were dirty, and the trashcan was overflowing. “It could use a little color, but maybe that’s the beauty of it. I can never decide how to decorate so I’m constantly having to remodel, this way I can just close my eyes and imagine the walls orange.”

“Orange?”

“Or maybe a soft teal, I don’t know, it depends on my mood.” He caught him smiling again for the second time on the day he woke up feeling like death. She was like a ball of sunshine and she was standing in the little place he called home. For the first time since he had been born, he found himself wishing his home was bigger. Even when he was a kid he had never cared, but now that there was someone he was dying to impress he wished he owned the minster’s mansion.

“It’s not much…”

“It’s lovely.” Color tinged his cheeks and now it was his turn to busy himself in the kitchen.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Oh, yes, why thank you,” she said as she glanced out the window, “What part of town are we in?”

“Just on the edge of Diagon Alley.”

“Oh really! I’ve always wanted to come; I’ve heard it’s absolutely beautiful. Wow, a real wizard town. Is it true what they say about Hogsmeade?”

“It depends on what they say,” he chuckled, bathing in her excitement. It was a welcome tone, something he had not felt since months before the end of the world.

“That it’s absolutely picturesque. Someone showed me a post card once, and I called her a liar, told her nothing but a painting could be that beautiful, but she assured me it was all true.”

“She wasn’t lying, if you want, I’ll take you sometime.”

“Wow, not even a first date and you’re already promising to whisk me off to some beautiful village in the countryside.” He blushed when he realized what he had said, abashed that this woman had gotten into his head so quickly. He had never been so infatuated with anything. He turned quickly, spilling hot tea over the side of his hand, but he barely even noticed. Her eyes were big and blue as she stared at him, cheeks pink and lips parted. “George…” she began but the teacups hadn’t even hit the ground when he was taking her into his arms and kissing her as softly as his feelings would allow.

She tasted like Christmas. Cinnamon from the firewhiskey and butterscotch from the beer tainted her lips like frosting on cake he had only eaten in a distant memory. He wanted to throw her to his bed and devour her, experience every inch she would allow him, but her tentative fingers stopped him. He was stranger who had apparated her to his flat in a place she did not know, and now he was doing everything in his power to ravish her like the goddess she appeared to be.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pulling away as far as he dared. He was not sure he would ever be able to be far from her again, not when he knew how wonderful she was. She stepped forward, still hesitant, and cupped his cheek in her hand.

“No, don’t be. That was brilliant.”

“Then would you mind if I did it again?” She laughed and leapt into his arms, pressing her lips against his. He had never understood people comparing others to home, but as he wrapped his arms around her and he felt her fingers unbuttoning his shirt as fast as she could manage. His hands dropped to the hem of her shirt, prepared to pull it off and admire her entirety but she jerked back. He stopped immediately, pulling away as he searched her face for what he had done wrong. She wasn’t looking at him again, eyes crossed over her chest as she shuffled her feet.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled and he shook his head, taking her cheek in his hand.

“Don’t be. Tell me what you want. If it’s nothing then we’ll do nothing,” he whispered and with tentative fingers she brushed the place where is ear had once been. He wanted to pull away, but he didn’t dare, not when she looked like she was going to break.

“Very few survived your war without scars, even us muggles.” She pulled her hand away and took a deep breath before pulling her shirt over her head. He watched it hit the ground before trailing his gaze over her skin. She hadn’t lied. Scars were etched across skin that had once been soft. They were harsh and angry, still red after what he had assumed was months of healing. Silence crept into the room as he stared, anger coursing through his veins as he imagined the kind of pain that had caused these scars. “Say something,” she whispered, words catching in her throat.

“If I ever find who did this to you, I will not hesitate to kill them,” he growled and she let out a short laugh. “I’m not kidding.” She leaned up and kissed him softly, gratitude laced in every touch. He pulled her closer, fingers trailing the scars that plagued her. They tipped into his bed with unexpected grace, laughing between kisses. Quick fingers undid his pants and he followed suit, exposing soft skin raked with more scars. She didn’t pull away anymore, in fact he was sure she was trying to get closer than possible. Her legs pressed against his hips as her fingers explored every inch of skin. He flipped them over, admiring her against the bedsheets, blonde hair spread out like a halo. He leaned down and kissed her softly as she giggled against his lips.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered before he could stop himself and with all seriousness she nodded.

“Not in a thousand years.”

#george weasley imagine #george weasley x reader #george weasley fanfiction #george weasley #george weasley smut #george weasley fluff #george weasley angst #george weasley x reader smut #george weasley x reader angst #george weasley x reader fluff #george weasley fanfic #george weasley x reader fanfiction #end of the tunnel

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marvelstarker-mha98 · 3 years

Text

Khr book 1: the life of our abandoned sky chapter 1: Abandoned, leaving and the new sky

Vongola mansion/Italy/ may 15 20xx

It was night at the Vongola mansion, piles of paperwork were sitting on the desk, half finished in the office and a familiar figure laying down on a couch, rubbing his salty tears out of his eyes andlooking up at the ceiling with a sad and lonely look in his face.

W-why why does it have to happen? He said with a breaking and lonely voice for that, he was hurt, shattering and falling on the inside. There is one reason for why he was like that.

He actually killed someone.

Flashback (november 18, 20xx)

34 members from a mysterious and unknown Famiglia that he never heard of were surrounding him and keeping him from escaping. With one drop of sweat rolling down his face, his eyes widened with shock and surprise. All of his guardians except his two mists guardians who were out of on a mission, collapsed (as they were knocked out when he was about to call them to see if there was someone who is intruding the mansion)

A mysterious man by the name of "Tino" with black reflecting sunglasses that covers his eyes has one hand holding Lambo's head who also got knocked out and the other hand with a gun straight on the side of Lambo's head.

''Surrender Vongola Decimo or else this brat of yours dies and your precious guardians will also die with him!'' shouted and smirk out of Tino.

"No don't do it! Why can't we be allies and not ene-"Tsuna breathed out desperately but Tino cut him off? "We aren't fooling around, Kid! This is an order from our boss. Surrender and he lives and if you don't his brains will get blown out!"

"Let him go, you bastard! He's just only 9!" Tsuna screamed with anger at him.

"I rather not, I'll just shoot this brat if you don't surrender, Vongola Decimo!" Tinos's finger slowly tightened on the trigger.

"No, He's just a child and part of my family, He's just too young and he has a whole life ahead of him. I won't let you kill my brother!"

Tsuna's flames appeared and he flew really fast, reappeared right in front of Tino. Before tino could even blink, Tsuna then plunged his right glove into Tinos's chest and he died with a stunned look on his face and his hand letting go of the gun. Tsuna pulls out his blood splattered hand and he kicked Tino straight into Tino's men.

Tsuna's gloves were covered in blood as it was dripping on the floor. The mafioso was completely shocked for a minute then they roared and headed straight for the Vongola Boss.

Few minutes later all was quiet, the air was smelled like blood and all Mafioso's bodies were sprawled all across the floor not a single one was breathing or moving. 34 people were all killed by him. Tsuna then looked at the other side looking at his guardians(who are now all awake). Then he walked to Lambo and the rest of his guardians.

Are you guys all right?" Tsuna said to them in a small soft voice and they looked at him with a shock and numb faces. Tsuna looked at them as if they're confused and scared. Then he turned around and looked at Lambo.

"Lambo, Are you okay, are you hurt?"

"Stay away from me, you hearthless monster!" Lambo shouted as he crawled backwards away from him while his tears are falling down in his eyes then he ran away.

"Wait Lambo, let me explain! " Tsuna shouted as his hands reached out for him but it was too late Lambo was already gone. As Lambo disappeared from him, his guardian stood up. tsuna took one step forward but his precious guardians took one step back.

"stay back, you're not the tsuna that we know! Yamamoto shouted at him making as tsuna looked at him with disbelief.

"what do mean yamamoto...i'm tsuna your best friend...you know that right! tsuna said to him with pleaded look.

"But the jyuudaime that we know would never kill anyone!" Gokudera told to him as tsuna looked at him with with widened eyes.

"But I only did it because..."

"Save it for your excuses, you good for nothing killer." Hibari said to him making Tsuna's eyes widened again.

Flashback end

It had been 6 months since Tsuna had his first kill and people like the arcobaleno, Dino, byakuran and his allies understood what he did for the sake for saving his family but most of his guardians didn't, they just avoid and left him with fear. He was also being called "a monster" by lightning guardian whose like a little brother to him and part of the Vongola Famiglia.

They said they're going to assassinate his guardians, his friends. Friends that he wanted to protect and treasured them the most in his life. But sadly, his friends turned away from him and refused to face to him. Some would leave the Vongola mansion just for an excuse of not seeing him.

But sometimes, Tsuna would have a comfort presence with Kyouta (the who is the little sister of a certain cloud guardian) and I-pin. But their comforting presence was soon broken by most of his guardians, even Lambo.

The worst part, Tsuna wasn't getting enough sleep. His dreams had turned into a worst nightmare, about him being showered by blood that covered his hands, but not with his own blood but the blood of another. With no rest in his office (due too many paper works and most of his guardians' paper works) skipping meals, not sleeping properly but just crying in his sleep.

But seeing him suffering that even Reborn had trouble seeing (also for Dino and his female mist guardian). Yup, you read that right, Chrome is the only one that never abandoned him even though she wasn't there during that fateful day.

Flashback (november, 26)

It's been one week since most of his guardians abandoned him after that fateful day, Tsuna sigh painfully as he set down his pen on his desk and looked at many paper works, sitting in neat piles, half completely finished.

Until the door of his office was suddenly opened and notice his female mists guardian (who got back from her mission) and saw him seeing his eyes red with dark circles under them, clearly crying from sleepless nights.

The female mist walks towards him and hug him that makes Tsuna widened his eyes and said.

"Chrome?"

"It's ok bossu, I know what happened, you were just only protecting them from getting killed. " As Chrome let go of the hug and look at him with a sad eyes.

"How did you know, did Reborn inform you or the oth..?" Tsuna was about to finish, but chrome cut him off and finally said

"No, they didn't inform us even that sun arcobaleno''.

Then how did you find out, then?

"You don't need to know about how I know But right now you need take a break from this paperwork." chrome said.

"Why are you helping me, I'm a killer aren't I?" Tsuna said while he looked down with his eyes covered by his hair.

"You're not a killer you only did it just protect them and I'm helping you because I cared about you and I know how you feel if I saved someone that I really cared about from being killed even though it cost me my own life and I'm not going to abandoned you like the others did. so I'm going to be here for you, bossu, no matter what." Tsuna stared up at her as he felt tears on his eyes and rubbed it without letting his mist guardian see him crying but chrome already seen him cry.

"Sorry for letting you see me like this, Chrome." Tsuna laugh a little while he's rubbing his tears.

"You shouldn't be crying or else your eyes would be red, bossu." chrome said with a serious look.

Flashback end

Tsuna was happy that his female mist never abandoned him because Chrome wants to protect her boss and her new family even though she will sacrifice herself to save him. Chrome left Mukuro's gang not only she was kicked out, she was also was heartbroken by what she saw between mukuro and M.M and it was only tsuna, kyoko and haru knew about it. but that story will be told next time.

But anyway it was a mystery for him that his own mist guardian really cared about him, looked after his health, protecting him and never avoid him. chrome done it not only as tsuna's mist guardian but also as his sister as well. Reborn was relief that Chrome didn't abandoned his ex student even though she was in a mission in Russia two days ago.

But it wasn't enough, Tsuna wants most of his guardians to accept him once again But they didn't. Most of the guardians grew farther apart from him and ignore his depressions.

Tsuna took out a picture frame besides the center table then he looked at the picture of his whole family even with futa, i-pin kyota and Chrome in it. Looking at it makes him missed the times when he was called Tsuna nii by Lambo, I-pin, Futa and Kyota, having fun with Gokudera and Yamamoto and getting bitten to death by Kyoya and of course his brotherly figure by Ryohie. Then Tsuna leaned his forehead to the picture frame and cried. One week later, Tsuna gave up his position as the Vongola sky and told Reborn about it this.

"Are you serious about this, Dame tsuna?" Reborn said with curious face but never showed it.

"Yeah, I'm going to give up being the Vongola boss." Tsuna nodded.

"And who's going to be the new boss?" Reborn asked.

"Federico..."

Federico was son of Nono, He was found alive three years ago but he never fight for being the vongola boss and also he and Tsuna and his guardians met last March right after their graduation. He was strict, strong but a nice guy. He was never unlike Xanxus and he already knows that Tsuna has been through a lot since most of his guardians left him. But besides that, Tsuna knows that if he leaves most of his guardians, they won't be afraid of him anymore and they will have a new Sky.

"Sorry dame Tsuna I refuse..."

"Reborn, I know you're the greatest hitman in the world and you trained and thought me to become the boss of Vongola Family and to protect my family but please do it for me not just as your ex student but as Tsuna." Tsuna said and looked at Reborn eyes with a serious look which made Reborn grin a little.

"You've change even though you're still my dame student, if that's what you want, fine I will accept your decision. "

"Thanks Reborn." Tsuna said and smiled a little.

Five days later (may 20)

"Are you sure that you want to do this, tsunayoshi?"

"Yeah and don't worry, I have already settled everything with Nono also Futa, I-pin, kyota and bianchi will be here today with kyoya and tetsuya and I have feeling that they won't coming back in japan." Tsuna with a sad face as he was outside the Vongola mansion with his luggage and with some few boxes inside the car with reborn waiting. And he already informed Federico that he's the new Vongola which made Federico shocked and but he has no choice but to accept it. "Enrico, Can you promise me one thing? "

"What is it?" federico question him.

"promise me that you will always protect them, no matter what." Tsuna said to him with a smile but still with sadness on his face.

"I promise." federico said and Tsuna nodded then he went inside the car. The driver drove him and Reborn to the airport without turning back.

