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sundrop-writes · 5 months

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Shared Trauma

Sub!Gar Logan x Dom!Fem!Reader

Summary:

Gar had a very hard day. You know you can’t take away the pain, so you try your best to distract him from it instead.

Sub!Gar Logan x Dom!Fem!Reader. Friends to Lovers. Smut and Angst. Set during Season 1, Episode 7.

Word Count: 3,600

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link

THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: some emotional angst, mentions of trauma/PTSD - Gar kills someone for the first time and is very upset about it (as in the canon), friends to lovers, takes place during Season 1 Episode 7 (“Asylum”), descriptions of canon level violence, this is a smut fic, the reader character is implied to be fat, the reader character uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina, this isn’t a hard sub/dom relationship but there is sub/dom undertones, Gar is more submissive and the reader is more dominant, the reader calls Gar ‘good boy’ and he really likes it, tiddy sucking, p in v sex, unprotected sex, the reader rides Gar, creampie, quick/desperate sex. I believe that’s everything. Most of the focus here is on the emotional side of things and not the smut so if you wanna see more PWP, definitely let me know.

A/N: fic is titled after a Pierce The Veil song because I have been obsessed with the new album, and I think it really fits here. Having a trauma with someone, but it just draws you closer together and makes you seek comfort in them. I did consider making up a mission that wasn’t in the canon for this, but I am always drawn to how sad, wet, and pathetic he is after killing the scientist, especially if we’re doing sub!Gar - he seems especially subby and in need of comfort.

...

When you woke up alone, you weren’t entirely surprised.

Of course you missed Gar’s presence beside you in bed. But you hadn’t exactly expected him to be sleeping peacefully after the day the two of you had.

You and Gar were always the type of best friends to share a bed. Both of you sought the kind of comfort that could only come from cuddling close to the warm body of a safe person. Most often, you could only fall asleep beside each other.

It had been that way since he had first been taken in by Doctor Caulder and he had come to you for comfort after he had woken up sorely missing his parents. On that first night, you had fallen asleep cradling him, and pretty much every night since then, the two of you shared a bed without question.

The two of you were just intensely affectionate people, and you saw nothing wrong with expressing your friendship through those simple touches. It was just friendly, after all.

The two of you always hugged each other tight and held hands while walking in public. There were many times when Gar put his arm around you or kissed you on the forehead, or times when you kissed him on the cheek. You weren’t shy about expressing your very platonic love for your best friend (at least, that’s what you had to tell yourself).

The two of you weren’t romantically involved - you were just very close best friends.

No matter what others thought when they looked at you, having those stereotypes in their minds about a guy and girl not being able to be ‘just friends’. Even if you wanted to play into that stereotype so badly with him - even if you wanted all of those people to be right. You would never risk ruining your friendship with him just because of some annoying crush. You were very good at keeping all of your stupid feelings trapped inside of your chest.

Especially on days like this. When life got hardest, he needed you to be there more as a friend than anything else. And you needed him too.

It was one of the reasons that he had gotten into bed with you that night, despite the fact that he scoffed at the very mention of trying to sleep. He wanted to be there for you. So you really weren’t surprised when you woke up and the bed was cold, void of his presence. Because of course, he couldn’t sleep.

It had been a long, hectic, shitty day.

After everything that had happened, you weren’t even really ‘sleeping’ yourself.

You were drifting on the edge of consciousness, so exhausted from the day that your body was trying to forcibly knock you out. Between Kory and Dick screwing loudly on one side and Rachel and her birth mother chattering brightly and even crying on the other side, you had been having a very hard time falling asleep. That, and the horrors of the day still flashing through your mind. It made for a deadly cocktail that kept you awake. If not for the pure exhaustion of day’s events weighing you down - then you probably wouldn’t have closed your eyes at all.

When you came back into a hard consciousness this time, though, you missed the feeling of Gar’s arm around your waist. You instantly missed the feeling of his pleasant warmth at your back - cradling you, making you feel safe.

Before you even had your fully eyes open, you were out of bed yourself. It was almost an instinct, being so entirely drawn to him. You wandered out to the larger living space of the very expensive condo ‘safehouse’ with your socked feet on the cold floor. You clutched at your own arms under the loose sleeves of your oversized sleep shirt as goosebumps formed on your skin.

You wondered in the back of your mind what the weather was like outside and if Dick had turned on the heat before going to bed. Then you had to wonder if adjusting the thermostat was even a concern in anyone’s mind after such a long day. It was probably only on your mind now that you were missing your human heater.

You found Gar sitting on the couch.

He had his oversized green headphones on, his phone screen providing the only real light in the room - aside from the everpresent glow of the city that leaked in from the tall glass panels that could be called walls in the ultra modern house. He was holding the screen inches away from his face as he slumped back against the unused couch.

He was likely making an imprint of himself that would be the only ‘lived in’ essence of the overwhelming cold, expensive atmosphere of the place. From the sideways tilt of the screen and the way his thumbs were moving, you easily guessed that he was playing some kind of game. Something to distract his mind from the day’s events still playing there on repeat like a bad movie.

He was wearing a pair of sweatpants that Dick had given him, dug out of a drawer of clothing that was apparently always kept in the place in case a need for it should come up. Just something else the ‘safehouse’ stocked, like food, medical supplies, and monetary currency from all different countries (because Bruce was rich and paranoid enough to be prepared for ‘any scenario’).

Gar had paired the pants with one of your tee shirts.

Something that was slightly big on him even with his natural muscle mass filling it out, bright tie-dye and worn-in cotton. It was purely you. Having the fabric draped over his body did make him feel at least somewhat at ease because it was soaked in your natural smell. It made him feel close to you even when he had gotten out of bed.

He hadn’t wanted to bother you with his tossing and turning or the bright glowing light of his phone screen when he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep properly.

He felt your presence in the room, but he didn’t look up until you crept further toward him, steering into his hazy peripheral view. He shrugged off the headphones as he looked up, locking eyes with you over the top of his phone. Your heart ached as you saw that expression so well illuminated by the sharp white light from the screen. He had the face of a kicked puppy, big wide eyes staring you down. Especially because he was making a clear effort not to let his mouth curl into a deep whimpering frown.

You knew that the events of the day had been particularly hard on him.

Of course, there was the obvious. The mental exhaustion and fear of being kidnapped and held hostage. The pulsating adrenaline of wondering if he was going to come out alive, on top of the worry he felt for you, Rachel, Dick, and Kory. The intense physical torture he had suffered at the hands of ‘scientists’ controlled by a doomsday cult.

But on top of all of it, he had experienced something far worse. Something that you knew was far more taxing on his mind.

He had killed someone for the first time.

You feared that he was too gentle for killing. Even with the amazing power he wielded.

Gar - someone who protested eating meat because he hated the idea of an animal being harmed for the sake of his nutrition. Gar - someone who always scooped up spiders and household pests to bring them outside because in his opinion, even the smallest of creatures deserve peace.

You knew that he was someone who never planned on using his powers to truly harm anyone.

But the moment the choice had been presented to him - to use his powers to harm someone, or to let you be harmed - it hadn’t really been a choice in his mind at all.

You had been backed into a corner. You thought you had been clever, breaking out of the room they had locked you in with nothing more than an earring as a lockpick. But without a weapon and without a plan, Gar saw them threatening you and became blind with rage.

Before he truly knew what was happening, he tasted flesh.

A very large part of him didn’t regret it. He would choose your life over the life of someone unknown - someone who was going to hurt you - any day of the week. He knew that, if given the same choice, he would do it all over again.

But there was another part inside of him that kept gnawing with guilt. Another part that said he was wrong, that said there should have been some other way. Something inside of him that said he was now just the villain in someone else’s story - that he wasn’t any better than the people who tried to hurt you in the first place.

In a lot of ways, that voice said, he was worse than them.

That voice made it difficult for him to sleep.

“Can’t sleep?” You hummed out, approaching the couch to come and sit beside him.

Gar did little more than shrug in response to the question. He didn’t want to admit the weakness aloud. He didn’t want to tell you that he was warring with guilt over something that the others - especially you - didn’t seem to struggle with.

You both already knew the answer. It had been a hard day for him. Of course sleep was far beyond his grasp.

In a silent, but comfortable exchange, Gar locked his phone and set it aside, entirely uncaring of saving his progress in the game while you sat down beside him. You slid onto the couch with your butt half nestled on top of his hip and your legs strung across his lap. He reached one arm in front of you, draping it over the thickness of your thighs. In a very natural move, he lazily wrapped his knuckles around your bare skin.

Neither of you bothered to acknowledge your lack of pants - the fact that you were only wearing underwear with your oversized sleep shirt. You were so used to each other at this point that casual states of undress didn’t really need to be acknowledged.

He drew mindless patterns into your skin with his thumb and slung his other arm over the back of the couch, bringing you into his lovely natural warmth. You laid your head onto his chest, easily cuddling into his side as you indulged in the familiarity. With his phone turned off, the darkness ruminating through the room was a silent cloak that enveloped the two of you. It made it much easier to fall into that routine of comfort that the two of you always embraced.

You would explicitly deny that his touch on your bare skin felt like a deadly trail of needles erupting with fire - in the best way possible. Now was not the time for your lust to be breaking through. He was your best friend, and he was clearly in need of comfort.

“I missed my human heater.” You mumbled out quietly, nuzzling into his side affectionately.

He let out a hazy breath - some attempt at a laugh in response to your affectionate nickname for him. It was something he knew well about your friendship. You had a constantly chilly body, and he would always be there to warm you up with his blazen hot skin. Just another perk from his mutation - even when he got stuck out in the snow, he never ran cold.

Now that you had acknowledged that wordless question (the reason you had gotten out of bed, why you couldn’t sleep), it was Gar’s turn to do the same.

It hung in the air over his head and turned into a stony silence in the quiet, dark room that made each of his breaths seem particularly heavy beside your ear. It was a tension that built upon itself for a few moments. You weren’t going to ask, even though you had a feeling you virtually already knew the answer. You wondered if he was going to come out and admit it before you simply dragged him back to bed and forced him to stay there out of your own selfish need.

But then he finally broke the silence by saying the words.

“Whenever I close my eyes… I just keep seeing his face.”

His words were tentative, a quiet whimper released into the room after being trapped in his chest for too long. Like electricity, shocking and impossible to avoid, you felt his pain surging through you. It caused your throat to clench painfully. You shifted slightly, turning so that you could get a better look at his face. Even in the dimness, the sad glassiness of his eyes practically glowed.

“Gar,”

You called out his name, your own voice giving away a depth of weakness that you held for him. Before you could help it, you were reaching up and cradling the side of his face with a cupped palm. Even though your hands were cool, the feeling was intensely comforting to him - just because it was you. He couldn’t help but lean into it, leaning on your hand as though it was the only thing in the world holding him up in that moment. When he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force some of that terrible guilt away, he accidentally forced the tears out and let them leak freely onto your hand.

“Oh, baby.” You cooed out.

You were entirely unsure why the nickname popped out. The sound of it on your own lips even surprised you. It was something you had never called him before. But he didn’t stop you, didn’t seem to find it unpleasant, so you continued.

“You did what you had to do.” You told him with certainty. “You saved my life.”

That was something infinitely valuable to him. But he wondered if somehow, he had diminished his own value in the process.

More thick tears slipped down his face and you thumbed them away upon instinct. He swallowed thickly before he spoke again, though this time his words were heavily entrenched in those tears.

“What if that man had a family?” Gar sniffled quietly. “What if-?”

“Of course he had a family, Gar.” You quickly cut him off, knowing that his words were quickly spiraling into a deep, putrid guilt.

That guilt was definitely something you felt the need to save him from.

Upon hearing your words, he looked at you with sharp hurt in his eyes. Clearly, he had been expecting you to argue against his point, rather than confirm it. But you had a completely different line of thinking in mind.

“Everyone does.” You continued on. “Everyone has people who miss them. But you can’t waste your sympathy on some fictional family you’ve made up for the guy in your head. Having a family and being missed doesn’t give people the right to attack others and get away with it. The possibility of being missed doesn’t mean that people can go through life without seeing the consequences of their actions.”

Gar let out a quiet huff. It was a sound of defeat - a signal saying that your words had punctured his surface, but hadn’t quite set in yet.

When he didn’t say anything in reply, you continued.

“You’re my family.” You told him firmly.

You used the hold on his cheek to fully turn his head toward yours, and you gently angled into him so that your foreheads were pressed together. Gar closed his eyes and basked in the soothing feeling as you continued talking.

“And I’m yours. And I really, truly don’t care about who lives or dies outside of us. I don’t care what happens as long as we’re safe. And we’re together.”

You wanted to add on a verbal exception for the others - for Rachel, and Dick, and Kory, and likely Rachel’s mom just for her sake. An exception for the people who had quickly also become your family in the short time since you had met them. But you had a feeling that Gar knew about this exception in your mind without you having to voice it.

Gar swallowed hard again, and this time you felt it bob harshly through him while pressed so closely together. You felt him let out a harsh breath before he spoke again.

“I guess… I guess I’m just worried about what you think of me now.” He spoke the words so quietly, as if his fear even crept into voicing this. “I don’t want my favorite person in the world to be afraid of me. Or… to think I’m a bad person.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” You quickly argued the point, a slight laughter on your lips at the mere thought of it - at the mention of being afraid of someone like him.

Yes, he could turn into a giant green tiger, and yes, seeing him use that power to its full extent for the first time had been… jarring. But you would never be afraid of someone who cried during Pixar movies and said it was ‘inhumane’ to kill the animals in Minecraft for food.

“I could never be afraid of you, Gar.” You easily added on. “You’re not a bad person. You’re such a good person. You’re so good. You’re such a good boy.”

Those words struck a cord deep within his soul, and a whimper escaped his lips before he could stop it.

“Say that again.” He told you, so pitifully that it almost sounded like begging. “Please?”

“You’re such a good boy.” You repeated yourself, running your thumb along the soft skin of his cheek once again. “You’re a good boy, Gar.”

In a moment, the air shifted.

The magnetism between the two of you came to a fierce head, and the desperation, the vulnerability that the day’s events had brought forward morphed itself from pain and sadness into something the two of you knew well in the presence of each other - pure wanting. But this time, both of you were exhausted and completely lacking the energy to have any self control to hold it back.

“Y/N-”

He barely got out a whimper of your name before you pressed forward that extra inch, stealing his breath as you pressed your lips to his. It was a perfect moment - a beautiful culmination of everything you had ever wanted since meeting him. You definitely weren’t going to waste it.

He moaned into the kiss and you echoed it back, gulping in breaths through your nose so you wouldn’t have to pull away from the soft cushion of his lips, not even for a moment. When he reached for a greedy grip on the back of your head, filthy and wanting, gently nibbling on your bottom lip - your instincts took over. You blindly swung a leg out, climbing over his waist, and he let out a sharp hiss at the feeling of your weight being planted in his lap. You were beautiful and whole as you sat down on top of him, a perfect reminder that this wasn’t just a dream as his cock quickly swelled to life under the heat of your core where it brushed against his borrowed pants.

“Please-” He whimpered into your mouth, barely able to get the word out before you sucked his bottom lip into your mouth, making him moan out shakily in the most beautiful way.

You planted your hands on his shoulders, easily taking control of the situation - not that he cared. He felt like he belonged under your controlling grip, under the pleasant weight of your body as his hard cock throbbed underneath your perfect weight. In a blur of heady kisses, swapping breath with the only man you had ever wanted like this, you got your underwear off and got his pants around his ankles. He shoved your shirt up over your breasts to possessively latch onto one of them with his mouth as you reached down and lined up his pulsing cock with your wet, wanting cunt.

“Oh-”

He let out another beautifully pathetic whimper as you sunk down onto him in one smooth movement. Your tight, wet heat quickly surrounded him and made his head spin. You felt so full that it almost choked you, but the hot pangs of electricity that shot up through your pussy easily spurred you on. You wasted no time before you began a brutal pace, bouncing on his lap as if he was nothing more than a toy for your own pleasure. The slap of skin on skin was irritably loud in the otherwise silent room, accompanied only by Gar’s harsh, animalistic pants and your choked-off moans as you struggled to comprehend the fullness of his nearly overwhelming cock.

You both needed it. You needed the intense sting of pleasure to push out the worries of the day.

With Gar’s hands gripping at your waist as if you might slip away at any moment and his face buried in your breasts, you almost didn’t hear the quiet murmur of his request when he managed to get the words out beyond that blinding pleasure.

“Say it again,” He choked out past his harsh breaths. “Please!”

It took your cock-drunk brain a moment to comprehend it, but when the gears fully churned, you instantly knew what he meant.

“You’re a good boy,”

You moaned out, reaching a hand up to pet through his hair. You took a fierce grip on those green locks, never once faltering in the harsh, unforgiving rhythm of your hips as you continued to piston yourself up and down on his cock.

“You’re a good boy, Gar.”

“Oh - fuck!” Gar grunted into your chest.

At the sound of your voice saying this, declaring that he was a good boy - he abruptly came inside you.

#sundrop writes #garfield logan x reader #garfield logan #gar logan #gar logan x reader #titans x reader #titans fanfiction #titans #dc titans #dc fanfiction

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hannibals-favourite-meal · 2 years

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Lady In Red

Dean Winchester x plus size reader

She immediately caught his eye, a bright red dress in a sea of dulled colours. Tonight, she would be his.

Warnings: season 1 Dean (I think that deserves a warning), set between Asylum and Scarecrow, smut, oral (f receiving), hookup, role-play (you’ll see 😏), we all know Dean has a pain kink, sub!Dean, Dean POV, mommy kink, cumming in pants, breathplay?

