#still a devout atheist though

[stinkrascal]

i wanna smoke weed so bad but our house is literally across the street from a church thats in full session right now and i dont want a bunch of church goers and their kids smelling the smoke id feel so bad 😭 but damn i wanna smoke weed

#living next door to a church is interesting #every 15 minutes these church bells go off i guess to let the neighborhood know that 15 minutes have passed #at 11:45 every day they play this song over their intercoms for the neighborhood to hear #it is im not kidding 10 entire minutes of bells ringing in a pleasant tune #TEN MINUTES. it doesnt sound bad and tbh you cant even hear it when youre inside w the tv on #its just funny to me like why does it play for ten minutes straight #im a devout atheist but even i am not immune to the pleasant sound of a bell #actually the bell that rings in 15 min intervals sounds exactly like the song my grandmother’s old clock would play every hour #it was this cool antique grandfather clock. i barely remember it bc she died when i was very young but i remember that sound #kinda nostalgic tbh. you win this round church #still a devout atheist though

[venusjeon]

rock god

you've got one year left to either finish your novitiate and become a nun like your parents always wanted, or leave the order and live a secular life like you've always wanted. but the fact that a sister's flirty nephew is staying in the convent for the summer provides a perfect distraction to such headache.

♔ PAIRING: rockstar!jungkook x novice!reader

♔ GENRE: 80s au, angst, smut, humour, fluff, s2f2l

♔ WORD COUNT: 16.3k another long one i'm sorry

♔ WARNINGS: minor characters death, religious themes, catholic guilt, smoking weed, swearing, sacrilege and exhibitionism: fingering in a church, profanity, blasphemy, quiet sex & loss of virginity (you're probably thinking girl AGAIN?), protected sex, betrayal, one mention of rape

♔ AUTHOR'S NOTE: for an atheist i do seem to write a lot about religion lol. the first song jk writes & performs for reader + the inspiration for the title is rock god by selena gomez, and the second one church by chase atlantic. i recommend you listen to them in advance☺️ also, we'll pretend jk is blond in the banner okay?

1986

The day was going incredibly slow, as all of last month’s had.

Most people would attribute that to the fact that you were a novice, but their idea of what that entailed was far from the reality. Contrary to popular belief and even if some sisters wished it was the case, cloistered nuns didn’t spend all day just praying. There were many other things to keep busy with in a convent, such as attending to one’s studies, doing household chores, or working to bring money in and keep the place going. Free time had never been the part of the day you looked the most forward to, though, until recently. Not that it got any better then.

Contradictory as though it was, you were kept from the present by the same plaguing thoughts you didn’t want to be left alone with… And sometimes, such as now, you didn’t have any choice but to force yourself back into reality, running late as you were.

The novice mistress Sister Daeun—that is, the one responsible for the training of the novices—had assigned you to fix the torn seams on your classmates’ habits that morning. Hey, someone had to do it. So off you ran through the cloister not to melt under the same sun others didn’t seem to mind.

Others being Jungkook and the group of girls who gathered around to listen to him play the guitar.

The presence of men wasn’t rare in your abbey, built some centuries back. It was sort of shut off from the rest of the world, hidden up in a mountain, but lost hikers always wandered into it and the abbot was more than happy to let them spend a night or two as guests, regardless of their gender.

Jungkook was a guest too.

He was in a rock band, or so you’d heard, and that career choice was why his parents had kicked him out, something you’d pity him for if he wasn’t always in a cheery mood whenever you chanced to see him around. Of course, what guy wouldn’t, surrounded by girls?

It didn’t bother you that some of your less spiritual sisters succumbed to his tattoos, long dyed blond hair, charming voice, and piercings. Their parents would doubtlessly tell them to stay away from someone who looked like a delinquent—your conscience did too—but then again, they were the ones who’d forcefully made them join the order, so you understood where the girls’ disobedience came from. On a personal level, in fact.

Though not because of the same reason, you weren’t there willingly either.

Unlike theirs, your behaviour wasn’t scandalous in any way and there was no need for you to be schooled in rectitude, no. This was just the path your parents had wanted you to take since you were little and you’d resigned to comply, however unhappy it made you. It wasn’t that you wouldn’t make a good nun, devout as you’d been raised and actually enjoyed being, but it wasn’t your calling.

Leaving the lively cloister behind and trying to do the same with your affliction, you rushed to your destination.

About three hours later, you were still sat in front of the sewing machine in the otherwise empty laundry room, humming on a loop the part of the song Jungkook had been playing earlier. You couldn’t deny it was catchy... Besides, you needed a tune to distract you from the machine’s repetitive noise and the summer heat, or else you’d go crazy. Maybe you had already, given you’d failed to notice someone opening the creaky door and walking in.

“Hello?”

Startled, you raised your head to meet the eyes of the rockstar himself, filled with something akin to interest. “Oh, hi...”

Jungkook chuckled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” Before you could kindly tell him not to worry, that it was your fault for spacing out, he grabbed the hem of his shirt to show you the hole in it that until then you hadn’t caught sight of. “I was told to come here to get this fixed?” He then glanced at the dozen habits lying on the table you still had to work on, and changed his mind not to burden you, “But I can come another time– Or not at all! I mean, ripped clothes are trendy, aren’t they?”

For the first time in a while, you laughed genuinely and not out of courtesy, “I wouldn’t know, there’s not much variety in a novice’s wardrobe.” Since Jungkook’s t-shirt would just take a moment to mend and you didn’t mind helping him, you decided to neglect your current task without a second thought, holding out your hand with a smile. “It’s alright, really!”

“You’re an angel.” He smiled back as he took off his t-shirt, exposing a toned body you weren’t prepared for. Bet he says that to all the girls, intruded a thought in your mind as though to make go away the uplift of his compliment, but you brushed it off before he reached the table. “By the way, was that my song you were just humming?”

“Oh? I heard you sing it earlier, but I didn’t know it was yours,” you said while getting to work. Meanwhile, Jungkook leaned against the door’s frame. “I don’t really listen to music much.”

“What?!” He was utterly shocked, eyes wide like he’d seen a ghost. “That’s the greatest sin of all! I’ll have a serious conversation with the abbot, they’re not teaching you girls the important stuff here.” Father Jimin would certainly be amused at such a request. “But I did see you running earlier in the cloister, now that I think about it. It is hot, Y/N, but I don’t believe the floor is in flames.”

He knows my name? What a stupid question. Whoever had told him to come to the laundry room must have seen you entering it and mentioned you’d be there.

“Yeah, I was late, had overslept. It probably looked like someone was chasing me… Nun on the run!” you rhymed out of nowhere. “There’s a title for your next single.”

“If naming my songs will get you to listen to them, I’m down.” You looked up from the task at hand to ask him if that meant he’d credit ‘Sister Y/N’ as a songwriter, but the sight of someone walking down the hallway towards the laundry room scared the words away. “You know, you’re too pretty to be a nun.”

Sister Daeun, now right behind Jungkook, smacked the back of his head and asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jungkook’s smile turned into a pout as he rubbed the spot. “Nothing, aunty. Ouch…”

Yes, he was her nephew, which was the main reason why Father Jimin had allowed him to stay not just for a few days, but the whole summer. Sister Daeun had promised on his behalf that as a thanks, he would help around to earn his bed and under no circumstances put in peril anyone’s vow of chastity. If he weren’t so good-looking, you imagined she wouldn’t have needed to make that promise.

“Y/N…” she sighed when she saw the pile of habits you had yet to fix the seams of. Despite the disappointment in her voice, she made sure to say tactfully, “It’s almost midday, I asked you to have all of them done before ten.”

Jungkook was the only one in the room who had no clue as to why you’d been working so slowly, but he didn’t hesitate to step forward when your head lowered in shame. “My bad, I’ve been distracting her for hours. And on top of it, I gave her more work…”

He approached the sewing machine, got his t-shirt, and put it on, all while you stared at him at a loss for words. Why would he take the blame? Sister Daeun started telling you to finish some other time and get ready for lunch, but you stopped listening, attention fixed on Jungkook as he discreetly winked at you before leaving.

That wasn’t the last time you met that day. Well, incorrect, because it was past midnight.

Like many nights before, guilt stirred a restlessness that kept you from falling asleep, the only solution you could think of being walking around the empty abbey in the hope of tiring your body and with it, your brain. It wasn’t that easy, though, often hours how long you’d wander about, always ending up at the cloister. Sitting on the stone base between the columns and gazing up at the stars brought some peace to you. More than praying, it appeared.

That night, such peace was disrupted when barely after ten minutes of it, the sound of a lighter being flicked made your head whip around.

“So you do have hair,” Jungkook joked as he sat against a column, bending one knee so he could rest his elbow on it. Although a bit embarrassed you were in your pyjamas and thus wearing no white veil that covered your head in front of a guy you didn’t know, you did the same on the next column to be able to face him. “Can’t sleep either?”

“Lately, not.”

He puffed at his joint before offering it to you, and a short laugh broke through your lips. Was he seriously tempting a novice to burn one with him? To be fair, he did mean to help you sleep, but it was still a bit… much for you. “I’ll pass, thank you.”

“Yeah, probably not a good idea,” Jungkook nodded at his own words before taking another puff, blowing the smoke to a side so it wouldn’t reach you. “I don’t want your parents to make a complaint because there’s a bloke loose in the convent corrupting the nuns. Can’t afford to be kicked out of here, too,” he whispered the last bit, as though talking to himself.

“Don’t worry, that’s not happening.”

“Why not? Are you girls not allowed visits or something?”

“No, we are, it’s just… they died last month. Car crash.”

“Shit, I’m so sorry.” You could see in Jungkook’s wide eyes how much he regretted bringing them up. “That explains why you were out of sorts this morning... Agh, I can’t believe they’re still making you do work, what a bunch of heartless pricks! Not to mention class, I mean, isn’t it summer?”

His indignation for your sake came as a surprise. Ignorantly, you’d allowed prejudices to decide what kind of person Jungkook was before he got the chance to show you himself. The familiar guilt well-deservedly returned to grip your heart.

“Father Jimin actually had me switch jobs with some sisters so that I’d get to do less demanding stuff,” you came to the poor abbot’s defence. “It makes no difference, but he’s not to blame nothing can.”

"Doesn’t praying help?” He took another puff, lips curling into a smirk at the thought that next crossed his mind. “I thought nuns had a direct line with God.”

The truth was your relationship with the Lord had strained. As someone whose thoughts and desires couldn’t help but fall into sin over and over, you didn’t feel worthy of His comfort, or dared ask for guidance. His or anybody’s.

“I have to go through the telephonist angels first, I’m not an official nun yet.” The muscles of your face relaxed, gaze falling to your lap. “To be honest, I don’t think I want to be.”

Jungkook’s head cocked to a side. “Really? So, what are you doing here? You don’t strike me as the type forced by her p– uh, family.”

“I do like this place and what they’re teaching us, but I’m here because my parents wanted a saintly daughter who could put in a good word for them up there. I tried telling them once that I have dreams of my own, but it ended in an argument they had the last word in. Now that they’re dead, it’s like the topic is permanently sealed, I can never talk them out of it. And I mean, I love them, so how can I disappoint them? What would it say about me if I waited until my parents were dead to disobey them?”

Only after you finished venting did it dawn on you that perhaps you’d said too much. After all, what did Jungkook care? What did anyone?

“What’s your dream?”

The question took you aback, but you still answered, “I’d like to go to university, get married someday, have kids... Not be trapped inside these four walls for the rest of my life, you know?”

“I know exactly what you mean, trust me,” Jungkook said quietly before puffing at his joint again. “You’re free to leave, though, right? I don’t need to master-plan an escape?”

You hummed a laugh, mindful not to be loud enough to wake anyone up, given neither of you should be out of bed. There may or may not have been a curfew you were breaking, as well as a tradition called the Great Silence in which everyone kept quiet from the final liturgical prayer of the day until the earliest one the next morning. It was a rule often broken, especially by you, but that didn’t mean the abbey wasn’t dead silent.

“Anytime I want, yes, only next year I’m supposed to take my solemn vows.” Jungkook nodded but a slight frown gave away he didn’t know what that meant. “Poverty, chastity, and obedience? It’s like a wedding with Jesus. I can always divorce him, but that doesn’t mean marriage is a light affair.”

Most orders didn’t work like that. There were various stages one had to go through before becoming a professed nun: an optional aspirancy, then a postulancy, a novitiate, and finally, a juniorate. Since you’d gone to Catholic school all your life, you’d skipped the first, done no more than a few months of the second, were about to start the final year of the third, and would not be doing the fourth since your convent didn’t teach it. Instead of six more years of formation before taking your perpetual vows, then, you had only one.

“Damn, and here I thought I had the most fucked up horoscope of the year. Maybe we were born on the same month.”

“What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t everyone know my parents kicked me out because I want to be a rockstar?”

“Yeah...”

Once again, you’d assumed wrongly about him. That because of his profession and looks, he was a rebellious kid who hated his parents and was glad to be rid of them. You hadn’t even considered their shunning might be putting him through a hard time.

“Look, disappointing your parents beats living a miserable life just to please them, even if it sucks. One day we’ll be old, and I personally want to look back and not regret my youth, feel like I wasted it. I’m not gonna tell you what to do but if you want my opinion, getting out of here and chasing your dreams says no more than you’re in charge of your own life.”

You had no idea why after that, Jungkook had taken it as his mission to stick with you.

It was common knowledge that you’d barely uttered ten words since your parents’ accident, so all eyes were drawn like magnets when you engaged in conversation with him of all people for hours on end. Since you came from vastly different worlds, it surprised you too that even though his company didn’t lessen your guilt, it was the best way to distract you from it. And precisely, that was his intention.

He would sit next to you at meals, trying to convince the sisters around the table in all seriousness that because they were cloistered, they weren’t aware Earth had been invaded by aliens last year.

“Do you think we’re stupid?” a postulant asked, giggles escaping you at how ridiculous the conversation you were having was. “Some of us do go out sometimes, I think we would’ve noticed.”

“They want you to think everything’s normal because only an army of nuns can defeat them!”

“How do we know you’re not one of them, huh?” you played along, narrowing your eyes in suspicion while Jungkook placed a hand on his chest, feigning shock.

“Aunty will vouch for me but even if not, I can’t believe you’d doubt me. We’ve known each other for like, what, a week? That’s enough for me to follow you into battle.”

“Sorry but can’t be too careful during an alien invasion.”

“That I warned you about! Why would I say anything in the first place?”

“I’ve been here for many years,” an older nun chimed in from the other side of the table, making everyone turn their attention to her. She addressed Jungkook, “You’ve just reminded me why I joined the order.”

He blinked, dumbfounded. “Why, sister?”

“Men talk so much nonsense it makes my head hurt.”

To see Jungkook argue playfully about aliens and men with a seventy-year-old nun who was having none of his shit was an experience, but it wouldn’t be just that.

Like you’d told him, Father Jimin had allowed you to switch jobs. Your old one consisted of embellishing clothes with elaborate religious embroideries—hence why Sister Daeun had asked for your help with the torn habits—that would later be sold on a street market stall in town beside other products manufactured by your sisters, whereas your new one required almost no effort.

There was an old married couple nearby who ran a goat farm, and a small group of nuns from your convent helped them in exchange of a portion of the food they made, instead of a salary. Father Jimin was clearly trying his best to raise your spirits when he’d assigned you to tend to the cutest new-born goats, but it wasn’t until Jungkook tagged along and you saw him struggle with the baby bottles, spilling milk all over his clothes and cursing at the tiny animals, that the abbot’s goal was achieved.

“No, no, no, come back, you little shit!” He chased a hoppy kid around the barn, unable to contain that lovely high-pitched laugh.

“How are you making a mess out of literally the easiest thing in the world?” you teased from the bag of pine shavings you were sat on, another kid resting otherwise peacefully on your lap.

“That’s easy for you to say, I’ve got Psycho making me do cardio over here!”

“Try this one,” you giggled, motioning to the empty spot beside you with your head so Jungkook would sit down. When he did, you lay the kid on his lap carefully and brought the baby bottle to its mouth, both of you watching as it fed without any problem. “See?”

It didn’t take long for the milk to run out, after which you and Jungkook stroked the kid to sleep while the other one still hopped around, sharing a smile when your fingers accidentally brushed.

Because he’d tag along, you agreed to helping out in the kitchen on another day, as time was somehow bearable if he was there. But you were still going through the motions, your parents’ absence ever-present.

“What do you think?” Jungkook stirred you awake from your trance. “Bitchin’, right? The best thing you’ve ever heard?”

The song that got stuck in your head the day you met was playing on a boombox he’d brought from his van and put on the worktop while the two of you and three other sisters cooked lunch.

The girl you’d just heard, he had explained, was the band’s lead singer Amber, whom he sometimes joined apart from playing the guitar. There were also a Hoseok on the drums and a Taehyung on the bass. Bangtan, their name was. You’d never heard of them.

“I’m not sure about the lyrics,” meaning all the cursing and allusions to sex, which got your sisters flustered in the background, “but I like the tune.”

“The tune…”

“I’m just more used to church songs, is all.” Jungkook’s eyes lit up. “No.” You knew he was thinking exactly of blasting his rock songs in the middle of Mass.

“Why not?” he asked as a joke while trying to steal a couple of french fries from a dish. You slapped his hand before he could.