When the guardians were informed by Reborn that Federico was their new boss, they returned to the Vongola mansion even Chrome, Kyota, I-pin and Futa.(who just got back from school and they didn't know about the accident Most of the guardians accepted Enrico as their new boss except for Chrome who doesn't want Ceilo to become their boss but she has no choice but to accept him even also for Kyota, I-pin and futa. but With Enrico as their new sky everything was fine.

But what happened to Tsuna? =============================== My links to the oa3 and wattpad OA3/ wattpad/

#khr #katekyo hitman reborn #sawada tsunayoshi #reborn #hayato gokudera #Takeshi Yamamoto #lambo bovino #Hibari Kyoya #dukuro chrome #i-pin #fuuta #oc #bianchi

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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years

Note

Sentence starters: 14, with Roman & Deceit??

Haha, long time, no write! We’re having a pretty poor time right now so I figured a little bit of Roceit would be in Order! Warning: I did not edit this in the slightest.

Summary: Roman has always been a little curious, but the pastry chef definitely takes the cake on this one.

Words: 3007

Quick Taglist: @chelsvans @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @musical-nerd18 @never-end1ng-suffering @nonasficcollection @silverflame-wc @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @themultishipperchild @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing List || Prompt Page (it should also be stated that you don’t need to pick from this prompt page if you don’t want to. Just send me an idea and I’ll do my best :D)

The Point of This is....

“Here, Bite Down on this.”

Roman has had a lot of weird first meetings. As a kid he liked to wander around the town meeting knew people, which, of course, drove his mother up a wall the first ninety or so times that she had glanced away from him for a second and he had disappeared completely on her. Roman was just a curious type of kid. The first time he had been confused by a couple of workers who were fixing an outlet behind one of the counters at his mothers favorite little shop, and he had just wanted to know what they were doing.

They had told him! Which had been cool. Did you know there were wires all in the walls?! He hadn’t even realized that his mom had been frantically looking for him until she had grabbed his arm in a frantic panic and asked if he was alright, and then don’t you dare wander off again! What if something had happened?! Roman!

It had happened again anyway, the store clerk had been redressing a mannequin and it had been neat! Then window cleaner, then flower arranger from the flower shop, then the busker outside the Irish themed pub he wasn’t allowed to be near, then the sign flipper at the street corner who taught him to spin one of the smaller signs--

The point was that by the time Roman hit middle school he knew most of the “little people” by name, and they of course knew his. Roman knew that a lot of them called him by his full name because his mother used to scream it when he went missing,-- Roman Alexander Prince, if you don’t get back here right this instant-- but he learned a lot of cool things!

He could arrange flowers, knew when and where the most dense foot traffic was, knew how to flip signs and draw attention. He could Macgyver his way through most electrical circuits, had the sewers under his town fully mentally mapped out, and knew that if you hit the vending machine behind the laundromat just right, you could get a free snickers bar.

He liked learning knew things. And for the most part? People liked to teach him.

As he got older, he noticed just how heartbreaking that sort of thing was. When he held the ladder steady for the owner of the Mom-and-Pop grocer while the old man replaced the “N” of the sign, the man had casually mentioned that the last person who asked him how he was doing had been a family man who had stopped coming months ago.

Then the more he looked, the more he had seen it: the when he waved to the woman who worked the bakery her whole face had lit up like he had gifted her the world, when he bought the street performer a water they had almost broken down to tears right there on the street, when he had offered the man sitting alone at the park with his head in his hands a chance to pet his dog, the man had called him a “generous kid” and tossed him five dollars before he left considerably happier than he was when he arrived.

The point-- and yes, Roman did have a point-- the point of all of this, was that Roman liked people. He liked learning things, and he liked hearing the stories that people had to share.

He liked telling those stories.

Which would probably explain how he got here: Mindscape, the ever prestigious school for the gifted. Although “gifted” tended to be a relative term. Roman had met a lot more people here, all his age, who eyed him warily like his smile was something to be scared of.

(”It is!” Remus, his twin had cackled from across the table in the dining hall, as if they didn’t have the same exact face.)

Roman and Remus had gotten in together, both on accident: Remus had crafted an application for Roman, sent it in without Roman’s knowledge, and then hacked the School’s Admissions database and marked the application for acceptance.

Things should have gone really bad, because Remus hadn’t known that the School President, Thomas Sanders, checks each and every application and when he noticed an application had skipped most of acceptance process he started digging.

Things should have gone really bad then. Like really bad. Like Remus ends up in jail and Roman has to change his name and move countries, really bad.

Instead Thomas Sanders, had sent them both acceptance letters, and Remus was required to work in the IT department without pay and take all the computer application classes. Somewhere in the middle of that Remus had struck up some sort of deal with the cyber defense team where the Mindscape’s tech department spent all school year building their best unhackable code, and in the summer Remus got to take anything and everything he learned that year and try to break it.

Remus had been winning for two years now. Roman had seen the grown men reduced to tears the moment that Remus’s hands had started flying over the keyboard.

Again, the point to this-- Roman had been at this boarding school for two years now, barreling his way through the journalism and creative writing classes like they were tissue paper walls. He’s met a lot of people his age, and he’s witnessed a lot of weird quirks about them.

Like how that kid in the library who likes to sleep on top of the bookcases, and Roman had witnessed getting swatted with a broom so many times. He was a gymnast and an acrobat and really freaking flexible-- and he had told Roman to fuck off when he had tried to learn anything more than that.

Or like that artist who ran the yearbook club took pictures of everything. It had been pretty cute the way the puffball had insisted on taking pictures of the cracks on the side walk, the clouds in the sky, the rainbow made from the refraction of the light through the glass windows. They had called it “catching little pieces of happiness in everyday!” Which was much sweeter than Roman had been anticipating. “Oops! Sorry gotta go, kiddo!” They had said and then they had been gone taking more pictures before Roman could ask anything about them.

Or like that guy from his Civics class who had gotten way too competitive about the trivia game they had played in class. It wasn’t just trivia though: Roman had learned later that he apparently Logan Ackroyd, the Logan Ackroyd, who had won the American chess tournament for three year in a row now. Any game that Logan touched, reportedly, he won. Chess, Checkers, Othello, Jenga, even Tic-Tac-Toe, and he treated them each like a life or death situation.

The point is of this is everyone had a weird quirk about them.

Roman knew that, knows that.

Heck, even Roman had a weird quirk, which apparently was wandering the school halls after classes. And now that includes being dragged into one of those classrooms by the hoodie of his sweatshirt and then immediately having a fork of something shoved in his mouth.

“VIRGIL!” Another voice squawks, followed by a telltale click of a camera taking a photo, but okay, Roman is a little too busy choking on a fork to take in everything.

There is a hand on his back, and one on his chest, holding him surprisingly steady, while he basically dies-- and man, he did not think that he’d be dying at seventeen years old. Who knew that his mother would be right all those times she insisted that his habit of walking around aimlessly was gonna be the death of him?

There are tears in his eyes by the time he manages an inhale, and someone takes the fork back out of his mouth. The hand on his back is rubbing soothing circles and his lungs flutter weakly, like a butterflies wings.

“Dude,” A voice says boredly. Roman squints up at his attacker-- because yes this was an attack and Roman will forever be scarred by it-- and vaguely recognizes the purple patched up hoodie for the library acrobat. “I said “Bite down on this”, not choke and die on the floor.”

Roman coughs to dislodge the last bit of whatever food just got shoved down his throat.

“Please ignore him,” A smooth voice says, a new voice, and one that sounds exactly like silk on Roman’s ears. “Are you okay?”

The new person, the man who is holding Roman, is, in a word, pretty. Actually, no wait, not pretty; he’s gorgeous. He’s beautiful. He’s Michelangelo’s David come to life, an angel straight from heaven, the God Apollo himself taking a quick break from driving his sun chariot to walk among the mortals--

“Virgil, what did you do!” The breathtaking stranger yelps.

“I didn’t do anything!” The acrobat shoots back, although he looks worried, “I just put the fork in his mouth! Oh shit, dude come on, please don’t tell me you’re allergic to something-- Dee what was in that? I can’t go to jail for killing someone! I just got here!”

There’s another click and a giggle and Roman blinks himself to enough awareness to realize that beside the three of them, there’s also that photography artist and the Logan Ackroyd in the room, also what looks like a cake with three slices cut out of it.

“You aren’t going to jail,” Logan says, although he’s playing on a Nintendo Switch and isn’t paying all that much attention to what’s going on.

“It just a cake,” Dee adds, almost desperately and Roman’s knees really do go weak at that. A pretty man? Using that tone to address Roman? Roman’s surprised he’s still conscious at all. “Are you allergic to eggs? What about Wheat? Milk?”

“Deep breath, kiddos!” The person with the camera suggests, and Roman knows immediately that they are 100% aware that his flushed cheeks and lack of breath are not from an allergy. They take another picture and Roman dies a little more on the inside.

“Please...don’t let... my brother see that,” Roman coughs one more time, “I’m begging.”

The artist just laughs and takes another picture.

“No allergies?” The god beside him says and Roman finds him looking absolutely anywhere but at him.

“No allergies,” Roman confirms, “None at all. It’s all good. And you know I should be--”

“What did you think of it?” The acrobat interrupts. And when Roman just blinks he snaps, “The cake, Princey! Tell Dee that the cake was fine and he can stop banging his head on the table now.”

Roman chances a glance at the man holding him up, and yeah, he could see the faint red marks were he had obviously been hitting his head on something. Unfortunately, said man was also looking at Roman, looking for his answer to the question that was just asked of him and Roman has already forgotten what it was again.

His eyes were different colors, and that totally reminded Roman of that week in the summer when he hung around the ophthalmologist just outside of town. Roman had looked at a lot of eyes, learned a lot about eyes in that time, but really there was something different about those ones. One was a brilliant bright brown, like hickory and the other was glistening gold. He looked like something straight from a fantasy.

Roman’s fantasy.

“Hey,” The stranger says softly, “Are you okay, darling?”

And that’s the last thing Roman remembers.

Because he fainted.

Because the gorgeous, beautiful, ethereal stranger called him “darling” and Roman’s weak gay heart promptly shut off.

He comes to again, just a few minutes later-- long enough that his head is throbbing and his lungs hurt a bit and mere idea of moving sounds exhausting. He’s comfortable just fine where he is.

On the floor.

With his head in the perfect strangers lap.

“There you are,” The man gives him a nervous smile that makes Roman’s mouth dry out. “Do you remember where you are?”

“Heaven?”

Roman has many regrets in his life. Like that time he thought that crawling down the manhole would be fun. Or the weekend he spent hanging out in the courthouse, which had turned out to be incredibly boring. Or that time he brought dog treats to the dog park and ended up get ambushed by like seven dogs at once and broke his arm.

But this....answering that, and immediately hearing that all too familiar cackle that can only belong to Remus? Yeah Roman rates that at the top of Roman’s Regrets.

The stranger bites his lip but he’s grinning all the same. “Apologies. When you fainted we, called the emergency contact on your phone.”

“Remus is not my emergency contact,” Roman grumbles and weakly shuffles his limbs to sit up.

Remus wheezes, from where he’s situated with an arm over the artist and the acrobat respectively. “Like-- Hell! I changed that months ago!” Remus grins, “I wasn’t gonna miss a chance to laugh at you while you get carted away in an ambulance! You only die once Ro! I wanna be there for it!”

“I should have consumed you in the womb.”

“Butcha didn’t!”

“The intention was there.” Roman sways, and he really doesn’t like the way the floor shifts like waves of an ocean.

“Pussy,” Remus tosses out, just for the sake of having the last word. He pulls his arms back from around the other two and fusses with the little artist’s hair. “Alright, brats! That’s my cue to drag my dumbass gay twin away before he faints again. But this was fun! Lets do it again! This time Dee can even let Roman actually fall and crack his head on the floor instead of catching him!”

Roman’s ears burn, and he peeks at Dee with a morbid mortification, “You caught me?”

“Well I was already, holding you up so it wasn’t as much as caught you as you...ah,” there’s a twitch of his lips, “as you fell for me.”

The noise Roman makes is not in any way, shape, or form flattering.

Remus cackles again.

There’s a click and a giggle, “Sorry kiddo! That was just too good to pass up!” The artist bounces slightly. “You both should definitely come back though! We’d love to have the company!”

“No, we wouldn’t,” the acrobat interjects, and lets out a heavy breath when he’s elbowed by his friend.

“Yes, we would!” The artist says. “And next time you can even have some of Dee’s pastries!”

“That’s not necessary,” The stranger says quickly, “They aren’t that good--”

“Will you stop lying!” the acrobat says, “You literally got into this prestigious ass school for your pastries, dumbass. They’re good. Accept it already! Geez!”

The stranger rubs his neck and then his cheek, before turning back to Roman. “Perhaps you can be the judge of that then? Darling?”

Yeah, Roman’s knees are weak again, but he’s stubborn enough that he keeps standing. “I think I’d like that. Although, I can’t say I’m any kind of pastry expert.”

“We all have our faults, I presume.”

Roman’s heart beats a little faster. “And admittedly I will be a little bit bias.”

“A little bit?”

“Only a smidge,” Roman reports, “I’ve heard that good company can affect the taste of food.”

“You intend to be in good company?”

“If it’s yours I’m sure it will be.”

“Who knew there was a smooth talker under that blush of yours?”

“If you think this was smooth you should see--

Remus claps his hands loudly enough to make the acrobat flinch and Logan in the corner curse in Korean. “Okay yes we get it: You both are gayyyyyy!” Remus exclaims, drawing it out just enough that Roman feels a bit of the Cain Instinct(tm) in him rise up. “But if neither of you are going to start undressing to give the rest of us a show, then we need to go!”

“Remus!”

“I’m just saying!” Remus shrugs and then hooks an arm around Roman’s neck and pulls him towards the door, “Its not fair to the rest of us, if you keep being a tease!”

“I hope you step on a lego and fall into a pit of sharks.”

Remus messes with his hair, which seems to be his thing right now.

The others in the room call out their goodbyes, and Remus drags Roman away before he can get more than a sloppy wave. Its still embarrassing.

