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oikawaisincrisis · 3 days ago

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Where it’s quiet ~ U.W.

Pairing: Ushijima Wakatoshi x fem!Reader

Summary: Ushijima finds himself lost when an injury keeps him away from the volleyball court so in a desperate attempt to keep his sanity he goes back home. Surrounded by memories and people from the past, will he find himself once again or something else entirely?

CW (content warning): post-time skip!Ushijima, mentions of sport injuries, slight angst, smut, MDNI (+18), p in v, oral (m recieving), despite the smut this is mainly fluff.

AN (author’s note): Hi guys! I’ve been writing for Haikyuu for a while now but I never really thought about posting it until I started posting my jjk works on my other blog (@yuujispunches if you want to check it out 🫶🏻), I’m kinda nervous because it’s really different but I hope you guys enjoy this! English isn’t my first language so I’m sorry if there are any mistakes :)

Requests are open so feel free to send yours! (you can check the list of characters I write for on my pinned post)

Masterlist

The crack of impact was sharp, clean, almost too clean. At first, no one understood what had happened. The rally kept going. Ushijima had leapt high, even for his standards, dominating the air like it belonged to him. But when he came down.

He didn’t get up.

The arena didn’t fall silent immediately. Ushijima’s absence in movement wasn’t noticeable until the ball hit the floor with a hollow thud. Then there was that chilling beat of delay before every head turned.

He clutched his leg, his face twisted in a rare grimace. Not from pain, Ushijima Wakatoshi had played through pain before. This was something deeper. Something breaking apart, not just torn muscle or strained tendon, but something fundamental inside of him.

——————————————————————————

The prognosis came in harsh and sterile, in a room that smelled like antiseptic and dread.

"A full tear of the Achilles tendon."

Surgery. Recovery. Three to six months minimum before rehab. Closer to a year before he could even think of spiking a ball again.

The doctors gave him comforting smiles. The team’s manager offered words of reassurance. Fans flooded social media with hashtags, edits, tributes, well-wishes.

None of it touched him.

Wakatoshi found himself sitting alone in his apartment in Sendai, his leg immobilized in a boot, staring at the wall as if willing it to become something else, something useful. Something moving and not broken.

He hated stillness.

——————————————————————————

Two weeks passed in the haze of forced rest and ice packs. Then four. The more his body stagnated, the more his thoughts grew wild, unrecognizable. He had built his world around control, around the sharp edge of purpose that volleyball gave him. Now, everything felt dulled.

That’s when he made the decision. One morning, with no plan except the aching emptiness he couldn't shake, he packed a bag, informed his manager he needed some time away, and booked a train to Yamagata.

————————————��—————————————

The old roads were unchanged. The farmland rolled out under a soft spring sky, gentle and wide. Wakatoshi hadn’t visited in years, not since his parents sold the family home and moved closer to the coast. But the town hadn’t forgotten him.

Even walking down the main street with a hoodie pulled low, heads turned. People still recognized him, somehow. Tall as ever. Stoic. Broken now, though they couldn’t see it.

He stayed in a quiet inn on the outskirts, a simple place with tatami mats and a view of the rice fields. He didn’t do much. Didn’t want to be recognized, didn’t want to talk. Mostly he limped through memories, haunted by the sound of his own breath.

Until he ran into you.

——————————————————————————

You were standing outside the local café, arguing with the barista about the new seasonal drink. Something about how coffee shouldn't taste like strawberry.

“Just because you can make it doesn’t mean you should.” You huffed, spinning on your heel and nearly walked straight into a wall of muscle and fleece.

You stepped back instinctively. Then your eyes narrowed.

“Wakatoshi?”

His shoulders went stiff. He turned.

Your face lit up like summer. “Oh my god. It is you!”

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

You filled the silence. “You probably don’t remember me [Y/N], from Shiratorizawa? I was in Class 3, used to talk your ear off during lunch. You always stared like I was speaking a different language.”

His brow creased a little, like he was digging through dusty memory files. And then, you saw it the flicker of recognition.

“You liked strawberry milk.” He said.

You blinked.

“I… did, yeah.” A laugh escaped you. “That’s what you remember?”

He nodded slowly. “You said it was the superior drink. I disagreed.”

You looked up at him. The Ushijima Wakatosh you knew, now a famous, national-level athlete but he still stood like a fortress. Still had that calm, unreadable expression. But now there was something else underneath it. Something frayed.