A/N: I really started this with the intent of having like regular smut but then it turned into this, I’m not sorry

WC: 2.3k

Minors DNI

Dean groaned as he settled into the slightly sticky booth towards the back of the bar, shoving two opened beer bottles onto the wood in front of him. He was dead tired from driving somewhere close to twelve hours as Sam constantly complained about everything. He rolled his eyes as his little brother sat down across from him, a grimace coming over his baby face at the unclean state of the table.

“Loosen up Sammy. Not everywhere is going to be as nice as your fancy little college.” He leaned back against the sickly green faux leather, his broad shoulders slumping as the knot at the bottom of his spine released. “I’m not asking for fancy, I’m just asking for basic hygiene practices. Is that too much to ask?” “Yes.”

Instead of retaliating, Sam just narrowed his eyes and pulled his laptop from his bag, planting it on the table, immediately diving into another round of research, sipping from his beer every once in a while, but otherwise remaining unmoving. Dean’s green eyes scanned the sea of people steadily flowing into the building.

College students on a night out, a group of girls obviously celebrating a bachelorette party, some spattering of men still in construction gear and one or two loners. He had eye contact with the bride, a pretty woman with dark skin that still seemed to glow in the dim lighting of the bar, and gave her a wink, sending the whole table into a round of giggles.

The crooning of Marvin Gaye played through the jukebox, Dean absentmindedly hummed along to a few notes, his deep voice remaining a whisper, fingers pulling on the paper label on the beer bottle. But then, the world stopped.

The bar doors swung open once more and a woman stepped over the threshold, all eyes immediately falling to her. She was regal, generous curves hidden beneath a skin tight blood-red dress that made the hunter’s jeans tighten considerably. Her head was held high, h/c hair tied up in intricate braids that exposed her delicate neck and collarbones, where a thin silver chain lay. She had an air of power and confidence around her that made the crowd part before her, her extremely high black heels clacking on the dirty hardwood.

Dean couldn’t help but be hypnotised by the way she moved, how her plump flesh jiggled with each step, the hem of her dress riding up her chubby thighs, threatening to show what lay beneath. She was enchanting, mesmerising. She was everything.

With measured steps, she took a seat at the bar, leaning her chest over the wood to speak to the bartender, who’s eyes constantly flicked down to her cleavage as she ordered. Dean longed to hear her voice, confident that it would be as beautiful as her. Slamming his palm on the table, he slipped from the booth, throwing the motel keys at his brother.

“Don’t wait up for me.” He didn’t wait for a response before stalking off, like a predator, his prey caught in his sights. He slicked back his short hair and flipped up the collar on his leather jacket, a charming smile adorned his chilled jaw.

He stood next to her in the space that had been conveniently left open, like she was waiting for him to join her. Her long red nails tapped against the glass of whiskey before her, and Dean couldn’t help but wonder how they would feel scratching down his back. “What can I get for ya?” Pulling a few clinked bills from his wallet, he placed them on the counter. “I’ll have whatever the lady’s having and a refill for her.”

The woman turned to him and Dean was struck by the deep e/c of her eyes. Her lips pulled up in a smirk, her matte red lipstick slightly smudged at the corner of her mouth and he was conflicted whether he wanted to wipe it away or mess it up even more as she drained the last of the spirit in her glass. “So, does a name come with this drink, handsome?” He was right, her voice was perfect.

He took her offered hand within his own, planting a kiss to her knuckles. “Dean.” His smile widened as her body trembled before him, a shiver rolling down her spine. “Do I get to have the pleasure of your name, beautiful?”

“Oh you’re going to have to work a lot harder than that sweetheart.” She winked, taking a sip from her newly poured glass. Dean placed a hand on her thick waist and stepped closer so he was towering over her, gazing down into her eyes, purposely avoiding looking down the front of her dress.

He squeezed her warm side. “I’m willing to put in the time, especially for a woman as enticing as you.” The air was thick with tension as he waited for her consent, watching as she finished her glass. “The question isn’t whether or not you’re motivated, but if you can handle me?” She slipped from the stool and leaned into him, her hands resting on his strong chest, her lips pressed against his ear. “Can you handle me Dean?”

Dean moved his palms to the small of her back, drawing her closer. “I can handle everything you give me, baby.” He growled, pushing his clothed cock into her plush stomach, showing her just how ready he was. She bit down on his earlobe, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit that it made his knees buckle. “Finish your drink.” She ordered, already stepping away to readjust her dress.

Dean skulled the remainder of the whiskey, which did little to add to the fire that was already coursing through his veins at her touch. “So, your place or mine?”

——————

Her lips were better than any drink Dean had ever had. They were so soft and intoxicating and he could already feel them beginning to swell from his desperate kisses as they stumbled from the bar.

Her room was closer than his and no matter how much he liked tormenting his brother, Dean would rather not have Sam watch him rail this goddess. He couldn’t keep his hands to himself as she unlocked the door, he nipped and sucked at her neck, leaving huge blotchy marks in his wake.

“Fuck sweetheart. This ass is deadly.” He groaned, pinning her against the door as soon as it shut behind them, pressing her soft body onto the painted wood, his throbbing cock, still trapped behind the rough denim of his jeans, slotting perfectly between her plump cheeks. “Oh Dean.” She whimpered, hand wrapping around the back of his neck to keep him in place as he continued to nip at the sensitive skin of her neck.

His hips bucked forward as her nails dug painfully into his scalp, a deep groan escaping his lips. “Do you like that baby? Do you like when I make you hurt?” She cooed, pushing back into the taller man, his fingers tightened on her love handles in response. “Then why don’t you get me out of this dress and I’ll make you scream?” “Yes ma’am.” He growled.

Dean was surprisingly gentle as he pulled down the small zipper on the back of the red fabric, kissing his way down her spine as more skin was revealed to his green eyes. His lips touched every scar, every stretch mark he could see until he was kneeling behind her, fitting his thumbs into the two little dimples at the base of her back. She looked over her shoulder at him, looking down at the hunter as he worshiped her body.

She turned in his grip, bending down to cup his scruffy cheek, the sleeves of her dress slipping off her shoulders, exposing even more of her to him. “Gonna make me feel good Dean?” He nodded blankly, intoxicated by this woman’s power as she stood before him. “Finish undressing me.”

Frantically pulling down the rest of her clothes, Dean felt like he couldn’t breathe. She had been completely naked underneath, so now she was completely exposed to his gaze. She was, by far, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. With soft curves and a tummy, she was a living statue. The definition of grace and beauty.

She smirked and nudged his face up. “Dean, I won’t ask again. Get to work.” “Fuck yes ma’am.” With one quick movement, Dean hoisted her thick leg over his shoulder, his huge palms coming to rest on her ass, giving the plump cheeks a squeeze before he dove forward, nosing his face into the heaven between her thighs. She was practically dripping, she was so wet.

Dean groaned, his wide tongue lapping up as much of her sweet slick as he could, his nose grinding into her clit. Already her legs were trembling, the vibrations of her moans echoing through her chest, encouraging the man to slip the tip of his tongue inside her. She threw her head back, almost toppling over if Dean’s hands hadn’t been firmly planted on her backside.

His head moved in small circles as he fucked his tongue into her, groaning at the tightness around the muscle, her pussy fluttering violently. “S-such a good boy Dean.” His eyes slammed shut, cock growing impossibly harder. He pulled her even closer, more determined than ever to have this goddess fall apart above him.

Slick dripped down her leg, a combination of her own wetness and Dean’s saliva. He was ravenous for her cunt, eating her out like he was starving and she was the only thing that could nourish him. His fingers were digging into her ass, most certainly leaving bruises as he pulled her cheeks apart, kneading the soft fat.

Her nails were almost embedded in his skull. She was gripping so hard but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not when she was clamping down tightly onto his tongue and her clit throbbing at the tip of his nose. Dean tipped his head forward so he could apply more pressure to the small bundle of nerves and was rewarded with an almost pornographic moan and her legs shaking violently.

“Oh did you like that, you like me calling you my good boy Dean?” He responded with a deep moan, refusing to pull away. “Fuck baby, ‘m so close. You want mommy to cum on your tongue, soak your face.” Her breath was coming out in huffs now, her large chest heaving as she struggled to breathe, her necklace bouncing with the force of her inhales.

“Please mommy.” He whimpered into her cunt, and evidently, the vibrations from his pathetic plea, sent her over the edge. Her body practically collapsed onto the hunter as she trembled and moaned, chanting into the air. “Yes baby! My good boy! So good for mommy!” Her hips rolled, trying desperately to ride out her high.

Dean was slowly suffocating but he kept going, his eyes rolling back into his skull as his air was cut off. The mixture of her praises, the pain of her long acrylic nails and the lack of oxygen sent a violent spark of pleasure up his spine. He lifted from his knees as his pelvis bucked up, his balls drawing up as one last violent tremor ran through him and he came.

“Ooooooooo fuuuuuck. Moooooommmmy.” He groaned into her cunt, the last of his orgasm fading. The woman released him from between her legs, slumping to the ground in front of Dean as he sat back on his heels, a wet spot darkening the front of his jeans, gulping for air. His eyes were hooded, exhaustion quickly setting in but he still smiled at her. She leaned forward to cup his cheek again, pecking his swollen lips, tasting herself on the soft pillows.

She chuckled when Dean whimpered as she pulled away, chasing her affection. “That was really good baby. I don’t think I’ve ever made you cum without touching you before.” He shook his head, fingers tracing up her curves, briefly cupping her breast before grazing the wedding and engagement ring hanging from her necklace. “What about that time in Reno?”

“Don’t talk about Reno unless you want to go another round, you know how hot it makes me.” He smirked. “Give me a few minutes to catch my breath and I’ll take care of you mommy.” Her eyes fluttered and a little moan escaped past her lips. “Don’t play with fire my love. Now, let’s get you cleaned up and you can catch me up on everything I missed.”

——————

Once they were dressed and cleaned (with a quickie in the shower), she dragged him to the large motel bed and tucked him against her under the covers, his hands immediately latching to her hips as he put his head on her chest.

He had pulled his own wedding ring from his wallet, slipping it onto his finger as she did the same for her own, the cold metal of his ring resting on her hip bone. “So hunting with Sam again?” Dean grunted, tightening his hold. “We’re fighting again, I think he’s gonna leave.” She sighed, running her fingers through his hair, soothing the burn from her pulling. “You two just need to talk.” Dean opened his mouth to retort. “A real talk, not the bs your dad always said. And maybe you should start with telling him you’ve been married for over a year.”

Dean chuckled but snuggled closer. “Ok but tomorrow, right now I just wanna stay like this.” She kissed the top of his head. “Anything you want.” She muttered, sleep quickly overcoming the both of them, finally able to be in the arms of the person they loved most.

Sam did not appreciate that Dean left him alone in a bar to go hookup with his wife that Sam never knew he had. Made for a fun story though.

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just-here-for-the-whump · 10 months

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Due South Whump List

Whumpees:

Benton Fraser played by Paul Gross

Ray Vecchio played by David Marciano

Ray Kowalski played by Callum Keith Rennie

My favorites are in bold.

Pilot movie: Ray Vecchio - caught in explosion, unconscious in hospital, neck and wrist braces

Season 1

1x3 Manhunt: Benton Fraser - stabbed in the leg, patched up in hospital, heavy limping, saying, "ow" with every step

1x5 Pizzas and Promises: Benton Fraser - thrown off car, Diefenbaker (his wolf) checks on him (very brief)

1x15 The Wild Bunch: Benton Fraser - animal bite on arm, bandaged, hiding the injury, worried (This episode can be hard to watch if you have a dog and/or are an animal lover)

1x17 The Deal: Benton Fraser - beaten up, care

1x21 Victoria's Secret Part 2: Benton Fraser - shot

1x22 Letting Go: Benton Fraser - recovering from being shot in the previous episode, hospitalized for the entire episode, (!) wheelchair, physical therapy, angst (The episode is a Rear Window homage)

Season 2

2x1 North: Benton Fraser - in a plane crash, bloody cut on head, blinded, trips and falls a bunch of times, loses the use of his legs, fireman's carry

2x4 Bird in the Hand: Benton Fraser - shot in the leg, crutches

2x17 Red, White, or Blue: Benton Fraser - kidnaped, tied to chair, bucket of water thrown in face, sleeve and glove caught on fire. Ray Vecchio - mad at Fraser and refusing to speak to him, kidnaped and gagged. Both - strapped to a bomb set to go off if their combined heart rate reaches 200 (If you enjoy their friendship and banter, then this is the episode for you)

2x18 Flashback: Benton Fraser - falls off the back of a van, amnesia, examined in hospital (This episode is a clip show)

Season 3

3x9 Asylum: Ray Kowalski - framed for murder, cut on head, care

3x9 Dead Guy Running: Ray Kowalski - has a bandage around his head because he was bitten on the ear by Kuzma before the episode starts

Season 4

4x2 Easy Money: Benton Fraser - hanging off the side of a building by his hands, hand stepped on, care

4x4 Odds: Benton Fraser - overly dramatic fall from window, throws out his back, groaning in pain, helped to stretch it out, massaged

4x8 Good for The Soul: Benton Fraser - badly beat up, cuts on face, helped to walk, care, feels defeated

4x12 Call of the Wild, Part 1: Ray Vecchio - shot, hospital

4x13 Call of the Wild, Part 2: Ray Vecchio - sore from being shot, coughs out the bullet that the doctors couldn't remove (The more I think about it the less sense it makes)

#due south #whump list #benton fraser #paul gross #ray vecchio #david marciano #ray kowalski #callum keith rennie #if you haven't seen this show you're missing out #whump #whump community #i love this show so much

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adarkrainbow · 7 months

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Spooky season fairytales (1)

I have been covering it these past weeks, and it is a perfect fit for Halloween: Hansel and Gretel.

This is one of the creepiest "popular" fairytales, that has terrified many children. The witch in the gingerbread house not only exemplifies so many bogeymen that caused children's nightmares, but is also one of the two most famous examples of witches in fairytales - and we know Halloween is one of the witchy holidays. And the whole story revolves around a house made of sweets - in modern day interpretations, Hansel and Gretel is THE candy-fairytale. And Halloween is THE holiday for treats and sweets.

Despite being an obvious choice to make fairytale horror movies, and the fairytale having inspired several great horror classics (the scene I posted before in Stephen King's IT involving the witch of Hansel and Gretel), the tale doesn't actually have a lot of treatment in the world of horror... Yeah, it is surprising, but the first true "horror movie" about Hansel and Gretel would be the Korean 2007 movie of the same name, that was recognized as a great Korean horror piece and a very touching tragic story, but is not an actual retelling of "Hansel and Gretel" - or rather it is a twisted, reversed-retelling that mostly uses Hansel and Gretel as a motif and reference rather than actual plot material.

To have "Hansel and Gretel" REALLY enter the horror movie world, we would have to wait for the year 2013, and a dual release. The first one is a famous movie by fairytale enjoyers, that is still quite popular online: "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters". This movie is what the 2005's "Van Helsing" movie was to Dracula.

What to say about this movie? It is a dark fantasy, action-movie acting as a sequel to the original fairytale and depicting the two protagonists as gun-and-arbalet-wielding witch hunters. It is everything you except from a a big studio classic action gritty-fantasy movie. In fact, that's the main flaw of the movie: it is extremely generic, formulaic and "by-the-book". There's no real inventivity or uniqueness in terms of plot, setting or characters. If you played dark fantasy action video games, you watched this movie already. It didn't even invent the concept of Hansel and Gretel as witch hunters - Fables for example had done it already by making Hansel a fanatical Puritan witch hunter in the style of the Salem witch trials. As a result, what could have been a really good, inventive, interestng movie is just... a neutral, generic movie. The kind you can watch and enjoy but that won't transcend anything and isn't groundbreaking in any way.

Not that the movie is bad, it has some highlights and qualities to it that avoid making it bad. For example, several of the actors in this movie are really good and give their best despite playing bland or generic characters (and in fact it sames some flat characters, who are given depth by their actors' work) ; and there is a true visual work, with some fascinating designs. This all makes the movie enjoyable in several aspects - but just having good actors and good visuals won't make the movie good given how generic it is in plot and style, and how incoherent the worldbuilding and the tone feels, tiptoing around anachronisms for the sake of "let's make it cool and steampunk", and failing to find a balance between dark comedy and serious movie. (Oh yes and it also dreadfully suffer from the awful "3D movies" trend of the time)

And to this movie answered another movie: 2013's "Hansel and Gretel", aka The Asylum's Hansel and Gretel. A movie which is the perfect twin to "Witch Hunters" - in fact you could say they are the yin and yang to each other.

This movie is a full horror movie, not a dark fantasy/action piece. This movie is a retelling of the original story, not a sequel to it. This movie takes place in modern day, the 21st century, instead of a fantasized Germany of unclear era. And whereas "Witch Hunters" kind of fails at meeting the hype it built up, and is a neutral, average, not-good not-bad big budget movie, this movie is... surprisingly good for what it is, and ends up much better than what it should be.

If you do not know The Asylum, the group behind this movie, they are well-known producers of mockbusters, unofficial sequels and B-movies, and very proud of it. In fact it is their goal: make mockbusters to propose a cheaper alternative to big-studio movies, and turn the making of "second-rate" movies into a true art. They make their movies very fast, they release them against big studios movie they openly took inspiration from, they use cheap special effects, they select for actors either "no-names" or "has-beens"... I think I can sum it up enough by the fact they are the makers of the "Sharknado" movies. As a result, this movie was probably going to be an utter mess and ridiculous schlock...