“Because Father Jimin will exile you, duh.”

“And don’t you think I’ll give up yet. I’ll be found outside your cell’s window playing music on my boombox until you agree to go out with me.” You should’ve cast away the heat before it reached your cheeks, as his flirting was obviously just for fun. Something he did with all girls and which meant nothing. “Better yet, I’ll write you a song.”

“I don’t think a novice is the perfect muse for a rock song, especially if it’s about…”

Jungkook shook his head. “I’ll keep it PG-13 for you, I promise.” He then grinned, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll start working on it tonight.”

You weren’t together at all times, though. No, you had class, he had work, sometimes you didn’t see him for whole days. Such was the case one cloudy afternoon around three weeks after first meeting, when Father Jimin approached you in the cloister. It had been a while since your last visit to his confessional box, so you feared a scolding.

“I wanted to talk to you, actually,” he said with that distinctive, soothing voice of his as you walked together, “about Jungkook.”

Your heart missed a beat for a reason that escaped your knowledge. It felt, somehow, as though you’d been caught doing something you shouldn’t. “What about him, Father?”

“I hadn’t seen you smile for a while and now it’s all you do when he’s by your side. I know the past month has been very difficult, so it makes me happy to see you get through the loss of your parents, Y/N.” Did it really look like things were fine? Well, better that than having everyone worry about you until things got fixed, if that ever happened. “However,” Father Jimin continued, “as your Spiritual Director, it’s my duty to advise you not to rely too much on someone other than God for solace. There’s a reason for enclosure, so that the outside world doesn’t distract us from religion. Unless… you’ve reconsidered your life as a nun? There’d be nothing wrong with that.”

What Jungkook had told you that first night, you’d been chewing on ever since, but God and your parents had long won the war. ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’ was one of the Ten Commandments, after all.

“I have no doubts. I belong here.”

The last time you’d stepped in town had been for the funeral, but Bangtan was doing a gig at what Jungkook claimed was the coolest venue he’d ever been in and he’d managed to persuade the other members to perform Rock God, the song he’d pulled an all-nighter to write. You didn’t know what a title like that had to do with someone like you but apparently, the lyrics were from your point of view.

“You have to come,” he’d begged for the millionth time across the table the previous day, interrupting your Bible reading in the library. Luckily, nobody else was there, or had been before his arrival.

‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’

Did that mean He would forgive you for the sin of going against your parents’ wishes? That you could hang the white veil and live how you dreamed of? The next passages from the Book of Isaiah answered those questions.

‘If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.’

In other words, you were fucked. There was no way out.

“I’d have to ask Father Jimin for permission, and I don’t think he’d let me go to a rock concert.”

You’d laughed to yourself at the idea but Jungkook had been serious, insisted, “Tell him you want to go buy groceries or something, he won’t say no to you.”

“You mean, ‘lie to him because he’ll take pity on you.’”

“Please.” He’d sank his elbows on the table, leaning so close you almost had to back away. You would have, had he not bewitched you with the most angelic of smiles. “Do it for me? I’ll tell Saint Peter I made you do it so he lets you in Heaven.”

That’s how you ended up in the queue for his concert, holding a plastic bag full of stationary you’d told Father Jimin you needed for class.

Jungkook had given you no ticket, said telling the security guy your name would suffice, and surely enough ‘Sister Y/N’ got you in. The habit had wisely been left at home, but the man still frowned at your modest outfit before putting a wristband on you that was a different colour than everyone else’s. You assumed it meant you were VIP.

There was a secluded area with round tables near the stage you were indeed taken to, where only a handful of other people were hanging out, waiting for the show to begin. You wouldn’t have thought of approaching them, as there was likely nothing you had in common, with them or anyone in the whole poorly lit venue. If you were there, out of your comfort zone, it was for Jungkook only.

The lights at some point changed colours and finally, the concert began. Bangtan got on the stage and performed song after song, giving their all to an audience that cheered loudly. You cheered too, captivated by a Jungkook who made you feel things with every look he gave you.

His blond hair was wet, whether with water, product, or sweat you didn’t know, but it dripped down his curls to his ripped clothes which allowed a glimpse of the inked skin of his torso. When had he got new tattoos? They weren’t there the day he’d got his t-shirt off for you to sew. You had never paid much attention to those that covered his veiny right arm and hand, but now you found yourself tickled by the fact, and wanting to see them up close. Definitely the tattoos, not his bare body… But most tantalising of all was the passionate way he played his electric guitar, moving around the stage with a confidence that made it clear he belonged there.

With that confidence, though, came a cockiness that had him eye-fucking every pretty girl in the crowd. Who’s to say he didn’t write songs for them too? Not to mention Amber, to whom he sometimes got so close you feared they were going to kiss—as did their fans, judging by their screams of excitement.

The last song of the night was Rock God, which he made sure to announce by enthusiastically mouthing you ‘This is it!’. You braced yourself for the lyrics.

Preacher man walked into the club, and he said He said, "Hey girl, can't you walk and not stray?" Father, I'm torn and I'm selling my soul to the Rhythm, the beat and the bass 'Cause I can't confess my rock and roll ways (Ooh) 'Cause I'm so possessed with the music The music he plays

Was the preacher man supposed to be Father Jimin? He wasn’t likely to walk in the venue right then, but the idea of him attending a rock concert was so absurd it made you smile. You guessed the tone of the song before Amber had even got to the chorus.

I can't stop my feet from dancing to the sound of his drum (Oh no) I fell in love with my rock god I can't keep my hips from swaying to his sweet melody You see, I fell in love with my rock, rock god

Oh, so not only did you like his music in this narrative, but you were also in love with him? You raised an eyebrow at that, to which he failed to bite down a smile. There must be thrill in succeeding to seduce a novice.

The next verse was similar to the first one. Then came the chorus again, twice, but it was the bridge that struck you, putting an end to the fun you were having. Jungkook watched your reaction closely, as he had during the whole song.

No, I wouldn't change a thing even if I could 'Cause I chose a path and I'm not looking back And I'm sorry if I left the angels crying over me

The chorus was sung twice more but the music muffled into the back of your mind, the bridge’s words lingering in the foreground. Would you be able to choose a path that resulted in your angels weeping? How could you? And how could Jungkook portray you as remorseless over it, when the matter was eating away at you inside?

The show was over before you knew it, and the audience slowly exited the venue while the band got out of their rockstars outfits and makeup backstage. About fifteen minutes later, they came into the area you were sat in and Jungkook bumped fists with the friends who’d come to see him in a rush, so as to not keep you waiting any longer.

Checking out your collared shirt and ankle-length skirt while approaching, he whistled. “Gee, Y/N, I can’t handle myself when you dress so sexy.”

“Because a novice’s habit is so much better.”

“There’s an appeal to it. Makes a man want to tempt you.” Earning a smile from him, you rolled your eyes. “Thoughts on the song. Shoot.”

You pouted. “Full of blasphemies. Are you supposed to be the rock god?”

“Who else?” Jungkook asked surprised. How did that escape you?

“Then why do I say ‘sound of his drum’? You’re a guitar player. Are you trying to set me up with your bandmate?”

“‘Guitar’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘god’,” he said matter-of-factly, it hitting him in the pause that followed. You laughed. “Well, yeah, neither does ‘drum’… but it does a bit more, right?”

“A bit more, yes. So, are you and Amber dating?”

Jungkook smirked. “Jealous much?”

“If you are,” you ignored his question, “she might not be too happy her boyfriend’s writing songs to other girls.”

“She has a boyfriend,” he cleared up, lifting a weight off your chest. “We’re just friends, what we do onstage is part of the show. Don’t worry, you don’t have to fight anyone to keep me.”

“What a relief,” you joked, taking a deep breath before continuing. “Listen, I’m gonna get going, it’s late and you said you were getting some drinks with Bangtan, so I’ll leave you to it. I had fun tonight, you did great.”

“I can drive you to the convent,” he offered, but you shook your head, picking the plastic bag up from the table.

“It’s alright, Sisters Joan and Theresa are still at their stall in the street market. I’ll go back with them.”

“Swell…” he said under his breath, hoping you couldn’t tell he’d wanted to say ‘bummer’ instead.

You didn’t see each other until the next night, when you broke the curfew yet again to hang out in the kitchen. Sat on the table, the two of you discussed your dilemma while sipping at the awful tea Jungkook had made. There weren’t many ways to fuck up tea, but he’d still managed it, holding the old kettle responsible.

All had begun with him pointing out you’d paled towards the end of Rock God and you telling him the lyrics had moved you because you’d chosen to finish your novitiate. There was no way, therefore, you could sell your soul to the rhythm, the beat, and the bass.

“I know I said I wouldn’t tell you what to do, but–”

“You did.”

“But hear me out. Now that we’re friends, I can’t just watch you make a decision I know you already regret.”

“I’d regret leaving too, at least this is the selfless choice.”

“Well, aren’t you a good person!” Jungkook’s mocking made you sigh and sip on your tea like it were alcohol. It did taste as bad. “Y/N, you need to live for yourself, not for two fuddy-duddies who couldn’t put their daughter’s happiness before theirs.”

“Don’t be mean to them.”

Jungkook only bit his tongue because of your pleading tone. “Sorry… Even if you loved your parents, you can’t deny they put you in a tough spot. I’m sure wherever they are, they’ve realised they were wrong and want you to be happy however you choose.”

“The thing is, they were convinced I’d be happy as a nun, that I just wanted to switch to secular on a whim. That’s why they ordered me to stay, they were looking out for me.” Jungkook almost grimaced at the word ‘ordered’, fought against commenting how messed up was the fact that you were using it in this context. Staring at the almost empty mug on your lap, you wondered whether it was insensitive of you to speak your mind. “It’s also what’s happened to you that I couldn’t bear happening to me, even if my parents are gone. I don’t want to do anything that would make them spurn me. I don’t want them not to love me,” your voice broke despite your best efforts.

Jungkook immediately stole the mug from your fingers and put it next to his on the table, so he could hold your hands. “Listen to me, my parents are assholes. Like, genuine bad people who shouldn’t’ve been allowed to have a kid. I won’t tell you the things they’ve said and done to me because you’d cry, but they are a different breed. Normal parents love their children no matter what. Why do you think yours would spurn you if they were still alive, instead of realising that they were making you unhappy?”

Good point, actually. If only it wasn’t far more complicated than that…

The second Jungkook withdrew his hands, you missed their warmth, even though it was a hot summer night. He sipped at his tea, and you suspected he only mmm-ed with delight to make you laugh, given he bloody well knew its taste was disgusting. Idiot.

“Just promise me one thing,” he added, a smirk tugging at his lips. “If you quit being a novice, go out on a date with me.”

Now, that made you laugh. “A date?”

Jungkook nodded, anchoring his foot to one of the legs of your chair so he could drag it close to his and rest his arm on its top rail, the proximity such that you could feel his breathing against your cheek. Heart racing, you crossed your arms and tried your hardest to appear unbothered. “I’ll pick you up at five and we’ll go roller-skating until we can’t feel our legs, then we’ll have dinner in my van while we watch a drive-in movie– A scary one, so you cling onto me for safety. Then I’ll drive you home, walk you to your door, and you’ll go ‘Oh! It’s too late, why don’t you stay over?’. So we’ll have some drinks, and you’ll take my hand to lead me into your bedroom, and then…”

“And then we’ll say our prayers and go to sleep.”

“To sleep, yes,” Jungkook chuckled, “afterwards.”

“I don’t know what makes you think I wouldn’t live almost like a nun if I left here. I am, in fact, a Catholic.”

“A relaxed one, I dare say. Oh, come on. You’ve never thought about breaking your faith’s rules? Not even to have fun?” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for a confession, but you shook your head.

“I can have fun without breaking the rules, I always have.”

Jungkook nibbled at his lip for a while, mentally debating with himself. Whichever of the voices in his head won, it made him say, “What if I showed you my ways? Would you be up for that?”

“Up for what, exactly?”

“You’ll see.”

Due to the series of communal prayers scattered throughout the day called Liturgy of Hours, it was as early as five that the whole convent got up. You’d usually go straight back to bed after the first one and get what more rest you could until it was time for class or work, but today, despite it being Sunday, a few sisters had volunteered to go to the farm and help around, you and Jungkook joining them to nanny the goats.

You didn’t mind getting your habit dirty there, but it was being an awfully hot July, which was the reason why you were wearing lighter clothes that morning when walking into the chapel alongside Jungkook to attend Mass. He was an atheist whom you supposed only went to these things to spend more time with you, and that warmed your heart.

Ever since you’d started hanging out, the same less devout sisters who’d previously flocked around him had gone back to the handsome abbot’s orbit, so the nearer pews to the altar had quickly been taken. Together, you sat alone at the back, the pew all to yourselves. Three quite tall sisters were sat in the one in front of you and acted as a barrier Father Jimin hid behind of, but as long as you heard him, it didn’t matter.

Your mind went elsewhere no more than a couple of minutes into the service anyway. Tuning out seemed to be easy as of late.

It was just so unfair, all of it. You could be learning in university, meeting new people, living a normal life where you wouldn’t need to ask an abbot for permission to go out if you fancied taking a fucking walk! It didn’t have to mean you’d stop practising your religion or let yourself fall into sin at all, nothing had to change in that regard. You took a deep breath charged with frustration. If only your parents hadn’t decided to take the car in the middle of a storm and you’d had more time to make them see reason… Why did they have to die? Why did God have to take them and leave you alone?

Right in the middle of your brooding was when Jungkook put his hand on your bare knee and asked in a whisper, “Hey, are you okay?”

You forced a smile that he didn’t seem convinced by, so his hand remained on the same spot after he’d gone back to paying attention to Mass. His touch didn’t make you uncomfortable, you welcomed it and the comfort it provided, but your jaw did drop when it slowly travelled down your inner thigh, towards your intimate area.

“What are you doing?” you mouthed, petrified at the possibility of anyone noticing. Luckily, the only person facing the pews was Father Jimin, who couldn’t see a thing from the altar thanks to your barrier-sisters.

“Showing you my idea of fun,” Jungkook leaned in to whisper, lips brushing against your earlobe. It wasn’t that what made you gulp, though, but the fact that he reached your clit and rubbed it softly over your linen shorts, up and down, side to side… The unexpected pleasure made your breath hitch in your throat, gaze flying around the chapel at the speed of light. “No one’s watching,” Jungkook reassured you. “Live a little, Y/N.” Feeling his middle finger now press your clit firmly and at an increasing pace, you looked at him, shocked there was no sign of shame on his features, eyes half-lidded with arousal as they studied your worried ones. “Tell me to stop and I will.”

Stop? You were still registering something had started there, in a sacred place, during Mass! What you were letting Jungkook do to you was all kinds of sinful, but… it felt so good you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. Sobering up, he ceased his actions at that lack of consent, and was going to withdraw his hand and apologise had you not grabbed it and kept it in place down there, much to the surprise of both.

Relief showed on Jungkook in the form of an exhale. He wasted no time, then, sliding his hand inside your shorts and underwear, making you bite down on your lip when he found your clit once more and rubbed it in circles. He lingered there just enough to make your core pulsate with ache when he abandoned it to move on to your wet slit, something you had to slouch for him to do. He eased two fingers inside you that he began pumping in and out with a mastery that got you squirming in your seat, hand glued to your mouth to hold back the moans that threatened to escape it and gaze locked on the tattooed sleeve that disappeared inside your shorts.

That was when everyone started singing a hymn. Jungkook took the chance to quicken his movements, the sounds of your irregular breathing and his fingers sliding into your juices eclipsed by the song. He licked his lips, coating them with saliva before leaving chaste kisses on your neck, knowing if his tongue met it he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from fucking you right there and then. When he pulled back, he noticed you’d closed your eyes to get lost in the pleasure, and that they opened only when you felt his breath near your parted lips, to stare down at his. So close, yet he restrained the urge to kiss you, intent on watching you come.

He didn’t have to wait long, your walls now clenching around his fingers every time he rubbed that magical spot, thighs shaking as a result. All the tension built up inside of you suddenly released, and you dissolved into a daze just in time for the ending of the hymn. Not to overstimulate you, Jungkook gently removed his fingers and slipped out of the chapel. He returned a minute later with his hand washed and dry, and although you readily intertwined fingers with his when he reached out, you dared not meet his eyes after what had just happened.

That night you lay awake tossing and turning forever, unable to forget the feel of his touch.

Inexplicably, you weren’t ashamed of all the sins you’d added to the collection that day: falling into the temptation of lust, doing pre-marital sexual acts that didn’t lead to procreation, breaching your vow of chastity, desecrating a holy place, taking the sacrament while in mortal sin… Somehow, you just weren’t. You were, right after, but now it was as though you’d managed to sweep all the guilt related to it under the rug. As for the one related to your parents, well, Jungkook had been the sweetest distraction from it.

A distraction you craved again.

You must have been held sway by a demon when you got up from bed to go find Jungkook, but you were in no hurry to free yourself from its grasp.

Except for the first night, he tended to be the sleepless one who wandered about the abbey until you eventually joined him, so you knew he’d be awake. Indeed, he was on the phone in the community room, getting tangled up in the cord as he paced around, nervous. He couldn’t see you lurking in the hallway’s shadows, so you decided to let curiosity get the better of you and eavesdrop the conversation he was having.