“I’m glad you remember.” You said softly. “Hey… are you okay?”

——————————————————————————

You didn’t ask him to join you for coffee.

You just started talking again, like years hadn’t passed. Like he hadn’t disappeared into the world of professional sports, and you hadn’t grown into your own life, working remotely now from your childhood home, helping your aging aunt run her flower shop.

Somehow, you both ended up walking down the street together. You talked about the town, how things had changed, who had moved, who hadn’t. You told him about the café’s new obsession with flavored drinks. About your dog. About how the sakura festival was coming soon.

He barely said a word. But he didn’t leave either.

——————————————————————————

The next day, you saw him again. This time sitting alone on a park bench, leg propped up, staring into the lake like it might give him answers. You sat beside him with a box of taiyaki.

“You look hungry.” You said simply offering the box to him.

He took it. Ate in silence. You swung your legs off the edge of the bench and let the sun warm your skin.

“Still hate strawberry?”

He chewed slowly, nodded.

You grinned. “Some things never change.”

The words didn’t really mean anything but for some reason they sounded almost like comfort to him.

——————————————————————————

The days after followed a rhythm.

You bumped into each other “by accident” again. Then not by accident.

You invited him to your aunt’s shop to see the garden you’d been working on. He stood among the lilies and said nothing, but his eyes didn’t wander. He watched you kneel in the dirt, brush pollen off your fingers, talk about soil PH like it was sacred.

You brought him books you thought he might like. He read them. You could tell by the way he handed them back without creases but with little post it annotations places on the margins with calculated care.

When you were with him, you didn’t expect words. You filled the quiet with stories, with small kindnesses. And slowly, he started to talk, not much, just enough. But when he did, it always mattered.

——————————————————————————

One evening, as the sky turned lavender, he admitted:

“I can’t play.”

You looked up from where you were adjusting the garden’s irrigation pipe. “Right now?”

He hesitated. “Maybe not again. Not at the same level.”

You stood, wiped your hands on your pants, and looked at him. Really looked.

“Does that scare you?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Then, “Yes.” Another pause filled with a deep breath. “I don’t know who I am without it.”

Your voice was soft. “I do.”

His eyes flickered to you.

“You’re still Wakatoshi.” You said. “You’re still kind of intimidating, loyal and a little weird about vegetables.”

A beat passed.

“I’m not weird about vegetables, broccoli just tastes like grass objectively.”

You laughed.

And for the first time in weeks, he smiled.

——————————————————————————

You weren’t supposed to become his routine. Or at least that’s what he told himself at first.

But one day turned into two. Then into a week. Then more.

You started seeing Wakatoshi every day without even planning it. At the park, the shop, the café. Sometimes he limped along beside you while you rambled about your latest dream something along the lines of “There were three ferrets in a trench coat pretending to be my landlord. Don’t ask”, or told him the entire plot of a romance drama in excruciating detail while he nodded once, maybe twice, with solemn confusion.

And he… didn’t mind. In fact, he started waiting for you.

Not obviously. No, never that. But he’d be in the places you might show up, sitting on the same bench, outside the same shop, buying the exact coffee you liked so you wouldn’t have to wait in line. It wasn’t that he needed you there.

But when you were, the silence in his chest didn’t ache as badly.

——————————————————————————

You were light. Loud and quick and always moving. You talked with your hands, with your whole face. You had this thing where you’d lean in close when you were excited, as if your joy couldn’t be contained in just your voice.

Wakatoshi had never met anyone like you. Not really.

On the court, everything was angles. Force. Timing. Discipline. He was good at that. Better than anyone. But off the court?

He didn’t know what to do with the messiness of people.

Yet somehow, your messiness didn’t feel like chaos. It felt like sun through the leaves.

——————————————————————————

One afternoon, it rained.

You showed up at the inn he was staying at, dripping and barefoot, holding two bags of convenience store snacks and a half-wilted daisy you’d stuffed behind your ear.

“Surprise!” You beamed. “Rain check on the flower beds, literally. Thought we could hang out here. Unless you don’t want company, in which case I will melt dramatically into the road.”

He stared at you for a long moment, almost as if he was trying to convince himself of the sight before him. Then stepped aside.

You took that as a yes.

——————————————————————————

That night, you both sat cross-legged on the floor of his room, watching a movie on your tablet. You kept shoving snacks into his hand without asking. He never refused. You talked through most of the film.

“Okay, but if the ghost is her dead twin, how did she not know the entire time?!”