Actually everything that happened was embarrassing, from top to bottom, and there was absolutely no moment were it wasn’t completely mortifying. Not only did he choke on a piece of cake he didn’t even get to taste, but he gay panicked, and then gay fainted, and every second of it was recorded via camera snapshots. And late at night, when Roman is turning it over in his head and screaming into a pillow, he barely notices his phone flashing.

He’s already miserable, because they probably just invited him back to be nice, and he didn’t even know their names. And Remus was still laughing at him for everything, and everything just really sucked. He opens up his phone to check the message, ignoring the way the his screen burns his eyes.

There’s a text message.

An actual text message.

Stole your number hope you dont mind

Roman can’t breath. The phone in his hand vibrates again.

Oh and your heart. I stole that too. this is a ransom demand.

$40,000 in cash. Or a date to the coffee shop in town.

pls?

this is Dee Ekans btw

The baker?

oh fuck pls tell me this is the right number

roman?

And Roman rolls over and presses his face into a pillow and screams.

But really the point of all this is that Roman got the number of the cute guy. And maybe a date.

#roceit #roman sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #remus sanders #Boarding School Au?#I guess it is #Look I just started writing and went with it #gay panic #gay fainting #there is nothing more gay than Roman

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dansedan · 3 years

Text

mooooore buddy cop bullshit. cw for self-hatey things and death related things (no real dying?) and general badbrain bc Conolly is narrating woop woop.

Conolly wasn’t usually allowed in the morgue, or the whiterooms. Or anywhere near corpses not mangled out to shit in the great outdoors or the dark of some crappy apartment. For all the fun and games they had with him, with his barely-there meat-sack of a presence in the station, nobody wanted to deal with his reaction in the face of a room full of drugs and blades and dead bodies all wrapped together in radio static brightness.

But Dr. Halia didn’t know that, and Ernst wasn’t in that day, or maybe he was too hungover- he had been jumpy when he’d driven them up from the field, weird when handling the forensic officer at the scene too. Smelled too good to be overexerted or depressive, not good enough to be high and covering up paranoically with oils and colognes like he rarely did, when he hit his own hard limit (Ernst was always so squirrelly about it, honestly, a little weed before work is nothing for a cop). And regardless of cause, Halia had called for him- hailed him in, called him “Major Conolly” in front of anyone- although they probably weren’t listening too hard- and let him lean up in a corner while he showed him every point of interest on the body in real time, all four dimensions of it. The man on the slab was white, generic, long-dead. His only wound was a dried up, gouging thing on his sternum, already quite rotten. In some ways it was better than the camera- the pictures his case files came with tended to be hard to get behind, in a moral sense. Two people suffering for the work of one. In another way, well, pictures don’t smell or touch cold on the cheek of your hand when you draw gestures over them. pictures avoid points outside those of interest, sparing one from the worst of the natural, undisturbed process of decomposition, from the sympathetic nature of people towards pain, even of half-people like him.

Somehow though, the doctor was entirely unaffected. The sliver of skin- smooth, unmarred, right under his wrist- visible between the light latex glove and pure-white labcoat a warm, steady brown, the light expression on his dark, young face not drawn or over-steeled. It’s just a job to him, a job he’s clearly good at. This is what an actual, competent person looked like, this was a whole human man, shoved into the same dead-end bullshit occupation he had let himself get dragged in on all those years back, all inertia and insignificance.

A normal man- a real man- would pity the kid. Conolly the fuckup was getting off on it.

It wasn’t even him, is the thing- the kid, the doctor, sat to some extent at that brave intersection of manly-androgynous that he thought had been forgotten in the 70s visually, perfectly handsome in his own right- but god, obviously it wasn’t really Halia he was attracted to, his looks or anything. It was the gloves- the competency there, that brutal, blood-soaked, pure efficiency. That unflappable attitude and sure, sharp gaze that firmly raked over the bodies, not blanching or blinking. He thought idly if he died he’d be embarrassed to be seen so thoroughly, and suddenly his mind betrayed him and delivered some soft, sticky equivalent of that sombre image, a scene of him laid on the slab and Halia before him, concentrated, cold as ever carving into him. The decomposition crawling in with a shiver up his spine as he imagined it, god, nothing too much unlike what he already looked like, ready for the grave. But to be taken apart by those capable hands, so close but so far, behind gloves, keeping the doctor clean, pure, away from his sick, but still so respectful, so reverent. The kid was neat and efficient and more than anything else it struck Conolly as kind.

Maybe too kind- god, he was getting sober, never a good idea going sober- maybe, a little wheedling thought inside him said, that’d be too kind for him. He was nothing to revere, not even as an object of nature, as a dead body lying still. That was one too many kindnesses for him, the voice inside him said. He knew he hardly meant it, knew it was some kind of fucked up excuse to let his mind go wild and wondering.

“are you alright, Major?”

“yeah doc. Just been a while since my last one in here in person, you know...”

He wished he was worse at lying. Wished Halia could see into him and be disgusted, good and proper, like he was meant for. Yeah, the trust of it, the being caught in the balance, that itched. Something big and dirty and disgusting in his gut wanted it over with, bloody and bile-fueled and stupid and violent, gloved hands shoved down his throat and a look like a jackknife, patience fading on that meticulous enunciation and wearing into that hint of slurring at the corners. Those lips could carry an insult well enough, well like they were carrying the autopsy he was half-engaged in, tuning out on automatic, too sober for death, too disconnected. God, he wouldn’t care, would he? He had no reason to care. He’d been kind, he’d been following along, he’d been talking- called him Major, fucking Major, called him Major like it wasn’t a joke, couldn’t Halia take a fucking joke? - and Conolly thought for a moment maybe he’d finally be shunted from the force and maybe they got this guy from a hospice or something which would be terribly disappointing in terms of the ability to properly die like a workhorse, aware and unaware and ready, but before he could mope around too much the crack of skin peeled back past rigor mortis echoed around the room and Halia gave another mild, quiet apology and he remembered the man was damn good at this job, probably overqualified, and he was just delusional.

“those are all the points of interest, as far as I could ascertain them. Tests should come in within the week, too.”

“is that the fun part?”

He turns to him at that, and he’s a real person. Dread flows through him, shame, a different, cold shame. He’s a real human person, god you’re alive, god, you’re sober. You shouldn’t be sober.

He smiles, broad, closed, smile lines rippling in already.

“no, the chemists at the local med-lab get all the fun on that one,” he hesitates a second, looks away into the snowcapped horizon on the window. “field stuff’s more what I worked on.”

“real guerilla shit, huh?”

He flinches a second, almost imperceptibly. He’s not impressed, smile gone when he turns back to Conolly, humming. There’s a beat too long of silence, of him moving towards the sink and setting out all of his bloody tools towards it, before the door opens with a half-slam against the whitebrick wall.

“what the fuck are you doing in this unit, J?”

(it wasn’t until hours later, after a round of frantic pointing, questioning from Ernst, that Conolly realized he hadn’t taken anything- knives, vials, needles- hadn’t moved the entire time, just stayed staring at Halia.)

(Ernst doesn’t back off him until Conolly slips his hand into the man’s cruiser jacket and pulls out his flask. Then he goes quiet, he watches him drink from an arm’s length, watches him cough around the alcohol, unused to it, watches him and shakes his head and wipes the whisky off his face.)

(The only thing Ernst tells him afterward is “Not your fucking poison, Conolly. Don’t wreck your voice, it’s half the gimmick.”)

#my writing #buddy cop dramedy bullshit

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humanperryfic · 4 years

Text

Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

When uncle Perry coughs up a whole flower at breakfast, Candace is understandably worried. She's also confused when she realizes that he has no plans to confess his love.

Despite having no idea what's really going on, and being told not to interfere, Candace is determined to get her uncle and his crush together.

Life might not always be a romance novel, but Candace is going to make it as close as possible.

Title from the Blues Brothers song

AO3/FF.net

TW’s for mild blood

The alarm on Candace's bedside table goes off with an obnoxious beeping noise. Candace groans and throws her arm out, attempting to silence the annoying noise. It's a teacher workday, why did she set her alarm?

That's right, she wanted a head-start on her busting. Looking out her window, she sees Phineas and Ferb already building. Perfect.

She rolls out of bed and pulls on her usual outfit before running a brush through her hair. Despite her sleep-deprived brain, she manages to put together a few coherent answers to Stacy's overnight texts before leaving her room.

Candace stumbles down the stairs to the kitchen, barely managing to avoid tripping over her own feet. It's early, and she was awake until almost one in the morning last night.

The only person who's in the kitchen is uncle Perry, who's pouring himself a bowl of cereal. Good morning, he signs.

"Morning," she grumbles, scrubbing at her eyes to rid them of the typical early-morning bleariness. "Where's mom and dad?"

Antiques convention, remember?

Candace sighs. That's right. Mom and dad are at a three-day antiques convention over the long weekend, leaving Perry in charge. Which means no busting. As long as they're safe, Perry's perfectly fine with what the boys create.

If he's ever there to see the creations. He's always getting called off for work.

Candace pulls her mug out of the cupboard, adds a teabag, and sets it next to Perry's, waiting for the kettle to boil. She could use the caffeine.

Stacy texts her back, so she sits down at the table to answer. After she sends the message, she puts her head down on the table. It's too early for anything to happen.

Perry sits down across from her, the bowl making a soft thump against the wood. He snaps his fingers to get her attention.

Candace pries one eye open. "mmm-yeah?"

You should eat.

She shrugs. "After tea."

Suit yourself.

Candace lays her head back on the table. It's still way too early to think about anything.

Perry starts coughing. Candace raises an eyebrow, still not picking her head up off the table. He's been sick since her freshman year, you'd think he'd be fine by now. Or at least that he'd see a doctor. It's kind of weird.

Eh, he's always been weird. He travels all over the place for work. He says he's a sort of special cop, but never wants to talk about his job. He doesn't talk, only makes that weird chattering noise. And he's always really weird about those Hanahaki soap operas, even though they're Candace's favorite.

Still, the cough is rather strange.

Candace opens one eye just in time to see Perry spit an entire white rose flecked with blood into the palm of his hand.

Now fully awake, she watches as he makes a face, gets up, throws the rose into the garbage can under the sink, and starts to wash his hands, unaware of Candace's staring.

Well, that makes sense.

Sort of. There are still a lot of things wrong with this.

Now that she's awake, she might as well eat breakfast. She stands up and moves to the cupboard, getting a bowl out. Setting the bowl down with a purposeful clank (it's never a good idea to startle uncle Perry), Candace turns to get the milk out of the fridge."So when were you going to tell us you had Hanahaki?"

Perry turns around, surprise painted on his face. Candace continues. "Seriously. That was an entire flower. How long have you been hiding this?"

He sighs. Almost two years. Candace gasps. Two years and she never suspected a thing? That was his mysterious sickness? "Who is it?"

Just someone I work with.

"And you never thought to tell us."

I told your parents.

Candace pours milk into the bowl. "I guess that's something. Are you going to confess?"

He looks to the backyard, where Phineas and Ferb are starting to build, and shakes his head. I'm getting it removed in three weeks.

Candace gapes. Removed? After two years of pain and suffering and blood covered roses? "You're just going to give up?" she asks.

Perry shrugs and turns off the tap. He's not interested in me, what else can I do?

"He might be. You never know." Perry raises an eyebrow as he sits back down at the table. "I mean, if Jeremy and I can get together, you and your crush can too," Candace continues.

Life isn't a romance novel. Sometimes it just doesn't work out.

"Have you even tried?"

Like I said, he's not interested.

"I hate to suggest this, but maybe the boys could help out?"

No.

"Why not? I bet they could make your crush have feelings for you."

If it's forced, it would make it even worse.

"It's worth a shot, right?"

No, it's not.

"Really?"

Coughing up flowers isn't fun or cute. He grimaces. It's actually pretty painful.

"You're really no fun."

See, this is why I didn't want to tell anybody. At Candace's affronted look, he continues. I'm an adult, I can deal with my own feelings. If that means getting rid of them, so be it. End of story.

"But-but-but I could help too!"

Perry narrows his eyes. End of story, Candace.

Candace pours her cereal into the milk. "Fine, whatever."

Look, I know you want to help, but I'd prefer to get through the next few weeks without dying.

Candace's eyes go wide. She'd completely forgotten that people could die from Hanahaki. Once they start coughing up full flowers, they've got only a few months left without intervention. "Oh," she says, her voice now small and meek.

It's scary, I know. Trust me when I say the surgery is the best option.

The kettle starts to whistle, so Perry takes it off the stove and pours the hot water into their mugs. Candace sits down at the table and starts to eat. "So there's really nothing else you can do?"

Nothing I can do at this point without making it worse. I suppose if he liked me back then it would be different, but I can't influence that.

A lightbulb goes off in Candace's head. Maybe uncle Perry can't ask this guy about it...but she can. She can convince this guy that Perry would be the best boyfriend ever!

"Tell me about this guy." She'll need some information if she wants to find him.

Well, Perry says, handing Candace her mug, he's got brown hair, blue eyes, and he's about six foot two, although he slouches.

Perry's watch goes off, and Candace groans internally. He always has to go to work at the worst times. "What's his name?"

For a brief moment, Perry looks conflicted. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, he signs.

"Doofenshmirtz like the mayor?"

Perry nods, drinking most of his tea in one gulp. I have to leave.

"Evil never rests, I know." Perry smiles. "Don't worry, I'll make sure nothing explodes while you're gone."

Perry smiles. See you later.

Candace nods and waves. As soon as Perry is in the garage, she puts her bowl of cereal in the sink and darts up the stairs. She grabs her purse out of her room and puts her phone and earbuds in it. She's about to go back down the stairs when she gets another idea.

She has a whole lot of pictures of Jeremy- and she didn't even have Hanahaki. Uncle Perry has to have a picture of his crush somewhere. That will help narrow down the search.

Carefully, she pulls her Ducky Momo 33rd Anniversary Commemorative lock pick out of her purse and picks the lock on the door to his room. She feels a little weird, but this is a love or death situation.

The lock opens with a click, and she opens the door.