“No, you’re not following,” he whispered into the phone. “My cousin’s friend’s brother is into this hot religious girl, and I– he! sort of fingered her in public… In a church… No, there were people present, it was in the middle of Mass… Nobody, that I’m– that he’s aware… No, Hoseok, it’s not dope! He’s going up and down the walls like a fucking yoyo... He isn’t so sure it was a good idea, fears he might’ve crossed a line… Well, he hasn’t seen her since, I think she’s been avoiding him– Agh, he thinks!... Fuck yeah, she did, and he loved it too… The problem is that I don’t want her to regret it and feel bad about it just because it wasn’t the time or place, or to never want to have sex because I got her into it the wrong way… What? He, I said he… You’re right,” he sighed, putting an end to his pacing. “I’ll tell him. Thank you, bro... ‘Night.”

Arms crossed, you couldn’t help but smile fondly. He was that worried about it? You should’ve known, you were friends after all. That was all he probably wanted to be, at least. Friends. With benefits, but friends. Who would want to be more than that not only with a novice, but with one as troubled as you?

A noise made you look up. It was Jungkook, now by the window, flicking his lighter over and over to pass the time. Your eyes inspected his fingers under the moonlight, the same ones he’d buried inside you that morning, and the longing that had got you out of bed returned to move your feet in his direction. You must’ve been abrupt while approaching him, though, as he jolted with a gasp at the sight of you.

“Sorry.”

“Y/N…” he said as he caught his breath from the startle. He had hoped you’d show up, but not so suddenly. Payback, he thought, for the way we met. “Listen, about earlier–”

You cut his sentence short with a kiss. It was soft at first, as timid as you felt, but Jungkook soon got over the shock that had frozen him and took charge of the matter, pulling you in a tight embrace. His tongue entered your mouth and swirled around yours like it was always meant to, or at least that’s what you wanted to believe. How else could it feel so good, and Jungkook so addictive?

It was a challenge, but you found the strength to step back and whisper so lowly that he almost didn’t hear, “I want you.”

“Are you sure?” Jungkook cupped your face with both hands, forcing you to look into his eyes. No need for that, they already had you enthralled, dark with the desire you’d infected him with.  

“Yes,” you exhaled, taking his hands in yours to lead him upstairs. “With you, yes.”

Once in your cell, you lost your pyjamas in a matter of seconds, both too impatient to feel each other.

Being naked and seeing Jungkook so was initially nerve-racking but once you were under the sheets, under his toned body, your bashfulness flew out the window. Especially when you saw his dick, already hard from just making out—you figured he’d been charged up since the morning. Yet his priority wasn’t his own pleasure, but yours, not an inch of your skin left untouched by his lips as he slowly travelled downwards. Until you started giggling out of nowhere, and Jungkook raised his head from in between your boobs to look at you in confusion.

“Your Barbie hair is tickling me,” you teased him as you tucked behind his ears the blond cascade that covered his face and grazed over your chest whenever he moved.

“Barbie, huh?” Jungkook whispered next to your ear only to lay a warm kiss right under it, all while he positioned himself in between your legs. “Do you want me to tickle you somewhere else?”

“Actually, I…” How did one say such a thing? “I want to tickle you, but I don’t know what to do.”

He chuckled, “My pleasure to instruct you.”

You did as he said and reclined next to him, upside down so he could touch you—he’d insisted—while you sucked him off. It did feel strange to take him in your mouth and run your tongue along the length of his shaft, at least until you heard his breathing speed up, resisting to buck his hips into your face as he was. Your cunt throbbed, and you wished Jungkook’s cock was inside it instead of your mouth. He seemed to sense that, so his hand soon crept between your thighs to remedy your ails, a whine escaping you then.

“You’re just as tight as earlier, fuck,” he groaned from the pillow as his fingers struggled to curl and uncurl inside of you, given you couldn’t keep still. It made you all the more eager to pleasure him, taking him as deep as you could so he saw the same stars you were beginning to see yourself. “You’re doing so well… That’s it, suck it harder, darling, ah… Wait, stop, stop!”

Immediately, you backed off. “Did I do something wrong?”

Jungkook sat up and used his thumb to wipe the drooling trail of saliva on your chin. “You were doing too well, miss.” Ogling your body, he licked his thumb. “Why don’t you come over here?” You nodded, would’ve agreed to do anything he asked in that moment.

He lay down again while holding your hands to guide you over to his lap, over his erection, but your sudden nerves made you shy away. Nevertheless, Jungkook pulled you closer with a smirk. “Where are you running off to?”

“I’m sorry, just… Will it hurt?”

He sat up to peck your lips cutely, “Oh, it will be excruciatingly painful,” and you pushed his chest with an eye-roll, so he returned to his previous position. He grabbed the condom he’d stopped by his cell to get before following you to yours and put it on.

A deep breath later, you grabbed his cock and placed its tip in your wet entrance, looking down at it to make sure you were doing it right. Hands between his head and the pillow, Jungkook watched patiently, turned on by your inexperience and the fact that he and he alone got to be the one to pop your cherry, make you break your vow of chastity. He thought it’d take you a while to get used to the size of his dick, but you surprised him by rolling your hips almost aggressively the second you sat on it, chasing pleasure as though it would escape from your grasp otherwise.

“Shit, yes, like that.” All flushed under you and with his eyes barely open, feeling the way you moved with all his senses, Jungkook ignited a lust in you that even an angel would be willing to fall from grace for.

“Oh my God, it feels so good…”

“I know, baby.” He wanted to dig his nails into your hips and move them back and forth himself but found that for a virgin, you were already doing a superb job, laughed instead. “Look at you, fuck. What a dirty bitch, you’re loving it.”

“I am…” you panted, his name-calling sending you over the edge. “Jesus, I am.”

It wasn’t long until Jungkook felt your walls clench tight around him, something he didn’t blame you for as he himself was close too. His cock had been burning in his pants ever since Mass, even after he’d jerked himself off in his cell when the service had finished and you’d vanished. Grabbing your wrist, he pulled you close to his mouth and kissed you hungrily, but even then, you refused to stop moving, felt too good. “Gonna come already? You like me that bad?”

I like you a lot. You were having a tough time not moaning, especially when he talked. His deep voice did all manner of things to you. “I’m so close, ah...”

“Why don’t I help you out with that, hm?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before bending his knees and repeatedly thrusting into you with such force that it had you gasping for air. If you’d known he could fuck you like that, you’d have asked him to be on top at the beginning. Eyes squeezed shut, you buried your head in the crook of his neck to moan against it as you came, finally letting go. Jungkook bit into your shoulder, not to hurt you, just hard enough to keep himself from grunting loudly as he found his own release after a few more thrusts, but your bodies remained locked until your heartbeats slowed down.

It didn’t hit you how loud your panting had been until your breath toned down and there was silence in the room. You prayed it hadn’t woken anybody up.

At some point, you got off Jungkook for him to remove his condom and go throw it in the bin next to your desk. You covered your naked body with the sheets, expecting to next see him get dressed, but he lay back on the bed. You didn’t understand.

“Aren’t you leaving?”

He scoffed. “Kicking me out, ouch. Why would I leave?”

“I thought… that’s what guys do.” At least, that was what your non-virgin sisters had told you. That men lost interest in a woman as soon as they’d had their way with her.

Jungkook shook his head as he said softly, “I’m not going anywhere.” Having sex surely messed with one’s head, there was no other explanation as to why you blushed like a teenager. The two of you got on your side, facing each other, and Jungkook started caressing your arm with the back of his fingers, the simple action so soothing you thought you’d fall asleep. “Is this nice?”

“Very,” you replied, eyes closing against your will.

“Did I go too far earlier?”

You were taken aback by the sudden question. “Maybe, but I liked it. You were right about breaking the rules. Looking back… I think it was what you said about living a little that got to me. Here at the convent, I don’t really feel alive, but I do when we’re this close.”

“See?” Jungkook asked gently, trying to make you see his point. “What’s stopping you from quitting, then? Nothing should cost you feeling alive.”

“Apart from my parents?” you sighed. “Look around. As a novice, I couldn’t receive their inheritance. Vow of poverty, remember? What you see in this cell is everything I own.” Jungkook had already noticed on his way in your lack of personal belongings. A cross hung over the bed, a small pile of religious books on the desk, a framed photo of you with your family, and little more. It was so empty and cold that anyone would’ve thought you’d just moved in. “I can’t afford to go to university, much less live on my own.”

“Well… I’ve been saving up for a while and I’m moving in an apartment with Hoseok and Tae when summer’s over. Why don’t you come stay with us? I’m sure they won’t mind!” he said enthusiastically, eyes sparkling like he’d come up with the solution to all your problems. “I’ll help you find a job and you’ll be able to afford uni, easy-peasy.”

You were too sleepy to chuckle, but a faint smile did tug at your lips because of how determined he was to fix things. Things that were too broken to be fixed. “Let’s not talk about this right now, please?”

Even though Jungkook wasn’t pleased with your response, he forced a smile. “Why, did I tire you out?” Leaning in, he kissed your lips lightly. “You’re right, let’s not ruin the moment. Come here.”

He had you rest your head on his chest, and held lovingly, you fell asleep.

Understandably, he’d left by the time you woke up. If anyone saw him coming out of your cell, they might work out what he’d been up to there and the two of you would be kicked out of the convent. His scent lingered in your sheets, but it didn’t make any less disappointing waking up without him by your side. What’s more, as you put on your habit after having a quick shower, you were assailed by the most heart-breaking questions.

What if Jungkook had pretended to be your friend only to get in your pants? What if, now he’d got what he wanted, he blew you off? What if you’d risked everything for a guy who felt nothing for you?

To your immense relief, when you walked into the refectory for breakfast, he waved at you with a smile and gestured you to sit next to him. You were going to before Father Jimin suddenly appeared before you.

“Good morning, Y/N,” he greeted warmly, as ever.

“Oh, good morning, Father!”

“I wanted to make sure everything’s okay.”

You blinked. “It is, why?”

Shit. He knows?

“You left the chapel in a hurry after Mass yesterday,” he said, “and you didn’t show up to the remaining services. Were you unwell?”

“Oh... Yes, I was.” If you had locked yourself up in your cell, it was for no other reason than to avoid Jungkook and digest the fact that he’d fingered you in public. You lied, “I was sick all day, but I’m fine now.”

“I’m glad,” Jimin said with a smile you returned, then grabbed your hand to surround it with both of his, like old people will. “I know this comes out of nowhere, but I’m really proud of you, Y/N. For pulling through these challenging times. Many, including myself, can only learn from your strength. I know you’ll make a great nun.”

He gave your hand a soft squeeze and left you there, frozen in your spot. It was as though your sins finally dawned on you, all of them at once. You’d really believed leaving the convent didn’t have to mean you’d betray your faith and here you were, sleeping with a guy you’d met barely a month ago without shame because that made you feel alive.

What had you done? What were you turning into?

No longer hungry, you left to go back to your cell, tears already streaming down your cheeks before you made it out of the empty hallways. Or were they empty?

“Y/N!” You ignored Jungkook’s voice and quickened your pace, too ashamed to face him. “Hey, wait up!” He sprinted to reach you, concern shaping his features when he blocked your way and realised you were crying and trying to hide it from him. One thing was telling him your troubles, another to break down like a pathetic, helpless little girl. In the most caring tone, he asked, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

You explained, told him how you felt.

“I’m letting Father Jimin down,” you sobbed. “Him, my parents, God, and everyone.”

“You’re not,” Jungkook kept repeating. “You’re in a period of discernment, right? So who says you can’t reach a conclusion by trial and error? That’s what other nuns have done too. Before they got here, yes, but it was doing things they later regretted that convinced them to become nuns.”

“I don’t regret last night,” you said in all honesty, “but I do hate that I don’t regret sinning... You just can’t understand, you’re not religious.”

Jungkook looked down. “Maybe I can’t, but if I know something it’s that if what we did made you happy, it shouldn’t be a sin.” He looked around to make sure no one else was there before cupping your wet cheeks and kissing you, every muscle in your body relaxing under his touch as he knew they would. “Now come with me and eat something.”

He didn’t fully convince you, but your will wasn’t strong enough to resist his tempting.

For the next three weeks, you continued sleeping together at night, pretending you were no more than close friends at day. Whatever the time, Jungkook made sure to spend as much of it as possible with you, although not for a moment did you ever let yourself believe he had any feelings for you other than sexual. You weren’t even sure you wanted him to develop them, truth be told, as this thing you had was a fling. Come the end of summer less than a month from now, he’d move out and you’d start the second and final year of your novitiate, so whatever it was between you had no future.

Still, he kept writing you songs.

Some he’d sing quietly in bed so you’d fall asleep listening to his angelic voice, but the latest one, Church, he’d also asked you to come see him perform in a concert. And so, you’d lied to Father Jimin again, claiming the ancient kettle in the kitchen was broken and a new one needed to be bought. What’s a sin more to secure your one-way ticket to Hell?

Jungkook had warned you this song was not PG-13. He’d be the one singing it, not Amber, and he’d begged and begged you to wear one of his huge t-shirts to the concert with nothing underneath, refusing to tell you why. Leaving the abbey dressed as modestly as was expected of a novice, you changed outfits in the venue’s toilets. You didn’t know why you’d agreed to it but the first line of Church explained his request.

You're wearing nothing but my t-shirt Call me shallow but I'm only getting deeper, yeah Stay on the ground until your knees hurt No more praying, baby, I'ma be your preacher

He half whispered the whole verse into the microphone, all while his eyes pierced yours from the stage. You couldn’t look away either, entranced by his voice and presence. So far from where you were sat, how could he make you feel as though the air had run out in the whole venue?

And I'll keep leading you on If you keep leading me into your room The drinks are all gone But that's fine, baby, so am I

You remembered the date Jungkook had talked about taking you out on and how… standard it now sounded to you as he turned his attention to the girls who cheered for him in the audience. Was it scripted? Something he said to all of them to lead them on? The more you thought about it, the more you realised he’d never actually take you skating. No, you were just for keeping his nights busy.

His gaze found you again.

I'm about to take you back to church (back to church) Well, tell me your confessions, baby, what's the worst? Yeah Baptise in your thighs 'til it hurts (you know it hurts) 'Cause I'm about to take you back to church (oh yeah)

I'll keep you up until the sunset Speaking in tongues, yeah, we ain't done yet (yeah) Don't take my verses out of context I know it's weighing on your conscience

Those last two lines… Further confirmation your relationship was just sex and that you shouldn’t read too much into anything he said, or feel guilty for sinning by having a friend-with-benefits. It was self-contradictory of you to feel down about him not reciprocating your feelings, but you did. Don’t they say love is irrational?

Despite how sad you’d got, the night didn’t end with the concert, but with Jungkook fucking you without restrain. When he was inside you, nothing else mattered.

You were in the back of his van, parked somewhere near the abbey yet not enough for anyone to hear the loud moans that each of his thrusts caused, even with the windows open not to melt in there.

“Fuck, keep moaning for me,” he grunted, gripping your waist to keep you in place.

“Keep fucking me, then…” Jungkook scoffed, would’ve commented on how dirty he’d turned you had he not been so close. You’d come already yourself, but were more than glad to let him go on until he did too.

“Since you’ve got such a big mouth,” he said, panting, “why don’t you put it to good use?”

It took him most of his willpower to pull out and remove his condom. You sat up and opened your mouth for him to shove his hard cock in, swirling your tongue around the tip before closing your lips tight around it and starting to bob your head to take all of him. A bit more experienced now and having learned to love sucking Jungkook, you knew exactly how he liked it done. You could feel it, his cock twitching against your tongue as you savoured it, letting you know he was going to come.

He pulled back again to jerk himself, and you began rubbing your clit, aroused again by the sight between your spread legs. “I thought you were done?”

“Yes, but you’re so hot…” you moaned, and he huffed out a laugh. Biting his lip harshly as he ogled your naked body and the way you touched yourself, it wasn’t long until he came all over your thighs, your own release following.

Jungkook smirked when he was no longer out of breath. “Dreams do come true.” He was staring at your thighs dripping with his cum and your own juices, and you realised he was talking about Church’s ‘baptise in your thighs’. You were about to smile when the rest of the song came to mind, and suddenly you didn’t feel like it anymore… Once Jungkook had cleaned you up with a cloth, he lay down next to you. “Come here.”

You always hoped he’d say that, even though he never failed to. So resting your back on his chest, he held you from behind, caressing your hands in a comfortable silence. It was then that you noticed the blank spot between the tattoos in Jungkook’s wrist. It was tiny, but seemed intentional.

“Are you not inking this bit?”

“I’m saving it for a small symbol, maybe a letter.” He kissed your temple. “Your name’s initial, what do you say?”

Your lips committed to it before your brain did. “Do you get tattoos of the others?”

Jungkook frowned. You couldn’t see him, but you knew he did. “What others?”

“The other girls you sleep with.” There was no jealousy in your casual tone, but it was still petty. Jungkook shifted so he could face you. He was indeed frowning, both perplexed and offended.

“There are no others,” he promised, serious as you’d ever seen him. “You trust me that little?”

“I didn’t think I had to trust you. Aren’t we just hooking up?”

Jungkook rubbed his eyes as if the confusion was giving him a headache. “You thought I was sleeping with other girls and said nothing?”