... But it was surprisingly good. Better than what it should be. Of course The Asylum's marks are still there. The movie opens and closes on two very ridiculous scenes (the first victim's flight in the night ; the explosion of the house), there is some cheap "sexy-horror" audience-appeal (it is no mistake the only victims to be eaten are women that are forced in underwears before being pushed in the oven), and the plot is basically Hansel and Gretel X The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. BUT all that being said, this movie actually works! In its own, small-budget, no-real-ambition way. It doesn't try to be too snobby or arrogant - it knows it is a small, derivative, B-horror movie, and it stays in its lane. There are some interesting scenes and concepts (such as the drugged-colorfed nightmares). They do manage to create some disturbing elements - while also purposefully breaking several horror stereotypes and cliches. They try to keep a "maybe magic, maybe mundane" approach to the story in their own clumsy way but that is interesting. And more importantly - the character of the witch is SO GREAT!

I can't say enough how I enjoyed the witch (Lilith) on screen, and I do believe that this is due to the incredible work of her actress. Because she is played by none other than Dee Wallace (a horror movie regular who began her career with E.T.) - and she manages to make the character entertaining and disturbing. It really works, and I suspect that if a bad actress had been placed there, the role might have felt flat and generic. But she brings extremely well the disturbed state of mind, the humanity of the monster, and the true descent into horrible madness of the character. They are notably the first movie, to my knowledge, which actually acknowledges and reflects upon the special relationship between Gretel and the Witch, invoking elements that would later become common in "Hansel and Gretel" retellings, such as the witch wanting to make Gretel her "heir", or seeing her as a daughter substitute.

Beyond the year 2013, of course, now, you hit "Hansel and Gretel - horror" in any web research system, and you get the recent horror movie by Oz Perkins, the 2020's "Gretel and Hansel".

I do believe that this movie, and The Asylum's movie, truly reflect the two sides of horror movies and how one same story can be treated under these two lenses. The Asylum's is a gory, brutal, low-budget but decent and interesting horror movie, that still works in its limitations and intends to be just your random "fun little horror slasher movie" ; this movie is the artistic, big-budget, much more stylized and psychological disturbing horror movie that veers more into dark fantasy sometimes and tries more to be an actual nightmare, in the most abstract and eerie sense.

Personally, I did enjoy the movie as a whole and I think it is a good Hansel and Gretel movie. I do think they did a good job at mixing the fairytale with the entire Christian myth of the witch as built by the witch-hunts and other countryside superstitions (they weaved in the story for example the topics of the magical ointments and the idea of witches feasting on the dead) ; and I did love the dark twists and reveals at the end ; and I also liked very much the subtle references to other fairytales slid in the story (Little Red Riding Hood, and The Juniper Tree).

However it is not a movie without flaws - and I would never call it a perfect movie. It got the ideas, the visuals, the will, the inspirations, but... sometimes it does too much, there's unecessary things that could have been cut out and do ridiculize a bit the movie (the first third of the movie is filled with unecessary and random moments like the bizarre hostile man in the abandoned house, or the "mushroom" scenes, which clearly were not needed - there's also jumpscares that are just... there, for jumpscare sakes, when this movie clearly does NOT need jumpscares). There is also the fact that while often it manages to drive its themes, messages and topics in subtle or clever ways (the dialogues of Gretel and the witch, about things such as power, womanhood, the world, are all very well done), a few times it becomes suddenly very clumsy and awkward (one particular moment was the line of Gretel about "the system" in her very first scene, which felt definitively too political and modern to fit in the context).

I do remember the so-called "debate" there was when this movie was released, and the so-called "scandal" of putting Gretel's name first. But it makes full sense when you understand that Gretel here is the main character, that we are told the story through her, and that it doesn't try so much to be a Hansel and Gretel retelling, as rather a dark and morbid fantasy movie that uses the Hansel and Gretel tale as a driving plot to explore more things - the European witchcraft myth, the theme of "Faustian deals", etc, etc... And despite some clumsiness here and there that do flaw the movie (I haven't mentionned it, but the choice of the tattoos for the witch's "final" form seemed very random and ill-thought, which is one of the several little details that don't work ; balanced by details that do work, such as the idea of having a more modern architecture for the witch's house), it still works for most of its course.

To conclude this post, I need to talk about one last "Hansel and Gretel" movie. A movie which American audiences are not actually familiar with. Because it is a German movie, that got released around Europe (I saw it in French), but to my knowledge never crossed the Atlantic. Made by Anne Wild and written by Peter Schwindt, this movie is probably the eeriest Hansel and Gretel adaptation I have seen. It is not "disturbing", "shocking" or "horrifying" - it is just creepy and unsettling. It is not a rewrite or a "retelling" per se, because it stays faithful to the original tale and barely changes anything. Out of the five movies I present you, this is the most faithful movie when it comes to adapting the brothers Grimm fairytale.

EDIT: I originally wrote this part thinking the movie was very hard to find... TURNS OUT IT WAS POSTED ON YOUTUBE! The full movie is on Youtube - in its original German though

This movie made the fairytale eerie with two things. 1) Little unsettling and creepy details in terms of style and movie editing. This movie actually has several things in common with the 2020's Gretel and Hansel - such as the heavy use of the forested landscape to make one feel both lost and trapped at the same time (helped by the fact the protagonists are here played by actual children), and bizarre camera angles and movements (including disturbing close-ups and brutal cuts). The score also includes eerie songs and creepy children whispers, that add to the general spookyness. 2) A work on the realism on the tale. There's still magic and supernatural in there, definitively. But overall it is all... "realistic" in style, making it all more unsettling. Hansel and Gretel behave like actual children - and are in fact often unaware of the danger they are getting themselves into. The color palette is drab and lightless.

Don't get me wrong: this is not an adult-aimed movie, it is not a horror movie. It is still a kid-oriented, fairytale movie, with some moments of humor (though it is mostly dark humor, such as Hansel, blissfully unaware of the witch's plan, coming to enjoy his life in a cage eating good food all day long), a happy ending, and many beautiful visuals (the witch's bedroom is especially interesting - slight spoiler but there is the beautiful visual of the witch keeping petrified birds and butterflies in her room, that come back to life once she is dead). It has poetry to it - but it is definitively not a Disney movie and not what we usually think of as "fairytale movie for kids". It is a quite dark one.

One good illustration of this would be the family dynamic at the start of the tale, and how this movie slightly changes the whole abandonment episode. In this movie, the character of the mother is actually sick - and having her suffering from what will be a deadly disease puts her entire character into a very different light. Another major change they did is that the second time the children are abandoned - the parents do not hide the fact they are abandoning them. Hansel and Gretel know it, and the parents don't bother lying or even pretending, but there is still this sort of untold shame as they don't openly admit it and flee from their crying children... It hits hard.

The creepiest part of the whole movie is however, without a doubt, the witch. By gosh, this is one of the creepiest incarnations of the character I saw. She is a perfect embodiment of the uncanny valley: she is not some cartoonish monster, she is just this pale middle-aged woman that never blinks. She does perform magic, but her magic keeps with the "realism" style of the movie - no flash, no music, no smoke. When she teleports, she is just here one moment, another the next. She prevents Gretel from leaving by casting a spell that makes it so that each time she walks away, she ends up finding herself in front of the house - despite it being impossible. Her rhyming "Who's nibbling on my house?" is actually a disembodied whisper in the ears of the children as they see nobody, making their answer "It's just the wind" an actual comforting sentence they say to themselves thinking they imagined it all. Her bedroom cannot actually exist because it is located in an impossible part of the house that does not appear from the outside. And there are those little details that do hint at her maybe not being actually human but just looking like a human - when she moves sometimes her bones crack, and other times her voice seems to double itself in a strange echo... And when she is pushed into the oven (light spoilers too) - she doesn't scream. She doesn't make a sound. Once she is pushed and the door is closed, it is dead silence, and that makes it even more disturbing than if she actually screamed in agony.

And there are other little morbid details in the movie - too many for me too count. But one thing that does stick with me was the way Gretel pieced up together the witch's real intentions for Hansel (because of course she didn't tell them she was going to eat them), by noticing little details straight out of Pan's Labyrinth - such as Gretel noticing the witch's wind-chimes is made of bones and hair ; and the witch keeping in her house a closet filled with an ungodly amount of toys in various states of aging. This latter detail was notably taken back by "Gretel and Hansel", where the first hint of the witch's previous victims are toys scattered in the wilderness around the house. In fact, I do wonder if Perkins didn't take some inspiration from this 2005 movie, because there is definitively something similar between the two.

And with this, you have to my knowledge the perfect Hansel and Gretel movies for the spooky season.

The supernatural tragedy inspired by, and a famed piece of Korean horror. The surprisingly good B-horror movie that turns the story into a new "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". The dark fantasy action-packed blockbuster that is just halfway there. The recent, heavily stylized, witch-hunt inspired artsy/socio-political horror movie. And the eerie, unsettling, faithful retelling as a dark German children movie.

#spooky season fairytales #spooky season #fairytale movies #hansel and gretel #dark fairytales #fairytale horror #horror fairytales #gretel and hansel #witch hunters

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lesbianmarrow · 1 year

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i like when sara wears a little lab coat to break gwyn davies out of the mental institution because i always like seeing her in fun costumes and disguises but also because it evokes that season 1 episode where she goes undercover as a nurse and meets the lesbian nurse. in that episode she is a queer person from the future visiting a queer person from the past and showing them that it is possible for queer people to thrive and find happiness. and she does that here too by telling davies that she married a woman. the placement of sara and davies in that setting also evokes the season 3 episode where sara and constantine go to the mental asylum and hook up. that was something that sara did because at that point in her life she felt uncertain about her feelings and her ability to be in a committed adult relationship without hurting the other person. now, sara is married to ava and knows that this partnership with ava is what she wants and that she is capable of being a part of it, and the similarity to the season 3 episode reminds us how far she’s come.

#legends of tomorrow #sara lance #gwyn davies #legends constantine #syl posts

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undead-aurora · 1 year

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⋆⭒⋆☽❍☾⋆⭒⋆Lana Legacy Challenge⋆⭒⋆☽❍☾⋆⭒⋆

TW: dark themes (drugs, alcoholism, cults, gangs).

@maxismatchccworld

This challenge is (loosely) inspired by some of my favorite Lana songs. It also draws inspiration from other challenges, such as Not So Berry, Rags to Riches, Asylum, Crybaby Whims, etc.

Required Mods: Basemental Drugs, Basemental Gangs or Extreme Violence, Zerbu’s Venue Changes.

Suggested Mods: Deaderpool’s MC Command Center, Wonderful Whims (attraction system), Simsmodelsimmer’s Realistic Reactions Cheating Overhaul, Hybrid Through Gameplay (for occult hybrids), UI Cheats (very helpful to deal with bugs), LittleMsSam’s More Wood Works (for gen 8).

Required packs: Get Famous, City Living, Get Together, Discover University, Get to Work, Cats & Dogs, Seasons, Island Living, Strangerville, Realm of Magic, Vampires, Dream Home Decorator, Werewolves, Paranormal Stuff.

Suggested packs: High School Years (Gen 2 and 3 traits), Eco Lifestyle (Gen 2 and 8), Spa Day (Gen 1 trait) Tiny Living (Gen 6), Nifty Knitting (more crafts for Gen 8).

General rules:

Turn neighborhood stories off.

Aging must be set to normal or slow.

Hard mode: start each generation with 0 simoleons and build each home and required lot by yourself.

Each generation must max out the designated skills and reach the top level of their career.

If an heir dies, you may revive them or continue the challenge with a next of kin.

You’re free to control the sims in your household who aren’t your heir or related to your heir. They can also be completely autonomous.

For gen 3, you're allowed to live on-campus in university and then move to San Myshuno.

Gen 1: Money, Power, Glory

Career: Actor

Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy

Skill: Acting

Traits: Materialistic, Self-Assured, High Maintenance (or Self-Absorbed).

Home: Empty lot in Del Sol Valley

Lot challenge/trait: Penny Pixies

You’re the only child of a homeless, deadbeat parent who spends every simoleon that falls into their hands on dope and booze. This has instilled in you the determination to not only get off the streets, but also become rich and famous when you’re older. Slowly but surely, you make enough money to build a small home that one day will transform into a luxurious mansion, or at least one can dream. You grow up to be quite the looker and charmer, not to mention talented, so your goal of making it big on the silver screen is finally within reach. You catch the eye of a famous big shot you end up having more than a fling with, resulting in an pregnancy. But as infatuated as you are with your baby daddy/momma, your eyes are always on the prize first and foremost. You’ve heard the name of the latest lottery winner and can’t get it out of your mind.

Rules:

- Start out with 0 simoleons as a child, living with an unemployed, single, drug addicted or alcoholic parent. - Survive off of fishing, hunting for collectibles, or doing any activity you can do as a child and teenager to make money. - As an adult, join the acting career. - Buy the Beguiling reward trait. - Work towards affording a mansion and gradually upgrade plumbing, appliances, electronics, and comfort items. - Seduce a famous sim and have a child with them. - Marry a lottery winner for their money.

Gen 2: Video Games

Career: Videogame Streamer (or eSport Gamer)

Aspiration: World Famous Celebrity

Skill: Beer Brewing (Juice Fizzing) or Mixology

Traits: Geek, Socially awkward (or Clumsy), Overachiever (or Ambitious).

Home: Influencer house in San Myshuno

Lot challenge/trait: Celebrity Home

Despite having been born with a silver spoon in your mouth and not needing to work a day in your life to survive, you don’t just want to lay around in your pajamas all day playing video games… not unless that could be an actual career, and luckily for you, it can be. Other nepobabies don’t have your drive, your quick fingers, your passion for gaming and social media. You want to prove the world that you’re more than your last name and vast inheritance, so you move into a so-called content house in San Myshuno and throw yourself completely into your career as a professional gamer and influencer. Unfortunately, your new lifestyle has proven to be more psychologically taxing than it has any right to be. The influencers you’re currently living and collaborating with do nothing but cause drama, and you’ve found yourself in deep waters when C-Fuel, the Cowplant based energy drink company that has been sponsoring you, comes under fire for poisoning consumers, roping you into a huge scandal and subsequent cancelation. As a result, your beer brewing hobby turns into a coping mechanism and you become addicted to alcohol to deal with the stress. When an unplanned pregnancy turns your life upside down, you finally decide it’s time to go to rehab.

Rules:

- Move into a mansion or penthouse in San Myshuno and live along 6 famous sims, all in the Internet Personality, Style Influencer, and eSport Gamer careers. - Become addicted to alcohol. - Have a child with one of your housemates. - Go to rehab and create an A.A. group.

Gen 3: Body Electric

Career: Scientist

Aspiration: Party Planner

Skill: DJ Mixing

Traits: Dance Machine, Genius, Party Animal (or Clubber)

Home: Unfurnished apartment in San Myshuno

Lot challenge/trait: Party Place

Even as a teen, all you wanted to do was sneak out and party. You know your parents are disappointed in your party animal ways, considering they did everything in their power to give you a normal upbringing despite their unconventional lifestyle as influencers. They don’t want you to waste your potential, you’re a gifted kid after all, who effortlessly got straight As throughout school. So, they decide on your behalf that you put your hefty scholarship to good use and study to become a scientist. Little did they know college was the sure way to make you unleash the party beast within in its final form. You party harder than ever, doing drugs, hooking up, dancing the night away in the pale moonlight. You’re living like Jim Morrison, right until a happy accident comes your way: you and your dealer are expecting a child. After graduating, you decide it’s time to settle down and become an adult… well, sort of. You may have a stable job and your own apartment now, not to mention a kid, but maybe that doesn’t mean the party needs to stop. Will you eventually change your ways and go to rehab? That depends on how bad your addiction gets.

Rules:

- Go to university and major in Physics. - Become a drug addict. - Have a child with a drug dealer. - After graduating, join the Scientist career, move into an empty apartment in San Myshuno and furnish it using the SimRay to transform random items into furniture and decor. You’re allowed to buy the essentials. - Turn the lot in Sixam into a rave location.

Gen 4: Sad Girl

Career: Paranormal Investigator

Aspiration: Soulmate

Skill: Medium

Traits: Gloomy, Child Of The Ocean, Child Of The Islands

Home: Admiral Wreckage in Sulani (the ship must remain on the lot).

Lot challenge/trait: Off-the-grid

Growing up in a noisy, smoke filled environment around your parents’ sketchy friends in crowded San Myshuno made you crave quietness and a connection with nature. You’re a sensitive person, naturally spiritual and intuitive, which might be the reason why you live with a dark cloud over your head. Many things make you sad: fishing (it’s not ok to eat fish! They do have feelings!), not honoring the islands of Sulani, your new home, and being your significant other’s lover on the side. It almost seems like you were born to be the other woman or man, until an unusual new opportunity for love presents itself when you, as a professional paranormal investigator with the gift of communicating with the dead, meet and fall in love with one of the Sulani island elementals. Your feelings are requited, and you two get married and start a new life… literally, since your ghost spouse has decided to come back from the dead just for you. They've got the fire, and they walk with it. Maybe this is the soulmate relationship you've always longed for.

Rules:

- Have a failed relationship with a married sim.- Eat the mermadic kelp and become a mermaid. - Seduce one of the island elementals and complete the Soulmate aspiration with them. - Build or download a beach wedding venue. - Marry your island elemental and have a child with them. - Complete on of the two Sulani collections: Seashells or Buried Treasures.

Gen 5: Freak

Career: None

Aspiration: Leader Of The Pack

Skill: Charisma

Traits: Evil, Insider, Erratic.

Home: Cult compound in Strangerville

Lot challenge/trait: Cursed

You always knew you were special. You can summon volcanic bombs and increase the quality of plants with your mind. You’re pretty sure you were born to rule the world, or at least that’s what the voices in your head have been telling you. You’ve also heard stories of a place called Strangerville, where a bizarre fruit that weakens the minds of those who eat it grows. You need to get your hands on one of those plants, so you move to the mysterious town in the middle of nowhere and start your own congregation. Finding a small group of obedient followers was pretty easy, especially after tricking them into eating your special fruit. Soon enough, the entirety of Strangerville will be yours. Your only concern is that, after you die, no one will carry on with your legacy, so you and your favorite disciple decide to have an heir. Will your child eat the bizarre fruit and make you proud? Or will they leave the empire they were supposed to rule in the dust?