“I’m just saying, if I die tragically, you *better* make it a dramatic haunt.”

“Do you think ghosts get bored?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Wakatoshi didn’t speak much. But he watched you like you were more compelling than the screen.

After the credits rolled, the thunder outside softened to a distant rumble. You glanced at him.

“Hey” You said, quieter now. “How are you holding up?”

He didn’t answer right away. “I really don’t know. Badly I think.”

The word fell heavy between you. Honest. Plain. But weighted. You nodded gently, inching closer so your knees brushed.

“I figured.”

He looked down at his hands. “Everything I’ve worked for… all the time, the years. I don’t know if I’ll get it back. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be now.”

You reached over and touched his wrist, light as rain.

“You don’t have to know yet.” You whispered. “It’s okay to not be okay, Toshi.”

He didn’t move. But he didn’t pull away either. The nickname falling from your lips made a weird feeling spread through his chest and he found himself wanting to believe you.

——————————————————————————

The next day, you made him a makeshift rehabilitation chart. It was full of sparkles, doodles, and completely inaccurate medical advice.

“Goal: stop walking like Frankenstein.” You grinned, pointing to the top.

Wakatoshi blinked. “This isn’t a real program.”

“Correct.” You said proudly. “But it made you stop brooding for five seconds, didn’t it?”

He exhaled through his nose. Not quite a laugh. But close enough. A smile tugging at his lips.

You considered it a win.

——————————————————————————

The more time you spent together, the more you learned his rhythms.

He was blunt but not unkind. He hated loud music. He preferred savory to sweet. He didn’t like when people asked him how he was unless they actually wanted to know.

He also had a strange fondness for animals. You caught him once, crouching awkwardly to pet a neighborhood cat that had hissed at you five minutes earlier.

“You’re a traitor.” Uou accused playfully.

He blinked. “I didn’t say I disliked cats.”

“She tried to bite me!”

“She likes me.” He said simply.

You gawked as the cat curled into his palm.

“Okay, Snow White.”

——————————————————————————

Sometimes, though, he shut down.

There were days he didn’t come out of the inn. Didn’t answer your texts. Days when you knew he wasn’t hurt, just hollow. You didn’t push him on those days.

You dropped off fresh onigiri with a note taped to the lid:

It’s okay. I’m here when you’re ready.

He never replied. But the containers were always returned, empty. The notes were kept on his nightstand, to reread when he felt like loneliness was about to swallow him.

——————————————————————————

One evening, he joined you on the roof of your house.

You’d invited him there once before, told him the view was better than therapy.

Now you both sat with your feet hanging off the edge, the stars bright above, the air filled with the chirp of summer bugs. You handed him a cold beer and didn’t say anything for a while.

Then, quietly. “I used to think you were scary, you know.”

His brow twitched. “Why?”

“You never smiled. You had that whole murdery volleyball thing going on.”

He stared straight ahead. “I wasn’t trying to be scary.”

“I know that now. You’re just… intense.” A pause. Then you spoke again. “You’re still kind of intense but you’re kind, too. And steady. I like that about you.”

He didn’t speak. But you saw his knuckles tighten around the bottle.

Your voice softened. “You know, you don’t have to go back to who you were before. You’re allowed to change. To figure out what you want.”

He turned to you then. There was something raw in his expression, something that cracked just enough to show what was underneath.

“I don’t know what I want.” He said.

You smiled at him, tired but warm.

“Well… until you do, you’ve got me.” You said as you nudged your shoulder against his softly. Bright eyes shining as you looked at him.

For the first time he found himself that maybe tomorrow didn’t sound so terrifying anymore.

——————————————————————————

You didn’t realize it yet, but something was shifting inside him. Slowly. Like spring thawing frozen ground. Every time you said his name, it softened him. Every time you smiled at him like he wasn’t broken, it pieced him back together.

But cracks let the light in.

And the light hurt.

——————————————————————————

One night, he snapped.

It was the first time he raised his voice at you.

You’d brought him a flyer for a local festival. They were holding a charity volleyball event. You thought it might cheer him up.

“It’s just a small thing.” You said. “You wouldn’t have to play. Just be around people. Might feel good.”

He stared at the paper. Then his jaw clenched.

“I said I can’t play.” He barked harshly.

You blinked. “I didn’t mean- ”

“I’m not a mascot.” He cut in, voice low but sharp. “I’m not interested in pretending I still belong there.”