By what right could you ask him to be faithful in a relationship you planned to end soon? Besides, what if in doing so, you annoyed him enough to stop wanting to be friends? If sharing him with others was the only way to have him, it hurt, but you’d do it. You looked down as you whispered, kind of embarrassed, “I guess I do like you that much…”

Jungkook raised your chin with his curled index finger, made you look at him. He despised the sadness he saw in the depths of your eyes, the one you were trying to repress. “You’re much more than sex to me. I worship you and if I could, I’d spend every waking moment next to you.”

In a small pause, you tried to rack your brain. “Is that from a song?”

“No, but it should be. I’ll write it down later.” Jungkook nodded, agreeing the rhyme had potential. Still, he wasn’t going to let you change the subject. “Y/N, I’m in love with you.”

He is?  That did take you off guard.

“You shouldn’t be, I’m a novice,” you said anyway at your most hypocritical.

Jungkook sighed, “What’s so wrong about it? Don’t you love me?”

You didn’t want to lie to him. A smile made your lips stretch before you answered, “I do,” and softly, Jungkook kissed them. Every time he pulled back from a kiss, it felt like it had been too short, no matter how long it lasted. Like you needed more because you could never be sated of him. “Does this mean… we’re dating?”

“I mean, you’re technically engaged to Jesus, and I’m not a guy who likes sharing,” Jungkook joked before giving you a peck and returning to his previous position under you. “If you don’t wanna be just lovers, you’ll have to break up with him first.”

You answered nothing. Should you listen to him, though?

Around two weeks of bliss sprang from your love confessions, where it became hard to pretend you weren’t mad for each other in public, such as when he’d whisper in your ear how provocative you looked in your habit and you giggled like a schoolgirl in love—which, technically, you were. Your parents barely made it into your thoughts, as they were filled to the brim with Jungkook.

From the moment they were over, it all went downhill. Worse, it fell into an abyss.

You had just come out of class with other novices when your hand was grabbed by someone who dragged you through the hallway to head upstairs. “Sorry to steal her, sisters, it’s urgent!”

“Jungkook, what are you doing?” you asked as he led you into your cell in a rush, closing the door for privacy. “You can’t be in here during the day–”

“I’ve found a way.” Only then did you notice how excited he was, a grin across his face. “A way to pay for your university.”

His aunt had been the one to tell him, at the beginning of the summer, that he must plan ahead as an adult now that his parents had turned their back on him, but it wasn’t until he fell for you that he actually started doing that. He was sure he wanted you to be by his side on whatever path he took, for his future to merge with yours somehow.

You, however, knew this conversation would not end well. “Enlighten me.”

“Bangtan is going on a nationwide tour next year.”

“Oh my God, that’s great!” You held his hands and grinned with him. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Y/N, this means I’ll earn a lot of money.” Then, you looked away. “With what I’ve got saved up plus that, you can afford to go to uni, even a private one, and we don’t have to live with the boys, we can have a place of our own! On the road we won’t even have to sweat about that, our company will pay for everyth–”

You freed your hands from his grasp, said with a nervous laugh, “You’re going a bit fast, Jungkook…”

His grin faded. “What do you mean? Isn’t money what you need to get out of here?”

“I’m grateful you want to take care of me but I can’t leave, you know why.”

“Are you serious right now?” Jungkook couldn’t believe it. “Y/N, your parents are gone. I know it’s hard but you have to move on, I don’t want you to wither in this place when you have a chance at happiness.”

“Just because you chose to let your parents down doesn’t mean the rest of us want to.” You regretted those words as soon as they left your mouth, the sound of Jungkook’s heart breaking reaching your ears. Or was it your own?

It took him some long seconds to process you’d said that, then answer, “I told you how they were to me, forgive me for not giving a shit about them.”

“Well, mine are a different story. I do care about them.”

“And not about us? We can’t be together anymore after I leave the convent. Have you not thought about that, or were you going to end things like they meant nothing? Because for weeks, I’ve been trying to find a way to have a future with you.”

“I never asked you to,” you sighed, welling up. You might not have, but a part of you had wanted to. Wanted to go with him too. “There’s no way we can have a future together.”

Jungkook teared up as well, and you hated yourself for it. He was being met with unjust meanness from the person he genuinely loved. You sucked so bad.

“What am I to you, then? What have I been these past months?”

“A distraction.”

It wasn’t a lie, and that’s what hurt the most. You loved Jungkook, and yet, you’d used him to set aside the pain of your parents’ loss and the guilt that was consuming you for being a sinner. You were always going to dispose of him like a toy outgrown, regardless of everything he’d done for you.

He stared for a while, but you couldn’t meet his eyes out of shame. “That’s good to know,” he muttered before storming out, leaving you in a puddle of tears you deserved to be drowned in.

You trudged your way to class after a grey morning in the library. There was still no passage from any religious book that excused your countless sins and promised the salvation of your blighted soul, but that didn’t worry you so much right now. What did, was Jungkook.

He was likely avoiding you—for which you couldn’t blame him—though you doubted meeting and apologising for the ugly things you’d said would be a remedy to the damage done. Not that you didn’t mean them, but they could’ve been said with tact. Jungkook’s wicked crime was loving you, after all.

So busy were you missing something as random as his cologne that you didn’t notice until the end of the class that everyone kept stealing glances at you, whispering to each other afterwards. Even if a tired demeanour wasn’t deserving of such a disproportionate reaction, you still blamed the barely two hours of sleep you’d got for your sisters’ scandalised looks, but another novice approached you in the hallway out of pity to let you know you’d actually made the convent’s news.

You froze in your spot when she said it was because Jungkook had spread the rumour that you’d been sleeping with him.

No, please... Tell me he hasn’t.

Leaving your sister where she stood and running off to find him with the disapproving gaze of every other person you passed burning into your skin, you prayed you were inside a nightmare harder with each stride.

Jungkook couldn’t have betrayed you. Someone must have seen or heard you and put two and two together, right?

Such theory turned into dust when you saw him sat in the cloister surrounded by girls like the day you’d met, playing a melody in the guitar for their attentive ears. Somehow, you knew he’d done it then, and on purpose. You started to feel sick as you approached them, whether because of the summer heat or the knife stabbed and twisted in your back, you didn’t know.

“We need to talk.”

Jungkook didn’t bother to look up as he said, “If we were still dating, I’d totally be shaking at that sentence, Y/N.”

Some of your sisters giggled, others bit their lip not to. You went red, begged, “Please.”

Albeit reluctantly, he stood up and followed you to an empty hallway. You didn’t know whether you were more upset, scared, surprised, or disappointed, but the smell of the cologne you were missing earlier managed to calm you down a little, as Jungkook’s company tended to do. Your stupid body seemed to not have caught up on the fact that he was the cause of your hurting.

“What do you want?” he asked curtly.

“What do I want? To know how you could tell everyone about us, Jungkook, how you could do this to me. I’ll be expelled! And I don’t have parents or a family that will take me back if I go apologise to them, I have nowhere to go. Is that what you want? For me to be with you because I have no other choice?”

“Of course not, we’re done,” Jungkook assured you that wasn’t his plan, which you believed. He hated your guts, his dark eyes told you. “But now you’re not tied to a place you don’t really want to be in.”

“Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t do this out of revenge.”

“So what if I did?”

You stared at him for a while, speechless like he had the time you’d last met. “And here I thought you’d proved me wrong.”

“In what,” Jungkook asked in a scoff, “becoming a nun now that you’ve been dicked down?”

The coldness of his tone stung your heart. In disbelief, you shook your head. “No, in that there was more to you than what first meets the eye.”

A grain of shock broke through the mask of indifference Jungkook was wearing, probably because your words weren’t visibly said against your better judgement this time, but while seeing him through the same lenses as his parents did. You looked at him just like them the night they’d kicked him out, in a way he had hoped you never would.

And how could you not? You’d thought you knew him, yet he’d gone ahead and ruined your life. Maybe you never did know the real Jungkook at all, who was now too taken aback to come up with an answer before another novice approached.

“Father Jimin wants to see you, sister,” she said, after which you took a deep breath, nodded, and followed her without so much as giving Jungkook one last glance.

In his office, sat on his desk, Father Jimin was quiet. Had been so since you’d come in and sat down.

One of his elbows rested on his chair’s arm and two fingers pressed on his closed lips as he thought of what to say. You already had an idea of what it would be, and it made you no more ready, fists clutching the skirt of your lap.

“I don’t know what to say,” he finally confessed in a sigh. It struck you how it was the first time in the few years you’d known Father Jimin that you didn’t see a smile on his face, or at least friendliness. He was the kind of person who always saw the best in people but right now, there was nothing good left in you. “I’m truly at a loss for words. I never thought you’d do something like this, or that I’d find out from other mouths.”

Tears blurred your sight at the memory of him telling you he was proud of you. “I know I have no right to ask for forgiveness, but I’m begging you, Father. It was the mistake of my life–”

“You broke your vows, Y/N. Defiled a holy place.” Oh… Jungkook had admitted to that as well? Chin trembling, you pressed your lips together not to cry. “Lied to me about it and God knows what else… This behaviour cannot be tolerated. You can stay in the abbey until you find a job and a place to live, but you are dismissed from this community, if not excommunicated.”

You sobbed, unable to hold it in anymore, “Father, please. I can’t let my parents down, their last wish was that I become a nun–”

“Isn’t it your wish? Were you lying about that too?” Your head lowered in shame and Father Jimin leaned back into his chair with a loud sigh. “You should have thought about your parents before getting involved with Jungkook. Be grateful they aren’t here to see you stray this bad.” He waited for you to say something, but shame kept you from it, as he was right. “You may leave now.”

Everything had happened so fast that a week later, you were still assimilating it.

Except when necessary, you barely left your cell. Dreaded both the judgemental looks of your sisters and the non-existent ones from Father Jimin, who ignored your presence whenever he had to suffer it in the chapel or the refectory. Not to mention running into Jungkook. To your knowledge, he’d been kicked out too, was sometimes seen moving boxes from his cell to his van. There wasn’t much for him to pack, so you guessed he was dragging the process. What for, you tried not to care.

That was the main reason why, helped by the yellow pages, you’d been job-hunting through the telephone. Not that it was better or worse than going in person, because nobody wanted to employ an ex-novice anyway. They literally hung up when you mentioned you’d been expelled from the convent—as expected, to be honest—but lying again was not an option. You’d learned your lesson the hard way.

Eventually, you did manage to land an interview for a job. Given it didn’t pay that well, it’d be a while until you could afford to move out of the abbey and even longer until you’d step in a university as a student, which was frustrating, but at least you didn’t need anyone’s permission to leave. Since you weren’t a novice anymore, nobody batted an eyelid at you heading outside the afternoon of your scheduled interview.

You were near the main door when, out of nowhere, Sister Daeun stopped you to talk.

“My nephew’s told me everything. I can’t say I approve of your relationship, but it does make me feel better that there was love involved. A lot, apparently,” your gaze averted to the ground, “which makes your decision to break up with him out of respect for your parents all the more admirable. It was wrong of Jungkook to make it public, he knows that, and he would like to apologise and give you the money he made this summer.”

“I couldn’t take it, sister,” you opposed. “It’s his. He needs it to pay rent, he’s moving in with Hoseok and Taehyung.”

Wait, was that why he hadn’t left yet? Because he wanted to wait until September so he didn’t have to pay for August?

“He’ll make much more when he’s on tour,” Sister Daeun insisted. “This is the least he can do for you. That I can do for you, too. You’ll always be my novice, Y/N, no matter what.” Without a second’s thought, you hugged her tightly. It was solacing to know there was at least one person who saw past your sins. “Jungkook’s gone to get the money but he won’t be here until late, Bangtan is opening for another one of those rock bands in a concert tonight. He’ll give it to you tomorrow.”

“I was just going into town, so if you tell me the name of the venue, I’ll stop by. He must be there doing a stage rehearsal.” You remembered the light in his eyes when he’d explained to you everything about the vocation he was so passionate about, how sweet his smile was… No. No. You shouldn’t feel anything after what he’d done. “I want to get this over and done with as soon as possible.”

That turned out to be yet another bad decision.

Once your interview was over, you rushed to the same venue you’d seen Jungkook perform Rock God and Church.

Paying no mind to the fans at the entrance who looked askance at you for jumping the line, the security guy let you in when he recognised you. Memories of the two nights you’d previously been there stormed you while getting backstage, especially how fast your heart had beat because of the racy lyrics of the songs and the way Jungkook had looked at you from the stage.

Now, it died inside your chest as you watched him make out with Amber at the end of the otherwise empty hallway.

He had her pinned against the wall, hands gripping her ass to press their bodies together and lips devouring hers as though he couldn’t get enough. Amber’s hands were wrapped around his neck, and she now grabbed a fistful of his hair to pull his head back and start kissing his neck. You saw how Jungkook smirked at the action, turned on by her dominance.

Both in their rockstar outfits, they looked like a perfect match, so you couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been dating all along. If that boyfriend of hers Jungkook had told you about was none other than himself.

Forcing yourself out of your shock, you exited the venue through the back as quickly as you could, saving the cascade of tears that was already building up in your eyes until you were alone.

It wasn’t that you were going to forgive him and expected his apology to come with an offer to date him again, but even after everything he had done to you, you still loved him. You hated yourself for it, but you couldn't help it. You were so stupid that you wished he'd find you there, sat on the cold concrete, and just held you in his arms until you stopped crying.

The next day you slept through breakfast, and would’ve stayed in your cell until lunch had Father Jimin not summoned you to his office again.

Curiously, this time around he looked… sorry?

“I’ve been made aware of some information this morning,” he said from across his desk with a nod.

“About me?” You shifted uncomfortably in your seat. Oh, God, what now?

“I can’t answer that because it has to do with a confession, but it’s made me realise I was wrong.” He leaned in, gaze moving around as he tried to think of a way not to reveal anything disclosed in the confessional box. “I should’ve been more cautious instead of welcoming just anyone into our home. Sometimes, I fail to see beyond the surface, and it results in the harm of others. A harm I pray it’s possible to heal from.”

“I don’t understand…”

“What I mean is that you don’t have to be afraid anymore. You can go back to being a novice, or take as long as you need to resolve any doubts you might have. Whatever you choose, I’ll support you.”

“But, why, Father? The things I did– You forgive me?”

“I’ve seen you regret them even if they weren’t your fault, so yes, I do.” You frowned. “I just hope you can forgive me too.”

On your way back to your cell, you walked slowly, using all your energy to figure out what Father Jimin had been talking about. When the answer popped up in your mind, you turned around and ran through the abbey. If Jungkook had done what you thought he had… Fortunately, it didn’t take long to find him, as you almost crashed together when turning to the next hallway. Had it not been because he’d grabbed your waist in time, you would’ve fallen.

When he realised it was you, he let go and stepped back. “Y/N, I wanted to talk to y–”

“Did you tell Father Jimin you raped me?”

The question took him by surprise. “He talked to you first… Wait, I thought confessional secrecy was unbreakable?”

“He didn’t tell me, I deduced it on my own.” You crossed your arms, disappointed you were right. “Why would you do that? I can’t make sense of it.”

“It was the only way to get the abbot to take you back. It’s not like he can report me to the police, and I’m leaving anyway… I told him I made you do things and that you were scared to tell anyone.” Jungkook looked everywhere but your eyes. “I’m really sorry for outing you. It was fucking childish of me and you didn’t deserve it. I was just so mad at what you said… but I know that’s no excuse.”

A part of you wanted to apologise for that and even ask him if it was too late to start over, but another reminded you of what you saw last night and stopped you, along with the one that should hold the most weight—your parents. It was a miracle you’d been given back the chance to honour their wishes, so you couldn’t ruin it again.

“I also wanted to give you this.” Jungkook handed you an old school bag. “My aunt told you what’s inside, right? She mentioned earlier you were going to come pick it up yesterday at the venue.”

“Yes, I forgot…” you lied. “I was at a job interview and got out quite late.”

“That’s okay. Did it go well?” He shouldn’t have asked, it was none of his business anymore. The interest in you had just rolled out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“It did, actually.” Both of you knew that if you went back to being a novice, you couldn’t take the job, but neither addressed it.

“Swell.” Jungkook put his hands inside his pockets, looked at you like he wanted to say much more. “I hope you have a happy life, Y/N. I really do.”

“Wait, are you saying goodbye? You’re leaving now?”

So soon?

“Yeah, poor Father Jimin thinks I’m… Well, you know. I wouldn’t want someone like me around you girls either. Plus, it’s September today, summer’s over,” he said with a forced smile. “Hoseok and Tae are waiting for me in the van. I shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

Before he could leave, you walked closer and gave him a hug. It didn’t feel right even when he wrapped his arms tight around you and buried his face in the crook of your neck, what with everything left unsaid, but you needed to feel his warmth one last time.

“Goodbye, Jungkook. And happy birthday.”

Two years later

“You’ll like Bangtan, they’re wicked hot,” Chloe said for the third time, rather trying to convince herself than you, as she knew rock wasn’t your type of music. “Especially Taehyung, he’s my favourite!”

The concert was supposed to start soon, so hugging yourself and rubbing your arms, you stood on your tiptoes to check if the long queue ahead was moving any faster. “Well, I’m glad they’re hot, ‘cause I’m freezing.”