The room is about what she expected. Neat, for the most part. There's a stack of cheesy romance novels on the bedside table, a bookmark in one. On his desk, there's a tall stack of paperwork. Several papers are stamped with Classified in red ink, but Candace ignores them. She has other things to look for.

She opens the top drawer of the desk. Pens, sticky notes, and paper clips. The next drawer down holds envelopes, a Classified stamp, and a red ink pad.

The bottom drawer is locked. Once again, her Ducky Momo lock pick comes in handy.

In the drawer is what looks like a grappling hook, a strange red disk, and a green box.

Candace picks up the grappling hook and the disk and puts them on the desk. Gingerly opening the box, she finds it stuffed full of immaculately cleaned white roses, with a few pictures along the sides.

She looks at the pictures first. Each one has uncle Perry with the same guy. A slouching man with brown hair and blue eyes, dressed in a lab coat.

This must be the guy. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

But where would she find him? The only connection she knows is that uncle Perry works with him.

That's it. She'll just follow uncle Perry to work. Candace puts one of the pictures and a few of the fresher roses into her purse. On second thought, she adds the grappling hook and the red disk.

She can hear Perry's motorcycle revving in the garage. She closes the drawer, then runs out of Perry's room and down the stairs.

Candace opens the garage door and wheels her bike out. Thank god for Phineas and Ferb outfitting it with rocket boosters, she'll need them to catch up with Perry's motorcycle.

She only makes it to the end of the driveway before she hears a very loud, scary sounding bang come from the backyard. Despite her new mission, her boys-busting senses tell her to investigate.

Nearly trampling Baljeet, she dashes to the gate and throws it open. "What was that?" she demands.

Phineas grins. "It's our new rivet gun! Isn't it cool?"

"Pfft. It's a rivet gun. How cool can it be?"

Ferb merely rivets another piece of metal, producing a similar bang. "Very cool, Candace, very cool," Phineas says.

"Whatever." Candace rolls her eyes and jogs back around the front of the house to her bike. She pedals down to the first stop sign before she realizes that uncle Perry is long gone by now. She'll never be able to catch up to him.

Maybe there's another way she can find his crush. How many Doofenshmirtzes are there in Danville? This Heinz might be related to Mayor Doofenshmirtz somehow.

Downtown Danville, here she comes.

~~~

Candace makes it to City Hall in twenty minutes. She locks her bike to the rack outside and walks in.

"How may I help you?" the bored-looking receptionist asks.

"I'd like to talk to Mayor Doofenshmirtz?" Candace asks.

"Name?"

"Candace Flynn."

"He'll be free in a few minutes. You can wait here." The receptionist points to a small waiting area.

"Thank you," Candace says, and she sits down.

What a day. And it's not even close to being over.

Her phone rings. It's Jeremy. She picks it up right away.

"Hey Jeremy," she says.

"Hey Candace," he says. "I was wondering if you wanted to hang out later today?"

Candace thinks. Yeah, hanging out with Jeremy would be great, but she has a mission. "Sorry, but I'm doing something for uncle Perry today. I might be able to do something tomorrow, though."

Jeremy laughs. "You're such a good niece. See you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow."

"Love you."

"Love you." Candace ends the call with a click.

Vanessa Doofenshmirtz walks in the door. "Hey Candace."

"Hi Vanessa," Candace says. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I wanted to talk to uncle Roger. He's probably busy, though. What about you?"

"I was waiting to do the same thing. Waiting to talk to the Mayor, at least. He's not my uncle."

"Really." Candace nods. "I don't know if he'll talk to you, he's always crazy busy."

Candace sighs. Maybe this lead won't work out after all.

Except...Vanessa Doofenshmirtz. Related to Roger. Is she related to Heinz?

"So why are you here?" Vanessa asks.

Candace pulls one of the pictures out of her purse, as well as one of the roses. "My uncle Perry," she points at Perry, "has Hanahaki for this guy," she points at the other man, "Heinz Doofenshmirtz. I wanted to ask the mayor, since they have the same last name. Do you know him?"

"Know him?" Vanessa laughs. "He's my dad."

Candace's eyes grow wide. "Your dad? That's perfect! Do you know if your dad likes my uncle? Like, like-likes him?"

Vanessa looks at the flower in Candace's hand. "I'm pretty sure he does, but you'd have to ask him directly."

Another lead. Perfect. "Where is your dad?"

Vanessa shrugs. "Probably at Blueprint Heaven. He's kind of an inventor."

"Thanks so much."

"I should warn you though, he's kind of cold. He'll probably just shrug you off."

Candace shrugs. "I'm not worried."

"Okay, then good luck."

Candace jumps out of her seat. "Thanks, Vanessa. See you later." She stuffs the photo and the rose back in her purse, then walks out the door. She unlocks her bike from the rack and hops on it. Thankfully, Blueprint Heaven isn't too far.

Her legs are burning by the time she makes it to the blueprint store. She peeks inside, watching as a slouching man with brown hair, wearing a lab coat, purchases a few blueprints. That must be him.

As the man leaves the shop, she puts out her arm.

"Hey, watch it, kid," the man says.

"I have something to ask you," Candace says. "Are you Heinz Doofenshmirtz?"

"That's Doctor Doofenshmirtz to you. And if you're selling those Fireside Girl cupcakes, I already bought two dozen."

Candace rolls her eyes and pulls the photo out of her purse. "I want to ask you about this picture."

The man pulls out a pair of reading glasses and studies the picture. "What do you want to ask me?"

Candace points at Perry. "Do you like-like this guy?"

"That's a rather strange question to ask, isn't it?"

"Danville's a strange place."

Dr. Doofenshmirtz shrugs. "You got me there. Y'know, he looks like this other guy I know." He points at the picture. "What's his name?"

"Perry," Candace says.

"Really? I, uh, work with a guy named Perry. Sort of. We're like, work rivals. He's really nice though, even if he doesn't talk much."

Candace's Busting Senses start to tingle. "I wonder if they're the same guy?"

Dr. Doofenshmirtz hums. "Maybe. It'd be just like him to be all mysterious and suave and all that." He pauses to cough into the arm of his lab coat. When he pulls his arm away, the sleeve is red and covered in petals. "Oh, come on, I just washed this one."

"You have Hanahaki?" Candace asks. "Can I see the flowers?"

He looks at Candace funny. "I guess? They're roses, white ones." He wipes one of the petals off on his lab coat and shows it to her. "You know, I googled the meaning, and they mean young love and innocence and all that stuff. I mean, it's like the last thing I'd relate with him."

"So your soulmate is your work rival," Candace clarifies.

"Awkward, right? Man, the universe really has it out to get me."

Candace merely nods along. This...inventor has the same flower as uncle Perry. Another strange coincidence. Or is it? Is there another Heinz Doofenshmirtz in the Tri-State area?

"Listen, it was great talking with you, but I kinda have to go to work now, so..."

Candace nods. "Nice meeting you."

"Likewise," Dr. Doofenshmirtz says, and he walks off down the road.

Hmm. Perry has Hanahaki for a guy named Heinz Doofenshmirtz that he works with. This Heinz (sorry, doctor) Doofenshmirtz has Hanahaki for a guy named Perry that he's work rivals with. Vanessa told her that her dad Heinz likes Perry, and Perry's got a picture of him with his crush Heinz.

They've got to be the same guys.

And they must be pining over each other.

What idiots. Uncle Perry said this was nothing like a romance novel, but it practically is.

Candace watches as Dr. Doofenshmirtz walks into the apartment building shaped like Ferb's head. The one that says Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated on its front...wait, what?

The final pieces click together. Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated. Perry always says "Evil never rests" when he runs off to work. This guy mentioned that he and Perry are work rivals. Could Perry be fighting this guy for work?

No wonder Perry didn't want to get with his crush. If they're on opposite sides of the great Good and Evil debate, dynamics change.

This just got a whole lot more interesting.

Candace is still getting them together. Secret relationships can work.

She sizes up the apartment building. A person on a jetpack flies up to the balcony, landing and disappearing from view. That must be Perry. She runs down the street and tugs on the door of the building.

Damn it, it's one of those buildings where the residents have to buzz people in. She doesn't have time to wait around for someone to let her in. There's got to be another way.

She looks into her purse. The red disk says "Standard Issue Glider" on the bottom, with a button. Good to know, but that won't work right now.

No, the thing she needs right now is the grappling hook. She's afraid of heights, but this will have to work. She's Candace Flynn, she can do whatever she puts her mind to. If that means grappling up the side of a forty-story building, so be it. It's worth it for love. She steps back, pulls the hook out of her purse, and aims it at the balcony.

Thankfully, she's still wearing her bike helmet. She fires the grappling hook towards the balcony. Once it sticks, she presses the button on the side and holds on for dear life. The building flashes by in a rush of purple, then she's landing on the balcony with a thud.

It seems that nobody inside noticed her stunt. Dr. Doofenshmirtz has his back to the balcony, and uncle Perry (in a 1940's fedora) is stuck in a net.

Yep, Good and Evil are clashing in this apartment-slash-lab.

She ducks behind a strange-looking planter. Thankfully, nobody's seen her. She needs a plan.

Maybe she could just go up to them and tell them about each other? No, that wouldn't work.

Throw them a paper airplane? She doesn't really have any paper, except for the photo.

Hmm. What about the roses? Both of them have the same flower, that might spur the connection along.

She peeks around the corner. Uncle Perry and Dr. Doofenshmirtz are fighting now, sparring as if they've done it a thousand times before. Candace bites down on the inside of her cheek to keep herself from cheering.

Uncle Perry lands one more kick, then throws his hat across the room. It hits a big red button on the side of a machine, and the machine promptly explodes. Candace ducks to protect herself from the flying bits of metal.

However, instead of leaving, uncle Perry goes to help Dr. Doofenshmirtz up. They move to another part of the lab, where a small kitchen is. Dr. Doofenshmirtz pours them both glasses of water, handing one to uncle Perry.

Now's the time.

Candace carefully sneaks out of her hiding place. She pulls one of the roses out of her purse, aims, and throws. As soon as the flower leaves her hand, she ducks back behind the wall. After a second, she peeks back around the corner.

Both uncle Perry and Dr. Doofenshmirtz have tried to cover up the rose, thinking it's their own. They both look away from each other. Even from across the way, Candace can tell how flustered Perry's gotten.

She watches as uncle Perry says something, signing much faster than usual. She thinks she catches the signs for "Hanahaki", "love" and "rose", although it's hard to tell from this far away.

He finishes what he has to say and drops his hands into his lap. For twelve seconds (vintage Ducky Momo Awkward Silence Timer), nothing happens.

Then Dr. Doofenshmirtz grabs uncle Perry's tie, pulls him in, and kisses him.

It's all Candace can do to hold back a squeal.

When they part, neither make eye contact for six and a half seconds. Then Perry signs something, making Dr. Doofenshmirtz laugh. Perry leans up and places a short kiss on Dr. Doofenshmirtz's lips. Both men grin broadly.

Yeah, uncle Perry's going to be alright.

Candace pulls another one of the roses out of her purse and throws it at the couple, not bothering to hide this time. This one bounces off the back of Perry's head, causing him to look over at the balcony.

"Enjoy your romance novel ending," she shouts, a broad smile nearly splitting her face in two. Perry gets up from the counter and starts over towards her, a look of shock painted over his face. Candace merely pulls the red disk out of her purse, presses the button on the bottom, and watches as it expands into a red hang glider.

She winks and salutes, then kicks off the ledge to glide off the balcony.

As she glides over Danville, she grins. And uncle Perry said it wouldn't work out. Well, she just proved him wrong.

Something on the glider starts to beep. A tinny voice emanating from a hidden speaker starts to talk. "Warning. Unauthorized use of OWCA tech. Returning to base."

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Candace attempts to let go of the glider as it nears the ground, but cuffs clamp down around her wrists. A rocket engine pops out of the back and steers her in an unknown direction.

Fifteen minutes later, she finds herself in an underground bunker, being stared down by a man with an intimidating mustache and a scrawny intern with a camera. Uncle Perry stands in the background, his hands in his pockets and the beat-up fedora from earlier on his head.

The man with the mustache starts to speak. "Do you know what you've done?'

"I just saved uncle Perry's love life?" she guesses. Behind the intern, Perry shakes his head. Candace can see the amused smile on his face.

The mustached man sighs. "Not quite. Your uncle Perry is actually a top OWCA agent, and as such, his identity must be kept completely secret." Candace considers this. A secret agent, huh? That certainly explains the grappling hook and the hang glider.

Man, being a secret agent would be so cool.

"Candace Flynn," as you have compromised Agent P's position, your memory is going to be wiped."

"What, there's nothing else you can do?"

The intern speaks up. "We could relocate him to another continent, and you'd never see him again." Candace's eyes go wide, and she shakes her head. "Yeah, we figured you'd like the memory wipe option better."

"Anything else you'd like to say, Ms. Flynn?" the mustached man asks.

Candace thinks for a second. "I don't know, I think uncle Perry owes me something."

For a brief second, Perry looks confused. Then he smiles knowingly. Thank you, Candace.

"You're welcome. Now, hit me."

The green ray hits her square in the face, and her mind goes fuzzy.

~~~

Candace steps off the bus. Finally, the last day of school. Phineas and Ferb are throwing a party, and for some odd reason, she doesn't even want to bust them for it.

(That reason has nothing to do with the fact that Jeremy will be there. Nope, nothing at all.)

She runs up the stairs to her backpack down in her room, then runs back out into the backyard.

Phineas and Ferb have already set up rides, food, and of course, live music. Perks of middle school- they get out earlier.

Already, most of the neighborhood has shown up. It's starting to look like it's going to end up being a big block party.

Under the tree in the backyard, uncle Perry and some guy in a lab coat are talking. This must be his boyfriend. When Perry sees Candace, he waves her over.

Candace, I'd like you to meet someone very special to me.