You stood, holding the flyer like it had burned you.

“I wasn’t pitying you, Wakatoshi. I thought maybe it’d help to be near the thing you love.”

“I don’t need help.”

Your chest tightened.

“Yeah, well…” You said, voice cracking. “You’re doing a hell of a job proving it.”

You turned and walked away.

He didn’t stop you.

——————————————————————————

He didn’t sleep that night.

The room felt like it was closing in. The air too heavy. The silence too loud.

He hadn’t meant to yell. He hadn’t even known the anger was there until it boiled over. But it wasn’t you he was mad at.

It was himself.

His body. His failure. His fear.

He didn’t know how to say any of that. So instead, he said nothing.

Which meant he had to live with the echo of your hurt expression. The way you walked away like you couldn’t fix him anymore.

And maybe that’s what scared him most.

That he was pushing away the only person who saw him as more than an athlete. The only one who didn’t flinch when he broke down.

——————————————————————————

Two days passed.

You didn’t show up at the café. Or the park. Or the bench.

He stared at your last text:

Take care of yourself Wakatoshi.

Neutral. Kind. But distant. Full last name instead of the nickname he had quietly grown fond of.

He hated it. God, how he hated it.

——————————————————————————

The morning of the festival came.

He didn’t plan on going. Of course not. But his feet took him there anyway.

You were working a booth when you saw him.

The crowd parted like it knew. Like the story was unfolding just for you.

Ushijima Wakatoshi. Standing still in the middle of the street, in a sea of movement. No crutches. Just a limp. In a plain black shirt that clung to the curve of his shoulders, eyes scanning every stall until they landed on you.

You froze.

He walked toward you, slow, deliberate.

“I was wrong.” He said, stopping in front of your table. “The other day.”

You raised an eyebrow. He looked down. Swallowed hard.

“I was scared.” He said. “I still am. Everything I am. Everything I’ve worked for was built around being the best. And now I don’t know if I’ll ever get that back.”

Your expression softened. “I wasn’t trying to take that from you.” You whispered.

“I know.” He said. “But I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

You stepped around the booth, closer now. Close enough to feel the heat of his skin.

“Toshi” You said quietly, “I’ve only ever seen you like this. And I’ve never once thought less of you.”

He looked at you like you’d just said something in a language he couldn’t translate. Like the words didn’t make sense, because no one had ever spoken them before.

You lifted your hand slowly, touched his chest just over his heart.

“You don’t have to be strong with me.”

His breath hitched and in that moment, he leaned his forehead against yours.

Not a kiss but something closer. Something deeper.

——————————————————————————

After the festival, he stayed by your side the entire day.

You didn’t ask for it but he handed you water when your voice got hoarse. Kept kids from knocking over the display. Sat on a crate in the back of your booth like a silent bodyguard, expression unreadable but his eyes never strayed from you.

When the crowd thinned and your feet ached, he offered his arm. You took it without question. He felt… steady again. Not because he was healed. But because you were there.

Later that night, you brought him to the lake.

Same bench. Same spot. This time, you leaned into his side. He didn’t move away.

“I’m sorry for being a brat.” You said quietly.

“You weren’t.”

You turned your head against his shoulder.

“You sure?”

He glanced down at you. “You were right to be upset.”

You smiled. “Wow. Did Ushijima Wakatoshi just admit I was right?”

A long pause.

“Yes.” A reluctant smile on his lips

You grinned, poking his ribs gently. “Growth.”

It was silent for a while. But it wasn’t empty.

Then you said, “Do you ever think about what you’d do if you didn’t play?”

His hand twitched beside yours.

“I don’t know.” He said finally. “I’ve never let myself think about it.”

You looked up at him. “Well. Maybe you don’t have to figure it out alone.”

He met your gaze. And something softened. “Okay.”

Just one word. But when he took your hand in his it it felt like a beginning.

——————————————————————————

The lake was quiet when you brought him there again.

A week had passed since the festival. Since he let his forehead touch yours like it meant something. Since he started showing up without needing a reason.

Now, he came because he wanted to.

He still didn’t talk much. Still didn’t smile often. But the way he looked at you had changed.

He watched you like he was trying to memorize something fragile. Like he was afraid of blinking and losing it.

Tonight, you sat side-by-side on the grass, the stars reflecting in the still water.

And you told him, soft and sure. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

Wakatoshi swallowed thickly. “Sometimes I feel like… if I’m not playing, I’m nothing.”