She, Chloe, was a friend you’d made on the first day of university. Lots had changed.

“It won’t be long now, get the tickets ready,” she gave you something to do, to forget about the February cold.

As she’d promised, it took less than five minutes for the two of you to enter the biggest venue in town. Such was the fame of Bangtan now. You were only glad the security guy from the other times wasn’t there to recognise you, since Chloe was unaware of your past as a groupie. It wasn’t that you were keeping it from her… You just didn’t feel like talking about him.

“Come on,” she grinned while grabbing your hand, all excited, “let’s get close to the stage!”

The concert lasted what felt like an eternity.

Not only did you have to endure Rock God and Church again, which opened the wound of a relationship you still hadn’t healed from, but you also had to keep your head down so as to not be spotted by the band members.

It was going alright, though, until you made the mistake of glancing up, and saw him. And he saw you.

Minus the fact that he wasn’t a blond anymore, Jungkook looked the same as always. Not that that was a bad thing. Whether in his rockstar outfit or covered in goat milk, he took your breath away. He skipped a few notes due to the shock of seeing you in the crowd but as the professional he was, he managed to make his faltering almost unnoticeable and keep playing the guitar like nothing had happened. But he wouldn’t lose you out of sight.

You wanted to look away, leave, even, but found you couldn’t, like Jungkook had put a spell on you. A spell that only broke once Bangtan thanked their fans for coming and left the stage.

Chloe, who’d been cheering throughout the whole show, now went on about how amazing it had been, how hot Taehyung had looked. Not really listening, you automatically nodded to everything until you heard, “Let’s go to the toilets before a line forms, I really need to pee.”

“Sure.”

You held her purse while you waited outside, recalling how Father Jimin had warned you seeing Jungkook again would only make your wound sting—to which you’d agreed! The only reason you were there was because you’d promised Chloe. Chloe, who was taking so long.

With a sigh, your eyes neglected that random spot on the floor they’d been fixed on and flew around to end up on those of Jungkook, who was walking towards you. The few people in the line to use the toilets gasped and watched their idol, but he didn’t care, walked past them like they didn’t exist. You, weren’t sure what to feel when he was finally in front of you.

“Hi,” he said with a faint smile that you returned rather awkwardly, given the fact everyone was looking at you. “Can we talk… in private?”

Every cell of your body told you to decline, that Jungkook was a book you shouldn’t pick up again even to leaf through, but your head nodded on its own accord. Hope you don’t mind, Chloe.

It was upstairs to the now deserted first floor he led you, and the balcony of which you stood next by, where you could see the few people left heading out. They didn’t hold your attention for longer than a second, though.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Jungkook spoke almost shyly, yet his eyes didn’t leave your face until he forced them to, not to weird you out. How long had he been staring like that? But you looked so pretty...

“I’m here with a friend from uni, she’s a fan.”

He didn’t understand. “Wait, you ended up leaving the convent?”

“I did finish my novitiate but I never took the vows. They let me live there, though.”

It wasn’t a decision you made overnight, obviously, and one Father Jimin and Sister Daeun worked hard for many months to make you see it wouldn’t have upset your parents as much as you believed, much less get them to stop loving you. In fact, you were still coming to terms with it, not entirely free of guilt, but a mix of secular and spiritual life was proving to be exactly what you needed.

The university and the abbey, parties and Mass, your new friends and your family… You could have both and save your soul from damnation. Now, could you save your heart from breaking all over again? It felt like it already was, physically so close to Jungkook yet so far that an uncomfortable silence had fallen between you.

“Are you seeing anyone?”

You looked at him. Cut to the chase, alright… “I’m not. A-Are you?”

Was that a sigh of relief he let out through his parted lips, or did you just want it to be? “No.”

“I thought you’d be dating Amber.” Jungkook frowned slightly, so you went on and confessed, “I saw you together the night before you left. I came to pick up the money and… Well, none of that matters now.”

Horror painted Jungkook’s face. That was how you’d remembered him? Getting off with Amber?

“She’d just broken up with her boyfriend,” he wasted no time in saying. “Neither of us was thinking clearly. It was a one-time thing, an adrenaline rush after a concert.”

You hugged yourself, lips pressing together at the details you didn’t want to hear. “You don’t need to explain, we weren’t dating anymore…”

“Fuck, I’m sorry that you’ve thought all this time that I was with her,” Jungkook apologised anyway, gaze falling to the floor in shame. “Actually, I know that it doesn’t count for anything, but I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

“Yeah, I wish it did. Count… Or better yet, I wish I’d gone with you,” you laughed, at the fact that you meant it.

“What?” Jungkook took a step closer, as though he’d misheard and wanted to make sure he got it this time. Suddenly, you realised what an idiot you were being.

“Nothing, forget it.” You turned around to leave before the lump in your throat summoned any tears, but Jungkook took your hand to stop you. He couldn’t let you go, even if he’d been the one to leave last time.

“I’m glad you didn’t come with me, Y/N, and that you got to do what you wanted. But I do wish I hadn’t ruined everything and hurt you. If I could go back, I'd punch me in the face.”

It didn’t mean you’d forgotten, but the truth was that you’d forgiven what he did a while ago. After all, “I was also a dick to you.”

“If you’re a dick, then I like dick.”

Actually, you hated him.

You hated even more that that made you laugh but it was because of Jungkook’s clownery that you first fell for him. And you’d never stopped loving him. He smiled fondly, caressing your hand. On his wrist, where there used to be a small uninked spot, now was your name’s initial. Neither had he, it seemed.

“Does this mean you want us to…?”

His eyes opened wide, feigning scandal. “What, here? I’d sooner do it in a chapel.” You rolled your eyes, but couldn’t keep from smiling. “How about we start with a date? Say... Friday at 5pm? I know a good roller-skating rink.”

⇢ drabble: faith

#bts au #btswritingcafe #jeon jungkook #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook imagine #bts #bts scenarios #bts fanfiction #bts smut #bts x reader #bts jungkook #rockstar jungkook #bangtan imagine #jeon jungkook scenarios

[justslowdown]

My dad's side of the family is from Slovakia, and a very mystical, sensory sort of Catholicism is part of my heritage. That's always felt strange

I was raised by pagan and Daoist influenced agnostics--my first drawing of god was a tree. Then, I was an asshole Dawkins-Influenced Rational Atheist from middle school til early college, bullied both by other students and by teachers in a heavily Christian area.

I hated Christianity and by extension Catholicism, even though I'd never bothered to learn about where it's rooted in my grandparents' experiences. Now I have strong feelings about Christianity for other reasons--a weapon of colonization isn't neutral. I feel that even as I honor and understand how integral it is to many peoples' senses of safety, comfort, and hope, and how it is a lens through which many people experience true divinity.

Now that my grandma is gone, I have so many regrets. She was the spiritual heart of the family even as she was also a rigorously scientifically minded woman. She was a lab tech before she got married, and everyone who knew her agrees she'd have been happier as a scientist than as a mother

She was a force of nature, powerful and strong willed. I don't know how she felt about herself but I see her as a witch from a heritage of equally spiritual, powerful, intense, in-charge women. She fought for immigrant rights, and worked in hospice and in prisons as a spiritual counselor. She didn't feel motherly or comforting--she simply felt like a strong woman with absolute core respect for every human being's dignity.

When I was growing up I couldn't reconcile all of who she was with her burning devout Catholicism. It seemed fantastical and morbid to me. The imagery and the heavy heavy layers of ritual. Now that I'm older and have talked to a lot of my family about her, i know she FELT Mary and Jesus, she didn't simply follow what she was told.

What I'd give to talk to her again. To hear what the rituals and prayer felt like to her. How she melded her curious and evidence-based nature and love of science with her practices. My feelings on Catholicism are still complicated, but after she passed, I have such deep regret for never talking to her about her experiences. They must have been so unique and personal.

I remember her writing a letter for her church bulletin and making my grandpa sign his name to it, because of his inherent social power as a man--about supporting gay marriage. This was 2008. I remember as a hospice worker, how she asserted a right to perform last rites as a woman. How she chose to go on birth control. That she loved my feral genderless self who couldn't stand her church, without ever saying a single word to try and convince me of her faith. So many small stories and moments.

I was so small minded and immature, growing up. Catholicism was just a funny outdated delusion to me.

My dad, a spiritual agnostic, told me that the heavy ceremony and ritual of her Catholic funeral, the smoke, carrying her casket, were deeply meaningful to him. They helped his mourning process along in a way the nondenominational scattering of ashes after couldn't.

I really feel like in this push for "progress" and "rationality" most Americans have lost ritual and trancelike, embodied spirituality.

Lost our experience of metaphor as reality on some level, and our sheer awe for the divine. It hurts my heart that Christianity is the lens through which so many of us translate all of this, but I've matured past a childish hatred for the people who feel it and don't/can't put in the work to pull it apart from the literal framework built into their brains

And I just wish I'd found that sooner.

[born-4-this]

🎨 - @/CROWNEDINMARIGOLDS

🙏This is an in character Vampire: The Masquerade/World of Darkness Blog🙏 📿My Personal Blog - Call me Chiss👋 Any pronouns work 📿 🙏 While I try to avoid it, I may well get details wrong; I wasn't raised Catholic nor am I one irl.🙏

���Character Info 👇 [+ rules @ the bottom]

[Image Source: The Red Sign, p. 94] [Revised Era Sourcebook] [Artist: Vince Locke, his website]

You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. [Leviticus 17:14]

BRIEF INTRODUCTION Billie Caruso. Soon-to-be Nun, shunned.

Raised by members of the Clergy who had every intention having her follow the through-line straight into ranks of the Society of St. Leopold's oft mistrusted sister order The Order of Saint Joan, Ms. Caruso was denied even so much as a chance to pass her Novitiate and become a full-fledged Sister let alone learn the many and varied truths about what truly goes bump in the night the "proper" way. Embraced at just 19 years of age, wholly dedicated and devout - unpopular with the more-set-in-their ways sisters as her opinions might have been, Billie isn't sure where she went wrong to be shunned so absolutely; besotted with Cain's mark and left to fend for herself... The Good Lord has plans for all of His creatures; perhaps this isn't just a penance to be paid... After all, He has bestowed her with: - 'Visions', like her beloved Joan. A daunting task to heave upon her shoulders, but one nonetheless undertaken dutifully. - The oft sought-after gift of being able to bask in the sun's warmth while being Cain's mark. [which, in turn, allows her to observe the Canonical Hours for prayer as she would have during her Novitiate.] Suffice to say, she's still trying to figure it all out and stay 'alive' at the same time. To that end, she interviews willing Full-Blooded cainites when and where she can in an effort to gather her bearings.

[Eugène-Romain Thirion || Joan of Arc listening to her voices]

MERITS

Faith Proof [V5] [Thin-Blood] Whether you consider yourself an atheist or devoutly religious, you remain too close to mortality for True Faith to affect you.

Day Drinker [V5] [Thin-Blood] She's walking on sunshine.

Ingenue [V5] (•) You look completely innocent and blameless, making others believe in your good intentions much easier.

Linguistics [V5] [Latin] (•) Fluent.

Tempered Will [V5] (•••) Your stubborn spirit didn’t die during your Embrace, and you find yourself knowing when people are trying to force you to do something against your will. [Aware of Dominate/Presence attempts]

FLAWS

Night Terrors [V5] [Thin-Blood] She has nightmares she's incapable of remembering until the most inopportune of times... She assumes these to be visions from God and the Heavenly host.

Vitae Dependency [V5] [Thin-Blood] Her, nominally non-existent, disciplines require feeding from a full-blooded vampire once a week to use.

Knowledge Hungry [V5] (Noddism) You always feared that you wouldn’t have the time to learn everything you wanted about what’s truly important. Well, that’s one problem solved. The time to learn is not always now, though — you regretfully put a bookmark in your studies and attend to more life-threatening matters.

No Haven [V5] She has, and you'll never believe this, no haven to call her own.

LORESHEETS

Novice (••) [LS: THE SOCIETY OF ST. LEOPOLD] [Chicago By Night, p. 285]

Your interest in entering into a profession of faith went deeper than most: you were on the verge of entering into your novitiate when that life was permanently torn away from you. Whether you resent this or have accepted it, you retain a considerable amount of interest in and potential contact with members of the local church. These Contacts (equivalent of ••) would naturally include your confessor, the members of the order you were seeking to enter who oversaw your training, fellow novices, or members of the local congregational volunteer groups.

[Bartolome Esteban Murillo || Our Lady of Sorrows]

RULES N' SUCH:

Minors, away with you. 🫵(blocked where spotted) [have a good day, though!👋]

Note: I'm 21.

if anything ever crosses a line or comes across as particularly pointed, please do not hesitate to lmk!!

If you ever have any questions ever/would like a source on a piece of lore I refer to/in general - I'm always happy to help!

Still new-ish to Tumblr RP, please have mercy on me; Caine bless.

RESOURCES

State of Grace [Link to Buy] [Revised Era Sourcebook] [How the children of Caine interact with and adapt to practicing their religions]

Both Hunters Hunted II [V20 Sourcebook] and The Inquisition [Revised Sourcebook] have very, very brief snippets of lore about the Order of St. Joan. Truth be told, you would be better going off to the White Wolf Wiki for information on them as it's 1.) Free 2.) All there.

"Poor little creatures!" she said. "What can a person's heart be made of that can pity a Christian's child and yet can't pity a devil's child, that a thousand times more needs it!" [Mark Twain's Translation of: Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc]

#OOC

[lesbianchristian]

Why do you believe in god/ christianity?

I'm gonna level with you, it's midnight, so I make no promises on how articulate I can be. The last two paragraphs are really the answers to your question, but I feel this needed some explanation since I haven't made much effort trying to explain what's been going on the past six years.

I've gone through a lot of changes since starting this blog. When I started I was a very devout Christian that was very steadfast in her beliefs who was very sure she was a lesbian. I made this blog to cope with being a queer Christian with a very traditional Christian upbringing. I believed in most of the traditional doctrine: no sex before marriage, hell was real, the Bible is true.

Then I went through a lot of shit. Dropping out of grad school, burnout, health crises, deaths in the family. All of this happened in about the span of two years, where my life burned to the ground. I then spent the next four years rebuilding. I still deal with some sort of health thing every year.

I also started getting exposed to deconstruction and learning a lot more about the history of Christianity, like how we got from 1st century CE to now, universalist theory (is there a hell), that sort of thing.

Some people might say this strengthened their faith. I'm sure my sister would have. But in all of it, I felt very ignored by god. I stopped attending church. I became very angry at god. I never stopped believing that there was a god, but I would describe it to friends as god and I aren't on speaking terms at the moment.

One might say that not attending church and having that sort of relationship with god would probably get your christian membership revoked, but A. I was very private dealing with it and B. after 24 years it's very hard to extricate my existence from Christianity. My entire family is Christian (yes, everyone). I spent literal years of my life (once you count all the hours) spent in church. I am a tangled ball of yarn and

It's a very long story (four years worth), but to make it short I now attend church specifically for the community (I deal with a lot of social anxiety and self isolation, to the point that my atheist friend thinks it's a good idea for me to go). You can do good in a church if their goals align with yours and I go to a liberal one that believes in social justice and caring for the community. In regards to belief, a lot of it I haven't parsed yet and don't know if I will. I don't believe in hell anymore and am basically a universalist Christian. I think there are tenets that are worth following: act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome strangers. Love your neighbor. So I call myself a Christian. Partially to avoid making waves in my family (it's complicated, I love them but I also like avoiding making time around them more stressful than it has to be), partially because I don't know if I'll ever be able to see myself as not a Christian. It's like a birthmark.

This may or may not have answered your question about the Christianity bit, though maybe less so on the God part. As for that, I'm sure in many ways it's influenced by the fact that I grew up believing in a god. I'm rational, I can concede that. And I could talk about the years I spent studying chemistry and biology and how it's hard to imagine that everything that exists as we now know it didn't have some sort of cosmic hand to guide things into place. But really, if you held a gun to my head and asked me to really search deep into why I believe in god, it would be because trying to conceptualize that there is no god is like peering off the edge of the Grand Canyon and trying to walk off the ledge. It leaves me untethered, falling. I can't imagine a world in my head where god does not exist for me. But that's for me. Other people can't conceptualize a world where god exists and that's for them. Perhaps some might look down on my reason as not a very good reason and perhaps it's not. But it is why, even through all my anger and screaming, I have never been able to stop believing that there is a god who hears it. Whether he's doing anything about it is another discussion entirely.

#oh also I am no longer a lesbian #I'm just queer #some may ask why no name change then and that's because I've been on hiatus figuring out my religion #if someone wants the blog name feel free to message me #or if anyone has a name suggestion i'm all ears #also this entire thing feels like hurling a block of sodium into water and now I'm waiting for impact

[briefcasejuice]

It's not that I necessarily want Matt to be Catholic. (I am not religious.) It's just that he is, and ignoring character traits for personal preference (to the point of complete disownment) has always been weird to me. Understandable (we want a character to be who we want them to be), just odd. I mean, there are traits I hate on certain characters and I'll ignore them, but I know they're still there in canon. That's why I said it's cool if you like atheist Matt, but that doesn't mean Matt is atheist.

I actually don't have a bias towards live-action.* I love the comics very dearly. But it's been nearly 60 years of comics, so that's quite a lot to look through for specific examples to support what I said. That's my fault though. I was being lazy.