#sam's fic #perry the platypus #perry the human #human perry #human perry the platypus #heinz doofenshmirtz #doctor doofenshmirtz #candace #candace flynn #pnf #phineas and ferb #perryshmirtz #fic #my fic #tw blood #blood #(there's not much)

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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100 followers special post: KorraSami Book 1

Today’s entry (sort of a little extra for 100 followers) is rather short and admittedly just the tip of an iceberg I want to tackle later on, as it relates to a certain issue with Dobson in general when it comes to his “support” of the LGBT community. In addition it is not a comic I want to talk about, but rather a picture. To be more precise this one:

Titled “Out of our way” and released around summer of 2015, this picture is obviously fanart in relation to KorraSami, the ship of Avatar Korra and Asami Sato, which unlike other ships in certain fandoms became even canon according to “Word of God” and some post tv series material. Now personally my opinion on KorraSami is a bit “complicated”. I do not hate it nor do I really think it is as “groundbreaking” as many, including Dobson, make it out to be. Reasons for that I am willing one day to discuss in detail, but not now.

And like with KorraSami, my opinion on the picture is also a bit complicated. To paraphrase John Cleese from a famous sketch: I may not know much about art, but I know what I like. So when it comes to things such as posture and linework I can not give too many critical details.

However, even I see from a technical point a few irksome details. Like how Asami’s hips move a bit too much perspective wise to the left, making it look like she would soon slip off the wheelchair, the sparks on the ground looking more like someone inserted shitty fries via MS Paint in the picture and Korra’s face looking like it was hit with a frying pan at least once. But honestly, I think it does not look that terrible and it is at least colorful.

That said, I think it highlights a certain issue with how Dobson perceives the ship.

Independent of my thoughts on the ship, I think Korra and Asami are pretty neat characters personality wise. They are both not flawless (in fact, Korra at the start of season 2 felt like any character development from last season was missing and don’t get me even started on how she would have almost started a world war because she was a whinny ass) but they are pretty strong and independent characters who went through a lot both as friends and as individuals over the course of the show. Well, that and they boned the same guy.

The thing with Dobson is, any time I see him do something with those two, that sort of badassery is not really on display. Instead his KorraSami fanart tends to be just whimsical fluff as seen e.g. here

And don’t get me wrong, I do not think fluff is bad. I like cute pics too and hey, the following two pics in regard of KorraSami by Dobson count for me as decent fluff, even if from a technical drawing point there are likely still flaws in the pic. Mostly because they are also related as pics to the world of the show they are part of, with the first one even showing interaction with someone other than the ship.

But I also think that just because you ship two or multiple characters, doesn’t mean you can’t also draw something of such characters as a power couple so to speak. In case of those two, perhaps something like fighting a group of Equalists, showing Asami building and working on something with Korra at her side metal binding something according to Asami’s instructions etc. You know, something that is both “cute” because in a way they do stuff as a couple, but also badass because it is about two characters doing something they were born for. Or not even necessarily badass. Just something that shows them in a situation that isn’t just mindless fluff or feels like you just randomly insert the characters into whatever you can think of, thinking that in itself makes it already shipping art.

Bottomline, Dobson when tackling KorraSami only focuses mostly on the mindless fluff of the ship. Which in my opinion is in so far an issue, as that it reduces this so called “groundbreaking LGBT representation in animation” just further down into something cute and rather shallow Dobson can adore. The characters are not appreciated for their personality, but fo their looks and how cute they look together. And frankly, can something be considered “good representation” when it is just pretty shallow on closer look?

This at least is one of multiple issues I have with KorraSami in general, but also in relation with Dobson. Others I can address later on someday. I also bring it up here mostly, because this “shallowness” is indirectly on display in “Out of our way” once you know a bit about why Dobson drew this and how it may even be a bit insensitive. Not for any living creature, but the character of Korra actually.

See, here is the thing: The inspiration for the pic was two things: A clip from an anime called Gekijouban To Aru Majutsu no Railgun (which I admittedly never saw in my life and do not necessarily intend to) as seen here

And the fact that Korra spends some time in a wheelchair over the course of the show. And considering that the scene from the anime is actually meant to be funny (as it actually ends with both characters crashing in the gras in a hilarious position), what sort of cartoonish antics resulted in Korra temporarily being in a wheelchair? Did she slip on water during waterbending? Break her leg in some heroic fight but took it in strife and even made fun of her situation? You want to know?

Korra was kidnapped, tortured, poisoned with mercury and almost killed by a group of four terrorists, resulting in her being physically crippled for a long time and suffering from mental trauma, depression and PTSD.

……..ehhhhhhhh….. Funny?

Yeah, on a technical level I do not think the picture is the worst, but as “fanart” when you consider any canon context involving wheelchairs and Korra… yaiks. I mean, tone deaf is a bit of an understatement.

And I am not making this up. The plot of season 3 of Legend of Korra involved a group of four elemental benders trying to kill Korra, because their leader thinks that if he kills her he can break the Avatar cycle and that in turn will bring in a new era where people take their lives as a whole in their own hands, instead of the fate of the world depending on a few chosen ones like the Avatar. To do so they kidnap Korra and poison her with mercury, which they forcefully bend into her body. This results in her going full avatar mode and fighting the main villain Zaheer, only to get her ass handed by him thanks to the poison and him almost suffocating her by bending the air out of her lungs. Korra was in fact closer to death than any other character I have seen in the show, including Aang. And the aftermath of Zaheer’s actions were horrible. Season 3 ended with Korra still recovering from the poison (which had been bended out of her body again), by being stuck in a wheelchair and it being obvious she needs to get through rehabilitation. And while she did put on a brave face in front of everyone, the final shot of the episode is her at a ceremony celebrating the air nations rebirth, a single tear going down her cheek, indicating that in a way she is broken. The hotheaded and overall determined Korra at her lowest point.

I will openly admit, when I first saw that scene, I was taken aback a bit how bittersweet if not outright depressing the ending was. Begging the question, how by the time season 4 would roll in, Korra would have recovered. Turned out, not well. Not only was season 4 set three years after the events of the last one, but the first two episodes showed among other things how Korra went through rehabilitation in those years, how she was on more than one occasion on the brink of giving up and how she essentially went into hiding, not wanting to meet her friends again, abandoning her duties as the Avatar. She was not a sobbing mess, but she was broken. Not considering herself worthy of the title of avatar for the longest time and still suffering from physical and mental trauma because of what had happened to her. In fact, one of the better aspects of season 4 is how Korra tries to overcome her own trauma, in order to be strong enough to take on the fight against Kuvira before she can turn the Earth Kingdom completely into the Third Reich and take Republic City over.

In short, the picture of Korra in a wheelchair has a pretty significant and dramatic meaning for the character and the show as a whole. It is an important aspect of te shows storytelling and Korra’s final part of her character arc. Something with gravitas a lot of fans acknowledge. But Dobson sees it supposedly as something that gives way for a “badass and fun” pic with his favorite ship. And again, in my opinion, that is just tone deaf.I am not saying you can’t make a KorraSami pic with the wheelchair, but I think something with that motive should out of respect for the actual canon and its characters also be more somber than what we got here.

Which brings me back to how Dobson handles the couple in a shallower manner than it needs to be. Cause if he wasn’t just out for whimsical fun and fluff with his two favorite lesbians from Nickelodeon and would Korra and Asami consider more than just something to fawn upon based on looks, he could have drawn something more meaningful that genuinely showed how both are a decent representation of an LGBT-couple and interesting individuals. Cause being a couple when everything is fun and sunshine is one thing. Being there for each other when things are hard? THAT is the challenge and shows how much you really love someone.

#korrasami #andrew dobson #lgbt representation #lgbt #legend of korra #adobsonartwork #adobsonart #shipping #korra #korra comics #asami sato

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friendlylocalwhumper · 4 years

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They’re going to kill the Hunter.

Somehow. Kill him literally with a gun, or with magic, or with a squad of Resistance members who know exactly where and when to strike. Maybe kill him metaphorically, by stealing his resolve, tearing him down psychologically, gutting him of his magic. Maybe they’ll just convince him to stop, offer themself as his only victim for the rest of his life.

Whatever it takes.

They have one week left until their mission starts. It’s self-indulgence, they know, to put it off even that long, and self-indulgence to call it a mission. This wasn’t assigned to them by the Resistance. No one knows they’re going to do it. It’s a secret plan stitched together by someone who’s trying their best to be rational, but who admittedly has been through… something that makes their motivation decidedly emotional.

Nine friends dead. Slaughtered in the span of five minutes, left scattered and bloody on the ground. Javi says they all went quick, barely knew what hit them. Javi’s hands shake worse when he says that, his eyes go all distant and haunted.

Javi is lying.

Quinn thinks of their names. Their ages, too, so they don’t forget the tragedy of them dying so young. Quinn has pictures of them, hundreds, all printed out and kept in a neat pile in a box on their vanity. There are other things in the box: bottlecaps, crumpled post-it notes, a necklace, a chewed-on pencil. The last remnants of a big, goofy friend group that left an imprint of their times together on the world in little pieces. Quinn’s collected as many of them as they could.

Quinn’s talked to all their friends’ surviving family members. Parents, little siblings, partners. To soften the blow of the news, to sit with them while they cried. Nine times they cried, let themself be hugged, let themself be slapped and yelled at and accused of lying for attention.

They couldn’t lie about this much death, this much loss, for anything.

Even though lying is what they do.

Javi came back with a bruised throat. As in, from clear fingerprints peeking out on the underside of his aw, down to the base of his throat at the dip between his collarbones, there was a thick mess of black and purple and yellow and brown. He was more than choked, he was… this throat was crushed, countless times, for a long time. You can still hear it in the way he breathes, when he gets scared. And oh, he gets so scared, just trying to get through each day.

He came back with a gash across his throat. Straight and deep, healing but clearly still bothering him. It was hard for him to resist itching at it, covering it. Covering it as if it’d be sliced into again. And since then, it’s scarred, thick and ropy. Javi acts like it looks badass, like he can make it work. Javi was never the type to act badass, to intimidate others. He can’t even get through a dry joke about it before caving and going quiet.

Javi’s hands, once sure and openly shared with a pat on the back, a high five, offering a soda or a joint or whatever… they shake now. He keeps them to himself. He keeps everything to himself, looks smaller than he did before.

Javi can’t talk about the hunter who killed their friends. He can’t talk about the cellar he was kept in. He tries, because he knows Quinn needs to hear it - but every time, he falls apart. Shakes and loses his voice and needs to leave the room to collect himself.

Quinn let him stop talking, one of those times, and went to hug him. He flinched, apologized, and shoved himself into their arms all in the span of a second. As they rubbed his back, face drawn in concern, they felt his shuddering breaths and knew he was broken.

The Hunter has to go.

So Quinn’s been gathering all the information they could. They asked the Resistance for anything they have, and it’s a lot, but it’s also not much. It’s mostly rumors, whispers. The bodies found out on the street, most of them are from him. Anders Reyan got mindfucked by him. There’s a warlock, friend of Reyan’s, he’s the mindfucker’s favorite.

That’s a great place to start, the thought. Maybe the only lead Quinn would get, out here. So they went to see Reyan’s friend, the Hunter’s favorite.

Lux, his name is. Quinn went to the house, knocked on the door, greeted the man that opened it. Emory, his name was.

Emory heard that Quinn had questions about the mindfucker - it gets more of an emotional reaction, more camaraderie, when they use that word for him, instead of his moniker - and Emory’s expression darkened with mistrust, with anger. Protective. Outraged. Trying to escape the Hunter’s influence. Quinn watched, and waited, and then Lux himself pulled Emory out of the way to open the door all the way.

“Come in,” He’d said, and Quinn had, analyzing everything they could as they stepped past him. Lux was wearing short sleeves, scars on display all down his arms. His hands weren’t shaking. His voice was quiet, unobtrusive. He seemed like a nervous guy, but pulled together.

Quinn asked questions. Too many questions, for Lux and Emory, but not nearly enough for Quinn’s purposes. They asked about the Hunter’s house, about the cellar, about what restraints he used on Lux and when he took them off. About all the ways he hurt Lux - “Not the details, just the general things he tends to do” - and what he seems to like doing the most.

Lux seemed to fall apart, the longer they talked about it. He made Emory leave the room because he kept trying to end the conversation, and Lux wanted to get out his answers no matter what. Quinn learned just as much from their interactions, and Lux breaking down, as he did from Lux’s words.

It sounds like the Hunter likes a lot of things. Breaking bones. Choking. Beatings. Whipping. Humiliation, overwhelming his captive, and - most interesting - comforting them, after shattering them.

Lux was quaking and crying by the time Quinn left, grimly sated by all that they’d learned. They apologized, promising that this would help the Resistance, that Lux is brave for going through this, talking about it to save lives.

It’ll only do any good, really, if Quinn survives. If they don’t get out of the cellar with new intel, and a massively deepened understanding of the Hunter’s strategies and protections, then all that Lux shared only serves to make people sad and angry. It’s all heart-wrenching, chilling stuff, but only useful in attempting to survive the Hunter himself.

Quinn is going to survive. They might break in the process, they suppose. They’ll definitely scream, and cry, and beg. They’ll act like they’re breaking, and maybe he’ll push it even farther until it actually happens.

But they’ll keep a straight head. They’ll recap everything that’s been done to them, each night, and process it. They’ll be in pain, and they’ll be scared, and they’ll want out - but they’ll hold strong. For Lux, who somehow survived a year, there, and has carved out a manageable life for himself. For Javi, who cries, sometimes, when he’s startled into a panic attack and reminded of how scared he is now. For the nine friends, laughing and shoving at each other and lost in banter, who were slaughtered like fun, easy things to hunt.

Quinn doesn’t get angry about it. Like the photos and memories kept in a box in their room, they tuck away all their feelings about it, deep in their chest. They lock it up and save it for after the cellar. There will be an after. They will survive, succeed, and present the key to destroying the Hunter to the Resistance. They’ll stand at the front of a room before Daniel Peyroux, Anders Reyan, Lux Fortier, a dozen leaders of the most clever, hidden, weary survivors and say I did it. I survived the mindfucker, and I got everything we need to take him out. No one else has to suffer.