Rules:

- Form a cult using the create a club feature and add 6 members. One of the activities must be stealing. - None of the members of the domestic unit are allowed to have jobs. You must steal for a living. - Build or download a cult compound in Strangerville and move in with your cult. - Feed each cult follower the bizarre fruit. - Infect every sim living in Strangerville. - Have a child with one of your cult members. This will be the eighth member of your club. - Each weekend, take your cult on a field trip or mini vacation and start a club gathering. - Become a sworn enemy of your child.

Gen 6: Groupie Love

Career: Musician

Aspiration: Musical Genius

Skill: Music instrument of your choice.

Traits: Childish, Music Lover, Noncommittal

Home: Tiny Home in Windenburg’s Ancient Ruins

Lot challenge/trait: Small home (max. 100 tiles)

Growing up in a compound full of possessed people with an evil cult leader as a parent is an experience that would scar any young mind, and yours was no exception. You are certain that your parent plans to feed you the bizarre fruit, so as soon as you become a teen, you pack your few possessions and flee to Windenburg, where you find a hidden place to live by the ruins. You need money to survive, and you need to build a proper home, so you start playing music in bars and other public spaces hoping to get donations, and writing your own songs. Music has always been your passion and you’re naturally gifted at it; it’s only a matter of time before other people notice your talent and you start gaining fame and fans. Drunk on the love and attention you’re receiving, you get a little too close and personal with your newfound groupies. You never meant to have seven kids with them, but hey, it’s not your fault you’re so darn fertile, apparently. You might be a little emotionally stunted due to your upbringing, and perhaps committing to just one partner is not the life for you, but one thing is for sure: you will raise your seven children with all the love in the world in your tiny home by the ruins.

Rules:

- As a runaway teen, quit the cult club and move to the Windenburg’s Ancient Ruins lot using the Venue Changes mod. - Change your money to 0 simoleons. - Make money by playing music in public venues, writing and publishing songs, and joining the Musician career as an adult. - Build or download a small home. - Become a proper celebrity. - Form a fan club using the create a club feature. - Have 7 children, all with different members of your fan club. - Raise the children by yourself in your domestic unit.

Gen 7: Blue Jeans

Career: Criminal

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Skill: Mischief

Traits: Hot-Headed, Ambitious, Kleptomaniac.

Home: Abandoned factory in Moonwood Mill

Lot challenge/trait: Filthy

Some say you were born bad, and you’re inclined to agree. You didn’t exactly choose the ganster life, but it certainly did choose you. You’re tough, and you have big dreams, bigger than your parent’s tiny house, so you start living in the streets by yourself as a young adult. There’s an abandoned factory in Moonwood Mill that becomes your gang’s operation center. Despite it never being one of your priorities, love comes knocking at your door in the form of a rich, posh sim whose parents are in the political career. Due to your bad reputation, you’re not allowed to be seen with them in public, until the two of you finally elope together and you realize that maybe you’re not the only reason why your partner’s parents were ashamed of them: they’re a werewolf! They’re an outcast, much like yourself. You two have a baby, and that’s when your partner starts insisting that you quit your gang and the criminal career for your child’s sake. You know they’re right, it’s bad for a young mind to see the things you’ve seen. Sadly, this is the only life you know, and if it’s not good enough for your family, then you’re just not good enough for them. It’s time to leave and start your life over…

Rules:

- Build or download an abandoned factory, or repurpose Moonwood Mill's library. - Max out a drug dealing skill. - Form a gang. - Furnish and decorate your home with stolen items. You’re only allowed to buy items that can’t be stolen (plumbing items, beds, rugs, etc.). - Date a werewolf and elope with them. - Have a baby. - Move away from your partner and child and either start a new life or return to them once you’ve reached level 10 of the criminal career and are allowed to quit.

Gen 8: Chemtrails Over The Country Club

Career: None

Aspiration: Emissary Of The Collective or Wildfang Renegade

Skill: Fabrication or Handiness

Traits: Cat Lover, Dog Lover, Loner

Home: Tree house in Moonwood Mill

Lot challenge/traits: Cat hangout, Dog Hangout.

Being abandoned by your gangster parent as a child really killed your faith in humanity, hence your love for animals that also extends to the beast within yourself. You build a little tree house with your own hands in that particular spot in town that mysteriously attracts all kinds of stray dogs and cats that you love to feed and play with, and some of them become your beloved fur babies. As a werewolf (or someone who aspires to be one), your dream has always been to honor your lycanthropic ancestry by joining one of the local packs and becoming the alpha. Despite the tension between the Moonwood Collective and the Wildfangs, you find your fated mate in the rival alpha. The two of you elope in secret and have a baby. Maybe this will mark a new era of peace and communion between the packs, but that depends on how willing your packmates are to cooperate.

Rules:

- Live with as few sims as you can, the rest of your domestic unit members must be pets. - Craft most of the items in your home using mainly the fabricator and the woodwork table. - Sell crafts and collectibles for a living. - Become an Apex werewolf. - Become the alpha of one of the packs and marry the alpha of the opposite pack (remember that the first werewolf you successfully flirt with will become your fated mate). - Have a child. - Complete the Moonwood Relics collection.

Gen 9: Wildflower Wildfire

Career: None (selling flower arrangements)

Aspiration: Purveyor of Potions

Skill: Flower Arranging

Traits: Romantic, Jealous, Family-Oriented

Home: Abandoned house in Glimmerbrook

Lot challenge/trait: Haunted House Residential

If your werewolf community knew about you plan to betray them by becoming a part of the traitor class of spellcasters, they’d probably kick you out, but they’ll never get the chance to do that if you leave first. There’s a boarding school for teenage wizards in Glimmerbrook you’re interested in joining, so one night you sneak out and pay a visit to the principal, who is kind enough to transform you into a spellcaster and welcome you into the school. Your parents aren’t exactly thrilled with your decision, but they want you to be happy, so they support your choice.

Much to your dismay, your new housemates are not what you expected. They know about your lycanthropic origins and bully you relentlessly for them. One day, you’ve had enough and set part of the school on fire using magic right before moving out into a haunted abandoned house you'd discovered some time ago while exploring Glimmerbrook. There is an old flower arranging table in the garden and you decide to put your fascination with botany to the test by learning to make flower bouquets and selling them for a living.

One day, a particularly attractive sim catches your eye, and since your alchemy skills are on point, you don’t think twice before luring them in using potions. You never considered that their personality traits completely clash with yours. Do opposites attract, or is love not the kind of magic that should be messed with? Regardless, there’s already a baby on the way, and you’ve been alone for so long, running on stardust and sheer willpower. You’re better with your new darling. It’s strange, but it’s true.

Rules:

- If your heir is a werewolf, find the cure for lycanthropy. - Build or download a residential boarding school equipped with items from the Realm of Magic pack, especially cauldrons. - Create a domestic unit consisting of 6 spellcaster teens with the Mean trait, a Virtuoso spellcaster with the Natural Mentor perk as the school principal, and your teenage heir. - Become a spellcaster. - When the heir becomes a young adult, use the Inferniate spell to set the school on fire and move out of the domestic unit. - Build or download an abandoned haunted house with a flower arranging table and move your heir there. - Become a Virtuoso and learn all the mischief spells. - Own a flower shop or street stall and sell flower arrangements for a living. - Use the Potion of the Transcendent Charmer and the Potion of Alluring Aura to attract an Unflirty, Noncommittal, Hates Children partner. - Have a child with that partner.

Gen 10: Young And Beautiful

Career: Interior Decorator

Aspiration: Vampire Family

Skill: Painting

Traits: Snob, Creative, Art Lover

Home: Vlad’s Castle in Forgotten Hollow

Lot challenge/trait: Spooky

As a result of growing up in a haunted house full of pools of ghost goo and weird markings on the floors, you have a passion for decoration and home renovation. From a young age, you started watching the home decorator channel and learning how to paint so you could beautify your surroundings with art. The way your parent’s flower arrangements decay over time makes you sad. Why can’t beauty last forever? Why are most living things destined to die? You’ve met plenty of ghosts in your time, and they aren’t exactly aspirational. However, there is a type of occult you could praise and enthuse about all day long: vampires! They’re cool, they’re powerful, and most importantly, they’re immortal. So, when the opportunity to drink the ancient blood of a vampire arises, you take it without hesitation.

As overjoyed as you are with your transformation, you’re keenly aware that eternity will eventually get lonely. You want a family that will never leave your side in the mortal coil of existence. You love your job as a home decorator, you’re superb at it, and your clientele idolizes you, so why not preserve a few of your admirers for posterity by feeding them the sweet elixir cursing through your veins?

Now that you’re forever young and beautiful (you’ve made sure to treat yourself to a tweak or two under the knife), have seen the world, have done it all, and had your cake, your life couldn’t be more perfect. Yet, you still feel lonely. You start seeing someone you’re convinced is your soulmate in every aspect except two: their taste in décor is awful, and what’s worse, they don’t fancy immortality. In fact, they’re afraid of most vampires. Even though it breaks your heart, you have no choice but to respect their wishes and love them util they’re dead and got nothing but their aching soul.

Rules:

- If your heir is a spellcaster, ask for the Rite of Dissolution. - Become a vampire and unlock the vampire creation perk. - Marry a mortal with opposite tastes in decor. You’re not allowed to turn them into a vampire. - Complete the Vampire Family aspiration by turning your clients. - Get plastic surgery by altering your sim’s features in CAS using the cas.fulleditmode cheat every time they get a promotion. Their dark form must remain unaltered. - Move into Vlad’s castle and redecorate it in a completely different style. - When your beloved dies, re-marry their ghost.

#sims 4 challenge #ts4 challenge #sims 4 lana legacy challenge #lana legacy challenge #lana del rey #sims legacy challenge #legacy challenge #ts4 legacy #ts4 legacy challenge #lana del rey challenge #lana del rey sims challenge

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kingmaker-a · 1 year

Text

Minutes Before, | Jeon Heejin

Content/Warning: Mentions of Parental loss, character death and blood.

Cast: Heejin, BM, GD, Jiwoo, LE, Hani and Hyunjin(SKZ)

Word count: 15.4K AU: SciFi/Mecha AU Genre: Fluff, angst and Hurt/comfort

Average read time: 1 Hour

Summary: If this was the limits of your relationship, it’d be a fine capstone. A gift wrought not by your own hands.

Still you are blessed ever more with the cherry sweet caress of Heejin’s lips pressed against your cheek accompanied by a hushed whisper. “My idiot.” All it took was close to six months. A/n: Blame @neon-city-dreams for this absolute behemoth, set in the universe that he runs for a bunch of the paladins. I sort went all out from visual standpoint for this fic. If you went to avoid the angst stop at the pagebreak that says 15 Minutes.

You always found comfort in your garage; many would consider the steel trappings more akin to a cage than asylum.

Still, it was your bunker nonetheless.

Your hands creep through wires and metal sheets, an exasperated grunt echoes through your lips. Whoever labelled the wires was a moron.

You were the moron, though on more levels than usual.

This time, at least. Socialising definitely wasn't a strength of yours, Jovians were your forte. People... less so.

Should've known you wouldn't get along with the Rogues fan, that should've been as obvious as the sun in the sky.

Tick tock.

Now you were alone in your Jovian garage, no friends to your name against the encroaching march of time.

Your hands coil around your prize, at least you'd install Paragon capabilities into Glimpse--A clatter rings out through your garage.

A wrench against polished concrete... a ghost?

It wasn't a journeyman; you couldn't afford one.

You dance on the knife's edge, an intruder and danger on top of the list.

But what if? What if you could at least finish up your work on Glimpse?

Your spare hand thumbs over your switchblade, ready to shear the electric sheep.

Danger wasn't exactly on the table, more a development of needless anxiety. Your grasp tightens against the wire pulling it through the opening instead, your knife impaling it against a nearby metal sheet.

For later.

Red tartan is the first thing you catch, a dress echoes with alcohol and stronger concoctions.

A party you weren't invited to.

Her eyes are sharp, focused almost like she was peering down at you, a surprising feat considering she was shorter than you.

She toys with her braid, fingers tracing through an almost ethereal glow.

A shimmer of crystalline marble teases your eyes, a moon pendant.

Lunar Tyrium… Probably.

You'd hedge your bets on her being a corpo kid or an Arg at least.

"You're Kai right?" She teases with a glimmer of teeth. Her voice is deeper and huskier than you expected.

Beautiful nonetheless.

You bite your tongue, a deep inhale and a roll of your eyes satisfies her.

Kai was in fact not your nam-"I'd get used to it, it's better than Kaiju kid."

You'd like to maintain that the Kaijus were better than the Rogues, at least in more recent seasons.

A frown cuts through your lips, pulling your jumpsuit tight to your skin. Her

eyes peer beyond you, a simmer of a smile.

"You're routing display power back into the core," less of a question, more of a statement.

She knew her stuff.

Didn't mean you liked her.

Your head cocks to the side, what was her game?

Each step from her echoes across cold concrete, and each footfall straddles stiff tension.

Her gaze saunters over every nook and cranny, every shape and detail.

You'd feel more comfortable being naked in front of her, there was something to be said about having your life's work judged.

Her eyes are softer as her fingers trail across metal ridges and rivets.

There's a new found focus in her eyes, an entrancement. There's also a sense of awe as she takes in your metal titan.

Her eyebrows crimp together, her eyes pulled by an invisible tether focus on you. "Vanquisher or Paragon?"

Your mouth runs dry at the suddenly softer attention. Your mouth hangs slightly before you can mark an utterance.

"Uh…" Your mouth still lags with arid thorns, each edge a trailing thought.

None of them are on task, as you catch your eyes linger on her entranced form.

"Paragon," the only word you can muster.

Her smile brightens as she catches your gaze, a shimmer hidden in her eyes.

Like lights during a festival.

A treasure you wish you could understand.

A smile comes to a boil. "You must be a pretty good Wright."

There's a small quirk of your lips as you try to tug at the threads of her features, trying to decipher her intention.

You're well practised.

Yet you're still surprised she's so….

Genuine.

"At least I think she'd agree," her hand pats across metal with a gentle touch, there's a hint of wistful snow as her eyes trace her hand's trail.

Her eyes careen back to you.

"What's her name?" Her words, soft like snow.

"Glimpse Ascendant," an odd name you admit, an ode to the frames that made it whole.

A reverent reference.

Her teeth tingle with joy as a smile blooms, her eyes pick apart your features. Her fingers scrawl over a familiar logo, carved by your hand. There’s almost a sad wistful look caught in the still frame of her eye.

"Maybe Kai is a good nickname," she teases with a friendly bristle, it's almost odd how comfortable she is around you.

Still, charcoal frustration simmers under your voice. "Is there something I can help you with?"

Her smile falters, as her eyes peel back to cold and piercing. "...Maybe?"

You scoff, a roll of your eyes.

A waste of your time.

You grip your blade, tearing it out from the sheet of metal.

A mental note to repair and polish it for later.

Waste not, want not.

"I'm gonna get back to work, hav-" You're surprised by her sudden proximity, there's a wave of perfume, violet and bergamot the few notes you can pick out.

"She got a pilot?" Her voice once again soft like snow, even if her eyes are just as piercingly cold.

There's a derision that lines your thoughts, you dance with the lies that linger in your mind.

If only to shoo her away.

Though a corpo kid would be good for resources.

A noble would've been better.

There's a deep inhale as you admit the truth.

"No."

That unfamiliar glimmer returns once again, there's no small sense of annoyance at her possible enjoyment.

Your eyes peer deep like a knife.

"Why?"

A saunter of a smile creeps across her lips. "Well, I figured we'd make a decent team, Kai."

You can't tell if your nickname is drowned in honey or venom. Though it makes no difference all the same.

"Fine," you huff as you offer a hand. "What's your name?"

"Heejin," she offers, hand at the ready.

"Heejin?" an attempt to dive for more in the well of her being.

"Heejin," she confirms, spitting into her hand.

A surprise twist you had to admit, old school and archaic.

It made no difference to you, hands already stained with grease.

Her hand fits almost perfectly against yours. A thought you try your best not to dwindle on.

She moves with a twist already adjusting her, scanning over supplies in your garage.

She helps herself to one of your spare jumpsuits.

The surprise lingers on your face even once she returns.

"What?" She points out, jagged eyebrows in tow. Her fingers craft a hurried ponytail.

"I should be saying that to you."

There's that same shimmer and a bristle of a smile. "Just because I'm a pilot doesn't mean I'm gonna leave the hard work to you."

Maybe that's when you felt the first flutters in your chest.

It's a weird twist of fate, a flip of a coin rather than the twist of a knife.

You had little personal effects, aside from the clothes on your back and your tools.

A thought you hadn't pondered too much.

But has your life really revolved around just your Jovian?

You feel the pad of her fingers brush your shoulder, a warmth you were slowly getting used to.

There's a bristle of a smile as she catches your eyes.

An eager smile dots her lips, an air of excitement permeates the air.

"Shall we get started?" She beams, energy lined every husky syllable.

Truly a paradox.

Cold corpo kid seemed like a far off dream in a different lifetime.

"Uh," your voice draws and sinks.

You had meant it truly when you said you'd move your stuff yourself.

Your hand floats before it too sinks.

Her neck cranes to the side, concern brims on the horizon.

"Is something wrong?" Her eyes peer deep into you, a diver on the edge of treasure.

Her lips toss and turn, a game of guess who, eyebrows stretched tight as she slowly moves closer.