You seem to have contradictory stances on Matt's comic religion across different posts, so it's hard for me to keep a consistent reply. Sometimes, you mention a compulsory faith for the time period. But then in post 746073669336498176, you say, "matt was never catholic before that." I can't get a read on your exact position.

But anyway…

Yes, Smith's run in 1998 can be considered an outlier. Some of its Catholic elements are as heavy-handed as the current run. And some actions (like trying to murder a baby for being the anti-Christ) are too distorted by Mysterio's gas to get the most accurate read on Matt's belief system throughout. But that arc still begins and ends with a not-gassed Matt in confession with a priest. Wearing a crucifix necklace while he is. Iterating his childhood spent studying in church. And the final words of #8 being, "To do my father's work," referencing God. The story is an outlier for its severe piety, sure, but… the whole thing is still canon. Still Matt being Catholic, for better or worse.

More religion and confession in #267... More in #348... But I hesitate to get nitpicky on every. single. instance. of Matt showing any signs. I'd have to comb through the whole catalogue.

Also with Nocenti, any time Mephisto comes up, you run the risk of one reference or another. #266 is one. #280-#281 is another-- in which Matt believes he's in a frozen Hell. Comes upon a church confessional he thinks will provide relief. He "prayed" (his word) he could make fire out of a cross, and does. It ends up being part of what saves him. Meanwhile, narration compares his journey to something like The Divine Comedy, with him traveling Heaven and Hell. (The symbolism alone is good. The accompanying religious belief is not absent.)

This is long enough, and I don't want to keep poring over the source material. I can if you want?

It's not that Matt isn't religious. It's just that religion doesn't come up often. (Good, this is about a superhero.) But when it does, all signs point to him being a believer. If you want to say, "Comic Matt isn't Catholic… as soon as I exclude this instance, this one, and this one," that's fine for your personal headcanons. But you are… ignoring the fact that Matt is Catholic. You're trimming off parts of canon so he fits in the box.

He's not devout. That is true. Matt's religion comes up so infrequently (excluding recent writing), it clearly isn't a large aspect of his personhood. But it still comes up. So… with his foundational youth in the church, occasional references he still believes in God/religious symbols, and no evidence he ever actually turned away from those beliefs, I still consider "lapsed Catholic" to be the best label for Matt. It's not like I'm trying to convert him for my own ends (I have no bias one way or the other), but I am plugging comic canon into Occam's Razor to arrive at the conclusion Matt Murdock is Catholic. The greater burden of proof is on the position he's atheist, and I can't think of any.

Maybe Matt being Catholic is boring for you personally, and that's fine.

*(My mention of the 2003 movie wasn't anything other than a reference to the reply where you said there was no evidence of him being Catholic prior to the tv series. But the movie is one really obvious one. I wanted to point out a too quick conclusion that the 2015 adaptation didn't come up with the concept first. Again, I was lazy and that's my fault.)

"He's not devout. That is true. Matt's religion comes up so infrequently (excluding recent writing), it clearly isn't a large aspect of his personhood." yeah okay. all that just to prove my point man

#great analysis though #answered

[libras-interactives]

Hi ! Just thought about something! What are the religious beliefs of the UtDM's characters ? (Your ocs specifically) You mentioned Flynn was atheist, I believe ? I just find those kind of information really interesting when you consider the time period !

Have a nice day !

Ooooh interesting question! Cut because this is long.

Marius and Eveline were raised Catholic. She still attends Mass and believes to ... some extent, though it's painful when she'd had so much tragedy and she feels God has allowed it to happen. It's more comforting rituals to her, and a familiar place to have peace and quiet in. Marius would say he believes in God, but does little in the way of prayer or action.

Jack was raised in a very puritannical, isolated and fundamentalist Christian sect. He's still very afraid of God and damnation and Satan, and wants to not believe to relieve himself of that fear, but ...

Flynn was raised very strict Catholic, and he was always defiant and iffy on the whole thing - WW1 sent him firmly into "God is dead and/or never existed, and if He's alive, he doesn't care about us" territory. Generally he believes organized religion is an excellent scam.

Lottie's family was Catholic, though didn't attend church often and as far as she remembers, weren't terribly devout. When they died, she became bitter and resented God. As an adult, she's mostly recovered from that, but still jokingly calls herself a bad Catholic and doesn't really identify as one.

Máire was raised Catholic ... ish? Her grandmother and mother were... eccentric about it, to say the least. Their true beliefs were much closer to the late 1800s spiritualist movement, with a weird mix of Saint reverence and old Irish folk medicine and teachings. Máire dislikes explaining herself to others, and Catholicism is deeply tied to her culture, so she allows others to assume and refer to her as Catholic.

Malwina was raised Catholic and still believes in God. She tries to attend Mass, but lately it's brought more guilt and shame than it's worth. She prays on her rosary when she feels disheartened, but moreso because it reminds her of her mama and sisters.

Polly/Paulie grew up Methodist, and isn't particuarly religious or interested, but the church still holds fond memories. He's especially sentimental during Christmastime, and will attend those services. She only prays if she's truly in distress.

Slyvester was raised Lutheran, though his parents were fairly open-minded for the time. His wife is Catholic, and he married into/converted to the Catholic Church for her sake. They don't attend Mass except for holidays, and only pray with family or before meals.

Krooks grew up Jewish, and tries not to think about what his family and God would think about his current situation. He still observes dietary restrictions and holidays out of tradition and missing his family. Ezra was raised in a fiercely Southern Baptist home, which put him off religion for a long time. A few times he's gone to Krooks' synagogue and found it comforting. Roxie is quite blunt about her disbelief in God, and claims she never stepped foot in a church, nor will she ever. She grew up in rural Utah, had four mothers and narrowly avoided a marriage with a much older man. She does NOT like talking about religion.

#why do i have so many catholics lolol #libra says #if:devil's moon

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Resurrect Bracket (Losers Bracket) Side A

ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to [make it to the finals]

Propaganda below ⬇️

Temenos

so his whole thing is he's an inquisitor who is just fundamentally bad at being a priest on account of he does things like forgetting scripture and not being able to help but doubt the institution which gets everyone hes ever cared about killed. he's gay. he says shit like "careful, i bite". he's in yuri with a holy knight. he's one of my favorite characters and i want to beat him over the head with a cast iron skillet

fucked up gay little cleric who was supposed to grapple with the fact that the institution he serves is corrupt except he has been in doubt from the very beginning and very clearly doesnt put much stock in the scripture hes made it his lifes work to preach. hes kinda a freak with it. every line he speaks is said with the cadence of a gay guy checking under his nails while ignoring you as he talks. i have to hit him with mallets and shatter him into pieces.

This man is the world's worst clergyman. He's a high ranking member of the holy inquisition, but nobody respects him and he mostly just uses his position to investigate random murders for fun. He regularly forgets how the bible goes and little kids have to correct him on how the plot goes of the jrpg equivalent of jesus's resurrection. He has a holy knight for a boyfriend. He tortures people for information any other character can just ask for. His best friend out of the rest of the main 8 is an assassin and gang member. He tries to get people to commit crimes with him. His story is about uprooting the corruption in his church and killing high ranking church members and also Literal Fucking Jrpg satan. He regularly blasphemes and everyone around him looks in horror as he shouts at god and encourages people to become atheists. His catchphrase is "doubt is what I do." He is still somehow the most devout character in the entire game despite being a total fuck up of a cleric who does not deserve to be here whatsoever. Pls let him win it'd be SO FUNNY

Hes genuinely just the funniest guy. Very little about his story has to do with the faith but like. He routinely roasts the entire pantheon of in-universe gods. He beats people up (metaphorically of course) as one of his main game mechanics. He got stamped as the resident gayboy SO fast. His starliner definitely has higher intelligence than wisdom even though clerics use wisdom. Every chapter he appears in he solves a mystery by zoning out so hard his god blesses him with extremely vivid hallucinations. He's so deeply fucking traumatized. One of his battle skills is fully just beating his enemies up with his staff. He ends up defunding the police. He can very casually become a thermonuclear bomb but in a very holy way. His best friend is a 23-year-old assassin that exclusively calls him "Detective". Is he Catholic (ish)? Yeah, but he certainly doesn't always act like it.

He constantly commits heresy and doubts the gods but is still the not-Pope's right hand man

Listen, imagine you'd go to church and your priest gets roasted by kids for forgetting how the bible goes. That's him, canonically even. He's like if a redditor who wants to be a detective was cosplaying as a holy man. He's someone whose whole thing is doubting the gods and the church, to the point where he makes another person question his faith too, even though he is technically The holy man. He's absolutely unhinged and gay. He's 30 years old and absolutely does not look like it. He's traumatized, and cannot be sincere and honest about his feelings even once. He should go to therapy actually. Like desperately. For his sake and everyone around him.

he is from the faith but he doubts everything around him to find the truth through it........ also i'd like to see him torment the crotchety priest i had to do a face-to-face confession with in high school. it'd be funny.

FATHER BROWN BUT MAKE HIM GAY AND PLAGUED BY TRUST ISSUES. This man will forget his own sermons, beat people up for infos and, at the same time, gets to be the fantasy equivalent of a youth pastor. He somehow manages to be the most unhinged person in a party that includes a vengeful math professor who can and WILL mug people. He might not be the most devout Catholic of them all, but he is definitely the *funniest* one. Give it up for the world's shittiest priest!

i’m gonna be honest temenos is a TERRIBLE catholic but he’s funny and i love him. he also has a weird gay thing going on with a paladin it’s great.

Link

Well, maybe not specifically catholic. But behold, OFFICIAL ART: https://cdn.wikimg.net/en/zeldawiki/images/a/ab/LinkPraying.png

in the original legend of zelda game there’s a bible (localized to the book of magic due to nintendo of america’s guidelines), a cross in the adventure of link, and in a link to the past, there’s art of him kneeling in front of a crucifix. hyrule has its own religions but there are undeniable christian roots.

#link #loz #legend of zelda #cct polls #tumblr tournament #tumblr bracket #tumblr polls #tenemos mistral #octopath traveler 2 #octopath temenos

[borisyvain]

I'm coming for Eoin on O'Donnell Bloody Monday :D

🥀🍓💋

🥀 (wilted flower) - How does your character deal with stressful situations? Is their fear response fight, flight, freeze or fawn?

Fawn all the way. As his friend Mary notes very early into TNG, he would take a fatal bullet for nearly any random neighbour of his not because he actually likes them very much but because his #1 worst fear is that the people he lives among, who already dislike and distrust him to a certain degree and who he really fundamentally does not understand, will decide to throw him out of their good graces and leave him as lonely and confused as he was when he was a child, before he learned this behaviour of basing every single one of his actions on "how much will this help me appear normal and make them like me." [Slaps him] this lad can fit so many maladaptive coping mechanisms and so much trauma in him

🍓 (strawberry) - Does your oc believe in anything? Are they superstitious? Religious? Atheistic? Has anything in their past made them this way?

He's a devout catholic and like... mildly superstitious? Not terribly so by the standards of the 18thc Irish peasantry but WE would certainly find him superstitious. Religion is a political thing with him in that it's both the primary reason he and his community are so oppressed & wretched and the standard they rally around, so even if he didn't technically think catholicism was true (which, he does. kinda. but he doesn't. but he does but he doesn't but he also does <3 you get it) he would definitely still consider himself catholic because well. it's the north of Ireland in the georgian period. if you were born to catholic parents you are catholic. With O'Donnell specifically though his religion is both a very personal thing which he takes comfort in AND a very good stick with which to beat himself whenever he decides he wants to self-flagellate. As noted above he has never heard of having a healthy relationship with something

💋 (kiss) - Is your oc a good kisser? Have they kissed anyone before? Do they even enjoy kissing? What was their first kiss like in comparison to their most recent?

He kisses loads of people as constantly sleeping around to feel included and get some measure of desperately needed intimacy (because they can't exclude him and find him weird if he's in their bed!) is his main hobby after repeatedly sorting his collection of animal bones. Whether or not he's GOOD at it is up for debate but he's certainly good at making people THINK he's good at it. He definitely enjoys it though + he had his first kiss with the daughter of a farmer he was working for after he ran away from home to make his living as a spalpeen as a teenager; this was also when he first figured out that he can gain some measure of apparent acceptance from someone by seducing them so he remembers it quite clearly

Ask game

#c: eoin o'donnell #wip: tng #ask game #mutuals #jory.postbox

[quordleona03]

20, 23, 31 :3

20: Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

Religion. I have been a convinced atheist since I was a teenager . (Intensive reading of the Bible and other myths will do that to you.) But I am fascinated by religion - by the stories people live by and the faiths they hold to against all reason. I invented an entire Cardassian religion for the sake of having a devout Cardassian discuss her faith with Jean-Luc Picard, who was (at least in my headcanon) brought up Catholic.

For quite a while I was also consistently interested in slavery - find me a universe, I'd write a slave-story fic in it. Sometimes I combined this with writing about religion. (MirrorMASH - especially A Hawk Through the Mirror - and A Good Job, are both technically examples of this.)

I love dialogue. My favourite thing about stories is usually when you get two or more people together and they're talking and it's so intense the reader doesn't know whether to laugh, cry, or scream.

23: Best writing advice for other writers?

Avoid glaucoma. No, seriously, the usual: you have to actually sit down and write that shitty first draft in order to get the story done. You don't need to show the rotten first draft to anyone til you make it better, but the only way to make it better is to write that crappy first version. A lot of writing advice is situational and personal. What works for me is to write something, anything, at least 750 words a day, just to keep my writing muscles energised. It helps to read a lot, to plan my stories out, to spend a lot of time thinking about my characters in situations that don't appear in the story, just so I know how they move and act and think and speak. But the one thing that is universal, I believe, is just that: write that bogging-awful unpublishable shamefully bad first draft - then polish. But you can't polish what isn't there.

31: Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

Oh, characters. Definitely. Except when I start with the plot. No, usually it's the characters. But I get really interested in the characters when I think of plot for them. So really, it's both.

I launched into MirrorMASH and The Games, both of them, without having any clear idea of where the plot was going - I just knew I wanted to put those characters in this situation and see what happened. On the other hand, I started writing "All We Know" with a very clear idea of the plot - but I would never have begun writing it if I hadn't so badly wanted to go back and find Hawkeye and Mulcahy and make sure they were still happy ten years after "Goodbye, Farewell, Amen".

3: Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

Those are two different things.

If I am writing a multi-chaptered story, I have the story planned out. I know what's going to happen in each chapter. I may not know in exact detail (though I may have a lot of exact detail written down) but I know the plot steps. I think of this as crossing a wide, deep, fast river by stepping stones. Out in the middle of the river, you're surrounded by chaos and muddle and danger, but you have each stone solid underfoot and the way across is clear. So I embark on the chapter knowing whose POV is telling the story, and knowing what has to happen in the chapter (though obviously surprises happen). I started Margaret's chapter for April in "All We Know" three times over until I got to a good starting point (Barbara, Sam's daughter, turned out to be the way in). While sometimes it can be difficult, the steps behind me are solid and the framework ahead of me is worked out and I just have to complete this step, and so I start writing. And sometimes people give me an idea for a story and I run with it. I wrote a lot of the MASH drabbles like that. And "Comrades " was written because Ajay wanted to see Hawkeye and Mulcahy trapped behind enemy lines. Generally speaking, a story from an idea someone else explicity gave me is going to be shorter and tamer. (But not always.) But a story that has no chapters, which I have just embarked on with characters in a situation and a sketchy plot - I am writing off into a white page of hope, buiding the story one sentence at a time. Sometimes doing this leads to writing a multi-chapter story when I realise this has got out of hand. Sometimes it just ends up being one very long story that I keep coming back to and coming back to until the story curls round and tells me "it's done". I got the idea for "Tuttle" like that: and the idea for "Crabapple Cove", and the idea for "For Ever" and - longer ago - "Friend and Stranger", and the whole MirrorTrek sequence. Sometimes I begin a story thinking, this is just a flashy idea, it's a one-shot, how many words can this take me to do - and then I look up and realise, my God, where am I. In the middle of the river, with no stepping stones, just a lot of chaotic water and the surety that if I can keep writing, carefully, thinking things through as I go, there will be an ending. I hope. That's the creative process. Story in search of an ending, for the love of words.