The next 24 months of their rent is paid for. Everything they own is neatly boxed up and labeled, in case they die, and their things need to be sorted, thrown away, kept as mementos. They’ve hugged Javi a little too long, and kissed his abuelita on the cheek, and laid outside on the grass to let the sun warm their skin and the breeze play with their hair.

They’re ready.

#whump #drabble #new oc!!!!#mine #quinn #javier #lux #angst #death tw #strong #shaking #past trauma #the hunter

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smolslothloaf · 4 years

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Yo as the only Micheal Crew fan (prolly), can I just say I’m so fucking salty that he died how he did?

Homeboy’s been hinted at since the fourth episode in this entire goddamn series, he’s been repeatedly connected to the Leitner books (which I guess are less important now that we’ve met Jurgen Leitner and we’ve got Gerard but uggggghhhh), he’s got a cool lightning scar and backstory and everything!

And once we get to meet him? He’s so intriguing-he ‘s polite even as he forces Jon to just fall through the air, he has a great voice (both literally and writing wise), and once he explains his backstory it doesn’t dissapoint. You get the image of this scared child whose been searching for protection and meaning his whole life. This creature’s been following him ever since he’s gotten his lightning scar, you kinda get that it’s the personification of his past even if he connects it all back to the Vast. To an extent, he kinda describes his relationship with his scar and his journey in self discovery all as both finding meaning and acceptance in the Vast. The moment he figures out what’s been calling to him is also the moment he accepts his past and his trauma. It all makes sense and comes together.

What I also find particularly interesting the way he laments about never being able to remember the most important events of his life, as I feel it’s something we all can relate to. Traumatic or not, negative or positive, many of us have trouble recalling the most life-changing events of our lives. We feel frustrated over this, we beat ourselves up for it, it’s just apart of life. In Mike’s statement this is such a small detail but it’s one that resonates with me deeply.

They set up Micheal Crew in such an engaging light and make him feel so real. I will admit that I’m not sure how much more they could do with him as this episode tied up pretty much all loose ends in his story. That being said, I would’ve absolutely LOVED to see more of him! He has an intruging personality, a cool backstory, he could’ve been a neat reaccuring character or something.

But no! Daisy Fucking Tonner just needsa bust down the fucking door and be like “YO THIS BITCH HUMAN?” And Jon’s like “uhhh ig not” and Daisy’s like “WELL THAT MEANS HES GONNA CATCH THESE HANDS.” AND JUST FUCKING SHOOTS HIM???

FUCK THAT NOISE.

YOU BUILD UP A CHARACTER OVER THE COURSE OF THREE SEASONS, WE MEET HIM AND HE GIVES US HIS LIFE STORY, THERES STILL SOME ROOM FOR HIM TO GIVE US ANSWERS OR SOME SHIT, THEN YOU HAVE THE A U D A C I T Y TO JUST YEET DAISY IN AND HAVE HER SHOOT HIM OUTSIDE?

O K A Y

LIKE,,, IG THEY NEEDED TO SET UP DAISY’S STORY AND GET MICHEAL OUT OF THE STORY OR SOME SHIT BUT. NOT LIKE THIS PLEASE?? IM FULLY WILLING TO ACCEPT THAT IM JUST UNREASONABLY SALTY ABOUT THIS BUT SERIOUSLY?? SHE JUST. SHOWS UP. SHOOTS HIM. THREATENS JON. BITCHES FOR AWHILE AND WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE OKAY WITH IT?

MICHEALS NOT EVEN BROUGHT UP AFTER THAT HE KINDA JUST GOT SHOVED TO THE SIDE FOR IMPORTANT PEOPLE PLOT(tm). HE GETS. PUSHED. TO. THE. SIDE. IN. HIS OWN. FUCKING, EPISODE. WASNT JON GONNA QUESTION HIM MORE? WASNT THAT WHY JON WAS THERE? I MEAN I GUESS HE COULDNT CUZ MICHEAL COULDDA DEFO KILLED HIM, BUT HE DIDNT EVEN DROP ANY BREAD CRUMBS FOR JON’S INVESTIGATION. JON LITERALLY GOT JACK SHIT FROM THAT INTERACTION ASIDES FOR MORE FUEL FOR HIS STATEMENT KINK. AS FAR AS THE PLOT’S CONCERNED, JON DIDN’T NEED THE CONTENTS OF MIKE’S STATMENT. THE KNOWELDGE WAS GOOD BUT HE GOT NO FURTHER ON HIS INVESTIGATION OF THE STRANGER. HE WAS DIRECTED TO MIKES DOOR FOR THE PLOT BUT THE PLOT AINT THERE, THE PLOTS AT DAISYS HOUSE

TO REVIEW:

THEY

DEADASS

JUST

THREW MICHEAL CREW IN THERE

HAD HIM EXPLAIN HIS BACKSTORY

THEN KILLED HIM OFF

AFTER HYPING HIM UP

FOR

THREE

FUCKING

SEASONS

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

ARE YOU ACTUALLY FUCKING KIDDING ME???

YA KNOW THATS PROLLY THE ONE BIG BONE IVE GOTTA PICK WITH THIS SHOW. THEY BUILD UP INTERESTING CHARACTERS OVER THE COURSE OF FULL SEASONS, THEN THEY’RE ONLY GIVEN THEIR TIME TO SHINE FOR ONE EPISODE BEFORE BEING ADRUPTLY KILLED OFF AND NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. I HEARD IT GETS BETTER BUT ITS A PRETTY BIG PROBLEM FOR THE FIRST TWO SEASONS.

JANE PRENTISS COULDDA BEEN COOL! AND SHE WAS COOL! BUT SHE ONLY ACTUALLY DID SHIT FOR ONE EPISODE THEN WAS KILLED WITH LITTLE RESISTANCE. SHE DIDNT EVEN MAKE A COMEBACK OR ANYTHING, THEY REALLY JUST WENT “THAT BITCH DEAD AND DID JACK SHIT” AFTER HYPING HER UP THE WHOLE SEASON. LIKD OKAY SURE GO OFF. THEYRE BUILDING UP BREEKON AND HOPE A BIT MORE NOW, CANT WAIT FOR THEM TO BE KILLED OFF AS SOON AS WE MEET THEM.

LIKE I GET IT I GET IT. MICHEALS STORY WAS COMPLETE. NOT EVERY CHARACTER NEEDS TO BE PLOT RELEVANT. NOT EVERY CHARACTER THATS BUILT UP NEEDS AN ELABORATE PLOT. NOT EVERY CHARACTER NEEDS A SATISFYING SEND OFF.

BUT IM STILL FUCKING MAD ABOUT IT CUZ I FEEL NOTHING. I LOVED HIS STATEMENT AND IT WOULD’VE JUST BEEN FINE IF MICHEAL WAS JUST LEFT ALONE AFTER THAT OR SOMETHING. OR HELL HE EVEN COULD’VE BEEN KILLED IN A DIFFERENT WAY I JUST HATE HOW DAISY CAME IN THERE OUT OF BUTTFUCK NO WHERE, SHOT A GUY SHE BARELY KNEW CUZ “he spoopy” AND ITS JUST NEVER BROUGHT UP. MIKE DIDNT EVEN NEED TO BE THERE. JON WENT THERE FOR ANSWERS, MIKE GAVE HIM NOTHING CUZ INSTEAD OF HAVING AN INTERESTING LITTLE CONVERSATION, DAISY NEEDED HER CHARACTER ARC. IM REPEATING MYSELF AT THIS POINT BUT IM JUST SO FUCKING ANGY ABOUT THIS.

FUCK DAISY, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I am fully aware that I’ll wake up tomorrow and deem all of this as invalid and unreadable, I just needed to get this all off my chest. In all honesty the main reason I’m upset is because the Vast is my personal favorite entity and Micheal’s statement is a good summation of why

People affected by the Vast are just that-people. Well, all statement givers are people, but the Vast’s statments I find are much more grounded and down to Earth. They aren’t as out there or over the top like the Corruption or the Stranger. They’re just little ‘tweaks’ in someone’s perspective that shakes their core. It takes mundane occurances and pushes them to their extreme. All the Vast did in “High Pressure” was make someone feel as though they were sinking forever and forced them underwater. It’s some you could probably picture happening to yourself more clearly then say, being attacked by War Ghosts. (NOT bashing on War Ghosts btw, they’re just a different brand of spooky.) The type of fear that the Vast victims have is also kinda different to me. I’m not sure how well I can explain it but best I can describe it is that it feels like geunine trauma that someone with that phobia would experience? I still don’t think that’s quite right but take “A Long Way Down” for instance, where the statement giver’s brother suffers from Acrophobia. That’s a real boy with Acrophobia! I feel who he is as an actual person as I follow his life, I know his worst nightmare, and once you see what happens to him, you completely feel both from him and his brother. Or in “Freefall” where you see a mother mourn for her son’s trauma and death. She saw something he loved suddenly turn him so, so afraid then saw the very thing he feared swallow him up.

It’s just any average person greiving their loved one’s trauma or being pushed to a limit you can see yourself being pushed to. It’s all very grounded in reality and makes it all feel that more real. And I feel like Micheal Crew’s statement just summed that up so well. He’s such a perfect face for what I love about the Vast. He’s just a person at his core, who was scared and needed guidance.

It’s just that the way it ended and how adruptly he was killed left a sour taste in my mouth.

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gwenbrightly · 4 years

Text

The Little Mermaid Incident (aka the beach day everyone deserves)

Crossposted from ffnet. I’ve been meaning to do a beach day themed chapter for Of Milk and Cookies for awhile now, so here it is!

“This feels… weird…” Lloyd commented absently, digging his toes into the sand. Kai gave his brother an odd look.

“The sand feels weird?”

“No. This. Being here, at the beach to relax without the threat of an evil warlord bent on world domination looming over us?” he explained, tilting his face toward the sun and enjoying its warmth. Nya slung an arm around his shoulders.

“After everything you’ve been through, you’ve earned it, Lloyd. Taking today to chill and have fun is exactly what you need! And just look how happy your dad is.” she told him, watching as the former villain helped his wife spread out a picnic blanket not far away. The sound of laughter floated over to them. Lloyd grinned.

“I wasn’t sure, at first. If they were gonna figure stuff out. You know?” he admitted hesitantly, “But they’ve both been really great about it so far.”

Kai gave his hair a ruffle and said, “I’m really happy for you, green bean.”

“Me too,” Nya agreed, “now let’s get over there and join the others before Cole completely buries Jay.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Lloyd noted with a laugh. The two ninja in question were throwing sand at each other with gusto. The buckets they had brought for sand castles had been long forgotten. He followed Kai and Nya as they approached them, ignoring his slight limp. The lingering effects of his injuries made it difficult to completely forget the events leading up to this moment, but he was happy to put the memories out of his mind for now.

“Do I even want to know what’s happening right now? I thought you were gonna make a scale model of the city.” asked Nya as she ducked a wayward clump of wet sand. Jay gave her a look that clearly meant save me.

“We were. But dirt clod over here decided it’d be funny to bury me instead…” he complained.

“So I know this looks bad but-” Cole began to protest before Kai interrupted him.

“Nah, I can definitely see the appeal in torturing Jay.”

“Hey!” the master of lightning glared at Kai, “not helping.”

“Listen. You know those pictures where people bury their legs in sand and make it look like they have mermaid tails and stuff? I was just thinking it’d be funny to take one of those and send it to Zane.” Cole explained, resisting the urge to toss more sand at his best friend. They had all been a bit disappointed that their nindroid brother couldn’t wouldn’t be joining them til later in the day, but they understood his desire to spend as much time as possible with his father. There was no way of knowing how much longer they had. Lloyd’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, that does sound like fun!”

“Okay but I don’t see why I have to be the mermaid,” Jay said, giving Cole a dirty look, “Nya’s like, way prettier.”

“Um… thank you?” she replied. Her cheeks flushed slightly at his awkward compliment.

“Well, I mean, your hair could almost pass for red in this light.” Cole offered.

“And you did grow up in a junkyard. I’m sure you do have whozits and whatzits galore lying around.” Nya added.

“And thingamabobs. He’s definitely got at least twenty of those.” Lloyd joined in with glee.

“But who cares. No big deal. He wants mooore.” Kai began to sing. He wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity to mess with Jay.

“Jay wants to be where the people are. Jay wants to see, wants to see them dancing,” the others joined in loudly and more than a little off key, “Walkin' around on those, Whad'ya call 'em?”

“Oh, feet!” Nya practically shouted. Jay shook his head in resignation. His family had become far too invested in this for his liking.

“O-okay fine. I’ll do it. But only if you stop singing about me like that.”

“Thanks for being such a good sport, buddy.” Cole told him, slapping his back. He sighed and then plopped himself down on a particularly nice-looking patch of sand.

“Well, might as well get comfortable, I guess. I expect to look fabulous by the time this is over.” the master of lightning joked, already scooping up whatever sand was within arm’s reach.

“Oh, don’t worry. You will.” his girlfriend promised. Lloyd nodded enthusiastically.

“We got you covered.” he declared before grabbing a bucket and wandering off in search of seashells to decorate with. This beach was much nicer than the one on the island. He hadn’t enjoyed that experience very much; it had been gloomy and cold and had quite honestly been full of traumatizing experiences. But here there was sun, and warmth and pretty shells, and sea glass that had washed up with the tide. It was peaceful. Lloyd found himself wishing they’d done this sooner. His parents probably weren’t going to appreciate all his newfound treasures, though. Most of the things he’d put in his bucket were not going to be donated to Jay’s new look. He smiled with delight, spotting another sand dollar to add to his collection.

“Yo, Lloyd, get your butt over here.” the Green Ninja heard Kai shouting in the distance. He pocketed it and trotted back to the others. They had managed to completely bury Jay’s legs while he was gone and now Cole was carving a scaly design into the sand-tail.

“Oh, yes. These will work great!” Nya exclaimed, rooting through his Lloyd’s bucket. He snatched away some of his more precious finds before she could claim them for Jay.