Is this how Glimpse felt under her gaze?

The storm on her features eventually subsides, a deep inhale as her gaze shifts down the hall

Her voice soft and light.

"...I don't mind moving into your dorm room if it's more comfortable?" A glimmer of a cascade, that unfamiliar expression held the limelight.

A secret or a memory perhaps? A chance to increase your compatibility.

What was your compatibility rate anyway?

A thought for later.

Her eyes settle on you once again, a soft twinge of a smile.

There's the brim of your own smile, honesty was the best bet. "And waste a perfectly good penthouse dorm room?"

A luxury you didn’t actually expect to see, afforded to noble House members and Argentum Corpo kids.

What Corp was her family involved with?

Luna solutions was the obvious answer thanks to the Tyrium on her neck.

Yet there's the small twinge of something else in the back of your head.

A hunch.

There was definitely more to her than met the eye.

Her eyes linger on the door, her fingers splay over the slight worn surface, there's a hint of a smile… of something more.

Her fingers tap across the wooden surface, a rhythm you didn’t know.

"I'm surprised," there's a click of your tongue. "I didn't think many rich kids would be willing to stoop down from the pedestal."

There's a slight hum, almost a sense of surprise lingers at your words.

A sense of dread lingers in her silence, perhaps you had over stepped.

At least you'd make a mental note of the boundary.

Her eyes are soft, as she grasps the door handle. "I guess I was just raised right then?"

The door slides open at her touch, maybe she was right?

Despite her design… she was nice, helpful even. Not that the bar was particularly high for pilots.

But you could count on one hand the amount of pilots that would help their Wright, let alone be fairly knowledgeable.

The question teems on the edge of your lips, water on the edge of thirst.

"Hm?" She hums, eyes peering across your cosy two bedroom dorm.

It was closer to a sardine can.

Though you had lived in far worse places, money saved was money earnt for your Jovian.

"I expected it to be messier," she turns back to you in a dancer's pirouette, her feet trodding slowly into the living room, hands folded behind her.

Living room was a generous estimate, more of a half room merged with a kitchenette.

You had yet to check if the elements even worked.

The sun blooms past the glass door balcony, capturing her in a cascade of sunset light.

Tranquil Iridescence lingers on every part of her like settled stardust.

It only enhanced what was already there.

It's almost habitual, when you take a photo with your contact lense.

Radiant.

Is the thought that lingers on your mind, you're too distracted to notice her rummaging through the one box you did bring.

Sunlit smile, her hands settle on a familiar black material.

A bomber jacket you bought from a thrift shop, to weather through a storm.

A keepsake, you guess. Even if you never wore it.

Poor people did tend to have hoarder tendencies.

"What's this?" She asks, already measuring it against her own form.

You shrug, unamused scouting through your dingy fridge.

Of course the light didn't magically fix itself.

Still, it was as empty as when you first moved in.

Which was only yesterday granted.

Your eyes flicker over her. "A jacket?" You suggest, more concerned with the rest of the contents of the box.

There's something hidden in her eyes as she places it back in place, her lips produce a simple, "oh."

Soft and almost sombre.

Your fingers twist and weave through keepsakes and mementos, settling on a simple shard.

Orichalcum.

"Whatcha got there?" She calls from right next to you, she had the subtlety of a shadow in her movements.

"A keepsake," it glistens in the sunlight, a treasured jewel.

Her head tilts to the side, "from your first Jovian?"

You scoff lightly, serendipitously. "I wish…"

Images flicker through your mind like a reel in front of a dancing flame.

The smell of overturned earth and singed metal hung thick in the air.

A smile dances lightly across, the crest of joy hums lightly in your throat.

"A keepsake from the first siegeball game I went to."

Your eyes linger across her, expecting the same familiar reaction from some of your peers.

You're surprised when she leans closer, a smile on her lips, she moves with a subtle nod.

Something lingers in her eyes, a puzzle piece you couldn’t quite decipher.

Maybe you would with time.

Her gaze lingers over you softly, a honey sweet glaze. It tugs at your heart, a pull of a string.

You almost choke on your own air, a strained sputter.

A chuckle tickles your ears, her hand glides across your back.

A soft pat to help you breathe.

“You alright?” her smile rosy sweet.

You needed to focus.

You clear your throat, a sustained effort. Another cough, another sputter.

“Yeah I’m fine,” your eyes shift over the box. “We should probably get going, you can pry over my stuff later.”

Her nose crinkles ever so slightly.

"I'll hold you to it."

Heejin's penthouse apartment is cosier than you expected, your eyes linger over painted canvas as the dying embers of sunlight peek through large windows.

The light scent of peach wafts through the air, as your eyes settle on two guitars.

She was more artistic than you imagined, it must’ve taken considerable effort to move all of her stuff in such a short time.

Your fingers trail over unfamiliar countertops, prying over every detail you could pick up.

At least without making it look like you were snooping.

Unlike a certain someone else, her hands rummaging actively through your box of keepsakes.

She offers the slightest quirk of a smile as her eyes linger on something, before they return to you.

"Did you wanna pick a room?" An honest question.

"Haven't you already picked?"

She shrugs slightly, fingers tapping across your box. "I mean not really? I'm not too fussed on it."

Neither were you, your back still remembers the leather grooves of the sofa in your Jovian garage.

An impasse.

Her eyes flit over you like dazzling starlight, the tiniest twinkle iridescent and otherworldly.

"I'll just take the spare room."

Her head lilts the side, "are you sure?"

The tiniest hint of a scoff parts your lips, "I'm used to working with less."

Something bubbles under her lips, a soft pout. "Is that why you slept in your garage last night?"

Were you really going to get into that? Your feet come to a halt, eyes skirting over Heejin for the briefest moment.

"Something like that," you offer a weak smile.

A frown deepens across her lips, still she doesn't push it.

It was weird to think about the difference a day could make, no longer were you on edge around her.

Though there was something to be said about partnership.

Her stomach grumbles, an awkward chuckle.

There's a twist of a smile on your lips, secrets could be shared later.

"Takeaways?" She offers, her voice nearly cracking.

You're already in the kitchen looking through her supplies, you beam a smile. "Save your money, I'll make something.”

“Did you wanna…..?”

You’re too focused on the minutiae, to truly catch what she’s implying.

Thankful, as you look over the weapon cores, even then your eyes falter linger over her beautiful face, her teeth tug at her bottom lip.

You do your best to catch stray thoughts, flickering like candle flame.

Surely?

No, no.

She’s teasing you.

Probably.

Your eyes return to the weapon cores, Heejin had a preference for range. Which means you needed to reconfigure.

Which meant scrapping your melee cores.

Your fingers tap idly against metal… How to save money?

Scan the schematics, upload them to the paragon protocol. Even if Heejin wouldn’t end up using them, they’d be back in an instant.

At least only temporarily, though you could transcr-fingers lace over your shoulders, a firm steady grip.

She was stronger than you expected.

Still her thumbs press into your shoulder.

A soft massage.

“Did you hear me?”

“Mmh,” your only response. You could slot in the secondhand blastback cannon core you purchased before coming to Sanctum.

Her grip tightens, reeling your attention.

“What?”

A sigh mixed with a chuckle blesses your lips.

“I was asking if you wanted to try drifting?” She slinks closer to you, head resting on your shoulder as she scans over the terminal in front of you.

The smell of peaches was slowly becoming a thing of comfort for you. Your heart still races at her close proximity.

Her fingers crest the screen, “It’s sweet you’re worried about weapons.”

A cherry sweet smile.

Yet she still pouts, “but it’s not gonna matter if our compatibility sucks.”

It almost stings.

“Right, right.”

You hadn’t drifted before, there’s an almost anxious tide in your heart.

Her hand pats your shoulder. “I gotcha, don’t worry.”

Evaporated by radiant moonlight.

All it takes is a deep breath to accept her comfort.

She offers you a drive suit, “I’ll meet you inside Glimpse alright?”

All you can offer is a nod, your brain recites whispers from your own parents. Tips lost the etchings of time.

“Don’t lose yourself in the drift,” the words of your father.

“You can’t fight a storm,” the words of your mother.

Your drivesuit is a snug fit, yet somehow loose in the right areas. You pull inside Glimpse, hesitation festering in Heejin’s absence.

Still your body moves through the motions you’ve practised for years, Heejin’s voice rings through your contact.

“Remember, don't try to hide anything in the drift,” she chuckles. “Just relax it and let it flow.”

Your fingers linger on your drive plug, now was your last chance to back out. Your hand trembles with shaky breath.

Heejin believed in you.

“Right, right.” You needed to keep your mind off of it. “How come you know so much?”

You can practically feel her smile, “My uncle taught me.”

Your plug snaps into place. “What’s he like?”

A low hum bristles through her teeth, "How do I put it? Well put together, knowledgeable… patient."

A chuckle echoes through, "Has to be to deal with his husband."

Your terminal lights up, it was now or never.

“I’m ready when you are,” your voice softer than you expected, anxiety itching at the fringes of your mind.

“I’m with you until the end.”

Memories and feelings glitter like shooting stars as the drift engages, a coursing stream flows into a raging river.

Heejin’s memories flicker through your mind, disjointed images on a roll of film, confused and unorganised.

The sound of a guitar echoes through stardust, a tingle of something you can't make out… infatuation?

Your eyes lingers on the source, a young man with dark hair fingers trailing through strings.

A younger Heejin at your side, her eyes glued to his fingers.

A name lingers in your head, Nixsyn.

The memory slips through your fingers as everything blurs and bleeds around, a torrent of rain fills the cup that is your brain.

Despair racks through you, death. Isolation in the unknown grips at every crevice in your brain.

Upturned earth and the smell of singed metal assails your brain, grips your senses.

An explosion rocks through you.

Slowly you drown, unable to keep up with every shift, every turn.

You feel something bubble up in your throat, as you're unable to make out left from right, up from down.

Your brain lurches on instinct, to fight to survive.

Your mother's words come back to you, "don't fight the storm."

The smell of upturned earth and singed metal still lingers in the air.

Home is your first thought.

It stops, the sudden stillness is jarring and unnerving.

Clumps of dirt hang in the air, frozen in the air.

The crowd is still, picture perfect.

You spy yourself, a kid. Your favourite day, flocked by your parents.

An embellishment.

You even notice Heejin in the crowd, had you already become so attached to her in your mind's eye?

"Huh," her words echo behind you, the click of her boots tap away with each step. "Not what I expected."

Her eyes trace over you and your parents, a hint of annoyance.

A slight click of her tongue, "It's nice."

Apprehension lingers in the eves, held together with stitches.

Wounds from your past.

There’s a small crease in her eyebrows, a fitted frown.

A soft smile. “I mean it.”

A brief nod.

Still it lingers.

Her fingers tug at your sleeve, gone is your drive suit in the drift.

“I’m just disappointed,” she adds, her gaze avoiding yours.

You hesitate, “Why?”

Was there something wrong with you?

Her hand grips her neck awkwardly, a nervous shrill of a laugh bounces through the air.

A deep breath.

From her and you.

Her eyes return, a flickering ember.

Resolute.

“I just wanted to…” her gaze weakens once again, eyes lingering on frozen flecks of dirt in the air.

A frown creases her lips, another deep breath, a soft nod.

Your hand clasps over hers.

Another soft, awkward laugh.

“It’s dumb.”

A soft smile rises over your lips.

“I bet it is.”

She rolls her eyes.

A soft slap across your shoulder.

“I’m trying to open up here,” the familiar echo of her laugh, less tense. Melodic and effervescent.

Just how you liked it.

“Go ahead.”

She smiles, “I kinda wanted to show off.”

Your head tilts to the side. “Really?”

She leans against the rail, eyes focused on the inanimate scene before the two of you. “Like I said it’s dumb.”

A glimmer of a smile, a sliver of a glance.

“Why?”

She jostles slightly, shifting her weight between her feet. There’s that unknowable glimmer in her eyes.

“Usually the drift is harder for the Wright,” her eyebrows crease, there’s the hum of something more in throat.

A sigh.

A sombre smile crests her lips, a gust of sadness lingers arctically cool in the air.

There’s a twist in her lips, crisp nostalgia.

“My dad was a Wright."

Your mind is thrown back into the lurch, faded film and heavy waves flash through you.

The high delirious whine of a machine gone mad echoes through your brain.

Dad.

Not your own, fear echoes through the rafters. Images flicker too fast for you to grasp, like frayed and destroyed fabric from a shirt you've never seen.

Dyed in a colour you know too well.

Loss.

Her lips quiver, unsettled by upturned memories, your fingers loop through her own. “My parents were into Jovians too.”

A wordless concession, a show of solidarity.

Her eyes soften over you, the gaze of moonlight. Your eyes roam over the Siegeball field before settling over your parents.

Her grip tightens, a soft hum lines her throat. “Are they why you’re into Siegeball?”

“They used to work with the Kaiju.”

It feels like a prickle at the edge of your neck, the beckoning of something more, infinite. Heejin’s own questions linger at the frayed edges of your own brain.

The drift was truly something else.

Yet as her eyes drift over you and then your parents.

Acceptance, comradery.

A smile tickles over her lips, “we’re more alike than I thought.”

It prickles again, “What makes you say that?” Aside from shared loss. Her fingers pull away from yours, a bloom of sadness explodes through your chest at the sudden loss.

She points herself out in the crowd, slowly your palace flickers at the seams where she sits.

A younger Heejin takes her place, you remember brief glimpses of her buried deep in the recesses.

“I didn’t take you for a Siegeball type of girl?"

She scoffs, your eyes linger on the stage set, one last desperate team fight between the Tigers and the Kaiju.

A match forever etched in your brain.

"Let me guess," your eyes twist back towards her. "Tigers? You seem like a Monarch type of person."

She scoffs harder, a smile dances across her lips, eyes focused on the still scene. "Kaiju, actually.”

There’s the dance of something more, her eyes twinkle against your gaze.

“Kinda what drew me to you.”

Even with Heejin’s help, maintenance takes longer than you’d like, sweat-caked hours toiling away.

Many would consider Sunday the day of rest, but you were nothing if not a creature of habit.

Heejin’s presence is oddly comforting, even amongst the monotony.

“Heekki?” The nickname foreign in your own mind, awkward on your tongue. Still a smile bristles across her teeth.

A byproduct of the drift?

“Yeah?” She’s beautiful, her hand trailing through sweat soaked hair, her eyes peer into you.

You had her full attention.

Your heart hitches in its steps.

“Why don’t we head home after the next test?”

Her smile deepens, “Only if I get first dibs on a shower.”

Warmth billows across your lips, a soft smile. “Sure, sure.”

Your terminal sings a delicate note, everything was in order.

Yet something tickles your mind, a lingering oddity.

Power draw was higher than usual, even with you diverting some display power.

Maybe you needed to look at the converters?

Familiar fingers dance across your shoulder, "we going?"

Your terminal powers down at your hasty command, "Yeah, of course."

Her eyes linger over you, furrowed eyebrows. "Everything alright?"

Your fingers skip over your chin, "just thinking about what to make for dinner."

A lie.

Her gaze lingers for a moment longer.

A shrug, a bloom of a smile. "Anything you make is good."

The walk through sanctum is a serene affair, guided in the haze of Heejin's own excitement.

Your eyes catch sight of flowers dancing in the wind.

A storefront.

Hydrangea Symphony.

You can't help but watch as an old lady dances with nurtured excitement as she sets up a display, a glimmer of a smile lingers as she returns your gaze.

A soft wink, as she continues her dance.

"Hm? How come you stopped?"

A soft smile dots your lips.

"No reason."

Sunlight dances through familiar streets, a last waltz that flickers and dims as you reach your dorm complex.

You had grown so used to sleeping in your garage growing up, that even the minute luxuries seemed foreign.

Your elevator sings a melodious tune as it crests the final floor, the throne of luxury.

Two familiar figures linger in the hallway, one tall and broad-shouldered, the other lean, the pinnacle of fashion.

“Hey Heekki,” the voice is soft and tender, a gentle giant. “Did you guys just get back from the garage?”

She gives him a soft courteous nod, a warm smile flickers across her lips. “Yeah, you know me, nose to the grindstone.”

Her words elicit a chuckle from the large male, his eyes dance over you for a second before offering a hand. “You must be Kai.”

“BM.” His hand is soft, yet firm, a comforting grip. “Heekki’s told me a lot about you.”

She smacks his shoulder, a levelled glare.

His smile widens, “good things I promise.”

His eyes twitch over his own pilot, “GD was telling me that your Jovian is made from Siegeball Jovians. That’s pretty resourceful.”

Your eyes hover over the pilot, a weird sense of familiarity lingers in your brain like a shirt worn in your childhood.

It clicks like a tumbler in a lock, you offer your hand. “You’re Ravine’s kid?”

His eyes widen ever so slightly, a smile lingers on his lips. “Adopted.”

“Family is still family, especially if it’s by choice,” he returns a soft nod, still the smile lingers, a bloom of happiness at your words.

His eyes have a soft hold over you, as his eyes shift over the other two, lost in their own conversation.

Almost like bickering siblings.

“Everything alright with Glimpse?” There’s the shadow of something more, a spark of knowledge.

"Nothing major," not a white lie, you only hoped it wasn't the drop of snow that'd start an avalanche.

There's the slight crease of a frown pressed into his lips.

Worry.

BM’s hand peels him away from the thought, “we should get going, you know how Jiwoo gets.”

He smiles, his hand claps against BM’s shoulder. “I know, I know.”

He offers a two finger salute, “I’ll see you around Kai.”

A gesture you return, a smile lingers held between the two of you as they depart.

The crisp warm edges of sunset greet you as you enter your abode, the echoing spatter of water against tiles tells you that Heejin snuck away towards her date with the shower.