#ask game #ask quordle #why i write #how i write #my stories #writing #creative process #stepping stones #my fic #religion in fiction #slavery in fiction

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

june 17, 2021 12:00 p.m. st. francis catholic cemetery

dear grant,

by the time you read this, i don’t know where you’ll be in life, but i can’t imagine this becoming irrelevant. at least for me, while i'm writing this, it’s one day after i overheard you and your best friend henry talking in your room. you said, “i don’t believe in god but i think i'm missing something because you and everyone else i know seem to think he’s real.” and i know you were talking about me before that.

it’s not the first time i've heard you really confused about, well, what’s out there. you asked me a while ago why i was so comfortable not trying to treat my cancer and just letting myself go naturally. i told you that’s something you have to do sometimes in difficult situations, but that’s not really the full story. i'm okay with it because i believe in something better. it’s not about whether i'm right or not, or whether god and a heaven are really out there. it’s just about believing in something and feeling comfortable in it.

but you know, i think being able to say i believe in god and a heaven and that jesus christ died for me is a sign of privilege. lately, being sick is the first thing in my life (my life, we're not talking about everything else bad in the world) that has ever made me question anything about my beliefs. i've always been able to get away with saying there’s a god-made reason for everything and that everything will turn out okay. it’s not so easy to rationalize anymore when you’re facing something really bad.

i don’t think you have the same privilege i do. you've had a much harder life than me. i can’t understand why, but mom is terrible to you. why would you believe in a benevolent god who loves you and wants the best for you when you’ve spent your whole life suffering? it doesn’t make any sense, does it? it doesn’t make sense to me either. i'm sorry if my beliefs ever made you feel worse. as much as i believe, i can poke a lot of holes in my beliefs. it’s been a while since i've been able to really say that god has a plan. i think he’s out there and i think he loves us, but i don’t think he controls us. if he does, then i have a serious problem with what he’s done to you. there’s a theory about that concept of god not being in control, but i can’t remember what i read. i'm sure you could talk to father lonergan about it, though. he’s kind of secretly sacrilegious in his beliefs, more than you’d think.

anyway, don’t feel bad for not being able to believe in what a lot of us believe in. i promise you you’re not the only one, and you won’t hurt anyone for not believing. uncle paddy is an atheist and no one gives a fuck. i know you take after the way he talks, so maybe that’ll make you feel better :) our grandma also knows a suspicious amount about old irish paganism and folk beliefs and she’s always been very open-minded towards other religions, so don’t confuse yourself thinking she’s all that devout and worried about your eternal salvation. i don’t know what she actually believes, but i don’t think it’s what she says out in the open. you should ask her about it when you’re ready.

most of all, i'm not hurt by you having different beliefs. the only thing that hurts me is that you’re confused. i don’t want you to feel that way. no matter what, i can accept anything that happens to me because i think there’s something better after this, but you don’t have something to cling to, to make you feel comfortable. i don’t get the impression you really like the fully scientific belief either. not to put words in your head (feel free to mark up this letter and tell me how wrong i am) but i think you’re scared that there’s nothing out there at all, that all there is in life is without purpose and meaning. if the universe did create itself (which it did, i'm not an idiot), then you still have to grapple with how the event that made such a beautiful universe also created evil.

neither explanation satisfies you, does it?

again, there’s a reason we believe in all these things. it’s seriously not about correctness. all belief systems are equally "right." it’s just about that believing does something for us. you don’t even have to believe in the same thing forever. i just hope you find something that brings you comfort. i don’t want you to suffer. and i don’t want you to feel like i'm not with you anymore.

that’s the other thing about believing in heaven for me. the thing that makes me most scared of dying is leaving everyone behind. and i'm actually scared of that. i won't tell you that now because it doesn't make me feel any better to see you scared. i don’t want to say goodbye to you, to kelly, our grandparents, to our cousins, to my friends...but i have to. i have to, but i hope and believe i'll see you all again someday. i don’t just want to have something nice beyond this. i want the reunion of family and friends. i actually want that most of all. if i could only have any one benefit of the afterlife, i'd take the reunion. i don't know how that would works or if it's real, but i pray it is, and i pray that you will all be there regardless of your beliefs.

i love you very much <3 see you in the future. just don’t make it anytime soon, okay?

- your favorite sister, elizabeth

#ts4 #the sims 4 #sims 4 #ts4 screenshots #sims 4 story #simblr #hlcn: everything the stars promised #hint hint we are throwing it back to the opening paragraph of this story WHEEE #holocene.docx #holocene.png #hlcn: grant

[felikatze]

binding blade thoughts (again), abt religion this time. so the elimine church is one of only TWO major religions in the ENTIRE FRANCHISE to not worship dragons, alongside whatever ashera's religion is called in the tellius games

and the elimine church is specifically EXTREMELY christian. elimine is basically jesus. she is considered to be the incarnation of god on earth and stated to have ascended to heave after her passing, which also tells us the elimine church has a concept of heaven as an afterlife

additionally from various supports we see that priests hold regular mass, and that proselytizing is also a part of the religion (though, fortunately, the bishop yoder frowns upon forced conversion, and will just leave anyone of other religions alone, cuz they already have something to worship)

yoder's supports also confirm that the elemental affinities are not just something for players, but rather the characters know about them in universe, and there ARE diverging theological beliefs in how they came to be. the elimine church state that the affinities were a gift from god (specifically, a nameless all powerful creator god, which drew me to the obvious christianity comparison to begin with), and the sacaen spiritual belief states that the affinities come from the earth itself and act akin to protective spirits

people also have some means to discern which affinity they fall under, as dayan directly states he is protected by the anima affinity

i dont think other games have this direct integration of game mechanics into theology? which is wild. it's so fascinating for support bonuses to have lore.

as a result of that, the elimine church also seems to have a strong "love thy neighbour" ethic, especially since belief in elimine is associated with the healing arts. staves are considered holy tools of elimine. all characters who start with staves are either direct members of the church, or troubadours. both troubadours (clarine and priscilla) come from etruria, where belief in elimine is a state religion

that casts a fun light on druids usint staves... call it a hunch, but i don't think niime is a very devout person.

ALSO! DRAGONS! so, yoder, our leading bishop, remember, seems to not mind dragons very much. he says that the return of dragons must be "prevented" and if it cannot, then dragons should "return to their own world", which is all very gentle phrasing.

however, our only non-mario kart depiction of elimine, in heroes, is WAY MORE VIOLENT?

"Never forget that dragons are but destruction given form."

Whereas Yoder seems wary of dragons out of a fear it may restart the Scouring, Elimine straight up advocates for killing em. It seems that her endless compassion does not extend to them.. huh...

It honestly seems like that aspect of her character just got watered down over the thousand years between the Scouring and Binding Blade. With dragons all but gone for the world, people stopped worrying about them, and they became objects of legend. Notably, the perception of dragons as demons does still exist - in Niime's support chain with Fae, she retells the Scouring just so, substituting demon for dragon, but soon drops that belief once she sees Fae is just a wee little baby, and just as much a person as anyone else.

Honestly, the belief in a god who created the earth, alongside the terminology of Divine Dragons - I want to know the relationship between those so bad. Unfortunately, Sophia and Fae have no supports with any priests. The only one who does is Igrene, with Saul.

And in that one, she says that she doesn't believe in god anymore, but that before she became an atheist, she specifically believed in a different god. Alongside statements that Sophia is a priestess of Nabata, this clearly indicates that Nabata, and perhaps dragonkind, have a different main religion, with a different god. There is like, zero lore, on what they would have worshipped, but i do wonder if that is where Divine Dragons come into play.

From the Igrene/Saul support we also see how the god of the Elimine Church is characterized. Mainly, as a kind god, yet one who will not intervene in mortal affairs out of belief that humans can make their own path. If you don't believe in god, god still believes in you, that type of stuff. Works well with the healing angle that priests do good in the name of god and all that jazz.

I ran out of things to say.

TLDR; the cast of the Binding Blade and the Blazing Blade are the only FE characters who can and will say "Oh my god"

#feli speaks #fe6 #fire emblem the binding blade

[theveryexhaustedshifter]

📝~A Very Welcome Page~📝

Hello there, my name's Quinn. I am a both a reality shifter and a manifester(whatever the term is, I mean.), I am also passionate about both subjects.

My desired realities are private to me so I mostly keep them private, I am shifting to stranger things though, clearly.

I am very versed on the information for reality shifting, I do not believe symptoms are needed nor do they exist though(As those are usually just symptoms of falling asleep).

Though do not interacts don't really do anything, I would like to say that there are certain people who get an instant block when interacting. For example, entitled anti shifters.

Now, with manifesting I tend to be all over the place, I am mostly manifesting physical appearance and wealth for me to move out, I believe in Neville Goddard's proposal of manifesting because it's what makes the most sense to me. I am open to other theories, but only without rudeness.

This blog is also for me by me, if it does not appeal to your standards of what a blog should be then the door is still open. And you can make your own, just because other people can see my blog, does not mean I'm going to cater to everyone. So, be aware of that.

I do not believe in the law of attraction, I am more of a law of assumption kind of person as it again, makes more sense to me. And it does not insist that there is a higher power above us judging everything we do, which is good for me.

Speaking of, I am a devout atheist, Christians and other religious people are allowed to interact but I won't be arguing about the religious kind of topics as I have my beliefs, and you have yours. So we can be civil about this and not bring up the topic.

That's all you need to know for now, the rest will just end up being surprised.

#loassumption #reality shifting #shifting #shiftblr #shifters #reality shift #law of assumption #loa blog #shifting blog #realityshifting #shifting reality #welcome page #welcome post #welcome #shifting community #reality shifter

[loominggaia]

Is the FGG religious?

I think they're all agnostic, with a small handful of exceptions. Those exceptions being...

Evan: Evan was once a practicing Lindist, only because he was raised in a Lindist household and he knew nothing different. As he grew older and exposed himself to more worldly ideas, he began to find cracks in his religion and eventually fell out of it. He now vaguely claims himself to be "spiritual", not a Lindist but still having faith in Gaia as an intelligent and loving maker. He continues to worship Her in his own way, not in the way Lindist doctrine demands. He also still observes the minor gods from Lindist scripture, which are all really just elements of Gaia by different names (water, fire, land, air, etc.)

Lukas: Lukas considers himself an atheist. However, in the context of Looming Gaia, the word "atheist" can encompass several very different belief systems. In Lukas' case, he doesn't believe that Gaia is a sentient being who does anything deliberately. Everything She creates is just a byproduct of Her survival, and She lacks the capacity to care for these creations or anything else living upon her. Lukas views Allkind as parasites living on Her back. He believes that his maker basically shat him out by accident and regards him like a dog regards a tapeworm.

Lukas looks down on anyone who believes otherwise, and he hates the concept of organized religion in general. He believes that religious doctrine, in all its forms, only does harm and makes the world a worse place for Allkind.

Glenvar: Glenvar is the most religious member of the crew, surprisingly enough. Though it seems he treats everything in life like a joke, his faith is the one thing he takes very seriously. He's a devout Sylvanist who compromises his faith for nothing. He'll skip work to goof off without a second thought , but he wouldn't dream of skipping a prayer ritual. It's too important to him. He communes with his gods daily and finds comfort in them.

This annoys his crewmen at times, because he makes them participate in these rituals whenever the opportunity arises. If it's prayer time (sunrise and sunset) and they happen to be standing near one of his shrines, they better get on their knees and join him. If they don't, he'll kick them in the shins to drop them, then trap them in a headlock and force them to pray with him, because he takes great offense when they "disrespect" his gods. If his crew is eating meat, they better throw a piece of it in the fire first or he'll grab it off their plate and do it for them. If they hunt an animal, he'll make them say a prayer and dress its corpse in flowers right after they kill it. And so on...

Most of his crewmen just go along with it, because it's way less trouble than fighting with him about it. Lukas, on the other hand...Lukas and Glenvar have had some earth-shattering fights over religion. They argue about it pretty much daily. These dumb arguments have become background noise to the rest of the crew, it's as natural as birdsong to them at this point.

Elska: Elska's tribe had its own set of beliefs about the world as well as their own unique creation theory. This religion is so small and obscure that it doesn't even have a name, but it's what Elska has always believed and continues to have faith in today.

In short, she believes that Gaia is a huge cosmic centaur who shaped Elska's tribe in Her image, forging them from stone and bone (This is why her tribe is called the People of Stone and Bone). When her people die, they join Her in the cosmos with all their ancestors, where they run free among the stars for all eternity.

Elska isn't pushy about her religion like Glenvar is. She mostly keeps her faith and rituals to herself. Leaving her mountain actually made her start questioning this faith and gave her a new perspective on it as a whole. She still believes in it, but she looks at it differently than she used to.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

#ask #askreligion #askliterature #asklukas #askevan #askglenvar

[tumbleweedtech]

If you don't mind me say, I agree with you that Christian teaching has largely warped the way people view the way they apologise, and their expectations for forgiveness, but like with many things I think it comes from a watered down, lazy theology. I was raised Catholic too but I've regularly attended Churches of different denominations at different times. I'm kinda at a point where atheistic liberals think I'm too religious and religious people think I'm a highly suspect leftist.

My point is though, that I do try as much as possible to practice forgiveness and I do find relief in it. It's actually one of the few things a lot of priests and pastors get right in my opinion, but then I have thankfully always them emphasise that forgiveness does not necessitate reconciliation. I'm not doubting that there are some, and probably used to be a lot more, who taught that it was ones duty to forgive the person who hurt them and continue to put themselves in a position to be hurt, but I think (and hope) the alternative is becoming a lot more widespread: You don't have to reconcile with someone who hurt you to forgive them, you don't have to speak to them, you don't even have to tell them that you forgive them, and you most certainly don't have to empathise with or make excuses for the. You just forgive them, and you let go of your anger; it doesn't erase the hurt they caused you, but hopefully the memory of it will cease to keep hurting you.

I'm glad that works for you. Generally speaking, I forgive quite easily. It's nearly automatic, in some cases. Did that person actively mean to hurt me? No? Okay. Partially that's the adhd. I also forget quite easily. So my consideration and complaints I was writing about - these are not one off slights. This is repeated, deliberate, often selfish to an extent that surprises me.

In one instance: It took me months, months of readily letting go of small insults because it never seemed deliberate, or aimed to hurt. But after a big disagreement, I had to sit back and think. And looked back at all the times that person's behaviour hurt feelings (not just mine, but others). I had to be reminded by another friend that no, right now I'm not overreacting, that was a dick thing to say. And you know? I still forgave. But the second time? I did not. Because now I was paying attention, and saw it was deliberate. And it hurt, when I finally let go of that relationship. But years later? I still do not forgive that person. And I won't. They don't deserve it, and they would never deign to ask. But you know what? I forgave myself, for letting it go on. For not valuing my own boundaries. I forgave myself, and I am working on being more firm on my boundaries, and not allowing small hurts. So that person? That issue? I'm not angry at them. They no longer hurt me. The memory does not hurt me. But I don't need to forgive them for that. I just need to be kind to myself. it's the same as a wild animal, or a rabid dog. If you get close, and it bites you, is it the animal's fault? No. Do you need to forgive the animal, who has no concept they have done a wrong? No. And I don't know about how widespread it is. It sure would be nicer if the world (religious or not) started teaching a better perspective on apologies. However not 2 months ago I still got messages from a catholic family member reminding me that I "needed" to forgive. And I know that family member is very, very devout - though who's to say what the pastor is preaching. I was largely coming at this from the cultural perspective - because it's a ridiculously common thing I see people claim. I said SORRY. Why are they still upset at me? I APOLOGIZED. Why are they still treating me like they're mad? etc. Either way. However your heart deals with harm in a way that does not hurt others and gives peace and solace to yourself sounds pretty good to me.

[kiwikipedia]

Even the Gods Cowered Like Dogs at What They Had Done

It’s no secret that Emmet would move the heavens and earth to find his brother again. But there is another, unaccountable force that would do that and more.

The gods did not account for this, nor can they stop it— for who can stop the unstoppable force of a father dead set on bringing his eldest son home?

Fandoms: Pokemon

Rating: General/T

Chapter 2: Coddiwomple

Cowboy, Meet Hisui

AO3 || Prologue || < Prev || Next >

This is where the canon divergence really kicks in for multiple reasons >:)c

Coddiwomple: (v.) To travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination

The thing about gods is that most of them didn’t give a damn about how they affected human lives.

Really.

In fact, Clay would bet that a good number of them hadn’t truly thought about how their actions would affect humanity in the slightest. Not at all how the fights that were petty dinner-table arguments for them could send the rest of the world into a spiral that was no different from a near-apocalypse. But why should they? For them, why did it matter?

They were larger and more powerful, and a number of them were ageless beings who could spend eternity asleep without a care on the damn planet after their 'duty' was done. Why would they care about how their actions affected others who were, by all means, less significant than they were?

Over time, because of the way that the gods— the legendaries, the mystics, whatever you wanted to call them— acted without much care for them all, humans had learned to accept and adapt to the whims of the legends and mystics that shaped their world.

Ah, but the thing is, adapting and accepting the whims of the gods wasn’t something that Clay could do, not this time.

After all, Clay was a man who would move heaven and earth for his children.

He might not have always been the best parent while they were growing up, that was true. He had always been and still was overly gruff with certain people, and a bit pushy at times, and he had been half absent when their mother passed because of grief— to the point where Drayden had been the one taking care of the three of them for half a year until he pulled himself back together. Clay knew that he could still be distant even now, not to mention the fact that he sure as hell was keeping things from his oldest and youngest, with this little adventure of his. All they knew was that he was in Sinnoh and likely going off the grid for a while. 

But by the gods and despite it all, he would go to the ends of the earth and beyond for them.

Perhaps that was why Arceus had answered him instead when he had called for Dialga and Palkia at Spear Pillar— though he doubted it. Clay would never pretend to know the mind of the Creator. He didn’t want to, as long as they stayed out of his life after this.

(Funny how things happened, though. His great grandfather had been a devout man, and now here Clay was, rejecting the Creator's existence and declaring himself an atheist despite meeting it in person, all out of pure, petty spite.)

Nonetheless, Arceus had listened to him in patient silence, to his demands to either bring his son back to him or let him bring his middle child back himself. The Creator had then demanded proof of his resolve, and Clay had stood his ground against god itself.