You turned, eyes warm and fierce. “You’re so much more than that.”

He met your gaze, slow and aching.

“You’re the first person who’s ever said that to me.”

Your heart broke a little at that.

But it bloomed too. Because it meant you could be the first and maybe the only.

This time you were the one that reaches for his hand. He took it without hesitation.

——————————————————————————

The walk home was quiet.

The kind of quiet that buzzed under the skin. Every brush of his arm sent a pulse down your spine. Every glance felt like a tether pulling tighter between you.

When you got to your door, you turned to him.

“Do you want to come in?”

He hesitated, just for a breath then nodded.

Inside, the lights were low. You kicked off your shoes and walked into the kitchen, nerves fluttering. He stood near the entry like he didn’t know where he was allowed to go.

“Make yourself comfortable.” You said gently, setting your keys down. “You’re safe here.”

Something in his face shifted. He stepped closer.

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

You turned to him. He was closer than before. His eyes dark in the soft light, jaw tense.

“I don’t know how to do this.” He said quietly. “But I want to.”

Your chest swelled. “You don’t have to know how.” You whispered. “Just stay with me.”

He reached out, brushed a strand of hair behind your ear.

And then he kissed you.

——————————————————————————

It was slow. Careful.

Like he was afraid of shattering something he didn’t know how to hold.

But when you kissed him back. When you leaned in and let your lips open under his, he deepened it with a groan that vibrated through your chest.

Your fingers tangled in his shirt. His hands cupped your waist like he didn’t know where to touch, only that he needed to.

You pulled back, breathing heavy, and looked into his eyes.

“You can touch me.” You said. “However you want.”

He blinked. Like the permission stunned him.

You took his hand and guided it to your cheek. Then lower, to your chest, over your heart. His breath caught.

“I want you.” You whispered. “But only if you want this too.”

His voice cracked. “I do.”

——————————————————————————

You led him to your room.

He sat on the edge of your bed while you stepped between his knees, hands at his jaw.

“Tell me if anything feels wrong. Or too much.”

He nodded once. Silent. A storm behind his eyes.

You kissed him again, longer this time. Slower.

And then you knelt between his legs. Wakatoshi tensed.

“Wait- ” He started, but your fingers worked open the button of his jeans with calm precision.

“Let me.” You said. “I want to.”

He swallowed. Adam’s apple bobbing. “I don’t usually… let people do this.”

“I know.”

You kissed the inside of his knee. Then the scar.

It was thick, pale, a little raised. You ran your thumb over it, then pressed your lips to the center. Slow, reverent.

His breath hitched. His hands fisted in the sheets.

“I hate it.” He murmured. “It’s horrible”

You immediately know what he was referring to. The scar that reminded him of what he might lose. You looked up at him.

“It’s part of you.” You said in between kisses as your lips trailed up along his inner thigh.

He stared down at you like you weren’t real. Like he was dreaming.

Then you leaned in and took him into your mouth.

He was big. Of course he was. But that wasn’t what made him lose control. It was the way you looked at him.

The way you held him in your mouth. Slow, unhurried, every pass of your tongue deliberate. Your hands resting on his thighs, fingers stroking gently, grounding him.

You didn’t rush.

You let him feel everything. Every inch. Every second.

He groaned your name once. Rough and low like it punched the air out of him. His hips twitched, but he held himself back, muscles trembling with restraint.

You pulled off with a soft pop, lips swollen, eyes full of heat.

“Lie back.” You said, standing to undress.

He obeyed without question. Watching you undress. His gaze didn’t devour you. It honored you. Like he was witnessing something sacred.

You climbed into his lap, straddling him, and ran your fingers through his hair.

“You okay?”

He nodded.

But his voice was hoarse. “I don’t deserve this.”

Your heart ached. “You deserve everything.”

You guided him to your entrance, bodies flushed and warm, and sank down onto him slowly.

His hands clutched your waist like a lifeline. His mouth fell open. Low grunts and moans filling the room as he looked at you as if he was scared you’d slip through his fingers if he didn’t.

You rocked against him, slow and tender. Your bodies fit like you’d been made for this. Every movement dragged another broken breath from his throat.

You kissed his jaw. His neck. His shoulder. You caressed the scar again, when you shifted his legs spreading wider under yours.

And when he came. He was shuddering, breathless, his arms wrapped around you like he’d fall apart otherwise. You held his face in your hands.

“You’re not broken.”