Your feet dance slowly towards the kitchen, hardwood floors flexing with each dance number.

What to make for dinner?

Burgers were always a good option, leftovers could be used for lunch the next day.

Beetroot and breadcrumbs would be a fine basis for a vegan option, Heejin's preference.

You linger on the countertop, had you forgotten to pack away your lunchbox?

You had a test tomorrow, a grimace folds across your features. So soon in the school year, truly torturous.

A fleck of white card peeks out from within the opaque plastic shell.

A glimmer of temptation guides your hand.

A card, lovingly crafted and printed.

A kaiju giving a thumbs up.

Good Luck.

An attempt at lunch lines the container and a small note with money attached.

Your heart aches in a trepidatiously soft way, melancholy.

Was this what it meant to no longer be alone?

Tears prick at the edge of your eyes.

You hear the soft rattle of the bathroom door knob, your hands work quickly to put everything back in its place.

Her footfalls echo and bounce as you return to dicing onions.

A knot of concern lingers in her brows, "everything alright?"

A shiver trembles past her lips, a prickle at the nape of your neck.

"Yeah, just cutting onions…" Your eyes linger as she hugs herself for warmth. "You don't have a sweater or something?"

A frown presses itself across her lips, your eyes linger on your box of keepsakes.

The prickle softens.

"You can wear my jacket," your eyes return to the task at hand, your stomach wouldn't feed itself.

Still you catch a glimmer of a raised eyebrow, "are you sure?”

A soft smile on your lips, “yeah, it’s just a jacket.”

She scoffs lightly, her eyes gilded with something. "Not just any jacket," she scoots closer to you, bomber jacket in hand.

"it's Alpaca's jacket from when he was on Sabretooth Black," there's a raised eyebrow and a hint of surprise, an almost incredulous look.

Like you found Atlantis without realising.

"Sabretooth Black?" You hadn't heard of that team. Only Sabretooth Red, even then they were still before your time in Siegeball.

She rolls her eyes, her hand dragging across the kitchen counter.

She offers it to you with a slight grumble.

You don't even look up at her, focus still on cooking.

"You can keep it."

There's a slight dawdle in her steps, an eerie uncertainty normally unfounded.

"...Are you sure?"

"Of course…” Your knife clatters against the chopping board.

“Plus you’re my pilot, where with each other for the long haul.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” a twist of a smile lingers on her lips. She’s dressed to the nines, the same familiar tartan dress, held astride your bomber jacket.

You roll your eyes, as you return to your terminal.

“Come on,” she tugs at your sleeve, “you can meet Jiwoo, she’s super cute and absolutely loaded.”

A deep sigh crests through your lungs, fingers massaging deep into your temples. “Heekki.”

“It’ll be cool,” a cocky smirk, a wink. “You might even be able to get a date with my help.”

You scoff, a chuckle brims at the edge of your lips.

“Not happening.”

A flicker of a frown threatens to scorch at your heart, a glimmer radiates from your terminal.

Saved by Glimpse.

Still a frown settles on your lips, power draw issues once again.

“Glimpse needs some work.”

Her eyebrows crease together, a tilt of her neck. “I can pack it in and hel-”

The motion of your hand cuts her off before you slowly nudge her out the door. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” a smile tugs at your lips.

“Are you su-”

“Yeah, yeah.” You practically fight to get her out the door, her strength was nothing to shirk at.

Even among the clamour of limbs her eyes soften, “Just maintenance.”

She rolls her eyes, “so excuses basically?”

“You caught me.”

“So-”

“No”

“It’ll be f-”

“Not happening”

“I need some help with my homework,” a glimmer of a smile.

“Let me guess you need to research the effects of alcohol and other substances on pilots and wright?”

Somehow, Glimpse’s power draw issues had gotten worse, even after installing filters to the Tyrium converters.

You’d hate to think it was the converters themselves.

“...Maybe?” Her eyes linger softly like snow, a cautious glance at you, there’s a hint of a smile boiling to the surface, a shimmer of hope.

Anything to get you to come along.

A click of your tongue, “Not happening Heej”

“Fine,” a withheld sigh.

Hot lead scatters and trails like shooting stars in the night sky, a dangerous beauty. Sparks crackle and bloom as bullets skim across your cover.

“Why am I the one in the thick of things again?”

Your knife twirls ideally in your hand,you really did bring a knife to a gun fight huh?

You hear the glimmer of a smile, an echo of a laugh over your contact. “Last time I checked you didn’t know how to use a sniper rifle.”

The familiar clang of Heejin’s bolt handle echoes through her contact, “plus you look pretty good from up here.”

You can hear the cocky swagger of her smirk without even seeing it.

Still bullets trail like shooting stars above you, you dare a peek past cover.

A stray bullet is nearly your just reward.

“Uh, Heekki?” Is all you can manage.

“Hm?”

“Some help would be nice?” Steps echo closer to you, heavy armoured foot falls.

If only you hadn’t alerted the whole complex, a thought you mule over as a metallic egg shaped object soars through the air.

A grenade.

“I dunno,” her voice hums through your contact. “Seems like a nice old party.”

Really? Is the thought that lingers as you scramble for more cover, as an explosion rocks through the air.

Heated air brushes dangerously close to your skin as you stumble, “we’re seriously doing this right now?”

“Maybe?” Despite the danger, there’s a ghost of a smile held to your lips.

Still, your feet slip against concrete as bullets arc overhead.

Lucky security skimped out on accuracy protocols for their androids.

You manage to huddle around a corner, your eyes catch the familiar glint of glass on a nearby building.

Heejin.

You quickly peek back past the corner, your pursuers ever encroaching like the waves in the ocean.

“Fine, fine. What do you want?”

You hear the glimmer of a smile, the hitch of her breath. “You know what I want.”

You roll your eyes despite the imminent danger.

“Fine.”

Still, no bullets are fired from her sniper’s nest, there’s a sudden edge teasing at your brain.

“Promise.”

“Alright, I promise I’ll go to the next party you invite me to? Happy?”

“And?”

“And?” Your mind scrambles for anything else, “I’m sorry for insulting your mad gun skills? What else do you want?”

She chuckles, “Hm? Flowers?”

You roll your eyes, even if there’s something nestled in your heart that glimmers at the idea. “Fine you got it. Just get me out of this mess.”

She laughs again, “What’s the magic word?”

You scoff, “My grade is gonna be so bad because of you.”

“Please.”

Time echoes and drifts like leaves in the wind, days and weeks roll by without even a peep or a mention of one of Jiwoo’s parties.

At least not from Heejin, conversations and stories from BM and GD dance in the revelry. Yet even they notice Heejin’s lack of appearance.

An odd detail to say the least, considering she disappears every friday night.

It made no matter, you weren't her owner.

Still your hands tighten around a bouquet of flowers.

Lilies, Haesul's suggestion. Meant to symbolise rebirth or something.

The glitter of excitement in her eyes meant she knew what she was talking about.

Your mind trails over the last couple weeks, no missteps or mistakes. Heejin had been as pleasant as ever, her laughter a joyous thing.

The only lingering problem was Glimpse and its power issues, exacerbated everytime you drifted with Heejin.

At least that's what the numbers said.

An issue for another night, too many wasted late nights fighting back the weight of gravity.

Your hand clutches your door knob, the sound of guitar strings barely parting through solid wood, you swear you hear the sound of muffled singing.

Yet as you twist the handle or better yet, try to twist the handle. It remains stiff.

Locked.

A puzzling twist, still your key works all the same. Heejin didn't decide to change the locks on you.

Though anxiety still lingers at the mere hint of the thought.

Still the door parts, if only barely

“With you I’d float everywhere, with you I’d…” her voice sings, soft dulcet tones.

The door bangs against something, a rattle echoes and suddenly the music stops.

“Hold up,” she calls, “I’ll be right there.”

Her eyes glimmered with the hint of a smile, “Sorry, I didn’t expect you home so soon.”

You hear the shuffle of various things before finally the door moves, strewn paint and canvas. Cloth bundled at the door to protect the floors.

There’s an unbeckoned warmth in her eyes as her gaze lingers on you, her voice is soft, and delicate.

Her fingers tug on your hand as she pulls you inside, “it’s good to have you home.”

Her hands tug at your shirt, desperate to pull you closer, her fingers catch on the bouquet before you can even ask.

“What’s this?” her hands clasp over yours, a quirk of a surprised eyebrow.

A smile dots your lips, “What’s it look like? Flowers.”

Her eyes soften, held under your gaze, a brief tender sweet moment.

A crinkle of a cheeky smile and you know the moment is gonna be ruined, she removes the bouquet from your grasp with a cursory sniff.

“So you met Haesul?” There’s a glimmer of mischief in her eyes, you can’t help the sinking feeling in your stomach.

Your eyes narrow, what was she up to? A quirk of your neck, “...Yeah?”

“She’s pretty cute isn’t she?” Lips lined with a teasing glint.

You roll your eyes, "I mean yeah I guess?"

You slowly make your way through strewn art supplies, did she do this every Friday instead of partying?

Her handiwork must be no joke if she evaded leaving even a fraction of evidence.

Still there's a genuine heartfelt smile as she takes another whiff.

"I'm surprised you remembered."

Your eyebrows knit together, as you pull ingredients from the cupboard, a nice stew would be good.

"Why wouldn't I?"

She hums, emptying out a vase she used for painting, there’s a softness in her touch. Like a misstep would spell the end of your gift.

Still she manages well enough.

"...It was kind of a joke,” there’s a weird earnest quiver to her voice, soft and silken.

Even if it was a joke, the brimming coals of warmth that light her smile let you know it’s appreciated.

Her eyes twinkle over, “You won’t find any complaints from me, though.”

Questions teem at the edge of your lips, did you have the strength?

“How come you haven’t been going to any of Jiwoo’s parties?”

She cocks her head to the side, there’s a shimmer of something deeper held in her eyes.

A shrug, “No real reason, just focusing on my art.”

A smirk etches itself across her lips, “why? You suddenly eager for some party fever?”

She does a little mock dance, a chuckle escapes your lips.

“You just seemed so hellbent on getting me to go was all?”

She offers a soft nod as your words drift through the air, a smile rises to her lips. “I didn’t want to force you.”

Even as you work on cooking, your fingers nudge and pull at hers, interlocked in a tight embrace.

Even as steam blooms on the element, your eyes are still held by her warmth.

“I might not be the social type… But I’d do anything to feel welcomed in your world,” her eyes soften like dewy raindrops after the morning frost, each word threatens to spill her over the edge.

Still, your gaze avoids her in the heat of it all, your neck itches at the sudden attention. “I’ve just been so preoccupied with Glimpse.”

She smiles the tender warm, soft smile, a finger pokes you in the side zapping your attention back to her. Her smile blooms with that knowing cheekiness.

“Power draw issues?’

A disappointed chuckle trembles past your lips, “You knew?”

She scoffs, a knowing roll of her eyes. “I am the one who has to pilot her you know?”

Another finger prods your side, “of course I know when something feels off.”

Your body crumples to cover your weak spot, a laugh echoes through your lips. “I get it, I get it.”

Another prod, “Could you please stop.”

Her finger teases the surface of your side, yet she relents. “Did you want my thoughts?”

Your hand nurses your side, “Yeah sure.”

“We could try pushing it to Grade 3,” she muses fingers cresting her chin. “It’d gave us the space to hopefully work out what’s wrong.”

Part of you did worry it’d only exacerbate the problem.

“Don’t worry so much,” her hand pats your back. “At the very least we can install a power recapture unit. It won’t fix the problem but It’ll make it less noticeable.”

The clash of alcohol lingers in your lungs, an almost foreign substance given your predilection for hardwork.

Still it soothes your heart and cools your heated anxious thoughts, like the breathy kiss of the arctic.

Your eyes lingers as you stretch tired muscles, Glimpse was a lot more work than you’d anticipated. Tiredness laps at your spirit if not your soul

When was the last time you relaxed?

Embers of time spent with Heejin, the only grace which you reach the light of the next day.

At least with all your allnighters.

The slightest hint of a scoff greets your ears, a flutter of silver in a sea of obsidian.

“Wow, you are real,” there’s a twisted glimmer of a smile, her words lined with a loving bite. She picks you apart with her gaze.

Jeon Jiwoo, illustrious party thrower and deal maker.

Her hand skims through her hair, rolling waves of dancing silver and black. “Almost thought she was making you up.”

Still her hand graces your shoulder, a pinch to confirm.

You do your best to hide any reaction, “and what does Heekki say about me?”

There's a slight tilt of her head, eyes peering deep as her eyes widen. “Heekki huh?”

A genuine smile creases her lips, her eyes narrow. “I haven’t heard anyone call her that in a long time.”

Her eyes shift ever so slightly, a thoughtful frown. “Well aside from BM and Nix.”

Your eyebrows clutch together, Nix a name gifted by the drift, “Nix?”

There’s a glimmer of teeth, her fingers toy with your shirt. “How much is that name worth for you?”

Her fingers are soft, yet it feels like a knife to your throat.

Ever the businesswoman.

The slightest hitch in your breath releases her touch, “I’m kidding…”

Her gaze lingers, you were nothing but a cub in front of a huntress, a nervous gulp of liquor lines your throat.

A reflex you didn’t know you had, still it burns through your palate.

Her hand pulls your glass away, a chuckle tickles her lips. “Have you considered adding a mixer?”

Her lips crest the glass as she downs half of your drink, you swear you notice the ghost of a wink. She pulls cola from the other side of the bar counter with a practised ease.

A splash to ease your future burdens, smoother with only the slightest burden.

A master in every sense of merriment.

She leans her back against the bar counter, there’s something iridescent in her splendour.

The embodiment of Bacchus given human form, a goddess.

She was beautiful, an inexplicable truth of the universe, even with the devilish glint in her eyes.

Intoxicatingly alluring.

Nothing but a flicker of a candle to Heejin.

Still she picks you apart, calculating even as she takes a swig of alcohol. She holds a certain amount of gravitas, sound parts for her voice even through the booming bass.

A smirk.

Her fingers drum against the counter, a slow melodic beat, the shared quiet is suffocating. Your eyes dance over your classmates, truly taking them in.

L.E, part of the illustrious Rogue Nemesis, Pilot-Wright Duo, and a constant reminder that your social skills need some work, a giggle dances across her lips, probably a joke Hani told.

Still she offers you a soft wave, when you catch her eyes for a fraction of a second.

At least she’d forgiven you for the fight you got into at the beginning of the year.

It was still awkward nonetheless.

Hani’s eyes follow her Wright’s, even at such a distance an almost primal fear grips you.

The gaze of a beast unchained.

Still there’s an awkward glimmer of a smile, paired with an equally awkward wave.

You catch an invisible tug of war between L.E and Prince Godfrey lost in the microseconds that you hold Hani’s gaze.

Interesting.

The cunning glint in Jiwoo’s eye confirms it was no trick of the light, a smile lingers on her lips even as she turns to you.

“Why?” A cocked eyebrow, a tilt of neck, something she can’t quite pick apart.

“Why?”

She rolls her eyes, there’s an edge of disinterest.

A sigh crests her lips, “why do you wanna about Nix?”

Your brain tosses and turns, to lie under such piercing eyes was a waste of time, but knowledge is power after all. Even now you feel the slightest pang, at Heejin’s infatuation with the male.

She scoffs, another roll of her eyes, a practised swig, she gestures towards the balcony, moonlight dances ever soft through glass panes

“Talk to Heekki about it.”

There she stands huddled against the railing in your bomber jacket, a prickle dances across the nape of your neck.

You down what you can manage from your poisoned vessel, a sour bitter grunt parts your lips.

A chuckle rumbles through Jiwoo’s lips, “I’ll make sure nobody disturbs the two of you.”

“Thanks?”

There’s that devious smirk again.

“Just remember me when you need anything alright?”

Suddenly you can breathe again when your lungs greet the cool night air, Heejin’s humming the only melody that blesses your ears.

The moon hangs full in the air bathing her in glittering moonlight.

Picture perfect.

Another snapshot from your contact.

Her fingers drum against the railing with increasing frustration, as her voice fails.

A beleaguered sigh, as she turns her back to the railing, her eyes coil tentatively around you.

A cherry sweet smile, billowing warmth swells in your chest.

The slow crash of ever distant waves, the only conversation.

Still, a glint of mischief shines delicately in her eyes.

“S-”

“H-”

A chuckle rolls past her lips as you creep closer to her side, a mirror to your own weak laugh.

Her head tilts to the side, a curious expression etched into her eyebrows.

“...Wait, is that?” A fake gasp, paired with a faux shocked expression. “Alcohol?’

Her hands jostle you ever so slightly, “Who are you and what did you do to my dear Wright.”

A wry smile crests your lips, “dear huh?”

She rolls her eyes, a flutter of a wink. “Someone had to be saddled with the burden, it just so happened to be me~”

Ouch.

Despite her cheeriness, a weird edge prickles at the nape of your neck.

Uneasy trepidation.

If only you were braver.

You lean against the rail, wisps of cool soothing air roll through your hair.

Your own anxiety pokes and prods at your chest.

Heejin tugs at your arm wordlessly, pulling you closer. She rests her head on your shoulder.

She fits against you like a glove, it’s almost sickeningly perfect.

“So?” You glance at her.

A crest, a smile dots her lips, her eyes soft like velvet. “So?” She teases.

You swear she snuggles closer into your shoulder, but maybe that’s just the alcohol?

Ask her about Nix.

“Did you wanna…” Her grip tightens. “Do the Sundown tournament?”

She rolls her eyes, a wry smirk as she pulls away. “I know we finished doing upgrades not that long ago." She shakes her head, “But not with both L.E and Hyunjin in the mix.”

“Hyunjin?”

Flecks of a whispered curse part her lips, her eyes narrow ever so slightly.