“Betcha I could help you make a lanyard with one of these pieces of sea glass later, if you want? I saw a tutorial on Ninterest that looked cool.” she offered. Lloyd considered this for a moment. It would make a nice gift for his mother – a peace offering to show that he was doing his best to let go of their rocky past.

“Sure, that’d be neat.” he agreed.

“Okay, you two. Show me the goods. I get full veto power on anything that isn’t mermaidy enough.” Jay told them, doing his best to hold still so he wouldn’t disturb the sand piled on his legs.

“Is that even a word?” Kai wondered. The master of lightning gave him a look.

“It is now. I’m a mermaid so I would know.”

Nya rolled her eyes and held up one of the shells she’d snagged from Lloyd.

“Whaddya think, Ariel, is this one a keeper?” she asked her boyfriend. He examined it carefully.

“Ooh yeah, I like it.” he replied.

“What about…” Lloyd took his time choosing another shell, “This one? “

“Nah, that one has a piece chipped off, see? Mermaid princesses don’t wear chipped shells.”

“More for me, then.” Lloyd shrugged, happy to return the shell to his collection. They cycled through more shells and eventually they began to run out of places to put them.

“Please tell me that was the last of them? If we add any more shells, Jay’s gonna start looking tacky.” said Cole.

“It is. Unless you wanna fight Lloyd to the death for his ‘favorites’ or something.” Nya assured him.

“I just think they’re cool, okay?” Lloyd defended, pulling the bucket closer.

“How about we take that picture, now.” Kai suggested gently. Jay nodded in agreement. He was starting to lose feeling in his feet.

“Please. As fun as this has been, I can’t hold still much longer.”

They called Garmadon, who wisely refrained from asking questions, over to take the picture for them on Cole’s phone. He waited patiently as they arranged themselves so that everyone was visible, the sight of his son so happy making it all worthwhile. Once everyone was in position (which was an adventure in itself), they smiled brightly while the former warlord snapped several pictures.

“Thank you,” Cole said as he took his phone back from Garmadon and flipped through the images, “guys! These are gold!”

The others crowded around so they could see too. Nya turned to Jay, who was still half buried, and offered her hands.

“Want some help up?” she asked.

“Sure,” he grinned, wanting to see himself in all his mermaid glory before Cole sent the picture to Zane. The master of lightning grabbed his girlfriend’s hands and prepared to be launched from his sandy prison. Unfortunately for both of them, Nya yanked a bit too hard. They both ended up sprawled on the sand, prompting Cole to take even more pictures. Kai and Lloyd snickered as the two struggled to disentangle themselves.

“You better not post those on Chirp.” Nya muttered. The master of earth shrugged in a way that made it clear he planned to do exactly that the first chance he got.

“Alright, lemme see.” Jay demanded once he was back on his feet. Cole tossed him his phone. He smiled broadly when he saw the results of his mermaidy suffering.

“Oh, yes. I can’t wait to see Zane’s reaction to this.”

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could do with a bit less sand covering my entire body. I’m gonna go rinse off.” Nya declared, heading for the water. Lloyd watched absently as she, Jay, and Cole raced towards the waves after sending Zane a copy of their shenanigans. Kai stood next to him. He didn’t seem interested in joining the others.

“You’re not gonna go swimming?” Lloyd asked.

“Nah. Water’s not really my thing. And besides. You look like you’ve got something on your mind.” Kai told him.

“I’m just… wondering what happens next, that’s all.” Lloyd explained. Kai regarded him carefully for a moment before responding. There were a lot of unknowns now that the world was beginning to return to normal. But that didn’t mean Lloyd should be stressing out about the future. So Kai settled for something simple.

“You get to be a kid, Lloyd. You go home and find a good hiding place for all that stuff you’ve got in your bucket. You spend time with your parents and stay up way too late reading comic books,” his brother cracked a grin at this, “Maybe even get Nya to help you with your multiplication tables so you can stop counting on your fingers – don’t think I haven’t noticed that. But at the end of the day, whatever you decide, it’s your choice. I know eventually Master Wu will have stuff for you to do, but in the meantime? Just be a kid, okay? You deserve that much.”

“O-okay. I think I can do that.” Lloyd decided. He hadn’t exactly gotten to just be a kid lately. It sounded… nice.

“Good.” Kai told him, ruffling his hair.

“Thanks.” he replied, giving the older boy a hug. Returning it, Kai said, “It’s what big brothers do, green bean.”

They stood there in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the peacefulness of the afternoon. The sound of Nya screeching as Jay dunked her could be heard in the distance, bringing them back to reality.

“You sure you don’t wanna go in the water?” Lloyd broke the silence.

“Would… would you believe me if I told you I can’t swim?” Kai admitted, looking sheepish. Lloyd stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was lying.

“You do realize you were the first to suggest swimming back to ninjago when we got stuck on the island, right?” he said at last.

“I… yes that is true…” the master of fire stated. Lloyd smacked him.

“Dude, you need serious help. You could’ve died.” he exclaimed.

Kai held up his hands in surrender.

“I know, I know. Getting myself killed would’ve been a dumb move.”

“The dumbest,” Lloyd agreed, dragging him towards the water, “but you’re at least gonna come put your feet in. And we are so revisiting this later.”

“Okay, but I take no responsibility for any splashing that might happen as a result of your pestering.” joked Kai, giving in to Lloyd’s demands with little protest. After all, the sun was bright and the water was cool, and in this moment, the world was at peace. Whatever the future held could wait.

#ninjago #ninjago fanfiction #myfics #OMAC #mermaid jay is a hill I will die on #just... don't ask how I came up with it because I sure as heck don't know #family shenanigans #Kai can't swim #Lloyd hoards seashells #Nya is such a supportive gf

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heartofether · 4 years

Text

Episode 6 - Open Eyes TRANSCRIPT

[You can listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or go to our “Listen” page if you’re on desktop.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

Please state your message.

[THEME MUSIC AND INTRODUCTION PLAYS.]

VAL

Three-Eyed Frog Presents: The Heart of Ether.

[THEME CONTINUES BEFORE COMING TO A STOP.]

[PHONE BEEP.]

[EXT. OUTSIDE OF THE BOOKSTORE.]

[THERE ARE FAINT WIND NOISES IN THE BACKGROUND.]

IRENE

[MUTTERS] I hope this recording still sounds okay.

Other than the cracked screen, I haven’t run into any issues with my phone since I dropped it due to a…mishap, in my search. I can probably try to get the screen replaced at some point, but Aiden was right about backing up my recordings.

I’m not sure how I would react if I lost all of them. I mean, do I even need to keep them? I don’t usually go back and listen to them, but…I mean, I guess I have an emotional attachment to them.

It’s fine for now. I’ll look into saving them when I get home. Right now, I’m at the Open Eyes Bookstore. I know I’ve mentioned coming here before, but this is the first time I’m actually here.

I’m hoping there might be something here about the thing I saw in the woods. I have sort of a theory going right now—and okay, sure, I don’t have much evidence, but here me out.

Bernard Kelly Valencia, the guy who used to live in my house, hung out with the previous owner of this shop a lot. They always seemed dedicated to some sort of mysterious research, right? I think they might have known more about this creature than I do, and while Dorothy Wood passed away, her bookstore is still standing. There might be something in there that explains all of this.

I’m looking through the window right now. There’s nobody in there but a young girl with a cane. To be fair, I think they’re about to close. I came here a bit late.

Well, guess there’s nothing left but to go in.

[A BELL CHIMES AS IRENE OPENS THE SHOP DOOR. “I DO” BY ROSEMARY ROMANO IS FAINTLY PLAYING FROM A RADIO OR SPEAKER IN THE BACKGROUND.]

PHOEBE

[FROM A SLIGHT DISTANCE] Oh, hello! Welcome.

IRENE

Hey there.

[THE DOOR CLOSES. THERE’S FOOTSTEPS, ACCOMPANIED BY THE TAP OF A CANE, AS PHOEBE WALKS OVER.]

PHOEBE

[IN RANGE] Welcome, um, welcome to Open Eyes! I don’t think I’ve seen you here before?

IRENE

Nope, I’m new in town.

PHOEBE

Oh, um, neat! That’s neat. Um, let me know if you need help?

IRENE

Got it. [A BEAT.] Dorothy Wood used to own this shop, right?

PHOEBE

[SHE SWALLOWS.] Yes. I’m, uh, actually her granddaughter.

I’m Phoebe Wood.

IRENE

[TAKEN ABACK] Oh, that’s cool. Uh, hi. I’m Irene. It’s nice to meet you.

PHOEBE

Oh, the pleasure’s mine. [A BEAT.] I mean, uh, nice to meet you, too. [AWKWARDLY] Yeah.

If you’re here for Dorothy, then I’m really sorry, but she’s not alive anymore. I’ve taken over the shop since, though, so if you need to talk to the owner, that’s—uh—that’s me!

IRENE

I knew that, don’t worry. You’ve been running this shop by yourself, though?

PHOEBE

[SHE GIVES A SHAKY BREATH.] For the most part, yes. It’s, um, it’s been fun! I think. [beat] I mean, really, really stressful, because I haven’t hired anyone else yet because I don’t even know how to run a— [SHE STOPS HERSELF.] It’s fine. It’s fun!

IRENE

It sounds like a lot, though.

PHOEBE

I’m okay! It’s okay, I promise. Sorry.

IRENE

It’s really nice in here, though. It’s cozy, I guess in the best word?

PHOEBE

[SINCERE] Thank you. Lots of the decor is left behind by my grandma. People, er, they came here a lot before she died because she made it feel like a home.

[REASSURING] Business is still good, though, don’t worry. Still, I try my best to take care of the plants she left behind; Make sure the shop still feels like a home. I mean, for me, it is a home—I live in her old apartment on the second story. [GROWING DISTANT] I want to start to incorporate more things I like, but…it feels too soon, I guess.

[COMING BACK TO HERSELF] Sorry, I’m so sorry. [MUTTERS] Jeez, I was rambling.

What can I help you find today?

IRENE

I’m… [HESITANT] Okay, this is going to sound really weird, but do you have any books about…monsters?

[A PAUSE.]

PHOEBE

[CONFUSED] You mean, mythology? Or, horror books?

IRENE

No, not that.

[A FEAR LINGERS UNDER HER VOICE.] I saw something in the forest. It was big, and it came up from the ground, and it saw me without any eyes. I know you might not know what I’m talking about. If you decide to just kick me out of your store, that’s fine. [DESPARATE] I need to know what I saw, though.

…do you think you have any books to help with that?

PHOEBE

[QUIET] Oh.

[SHE REALIZES, THEN, IN SURPRISE] Oh! Right. You, uh—

[MUMBLING TO HERSELF] Well, heh, she said that—I don’t know if —

IRENE

[OVERLAPPING, CONCERNED] Hey, if you want me to leave, I can—

PHOEBE

[CUTTING IRENE OFF] Follow me.

IRENE

...okay?

PHOEBE

I— [SHE FORCES A NERVOUS CHUCKLE.] I think there’s something in the backroom you should see.

IRENE

Oh. Okay, sure.

[THERE’S FOOTSTEPS, ALONG WITH PHOEBE’S CANE, AS THEY GO TO THE BACKROOM. PHOEBE OPENS THE DOOR. SHE FLICKS THE LIGHT SWITCH SEVERAL TIMES.]

PHOEBE

Come inside.

[THEY ENTER THE ROOM. PHOEBE CLOSES THE DOOR, AND THE BACKGROUND SONG FADES TO A STOP.]

IRENE

[ASTOUNDED] What is all this?

PHOEBE

My grandma’s research.

[PHOEBE WALKS FURTHER INTO THE ROOM TO BEGIN SEARCHING.]

IRENE

There’s so much of it, though. That’s a hell of a lot of reading material.

PHOEBE

[ALMOST BITTER] Well, it would be if all of it actually meant something!

IRENE

What do you mean?

PHOEBE

[GUILTY] Oh, sorry. It’s just that most of this doesn’t make any sense.

When my grandma died, she left me a letter where she pretty much left me the shop. She said that this room right here was the most important room—that all of the information here was vital, and needed protecting, and that I should only let very specific people see it.

You’re uh—heh—you’re actually the very first person I’ve brought back here.

IRENE

I guess that makes me special?

PHOEBE

[DREADFUL] Please don’t say or do anything to make me regret this. I’m still not even sure if it’s a good idea to be showing you—or, or anyone—all of this.

IRENE

Sorry. [A BEAT.] What did she research?

PHOEBE

I’m not quite sure.

She was always so secretive about all of it. I mean, I saw her working on it for my whole life, but I never even saw this room until after she died.

Don’t get me wrong, I tried asking about it, especially when I was a kid and I was living with her. She told me it would put me in danger if I knew about it, though.

[UPSET] Now, she actually wants me to know about it, but she’s not even here to explain it to me.

[SHE IS HEARD FLIPPING THROUGH SOME PAPERS.]

PHOEBE

Most of this stuff is blank, or it’s written in a way I can’t understand. I think she wrote some of it in secret codes?

IRENE

[CONFUSED] That’s…odd.

PHOEBE

I’m able to read some of it, though. She wrote some things in the format of actual books, so it’s easier to read. Even then, though, none of the things she’s talking about make any sense to me. I mean, it’s all almost like some fantastical story.

[WORRIED] I’ve tried to find some sort of starting point, like a “how-to” guide. Between running the shop and everything else in my life, though, I can hardly sort through the surface level things, let alone process any of the information.

IRENE

Sounds like quite the situation.

PHOEBE

[SHE SNORTS.] That’s one way to put it.

I’m sorry. I think there’s got to be something in here about forest creatures, though.

[SHE GRUNTS IN PAIN AS SHE SITS ON THE FLOOR TO BEGIN SORTING THROUGH A BOX.]

PHOEBE

Could you please look through that stack of books over there?

IRENE

Sure.

[IRENE WALKS OVER AND BEGINS LOOKING THROUGH A STACK OF JOURNALS. SHE IS HEARD TURNING PAGES AS SHE SPEAKS.]

IRENE

Let’s see…The Feast? [VAGUELY UNCOMFORTABLE] Mm, no. I’m not sure what’s going on there, actually.