The thing is, there was little doubt that Clay was more comfortable with Ground Types. That was why he was considered to be a type-specialist Master for that particular typing, hell, he was one of the few Ground-Type Masters in the entire league across the globe. But that didn't mean that he didn’t own, raise, and train with those that were a type other than Ground. And he didn’t stick to just Unovan species either.

Granted, he was still partial to the ground typing, there was no doubt there. For example, though, Flygon had Ground as a primary type, but the dragon secondary type gave Clay an unexpected edge for those who didn’t know about the Honnen Native. Flygon were fast, could withstand sandstorms without a problem, and hit hard as a Dragon-Type. Put in combination with Clay's Tyranitar and it was safe to say that most would back down.

Then there were his late wife’s pokemon— her Milotic and her Corviknight. Both had stayed with him since her passing and both were very vicious when they put their minds to it— and Corviknight was very, very protective over his late trainer’s children. The fact that Ingo was gone and that Arceus was all but standing in their way of getting him back had made the large flying-steel type angry, and Arceus being god didn’t matter one bit.

The same went for Clay’s Seismatoad and Excadrill on that front— And Corvikinght and Excadrill made for a terrifying team.

With enough grit and determination, anything was possible, that was what Clay had always believed, and in the end, defeating Arceus had just become another one of those things that he had powered through. As had getting the Creator to send him to the past to get his oldest son back.

Clay’s arrival in Hisui was without much fanfare, thankfully, but that didn’t mean that all was well upon his arrival.

The very first thing that Clay had noticed upon his arrival in the past was that the sky was wrong. It was a rather deep red color, with faint streaks of light moving across it like TV Static. There was a sense of pressure in the atmosphere as well, heavy and oppressive and he could almost taste the static in the air.

It was something that made his instincts twist and put him on high alert— he wasn’t very excited about that part. It felt too same as the day they found out Ingo never made it back home from the Station

There was no one around when Clay arrived either, not that he had expected there to be— the wilderness was a dangerous place after all. But that was of little consequence to him. He didn’t need to wait for someone to find him, he already had a destination, after all. The Pearl Clan was located in what would later become Snowpoint. He was astutely aware of this, Cynthia and Bertha had given him a quick geography lesson, and of course, Lian had written about the change that had been going on through his years.

But clearly, he hadn't been dropped anywhere near there, nor was he at Spear Pillar where he had left for the past from. Instead, he was somewhere else, a grove of sorts, he supposed. The landscape sprawled out around him, fields of tall grass were spread across the land, with groves of trees dotted here and there.

Clay let out a breath after a moment of observing his surroundings before reaching into his coat’s pocket and pulling out two things— the first being a pokeball, the second being an unassuming, leather case.

The pokeball was tossed up first, Clay catching it on the rebound as Corviknight burst forth with a cry. The large bird shook his wings out, beak clacking and armored feathers reflecting the red light dully. It was a rather haunting sight.

Lancelot was what his late wife had called him, the large avian had been with her from the very beginning, it seemed. And the Corviknight had more than lived up to his name. Scars and scratches littered the armored overcoat that covered his feathers, one of his eyes long gone to a battle— one that the Corviknight deemed so dangerous that the loss of his eye was less important than anything that could have possibly happened to his trainer.

That had been… many years ago, however. Now Corviknight had settled and accepted Clay as his trainer now. And lucky for him, too. Despite Corviknight’s age, he was no slower nor weaker than his hay-day, he had been a vital component in the battle against Arceus and would be even more help here in Hisui for surveying the land around them from above.

“Hey, buddy,” Clay greeted, and the bird pokemon leaned down, lightly nudging him with his beak. “Mind takin' a gander of a look'round the area for me?”

Corviknight clacked his beak again before taking off, powerful wing beats disturbing the flora around them.

Because of the fact that he was, unfortunately, not at the Spear Pillar and therefore couldn't gauge what the direction the Pearl Clan's settlement was, the easiest way to get there would be to find people who could point him in the right direction. 

As the pokemon flew off, Clay opened the leather case, pulling a cigarette from it and holding it between his teeth. Another fish into his pockets and he replaced the cigarette case with a rather scratched-up lighter. With a soft clink that felt almost way too loud, the end of the cigarette had been lit.

He took a breath, inhaling the smoke for a rather long moment before he exhaled. 

The relief was almost instant as smoke curled around him in the haunting red light of the sky.

Smoking hadn’t been something that Clay had done for many years. He had all but stopped when the kids had come into his and his wife’s care. Persephone had never been one to judge him for smoking, but they had both agreed that they didn’t want any of the kids to pick up on Clay’s habit because they saw him doing it. So, until the twins had reached their majority, Clay had eased from smoking. Eased, but not quit right out. Going cold Mandibuzz right from the get-go would have been nothing short of a nightmare for his already sparkling personality, or that's what his wife had joked about.

(He agreed, even though he grumbled about her 'bullying' him.)

As the boys and Elesa grew up, there was no doubt that they had seen him every once and a while on the porch or out in the yard with either a cigar or a cigarette between his teeth, but never inside. And Elesa had run away from a hug once, giggling and telling Clay that he was 'smelly' after she had smelt the smoke on him. He had taken it pretty well, only raising an offended eyebrow at that as she ran to his wife and complained to her, with the twins then venturing over to verify if their big sister was right.

All three had known about smoking by the time they came into their care— Elesa was old enough to have learned about it in those primary school "Don't do drugs" programs— but Clay had then been pretty firm on not letting them make any attempts to try smoking. Emmet had done so in middle school a grand total of once. The boy had gotten grounded pretty badly for it. That had opened up the conversation on why smoking was bad and how it really was addictive, and even after all these years Clay still hadn't fully broken the habit.

So yes, the boys and Elesa knew he smoked, they had grown up with that fact, but none of them had ever picked it up as a habit or addiction. It just proved that he had done rather well to keep it at a low until all three had moved out and to Nimbasa. And then even after, he hadn’t ever smoked as much as he did before they came into his care.

Unfortunately, in the wake of Ingo’s disappearance, the old habit that he had been doing his best to tramp down— hell, he had started considering himself as an ex-smoker— had come back at full force. He smoked much more nowadays.

Emmet hadn’t commented on it, though, and Elesa had only reminded him that certain cigarette smoke clung to clothing materials more than others. Both had understood and, well, once Ingo was back Clay’d work on cutting down on the intake again.

In the meanwhile, though, he should probably get moving.

While he had instructed Corviknight to check on their surroundings, he couldn’t just let the one-eyed corvid do all the work now, could he? 

Leaving the small, wooded grove that he had arrived in had been rather easy. Corviknight’s presence had unnerved a good number of the bug-type pokemon in the area— all of the Wormple line, and Clay wasn’t sure if Sinnoh, if Hisui, had any other regional caterpillars aside from the pink Hoenn native. A few Shinx and a Luxio had taken cover from the much larger bird in the shadows of a cliff, though upon seeing him they seemed to regain their courage.

Excadrill fended them off swiftly enough when brought out, however, and Clay pressed on.

(Thankfully, the oversized Rapidash took one look at him, before glancing away and herding her colts towards another grove of trees.)

There were fewer Pokemon around than he would have expected to see, but due to the sky and Corviknight, he supposed that it made sense. Pokemon were well in-tune with nature and their surroundings. That was part of the reason why understanding and being able to listen to the pokemon that you worked with was so important— especially down in the mines.

He couldn’t count how many times he and his workers had escaped with their lives because they had noticed the pokemon acting strangely. The Swoobat taking flight and Gigalith lumbering away from an area were sure signs of danger. So similarly, the pokemon in Hisui had likely had sensed something wrong before the sky had even turned red, and even after they remained wary of the disturbance.

It worked in Clay’s favor, though, as he found himself in a rather open area. The fewer pokemon there were trying to pick fights with him, the less time it would take to get Ingo back.

A shout up ahead snapped Clay from his observations, eyes scanning the wilds for the owner of the voice. It was young, that much he could tell before his eyes landed on a flash of red and white in the distance— crossing a naturally created bridge that lead across a rather deep river.

A girl with her hair tied back under a bandana, her red scarf billowing behind her.

It didn’t take long for him to realize why she was half running half sliding across the bridge as the largest duo of Luxray he had seen leaped over the ridge, following after her.

The golden yellow sparks of electricity were evident as the larger of the two opened its maw, and before Clay could react, a thunder bolt had been shot at the girl’s head. She had been lucky enough to duck out of the way, though it caused her to lose her footing, nearly falling over the edge of the bridge.

Without a second of hesitation, Clay brought Flygon out.

“Get the girl, Melody!” Clay barked, already taking off with Excadrill as he spoke. The dragonfly-like pokemon let out a trill before shooting off like a bullet, easily outpacing the two of them as they ran.

Excadrill didn’t even need to take orders from Clay as they neared the worn-down bridge, bounding ahead before leaping at the two Luxray in a Drill Rush and knocking them back. From Drill Rush, he swooped into a Rapid Spin, and Clay slowed his pace, watching as Flygon swooped down and plucked the child from the water and Excadrill dealt with the electric feline pair. 

The girl seemed rather startled at Flygon’s appearance, however, squirming a bit in the Ground-Dragon Type’s hold as she flew the both of them back over to Clay.

“Ya took a pretty nasty tumble there, girl,” Clay grunted as Flygon set her down, trilling and circling back around to land behind him. “You alright there?”

The child shook her head a bit, trying to reorient herself before she peered up at him, squinting a little bit. There was a moment or two of long silence, her eyes flickering between Flygon and himself.

Clay took the time to observe her as she did the same to him. Though for him, he assumed he put the dots together much faster.

This was the child that Cynthia was looking for— Champion Dawn. That, or she had a striking resemblance to the kid.

He hadn’t met the kid before, but he knew enough through the League— and more now because of Cynthia and Bertha. 

That said, she didn’t seem to recognize him as she stood up slowly, brushing her… uniform off. Was it a uniform? There was a bright yellow patch on the sleeves— yeah, that was definitely a uniform. It certainly wasn’t a fashion statement, that was something Clay was sure of even if it turned out that what she was wearing wasn't a uniform.

(By proxy of Elesa, Clay had a sense for fashion, though refused to dress any different while on duty at the Gym. His oldest child had since given up on him.)

He cleared his throat, making her startle and freeze mid-brush-down.

“You alright?” he asked again, patting Excadrill as he finally rejoined them. The duo of Luxray had given up on making the kid their dinner after Excadrill made them take a Rock Slide to the face.

The girl, who he was certain was Champion Dawn at this point, nodded slowly. “Ah- y-yeah. I am- um…”

She shifted, falling quiet again. Clay didn’t press her, turning instead to pat Flygon on a job well done, the dragonfly-like pokemon lightly bumping her head against his cheek happily before she was returned to her pokeball.

“If yer in one piece then, we should probably get ya to an adult or at least to other people,” he mused after a moment, glancing back at her from the corner of his eye. The girl seemed to be taking stock of her own inventory, checking through a bag that had been wrapped around her waist.

She froze up at his words, and he wondered if he had startled her that much to the point where she froze up at his mere voice. 

He didn’t think he was that scary, though on one hand, Iris had some choice words for him when she was a child, er, more of a child. But on the other hand, the gym challengers never seemed to be that put-off— or at least, no more so than anyone facing down a Gym Leader would be.

(He had a second cousin in Hoenn who would beg to differ, but he and Brandon had always been at odds over the smallest things so he didn't count.)

Clay turned to face the girl fully, and he watched as she stiffened, standing straight up when she noticed he was facing her again. He sighed, reaching up and adjusting his hat before he held his hand out.

“Name’s Clay. How about we get you back to civilization,” he said, doing his best to pull together his old ‘Public figure mode’ from the depths from when he last used it. “It ain’t safe to be out here alone right now.”

The girl hesitated but took his hand in a brief shake.

“Akari,” she introduced herself. Again, she hesitated to speak further, eyes flickering up to the sky before she let out a shaky breath. “There’s… nowhere for me to go…”

What?

Clay’s brows furrowed at that. She didn’t seem to be lying, and really, he doubted that she would anyways as he searched her face for a moment. She seemed scared and stressed, she didn't at all the face of a liar.

The initial cigarette Clay had lit upon his arrival now sat as nothing but a butt in a paper envelope he used when he couldn’t find a trashcan, but the implications of what had happened made him itch to light another.

From what he remembered from Lian’s journals, there had been a mysterious Sky-Faller who had quelled the nobles and taken on the duty of essentially being the Galaxy Team’s star member— only for her to be banished from what would become Jubilife City for a time. The Clans had turned them away out of fear of angering the Galaxy Team, leaving them out on their own until the sky had been fixed.

It had been something that Clay had only briefly read over before deciding that it wasn’t really any of his business. It hadn’t had anything to do with getting Ingo back.

But now, he supposed, it was his business. The Sky-Faller and the girl before him had to be one and the same, and he had quite literally just saved the child. He couldn’t just leave her heere on her own now, could he? Especially if this was the missing champion.

Bertha would have his head, and bringing the wrath of the older Ground-Specialist wasn’t exactly something he wanted to do.

Clay took a breath, closing his eyes as he reached up and adjusted his hat before he looked back to the girl.

“Then that makes two of us,” He started, making Akari jerk her head up from where she was fiddling with the end of her scarf and looking down at her feet. 

“You mean you were banished too? I’ve never seen you before, was it from Jubilife? Or is there another Village—“

He let out a soft snort of laughter, holding a hand up and stopping her. The girl blushed at that, but quieted down and let him answer her questions instead.

“I ain’t the type to just get banished, lil’lady,” he told her, “’s more like I’ve just now arrived here in Hisui.”

She tilted her head a bit, opening her mouth to speak again before Clay looked up at the sky. Akari followed his gaze, jaw-dropping as Corviknight’s large form seemed to suddenly block out what little light there was from the sun breaking through.

With a cry that had Akari covering her ears, Corviknight landed where Flygon had been moments before behind Clay. He back over to pat him lightly, the avian clacking his break and settling down to inspect Akari. 

“Lemme introduce myself again, kid,” he said before he straightened up, adjusting his hat. There was no point in hiding it, anyways. “The name’s Clay Kikui, Gym Leader of Driftviel City in Unova, a couple hundred years into the future. I'm here to get something that was taken from me an' mine back.” 

Basically, Arceus chose the wrong rodeo to be horse-shaped in.

For recap, Clay's mixed team here is:

Excadrill

 Male | Nicknamed "Boss"

Clay's Primary Ace Pokemon, takes after Clay in personality

Sismetoad

Male | Nicknamed "Fissure"

Hits like a goddamn truck and knows it

Flygon

Female | Nicknamed "Melody"

Occasionally called the "Tax Evader" and the most mischievous of the team

Tyranitar

Male | Nicknamed "Kai"

Secretly a mother hen type. Looks out for the others, and is good at it

Corviknight

Male | Nicknamed "Lancelot"

A pokemon left in his care by his late wife, he only has one eye left and is the second oldest of the bunch after Excadrill

Milotic

Female | Nicknamed "Vega"

A pokemon left in his care by his late wife, she has a habit of dragon pulsing things that annoy her (ie: Arceus)

They're all roughly in the 80s in terms of level, maybe Excadrill and Corviknight are higher up. Thank you to the Discord for giving me the idea to make Flygon the mischievous Tax Evader ™ of the family

Other than that I do have a few other notes:

Clay's always been a bit of a smoker in my books, though always did his best to not let kids pick up on the habit too— in this case, Emmet, Ingo, and Elesa.

I might have mentioned this before, but Clay's late wife was named Persephone and I've made a few posts on my tumblr about her, but not many. He is in possession of her old team, and she raised the Nimbasa Trio with Clay for about ten years before passing away. Or perhaps she too was eeby deeby'd to the past? That might be a fic for another time if anyone's interested.

The whole "meeting god, is an atheist" thing with Clay is a callback to a meme I found funny that basically shows CC from Code Geass and Edward Elric on either ends of the spectrum with Ed as "met god and identifies as atheist". It's sorta this petty out of spite thing. Something that Clay would definitely do.

I was going to have Akari trying to figure out if Clay was Pearl Clan with Lian because of obvious reasons, but I ended up cutting it out because I felt like she was stressed enough to be like 'oh similar hat' briefly, but then Clay's more modern attire was more catching than a hat. Longcoat and blue jeans yk? No chaps today, though, sorry Cowboy Man. Other characters will be pointing out the connection eventually, though, if not Lian himself asking. Also Mandibuzz is the only thing close enough to a turkey in Unova. So. Quitting Cold Turkey = Quitting Cold Mandibuzz. If SV comes out with a Turkey pokemon I'll change it though

Also thanks again to the discord for the whole Pyramid King Brandon and Clay being distantly related idea. That was definitely a fun conversation.

Hopefully my chapters wont need this many notes but you never know! Thank you for reading!

Taglist for this series:

@pippinumpkin​​

#pokemon legends akari #PLA Akari #Gym Leader Clay #Submas #they're mentioned so its fine i think #Arceus #Penguin Writes: Pokemon #Pokemon Legends Arceus #Penguin Writes: Even the Gods Cowered #Dad Clay and the Nimbasa Trio #Pokemon #penguinkiwi writes #Pokemon Black and White #Pokemon Black #Pokemon White #Pokemon Black 2 and White 2