"Prince Godfrey," she mumbles, there's a chip of shame hidden in her voice, there's a twist in her posture as she turns away ever so slightly.

Yet her knuckles are bone white as she grips desperately at the railing.

She fights to stay in your presence, you feel it like a wave of nausea from the base of your neck.

Suffocating like an ocean of oil, one small spark to burn everything she's built to the ground.

Your arms link around her waist as you pull her close. Even as you fight off errant dark thoughts, you worry about her.

You rest your chin on top of her head, your arm strums her back hoping to placate whatever chokes at her heart.

"Talk to me Heekki," you coo.

Only now do you hear the rapid uneven breaths, ragged and uneasy trapped behind a steel cold face.

Each strum eases her slowly but surely. You rock side to side like the gentle waves of the ocean.

"I don't belong anywhere," her words are fragile like sheets of ice cresting a deep abyss.

There's a lion in your throat, in your heart. Rattling against chains and cage a like.

A seething anger.

Her fingers tug at yours, looping together. A soft glance kills any words you have.

"That's what I thought," flickers of old unfocused film sear into your brain.

A young Heejin alone in a grandiose house, a flickering digital distortion of a father.

There's only a single detail you can pick out, his white Tyrium necklace.

A moon.

Her mother, worn and over exposed, nothing but an outline.

Calosso, whispered on distant winds.

The finer details were lost to you.

But you knew loneliness, as a young Heejin plays sullenly by herself, the business of adults a foreign concept to her nascent memories.

Shunned by her would-be peers.

"She's a gross Arg."

"Not even her corpo family wanted her."

The lion in you roars aimlessly, you had no effect on the past.

One kid approaches her, flock of black hair, a snotty nose and a cheeky toothy grin.

"That's when he proved me wrong."

He offers a slightly snotty hand, only now did you notice the missing teeth in his smile.

Gaps from lost baby teeth or fights, you couldn't tell.

A total unabated ladies man.

Nix Valentine, heir to house Valentine.

Still there was something to be said about his raw confidence, flaws and all.

Even as Heejin’s nascent heart swims in the depths of anxiety, you feel the tiny flickering surges of infatuation.

She frowns, "you heard the other kids."

There's an almost impressively grumpy expression seared into Nix's face before he flicks Heejin’s forehead ever so slightly.

His eyes scan the room, like a comically dastardly villain, before he takes the biggest inhale you've ever seen.

Even as a memory you worry for his health as his face turns red and then slowly purple, feet slamming the ground like a sumo before a bout.

"Fuck'em," he bellows from the top of his tiny lungs, shocked gasps and hush whispers quickly spread like a pandemic.

A beleaguered sigh permeates the lips of a certain noble, an air of unequivocal patience hangs in the air, the inevitable heat death of the universe would occur before he'd give up on you.

"Nixsyn," his voice soft like a feather, yet his eyes have a knife-like edge as he peers at his son.

A familiar cheeky smile is all he offers, his hand tugs tightly at Heejin's.

"I'm assuming this is your way of asking to be excused?" Even you catch the small glimmer of a smile.

He waves with Heejin’s hand.

Lord Valentine's eyes peer through the meeting hall, settling on Heejin's mother in an instant.

"Excuse me Lady Calosso-" she almost shrinks under the sudden attention, a tremble runs through her before she makes a hasty bow.

Something Lord Valentine instantly returns with a graceful ease, "there's no need for that Lady Calosso."

He offers a soft smile, "I only ask if the young Lord Valentine is acceptable company for young Lady Calosso."

"Ah o-"

Lord Valentine simply raises a hand, a smirk plays against his lips.

"I will take no offence, if so-" your eyes linger as Nix rubs snot into his dress shirt and then into the floor.

A wry smile, his eyes filled with nothing but love. "I will merely chalk it up to Edmond's side."

A rumbulous chortle echoes through the hall.

An almost invisible weight lifts off Lady Calosso's shoulders, a smile dances across her lips. "As long as Heejin is happy, I will acquiesce m'lord."

"Very well, I will ask the house to kindly excuse me for a moment," he promptly bows before scooping up Nix, who reluctantly lets go of Heejin’s wrist.

He squats at a level height to Heejin, his eyes run over Heejin, in a way that's eerily familiar to Jiwoo's own gaze, yet so starkly different.

There's an indescribable kindness and warmth to his gaze.

Heartwarming and smooth like hot cocoa on a winter's night.

He offers a hand to Heejin, "Which would you prefer? Young Lady Calosso or Miss Heejin?"

She falters for a second, much like her mother. "Heejin if that's alright with you sir-I mean Lord Valentine."

Even fear lingers in the rafters of her mind.

He chuckles, before hiding his face from the purview of others, "I much prefer people call me just Rolande too."

A wide smile dots his lips.

Still she stares at him, half expecting him to just drag her along. "Would like to get out of this stuffy meeting hall Mis-ah my bad."

He takes a deep breath, "Heejin, would you like to actually have fun as a child should?"

You'd heard of Valen nobility growing and, well it wasn't like this. Even if the idea was somewhat foreign.

"Are you sure Lord Valentine?" There's a glimmer of a stern look before a smile twists across his face.

A giggle rumbles through her lips, "Sorry Mr Rolande."

"It's alright Heejin, but why wouldn't I be sure?" There's a fragment of sadness in his eyes. "Are you a bad person my dear?"

There's almost a cross look focused into her brow. "No?"

"Do you think you'll become a bad person?" He quirks an eyebrow.

"I don't believe so Mr Rolande," her lip quivers with uncertainty. "But I could never know."

He rests a hand on her small shoulder, a serious glint lingers in his eyes. "My dear, evil occurs in the absence, the retrieval and in the protection of love. We as your forebears should be held to blame if you are not given enough love to learn how to live in its loss."

She reaches tentatively for his hand, a wry smile dots his lips before he retracts his ever so slightly. "It's my turn to ask if you're sure."

A warm belly laugh echoes through his throat, you'd been held too tight by his words you almost forgot about his gremlin son, thrashing about in his care.

"I can only protect you from so much," he fake cries, "otherwise I worry he might be stuck to your hip for the rest of your life."

Her eyebrows strain under the weight of sudden responsibility, her fists clench as her features tighten.

A single serious nod.

"Welcome to the family," he brims with warmth as he takes her hand in his.

You roll your fingers over whatever you can, anything to ground your inverted, warped brain.

Your fingers click over the metallic railing, Jiwoo's party.

Heejin's hand tugs against yours, pushing your fingers against the familiar fabric oh her-your bomber jacket.

Still you feel her pulled tight to your chest, bile builds in your throat.

The drift or the alcohol, you can't tell.

Your fingers dance across her, a slow, soft sonata as moonlight pools and dances across the waves.

The emptiness is haunting, the last echoes before the end.

Your dancing fingers end their performance with a bow. You roll your fingers through Heejin's hair, soft like silk.

Your lips purse, "So… You're a noble?"

She huffs looking up at you, her chin threatening to dig into your flesh. "Yes and no, my mother inherited a Vassal house title. Which makes me a Vassal to house Val-"

"I'm Gritinan, it's the same diff to me," a chuckle rolls through you. "Here I was thinking you had some secret love affair with the Prince."

She scoffs, slamming a fist into your chest, "here I am opening up my heart and you're imagining life's a soap opera."

She pulls away crossing her arms, fingers dancing across elbows, even still you can't help but notice the twitch of a smile on her lips.

"Alright, alright I'm sorry Heekki?” A wry smile dances across your lips. “But at least you're smiling now? "

She forces a frown across her lips, fingers twisting at her braid.

She rolls her eyes with a smile, "yeah, yeah you're right."

Still questions linger and roll at the edges, we're you brave enough to risk a step in the abyss.

"Heek-" her eyes pierce deep.

"Nix was the one that gave me that nickname," you feel it in your neck before you see it, a nostalgic melancholy lovingly sealed in the slightest frown.

She braces her forearms against the railing, eyes focused on the moon. Still there's a fragment of a smile. "He came up with it when BM struggled with my name."

There's a soft almost pained laugh, "I dunno why he found that easier."

She frowns, her eyes soften as they linger over you. "That's who you were gonna ask

about right?"

"Heej, we don't hav-"

A soft almost pained smile, I don't want the if and maybes to eat up at you.

Her fingers delicate like porcelain tug at yours in a soft embrace, yet still she maintains her distance.

Her eyes dance across the moon with wistful nostalgia.

"I was supposed to be his pilot, I owed him that much. It was the least I could after…"

A somber delicate dance grasps desperately at her necklace. "My dad."

Your thumb pads across her hand, a soft delicate touch.

It hurts through the frayed edges, like swallowing molten hot shattered glass.

She chokes out a heavy strained breath, eyes clouded with misty sorrowful fog.

"He used to get into fights a lot growing up," her hand slowly picks at the rail, itching away with a nervous cadence.

"I was the one who'd always patch him up," it almost hurts when she smiles, a shard of her pleasing laugh forced and unnatural.

"BM would try his best, Jiwoo ever the businesswoman started charging him with every visit," her eyes linger on the moon as if it recites every memory back to her. "I think it was her way of keeping him out of trouble."

Her eyes switch back to you, for only a second.

"He was the reason I got into Siegeball," a tender warm chuckle bubbles at her lips. A warm smile tugs desperately at her lips. "I've lost count how many times I had to redo his stitches because he got too excited watching a game."

Only to falter and die a lonely death.

It hurts to feel even a fraction of her pain, let alone dig up shards of fractured painful memories.

"It's funny, everyone always saw him as a figure, a name. I can only imagine what it's like for a Godfrey."

A deep breath is what you need, a cigarette would be good too.

Not that you've ever had one.

In.

"He'll always be that snotty brat with a-"

Out.

"toothy smil-"

"Heej," her head snaps to you, a desperate plea squeezes her hand. “You’re rambling.”

Her fingers knit desperately against yours, a deep grounding breath.

“What happened with Nix?”

She takes another deep breath, and suddenly the weight of a blackhole settles in your gut, a frown creases her lips.

Her fingers pull tight against her own.

“He fell in love.”

Yet somehow it only truly hurts when she forces a smile.

Your own breathing picks up, ragged on edge. Suddenly it’s like breathing water, no matter how hard you try to fight through it.

Yet your voice? placid like an undisturbed lake.

“I’m sorry… I know he meant a lot to you.”

She takes another deep breath and slowly it becomes easier to breath. There’s an almost bittersweet frown on her lips.

“Don’t be… I saw it coming,” she offers a genuine thankful smile. She tugs at both of your hands, her eyes firmly rooted on the floor, her voice drops barely above a mumble. “Thanks for listening, even though I was a mess about it.”

You pull her into a deep hug as she eagerly buries her face in your chest, a soft whisper.

“What’d you love the most about him?” You feel the twitch of a smile against your neck, she looks up at you.

“I didn’t have older siblings growing up, I was an only child,” her lips purse lost in thought. “I wanted to be just like him.”

Oh.

Her eyes narrow as your brain stutters, still she laughs a soft delicate laugh brimming with mirth.

She snuggles deeper into you, “we should probably head back inside before Jiwoo starts rumours for fun… again.”

She rolls her eyes at the thought.

Still the thoughts linger.

“Wait, so Jiwoo’s a noble?”

She responds with a soft nod, “Don’t tell anyone though, otherwise you might wake up in a nice cosy ice bath.”

The thought sends a shiver down your spine.

“Right, right. Don’t need to tell me twice,” you nod to yourself, fingers dancing across your chin. “Wait… does GD know BM is a noble?”

“Yeah?”

“So I was the only idiot who didn’t know?”

She smiles that cherry sweet smile and your worries fade into stardust.

Her lips soften poised with a serious edge.

“Hey, could you do me a favour?”

“Isn’t me being here enough for you Heekki?” you tease.

“Please?”

“Well, when you put it like that I’m more than happy to m’lady,” you mock with an exaggerated curtsy.

She rolls her eyes, “close your eyes and don’t peak,” she adds dryly.

You shut your eyes at her request, only now do you feel the wobble of alcohol in your veins as your point of balance warps and bends ever so slowly.

You feel the slightest prickle in your neck, smooth rock against lips that aren’t your own.

Her hand crests your cheek as you feel woven cord tickle the back of your neck, worn film flickers through your mind’s eyes, the distorted silhouette of Heejin’s father.

“For the one you treasure most in the world. To guide them home safe free from harm.”

A smile crests your lips, you mattered most to her an unspoken confession of sorts.Your fingers dance across unfamiliar grooves with mirthful delight.

If this was the limits of your relationship, it’d be a fine capstone. A gift wrought not by your own hands.

Still you are blessed ever more with the cherry sweet caress of Heejin’s lips pressed against your cheek accompanied by a hushed whisper.

“My idiot.”

You open your eyes as Heejin avoids your gaze, her hand tugging you along, “thanks for accepting me no matter what.”

It’s almost nonsensical to think you’d ever reject her existence, “I could say the same to you Heekki.”

It feels like 3am, your muscles groan as you stretch and roll over, the slight bang of a hangover worms away at your brain.

Sundown celebrations, a flurry of alcohol and peer pressure… Mostly from Jiwoo.

Still you’d imbibe anything that would help the stars in Heejin’s eyes glister with such lustre. You still remember the ribbing elbow pressed into Hyunjin’s side as he groaned.

The echoes of mockery that bounced from Heejin’s lips, like a younger sibling out how ugly you were.

Still he’d smile inbetween shots of alcohol, a wounded lion in pride only.

A mistake on your part to match him shot for shot after a loss.

You toss over once again, settling into the comfiest spot you can find in your bed.

As your brain drifts ever so softly into the delicate embrace of sleep, you hear Heejin’s voice muffled and soft.

A beleaguered sigh, the croak of her morning voice. "What is it Myrin?" She yawns.

Even if curiosity tickles the edge of your brain, you still long for the embrace of sleep your fingers run over her necklace, your necklace.

“I have plans today, Myrin. Can’t somebody else sort it?” she groans, there’s a slight bang as you assume she puts her shoes on. “You know I’m asking an important question today.”

“God’s Crown?” her voice gets softer the closer she gets to your room, “Right, I’m guessing Rogue Nemesis isn’t on the table either?”

A smile lines your lips, crested by the edge of sleep, you can only imagine the way she’d roll her eyes.

Still your brain sails to distant shores, pulled by the tug of sleep your mind drifts. Echoes of memories and wishes, your feet pad across concrete Heejin in tow.

Your hands shake and tremble with the weight of four drinks in one arm, hot chips in another. Still you’re entranced with the way Heejin skips with child-like joy as eyes pick apart the crowd finding familiar faces.

Slowly, following her guiding hand you find your seats. Joy dances across your lips as you pass drinks to your parents.

Peace washes over you, Team Kaiju had made it to the final in a miraculous run, you’d managed to score seats for the important people in your life.

Still, a yawn parts through your lips, there’s a soft smile from Heejin. She pats her lap, a pillow.

A cloud couldn’t compare to the comfort, even as the sun crests your eyes.

“I’ll wake you after the preshow,” she coos, fingers running through your hair.

A soft nod is all you offer as you tumble deeper.

You feel something pressed softly against the edge of your brow and your forehead, a smile.

“Kai,” she calls, soft like raindrops in a rainforest.

You grumble and stir, “hm?”

“We have an assignment.”

You groan as you stretch ever so slightly, eyes still worn closed, “But today is supposed to be a day off?”

You yawn, “we’re supposed to go to the Moon Rise Festival,” her fingers pass through your hair once again.

“I know, but no one else can do it,” there’s a slight frown on her lips. “Not after Sundown… and Taemin’s eager demonstration.”

“What time is it?” You sit up with another yawn already missing Heejin’s embrace.

Her eyes soften, offering a delicately warm smile. “10am, we have two hours for last minute checks and then we’re heading to the boneyard.”

You rub your eyes with the back of your hand, “a Jovian in op in Me’khani?”

“Not what you expected on the school itinerary?” she teases,a flicker of joy in her smile.

“I was actually expecting to fight aliens on the moon,” you roll your eyes, there’s a playful smack against your shoulder. “We got any details yet?”

“Well, Argentium,” her eyes drift slightly searching for detail. “Selene reported a Jovian of unknown affiliation making its way through the mountains bordering Me’khani.”

Your eyebrows knit together, even in your tired state it sounded odd. Argentium didn’t usually drop the ball so hard, not unless someone was hiding something.

Still you shrug, “What’s it’s designation? Do we know.”

“Blackberry Narcissist.”

Even stranger, you stretch your neck. “So what’s our success criteria?”

There’s the slightest hint of a smile, “ever the hard worker,” her fingers dance across your palm.

“Guard duty until we’re relieved by someone else,” there’s a smirk plastered on her face as she tilts her head. “I wouldn’t worry about grades though, I managed to convince Myrin to give us the best grades he could~”

“Should I be worried that you have such a hold over our principal?’

“You’re surprised I have sway over Myrin Valentine?”

Makes sense, you’d heard stories of the devilish grip a younger sister could have on a family of older brothers.

Did that mean you’d have to worry about impressing Nix and Myrin?

You shudder if so slightly.

“Do you know what time we’re getting relieved?”

“Around 7pm? Give or take an hour, we might be able to get back for the last hour or so of the festival if we’re lucky,” she smiles, eyes crescent like the moon.

“Damn, you’re something of a miracle worker huh?” Your fingers loop through hers. “What’s the plan if we don’t get back in time?”

“Well, I have some ideas~” she tugs at your hand eagerly pulling you out of bed. “I might even have an idea for a date… as friends... obviously.”

“Obviously.”

Even as the shift settles as dust and sparks collide, your fingers work hard… tirelessly.

To turn back the fingers of time.

To fight against fate itself.

Heat flares to life around you or maybe you only noticed it now through crisp sweat.