Um…? [THEN, TO PHOEBE] This one is just called Folk.

PHOEBE

Oh, um, trying looking through it? That might be one of the ones with pictures.

[IRENE LOOKS THROUGH THE BOOK.]

IRENE

I think…wait, yeah, this looks right. I think this might have something.

PHOEBE

Oh, that’s good! Does it, I mean, does it have the thing you saw?

IRENE

Hmm, well, it has lots of illustrations of the forest [SLIGHTLY GROSSED OUT] and also one of a dead rabbit. For whatever reason. It’s a starting place.

[IRENE CLOSES THE BOOK.]

PHOEBE

Oh, okay! Feel free to take it. I, um, I mean, please return it. I can’t charge you for it because technically it’s not part of the store, but just make sure you give it back when you’re done. I don’t want to lose any of my grandma’s research.

IRENE

You have my word. Thank you, er, Phoebe, was it?

PHOEBE

Yup! Thank you for remembering, and just, please promise not to tell anyone.

[SHE PAUSES, THEN, MUMBLES IN REGRET] Hnng, I, uh, shouldn’t have sat on the floor.

IRENE

Do you need help?

PHOEBE

Please.

[THE FLOORBOARDS CREAK AS IRENE HELPS BRING PHOEBE TO HER FEET.]

IRENE

And here’s your cane.

PHOEBE

[GRATEFUL] Thank you so much. I have to go close up shop for now, but, let me know what you think of the book! Hopefully at least some of it makes sense to you.

IRENE

[TWINGED WITH DOUBT] Let’s hope.

[PHONE BEEP.]

[RECORDING ENDS.]

[INT. IN IRENE’S CAR, OUTSIDE OF THE STORE.]

[IRENE CLEARS HER THROAT BEFORE READING ALOUD.]

IRENE

The Forest Folk cannot bring harm, because they are made of harm. Without pain, without suffering, without death, they would not exist. They know that pain lives everywhere. In the streams, the trees, the sky, the earth. They know the natural cycle of pain as it comes and goes.

Because of this, they know no need to harm others, as nature will run its course without the assistance. No, the Folk do not bring harm—they collect it. They absorb all of that pain, gathering it all into one final resting place beneath the ground.

The Folk know nothing, but they know everything, and more than anything, they understand. They cannot give you answers, as they do not speak, but ask them about what it is you seek and you shall soon find it.

They will not ever ask you to join them, but it is advised you never do.

[SHE SIGHS DEEPLY AS SHE FINISHES READING.]

IRENE

And that’s pretty much one of the only coherent passages.

[SHE FANS THROUGH THE BOOK.]

IRENE

There’s illustrations, and blank pages, and special code, like Phoebe mentioned. The stuff I do understand seems to go back to pain and death a lot, but the “Folk” it’s describing seem to be peaceful.

[A LONG PAUSE.]

IRENE

[BAFFLED, TINGED WITH AN ANGER OF SORTS] What the fuck?

[PHONE BEEP.]

[RECORDING ENDS.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

Today’s quote is: “You are not wrong who deem / That my days have been a dream; / Yet if hope has flown away / In a night, or in a day, / In a vision, or in none, / Is it therefore the less gone? / All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream.”

Edgar Allan Poe in “A Dream Within A Dream,” 1849.

[THE AUTOMATED VOICE STARTS TO SLOW DOWN, BECOMING SLIGHTLY DISTORTED. THE PAUSES GROW BETWEEN EACH WORD AS IT BECOMES SLOWER AND SLOWER.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

She is listening.

We are sorry.

[THEME MUSIC AND CREDITS PLAY.]

#heart of ether transcripts

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fallintosanity · 5 years

Text

the common fandom interpretation of mts is that they’re half-daemonified people inside suits of armor, which isn’t true according to either the main game or episode: prompto

but what the actual fuck besithia was doing with the clones is really hard to work out.

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15

“C’mon,” Future Prompto said over his shoulder as he sauntered toward the ramp down the side of the haven. “It’s a twenty-minute walk out to the water tower and if we take too long we’re gonna get sunburned.”

“Right,” Prompto said, and scrambled after him.

They walked for a few minutes in silence, following a faint track along the sun-hardened ground. In the distance, Prompto could see a short, squat water tower, probably their destination. His future self, despite what he’d said about sunburn, was walking at a lazy pace, his face tilted up to the sun again. Prompto trailed behind him, feeling awkward and unsure. How did you start a conversation with your future self, anyway?

He picked at the gauze that wrapped his right wrist in place of the familiar wristband Ardyn Izunia had sliced off. He couldn’t see his future self’s wrist; the crisp sleeves of his Kingsglaive uniform jacket covered it. The uniform looked surprisingly good on him. Prompto had never thought about joining the Kingsglaive, or even the Crownsguard, not seriously at least. The Crownsguard was for people like Gladio and Ignis, who’d trained since birth in all kinds of crazy fighting arts, who were muscular and powerful and brave. Prompto figured the former out-of-shape, shy kid who’d been too chicken to even talk to the other kids at school wouldn’t stand a chance.

No, Prompto had just planned to get through high school and find a job taking photos for magazines or something. Maybe see if Noctis wanted a royal photographer, though he’d known that was unlikely. Not that the Lucis Caelums didn’t have royal photographers, but like the Crownsguard, that was a prestigious role reserved for the country’s best. Not some nobody orphan with a barcode on his wrist.

But apparently his future self had ended up a Kingsglaive. He looked good, too - other than the unhealthy sunless pallor of his skin, which all four of the future adults had because apparently the sun went away in the future too, what the hell. But he was a couple of inches taller than Prompto, and while he was no Gladio, he’d filled out with muscle. Prompto’s own arms and legs were basically twigs, all skin and bone after a growth spurt he hadn’t planned for in his diet, and he felt constantly awkward and clumsy. His future self moved with easy confidence, the way Gladio did, the way the guards who followed Noctis everywhere did.

As if sensing his scrutiny, Future Prompto met his gaze. His mouth quirked, a small expression that wasn’t quite a smile. “Go ahead,” he said. “Ask.”

“Ask what?” Prompto said, nerves making his voioce less steady than he would have liked.

His future self waved a hand vaguely. “You have questions, right? Ask ‘em. It’ll be easier like that than if I just start babbling, you know?”

“Uh, right,” Prompto said. He rubbed at the gauze over his tattoo, took a deep breath, and blurted, “Your Noctis knows, doesn’t he? About… about the…” He waved his wrist. “Does that… does that mean you know, too?”

Future Prompto nodded. “Yeah.”

“So…” He almost couldn’t get the question out. He hadn’t thought he’d ever know the truth, and definitely hadn’t thought he’d learn it like this. “What is it? What does it mean?” He didn’t have to say what am I? If anyone would understand, it was his future self.

For a long moment Future Prompto said nothing, his gaze turned up toward the sky. Then he sighed and stopped walking, turning to meet Prompto’s eyes again. “You sure you want to know?”

Prompto opened his mouth to say Of course I’m sure, but the words didn’t come. Future Prompto wouldn’t be asking that if he didn’t think Prompto had a very good reason not to want to know. Instead he asked, very quietly, “It’s… it’s bad, isn’t it.”

His future self didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Prompto swallowed hard, looking away, eyes skating over the bright yellow desert landscape without really seeing it. But there really was only one option he could take. The barcode had haunted him his whole life; he couldn’t let it keep being a phantom holding him back. He said, “I’m sure. I want to know, even if it’s bad. Especially if it’s bad.”

Future Prompto started walking again. “Have you had that world history class yet, the one with, what’s his face, that one teacher who hated Noct?”

Prompto frowned at the non-sequiter, hurrying to catch up. “Mr. Malazan? Yeah, we have him this year, why?”

“Have you done the Niflheim module yet?”

“Yeah, last semester.”

“So you know about the origin of MTs.”

“Uh. I guess?” Prompto tried to remember what they’d covered. He hadn’t paid much attention to the lessons; he hadn’t thought he would ever need it, for one, and for two the whole idea of robot soldiers wigged him out. It wasn’t fair, Niflheim fighting with robots they could build and replace, while Lucis had to send humans to fight and die. “They were first created like thirty years ago by some Niff scientist, but didn’t start showing up in combat for another ten years or so.”

His future self nodded. “Thirty-two years ago from now. Forty-four from my time. The name of the scientist was Verstael Besithia. They didn’t show you a picture of him in class, did they?”

“They did, but it was some old grainy thing,” Prompto said. “All I remember was he was bald on top and kinda spotty. Why are you asking about this?” He wanted his future self to get to the point.

Future Prompto snorted. “Spotty,” he muttered, and shook his head. He held out a hand; blue magic shimmered between his fingers and suddenly he held a small, battered notebook. Prompto watched in amazement - even Noct didn’t use the magic of the royal Lucis armory that freely, and it was strange to see his future self treat it with the casualness of reaching into a pocket. Future Prompto handed him the notebook. “Take a look.”

Prompto frowned at him, but flipped through the book. The pages were covered with his own neat handwriting, and various newspaper clippings and photos had been wedged in between. Most of the handwritten blurbs were marked with the words “Transcript”, dates - all between ME 757 and 763 - and strings of letters that might have been abbreviated place names. The newspaper clippings were much older, dating back to 721, mostly from Niflheim and talking about Besithia and the production of magitek troopers.

Then he flipped a page and found a photo of himself staring back.

Except it wasn’t him. For a second he thought it was his older self instead, but that wasn’t right, either. The man in the photo was probably in his mid- to late forties, his blond hair fading to grey around the edges, his freckles turning into age spots above his beard. His outfit was ostentatious, brightly colored with a tall collar and broad shoulder pads, and matched the arrogance in his expression.

Prompto looked up at his older self in horror. “Who…?”

“Verstael Besithia,” Future Prompto answered shortly. His eyes had gone dark and shuttered, the way Noct’s did the rare few times someone mentioned the daemon attack he’d suffered as a child.

“But…” Prompto looked at the picture again, then up at his future self. They were damn near identical save for age. Even Gladio didn’t look that much like his dad. “He’s - he looks like—”

“Yeah,” Future Prompto said. “Noct mentioned where daemons come from, right? Last night?” Prompto nodded, not trusting his voice. Future Prompto continued, his voice flat, “Besithia needed daemon miasma to power his MTs. But using regular daemons didn’t work well, and when he tried using people who were in the process of turning, that didn’t work either because of something he called ‘ego death’. So he figured, why not use babies? They don’t have egos.”

His voice was bitter and sharp enough to cut, and Prompto flinched. His future self noticed and took a deep breath, visibly reining himself in, before continuing. “He cloned himself. He eventually figured out a way to speed up the babies’ aging without actually letting them develop as people enough to have egos. But before he did… some Lucian spy stole one of those cloned babies.”

Prompto stared at his future self, horror curdling his stomach; he was suddenly glad he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. “That was—You mean—we were—”

Future Prompto nodded. “We were just one of thousands of clones meant to be infected with Starscourge and harvested for daemon miasma to power MTs.” He reached out and flipped the pages in the notebook Prompto’d forgotten he held, stopping on a page that had nothing but a photo taped to it.

A photo of tall narrow glass tubes, each one holding Prompto. A Prompto, a clone, one of many in a row, each with Prompto’s face and a barcode stamped on its right wrist.

“I was taking photos of every room I went into,” Future Prompto said tonelessly. “I figured the intel might be useful. I didn’t realize what I was looking at until after I took the shot.”

The world swayed and for a second Prompto had to focus on staying upright, on not collapsing to the hard desert rock and throwing up or passing out or screaming. The notebook fell from his fingers, shattering into blue crystal light before it could hit the ground. “But… but…”

Future Prompto said nothing. When Prompto looked up, his future self was staring at him, his expression grim. Prompto managed, “Noctis - your Noctis - knows? He knows?! And Gladio and Ignis?”

Last night, in the van, Future Noctis had said, It’s nothing to worry about. You’re fine.

Except Future Noctis had been wrong. How could Prompto be fine, how could he ever be fine again when he was—was that?!

His future self just nodded, and said softly, “They don’t care. They’re—It’s rare, people that good.”

“Does anyone else know? In the future?”

Future Prompto’s expression darkened and he gripped his own right wrist. “Everyone.” At Prompto’s horrified look, he added grimly, “Ardyn thought it would be fun to spread the news.” He met Prompto’s gaze, eyes cold and sharp and deadly. “He’s probably gonna do it again. He hates Besithia damn near as much as he hates Noctis, and Besithia’s dead in my time, so guess who he’s taking it out on. The guys are okay—” with a tilt of his head back toward the haven to indicate Noct and Gladio and Ignis— “but from now on, you don’t turn your back on anyone. Not strangers. Not people you think are friends.” His eyes closed for a moment, his fingers tightening around his wrist so hard the leather of his glove creaked. “Especially not people you think are friends.”

Prompto shivered. Despite the desert heat, a chill had seeped down into his bones, one he doubted any amount of sun or warmth could dispel. It was too much to take in all at once, too much to process, to understand. He couldn’t think, the photos of Verstael Besithia, of the clones in their tubes - him in a tube, hairless and placid and stamped with a barcode like the property he’d been created as - spinning through his brain. He doubled over, hands on his knees, breathing hard like he’d just finished a run, like he’d pushed himself past his physical limits only this time it was his mental limits, his ability to comprehend his own freaking existence, not who he was but what he was—

His future self hooked an arm around his shoulders, jolting him back to awareness. “Sorry,” Future Prompto said ruefully. “I didn’t…” He sighed. “I fucked this up. You need to know, but… it’s a lot to take in at once.”

That startled a laugh out of Prompto, watery and maybe a little more hysterical than he’d have liked. “A lot. Yeah.”

“C’mon,” his future self said, and ruffled his hair. “Let’s get to that water shed before we both get burned crispier than the steak when Noct’s cooking.”

Prompto snorted another almost-laugh, nearly choking on the hysteria before he wrangled himself under control. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Okay.”

#final fantasy xv #ffxv #chocobros #sanity's time travel fic #time travel #fanfiction #prompto argentum

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