You feel her lingering thoughts, a sign of life… you hope.

You still had time, maybe you could reroute the trauma switch?

Sure it wasn’t something of your own creation, but it was still hardware and software. An unintelligible system that should bow to your command.

That’s when you hear it between the furious clatter of keys between your fingers.

A gut wrenching creak as you force the command through, your Wright platform shudders as it begs to move at your command.

No luck.

Memories flutter through like butterflies in a forest, the twinkle of a smile with a grease stained nose.

Your hands find the tether for your drive suit, a sign of obsolescence.

A preserver of hope for you.

You needed to find the maintenance shaft.

Glimpse’s head had become so foreign to you, even amongst the sparks and fire. The firm coating of red light blurs any familiarity. Your eyes spy the tender love and care Heejin had afforded her.

The lick of a frown stains your lips as you catch glimpses of her art.

A Kaiju vaguely shaped like an alpaca guides you.

Glimpse shudders once again, another thunderous blow as sparks compound and flourish, a pain you dully feel through the death grip of the drift. Another croak of metallic anguish tears through your ears.

Your fingers clutch desperately for the maintenance hatch, heat melts and burns through your touch. Pain kindles through nerves, slow like molten magma.

A slow insidious creep, an invitation offered by a skeletal hand.

Ragged breathes are your only response as your muscles twitch and burn, strength was always her thing.

You should’ve joined her more at the gym, a small twitch of a smile collects on your lips.

Slowly Glimpse’s stubborn hatch moves inch by inch through heated pain.

Your throat burns as a cough growls through your lips, plumes of smoke roll through the opening like waves in an endless ocean.

Your grip slips like your ability to breathe, a cascade of mistakes outside of your control.

Heat flares and tangles viciously as your feet give way, stumbling as coughs rack through tender heated lungs.

An electrical fire in the maintenance, a glaring obstacle in your goal of Heejin's embrace.

Not entirely unplanned for.

Just not from this side.

Your feet camber as you reach desperately for any surface to pull yourself up onto, coughs ripple through like a disturbed lake on a stormy night.

Your lungs burn with breath you can take.

Your hands catch on to your Wright platform even as smoke slowly clusters your view, each movement is a brush stroke through sand.

You only hoped your attempts weren't missed guided as smoke burns through your lungs and sears at your eyes.

The encroach of smoke slowly saps away at your hope and life.

A certain key combination, planned or otherwise fills you with hope as you hear the rush of flame retardant flood the maintenance shaft.

A ghost of a smile licks at your lips through racked coughs and smoke filled air.

Yet, even still the smoke continues unabated, choking at you.

Your brain clings desperately at each neuron that fires in your brain.

Starve it, cut off the power and the fire should die.

It still leaves the smoke however.

A slow insidious death.

Ventilation was probably broken, even if it did work, shutting off power would kill it.

You swear you hear the whisper of Heejin's mind.

Eject the Wright platform.

Ventilation was nothing if not a giant hole.

Your brain stumbles with the thought, what if you needed the controls later?

You wouldn't be much help dead.

It's like the drag of a knife against your spine as you slowly boot up the eject sequence, your fingers dial through the power down sequence.

The power recapture unit should keep life support and minimal functions online, like Glimpse's core.

Even then your heart wrenches at the destruction you're about to inflict on your creation.

Does a Jovian feel pain?

You hope not.

You wince as smoke clogs your lungs, barely moving off the platform in time before it unceremoniously tears through Glimpse's head.

A metallic blood searing tear rends Glimpse asunder, the violent twist and curl of metal claws at your ears.

A pit settles in your stomach at such destruction.

Your lungs thank you as fresh air settles in your lungs, a crisp night bathed in the stars.

A sigh of relief as you stumble onto the ground… you still lived.

A full moon looms overhead.

Heejin.

Your body quickly jolted back into action as you desperately pried at the hatch.

She needed you.

The only thought that repeats through you as your muscles ache and complain.

It mattered not, she needed you.

Slowly it moves, even with focus desperate might from your own hands.

Smoke still plumes through the hatch, lighter still than it was and less numerous.

Bearable.

Even as sweat stains your drivesuit, even as smoke is the only smell that clouds your nostrils, you're focused almost deadly so.

You thanked the drift, she was always your rock.

Your own mind would be lost and erratic, despite everything you were thankful.

There's a ghost of a smile, yet it wasn't of your own lips.

Drift was always an odd phenomenon.

Even as heat surges at your hands as you clamber down each bar, each rung. Yet you remained focused on the way her smile feels against her own lips.

The twist of joy and her crescent excited eyes.

Hopefully the Kaiju do well next season, you'll take her to every game.

She'll be glad Alpaca is coming back next season.

Each rung plunges you deeper into foreign depths, the cascade of smoke crests your skin with a gentle touch, shimmering slightly like stars in the night sky.

Perhaps smoke inhalation was getting to you?

Still, you cling to the remnants of sanity that you can, even as the next rung feels like quicksand, frayed echoes call at the edge of your brain.

Hope, trepidation, fear a greek chorus.

Yet it feels foreign, emotions not of your own making.

A flicker of a candle lit flame, Heejin’s heart… echoes from months long past.

Echoes of alcohol never had, grip your veins.

Your Jovian garage, cold and all so empty compared to recent months.

Your first meeting, her heart hugs liquid courage for warmth… for strength.

You’d never have guessed.

Guitar strums echo, her soft voice linger distantly so.

It’s weird feeling the grip of your own hand, familiar yet so alien and foreign.

I take picture of you

Especially best of you

You feel the glint of a smile pressed into her lips as you reveal a small orichalcum shard.

Your memento, your keepsake.

A thought not of your own lingers even in fragmented echoes.

Radiant.

A click of her contact.

Don’t care if it’s not really pretty

Just record now this time to share this feelings with you

There’s a palpable tension that clings thick to your skin, her skin. Like water drenched denim, heavy and unpalatable.

“My dad was a Wright,” the words itch against your own tongue, burdened by thorns of worry.

The briefest flickers of your own memories trace her mind, crested by the fires of her own loss.

Your fingers loop through hers, warmth blooms deep in her chest.

To pull you close and rest her head on your shoulders, her deepest desire. To sit still in perfect synchronicity.

Each rung, each guitar strum drags you deeper into a beautiful abyss, whispers of smiles linger like cigarette smoke pulling and tugging at your mind.

Each tendril, each plume has a different vestige, a glimmer into Heejin.

Wisps chatter and hiss with frustration, lingering frustration at charcoal pucks bonded to yet another frying pan.

Flickers of warmth pull you, guided by Heejin’s soft melodious humming, brush strokes and scrawling pencils adrift in a sea dusted with glittering moonlight.

It’s warm adrift in the sea knee deep, it comes alive around your fingers, a glowing sapphire kissed blue.

Tranquil memories drift across your skin, Heejin’s smile crested into your own lips.

Good luck

It twists and glimmers across your skin, shifting to a memory that lingered not for you.

Traces of laughter and smiles, paint caked jumped suits.

Her idea.

Uncertainty trickles across your skin, held taut by anxiety. The faded grumbles of a whisper, the hesitant flicker of light in her eyes.

"Do you think she'd like some paint?"

Her fingers tick at the corner of her jacket.

"She'd be honoured Heekki."

The dance of joy in her eyes is effervescent yet subdued, a sold out show meant only for you.

There's a certain warmth to her art, lovingly packed kindness in each detail, each stroke.

You had come to know her many faces and love each one of them.

All of them reflections of the people in her life, the methodical calculations of Rolande, Nix's cheeky grin and the subdued deadly distance of her mother.

There was something unique in experiencing Heejin make art, something so unabashedly her.

The memory flickers and shifts despite your hold, it fades into whimpering embers.

A water fight in the bathroom, you catch the glitter of your smile as you instigate it.

A small dollop of soap on her nose, there's a surprised twist to her features, wide eyes and creased brows.

That's when you feel it, the blooming warmth of the sun settles in your chest, her chest.

Infatuation, nothing but a dying ember in response.

Despite the frown that played at her lips for the briefest of moments her fingers dart through cold crisp water.

Splashing you in her onslaught.

A smile dances across your lips and on to hers frozen delicately in that memory.

Finally your feet settle on solid ground again, your fingers still cling to the last rung.

"Took your sweet time," she chides a glimmer of teeth.

She's as beautiful as you remember, tartan dress and bomber jacket in tow, her fingers toy with her braid once again.

Her eyes glitter with stardust.

A wry smile plays on your lips, "Can't say I was use-"

She pulls you tight, burying her head in your neck. There's almost a soft joy to be had at her sudden touch.

Her voice cracks mumbling into your skin. "I'm so glad you're okay."

Suddenly you're knee-deep in a glowing blue sea again and everything feels perfect.

Your hands settle on her waist as you slowly rock side to side, a performance only for the moon.

"Of course, I'm not going anywhere Heekki," you hum into her scalp.

Her breath tickles your neck, a slight frown presses against your skin.

Slowly, rain starts to drizzle, beautiful and ice cold.

Her eyes linger and float like bouncing waves, eventually she guides your own gaze to a distant balcony peering down at you two.

A conversation unsaid, echoes through the air.

Her fingers cling tight to you, like she'll fade into dust at any moment.

The waves around you growl with agitation, slowly growing taller by the crash.

Her hands crest your cheeks as the waves crash down you both.

Disparate echoes bounce through your ears.

"When I met you, it all clicked into place."

Her eyes locked on yours, searching deep inside you.

"I don't know how or when it happened, but I was thankful he found someone, thankful he abandoned me."

There's a desperate edge to her eyes verging on panic and frenzy.

"Why?" Spoken in your voice, but not with your mouth. Curiosity lined the words mirrored by your own.

There's a tremble in her fingers, an anxious tick.

"I found you and…" It parses through her own lips, her breath hitches, clawing for air. "And words can't even begin to describe it."

There's a quiver in your brow, hopeful and fearful as she presses her forehead against yours.

Her voice shakes barely above a whimper, almost hidden beneath the crashing waves.

"How hopelessly in love with you I was," words linger at the ends of her lips, thoughtful details and witty anecdotes fade as a flash of pain dots her features for a fraction of second.

She pulls your lips against hers in a primal, desperate need.

It explodes across your own mind, a crackle of a firework surged in your heart, pure exhilaration.

You claw desperately at your jacket, her jacket, anything to be closer to her at that moment.

Yet, there's a weird ache in your chest, in your mind even as you imbibe in long subdued passion.

An eerie discomfort strangles slowly at your brain. Even in the throes of your deepest desires, you still try to put your finger on it.

Something oddly amiss, she parts for the briefest of moments, a gasp for air before she dives back into your embrace.

That's when you feel it, a clatter against your own chest, the sound of two shards of crystal.

It's violent like a torrential wave, you sputter for air as you find yourself at the bottom of the maintenance shaft, once again.

There's a sad melancholic look painted on her face.

You clutch desperately for the hatch, a faint deadly pain ripples through chest. It's suddenly so hard, your lungs filled to the brim with shattered glass.

You stumble and fall, pain echoes violently through your knees.

"I'm doing this for you," she whispers hands frolicking through your hair, you fight the urge to nuzzle into her grasp, to press your lips against silk skin.

You feel it, the agony warped lense of a child, her father grief-stricken and lost as the drift slowly washed away at his mind.

A time warped explosion ripples through your head.

The loss of her mother.

You can only watch as time lapses across her father's smile slowly taken by the drift. Until he's reduced to a shell of a man.

Lady Calosso took her in after her father's death, muffled words and hushed whispers never to truly understand the circumstances.

Even if her mind whispers them in the cold dead of night.

Still the lion in you growls and fights. A fire teemed with love and fiery passion, your fingers grasp at her collar.

It feels so real down to the last detail, yet it's nothing but an echo in the drift.

Your eyes linger on stray tears dancing softly against her cheeks. "Kai, please don't…"

A sob racks through her chest and echoes into yours. "I'm dying."

Your heart shatters like porcelain, another sob racks through her chest, her hand clutches at her heart.

Still your heart growls, "please."

The jagged shattered edges soften for a second.

"Bu-" She whispers, images of her father broken flicker through your mind.

Your hand traces her tears, a glimmer of a smile lines your teeth, familiar words dance across your lips.

Once spoken by her to you.

"I'm with you until the end."

A soft nod is all she offers as she drags you to your feet.

She presses a soft kiss into your lips.

You open the Hatch and you don't look back, even if you did you'd find no companionship.

A wave of heat greets you with smouldering embers, fractured hull strewn and concave.

The soft moonlit air drips serendipitously, Glimpse creaks under her own weight.

You find your dear pilot on her platform, pinned bloody and battered.

Her breath ragged and weak, blood cakes the edges of her lips and she's ghostly white.

She's still beautiful.

You rush to her side, doing your best to hide the lingering worry and dread.

"You know," she mutters weakly. "I can see why Wrights don't like Pilots mucking around with a Jovian."

A weak laugh escapes her lips accompanied with a flash of pain across her face.

"Shh," you coo, shuffling over to her side, resting her head on your lap.

Your fingers brush through blood-matted hair, tracing each delicate strand.

"Save your strength."

Her eyebrows knit together in protest, even as a blood-flecked cough lines her throat.

Yet she softens as you press a kiss into her brow, a silent acquiescence.

There's a soft wistful smile, "I heard Alpaca was joining the Kaiju again."

Her eyes widen, soft and delicate. A subtle shake of her head.

Your fingers loop into hers, "I was thinkin-"

She presses her fingers to your lips, a soft tremble.

Her voice is weak and dry, "I'm sorry we didn't get to go to the Starfall danc-"

You press a kiss into her hand, "it's okay," you hush.

Your grip tightens, "That just means you have to pay for the food, when we go to the games alright?"

There's a playful roll of her eyes, even through another bloody cough you hear the echoes of explosions and heavy mechanical footfalls.

The tremble in her hands grow stronger.

At least she wasn't alone in staring down the end.

Her hands paw weakly at your face.

One last request.

You feel her smile as you press a kiss into her lips, soft, delicate and beautiful.

Like a flower dancing along the rays of the sun.

Until she falters and wilts away under your touch, a stray tear lingers in her afterglow.

Even beautiful flowers eventually wilt.

You offer her one last grace, pressing her eyes shut with the gentlest of touch.

Finally, you break.

Alone once again in the aftermath, sobs rack painfully through your chest, each repressed shard of glass claws through your throat.

Your heart begs for the waves of hurt to stop.

It never does, but slowly but surely you grow numb.

Still you don't move from your spot, fingers dancing through her hair.

The sounds of battle grow louder by the minute.

You feel a familiar hand jostle your shoulder even as you feel it held tight still in your grasp.

"You need to leave Kai," her voice but not her lips.

"What about her?"

"I'm dead Kai."

It hurts to see her, even if she was just an echo from the drift.

"I can't abandon her, not like everyone else."

"You didn’t, I was prepared to live alone and to die alone… You gave me more than I ever wanted," her voice is soft, pained. "So please Kai."

Each shot burns less and less, even still it isn’t enough to fight the fractured echoes that linger in your mind, each shot fights an explosion, a mistake the replays in your head cutting your heart.

Your brain ticks away on ifs and maybes, battle plans and different loadouts, yet you keep latching onto one weak point, one fatal flaw.

You.

Maybe if you’d fixed the power issues she-

Another shot burns through your throat, there’s a concerned look from Sana and a pointed frown.

“Ka-”

You shrug her off, still lost in the pit of memories and despair, you snatch a quick swig of vodka when she isn’t looking.

Or at least when you think she isn’t looking, hours of alcohol abuse have left you worse for wear.

She frowns softly, “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just do that.”

She saunters past the counter, “but I can’t keep serving you at least not tonight,” her eyes drift over you. “I’m sure Jiwoo would be more than willing to help you indulge.”

Fuck that noise, you see the way the nobles look at you, like some cursed reminder of a better person.

You stumble even with Sana’s help, “If you give me a moment to close up I ca-”

“Don’t worry about it,” you slur, stumbling out the entrance with surprising speed, the familiar sanctum streets warp in your drunken hazed mind.

Even still your mind lingers despite your best intentions, the cursed black Jovian.

Your palms rub against your face in familiar halls, your legs uncooperative jelly, faltering with each step.

You tumble, hard.

A wry smile plays across your lips expecting Heejin’s mocking laugh.

It doesn’t come.

Your head bangs against a familiar wooden door.

Home.

Even with a frown etched into your lips you struggle for your keys, unable to stand up any longer.

You imagine the roll of her eyes paired with playful laughter, “you could’ve been in Lord of the Rings because you’re leg-o-less.”

A sob racks through your laughter spilling into soft silent wailing as your brain crests into sleep’s domain.

Still memories and thoughts haunt your dreams, Heejin’s desperate plea lines your every thought, even as BM pulls you away from the wreckage, guilt etched into his voice as it cracks.

You hated the regret that lingered in his face anytime you crossed paths, heavy with guilt even with his strong shoulders.

Even still you miss the way her hands would feel against yours, soft and perfect.

A slight grumble pulls you close to the surface, a calloused hand pats your face prying you from your drunken slumber.

You feel annoyance line your throat, expecting BM, “Excuse me~”

For a moment everything melts away under her soothing voice, your eyes battle against the harsh glare of the lights.

You’re unable to pick out the details of her face as your eyes slowly adjust, a crown of light or maybe even a halo enshrouds her.

“Heekki?”

Her head tilts to the side as she leans down into a squat, a blonde cascade of hair, a well loved cycle jacket.

You feel a click against your chest, your necklace interlocked against hers, a red Tyrium necklace.

A Sun.

“Kim Jungeun,” She offers her hand, “But I also go by Lip.”

Her grip is strong, focused yet welcoming in the right places, “It’s a pleasure to meet you stranger.”