He came down slowly, blinking up at you like he didn’t know what world he was in.

You brushed a hand through his sweat-damp hair.

“You’re safe.”

——————————————————————————

You lay together after, tangled in the sheets, your head resting on his chest.

His arm was around you. Tight. Protective. His fingers trailing up and down your spine. But not out of fear. Out of need. Out of something new and fragile blooming between you.

He whispered, after a long while. “Thank you.”

You smiled against his skin.

“You don’t have to thank me. I want you.”

He swallowed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this… wanted. Not like this.”

You kissed his shoulder.“Get used to it.”

He didn’t answer. But you felt the way his body relaxed. The way his fingers curled into yours and he held you closer to him before kissing your lips once more.

——————————————————————————

The morning after was silent. Not because anything was wrong, but because everything was finally right.

You woke first. The sun filtered in soft and golden through the curtains. Ushijima lay beside you, broad chest rising and falling with the steady rhythm of sleep, one arm still draped around your waist like his body refused to let you go, even unconscious.

You reached up and brushed his hair back from his face.

He looked… peaceful. Like the war inside him had quieted for the first time in a long, long time.

He woke slowly. Brows furrowing at first like the sunlight confused him. Then his eyes opened, and he looked at you. Like he knew exactly where he was. Like he’d been hoping this wasn’t a dream.

You smiled, soft and sleepy. “Hey.”

He didn’t smile.

But he reached up and touched your cheek, callused fingers grazing your skin like you might disappear if he wasn’t careful.

“I’m still here.” You whispered.

He exhaled. A shaky breath. Like he’d been holding it all night. “I don’t know if I want to go back.”

You curled into his side. “You don’t have to. Not yet.”

“But I will, eventually.”

You looked up. “Are you scared?”

He was quiet for a long time. “Yes.” He exhaled as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

You didn’t offer empty encouragement. No false hope. Just your arms, and your warmth, and the solid truth of your presence beside him.

“You’re not alone this time.” You said simply. “I’ll be there for you.”

He nodded and, finally he smiled.

——————————————————————————

The weeks passed slowly, and for once, neither of you minded. He stayed longer than he planned.

Sometimes he helped your elderly neighbor carry groceries. Sometimes he sat in the sun with you and read, barely turning the pages, just listening to the sound of your voice as you rambled.

He limped less. The stiffness faded.

But what changed most wasn’t his body, it was the way he carried himself. Like he wasn’t rushing to prove anything anymore. Like he knew that, even if he never played again, someone still saw worth in him.

You did.

And that changed everything.

——————————————————————————

One morning, you found him at the bench by the lake. Same one you always went to. This time, he was alone.

You approached quietly, but he didn’t look up. Just held out a hand as you came near, like he felt you before he saw you.

You took it without hesitation and sat beside him.

“I’ve been talking to my trainer.” He said softly. “They think I can start light drills next month.”

You felt your heart leap but didn’t let it show too much.

Instead, you squeezed his hand. “That’s great, Toshi.”

He looked at you then, eyes quiet but steady.

“I want to go back.”

You nodded. “Then you should.”

“But not because I need to prove I’m still strong.” He said. “Not to anyone. I just… I want to feel the court again.”

You leaned your head on his shoulder. “That’s the best reason.”

He exhaled through his nose. “And I want to take you with me.”

You blinked, startled.

He turned slightly toward you. “You don’t have to answer now. But… if I go back to playing, to traveling. I want you to be part of that world. However you can be.”

“Toshi.” You whispered.

He squeezed your hand. “You make it quiet. In my head. Like I can breathe.”

Tears pricked the corners of your eyes. You leaned up and kissed him, slow and full, pressing your heart into every touch.

“I’m already yours.” You said.

——————————————————————————

That night, he laid you down again.

Not rushed. Not broken. Just full of love he didn’t know how to put into words.

He kissed your body like he was learning you all over again. Touched you with reverence.

When you made love, it was less about need and more about being known.

He whispered your name into your neck as you moved together.

And for the first time, he let go completely.

——————————————————————————

You saw him off a few weeks later.

His rehab was scheduled to continue back in the city. There were evaluations, contracts, trials. But this time, when he stepped on the train, he didn’t look hollow.

He kissed you softly and promised he’d call every night.

And he did. Every time.

——————————————————————————

Months passed.

You visited when you could. He sent you photos of his practices. His scar faded, but not entirely and he never hid it.

You never stopped telling him how proud you were.

And when the first game came, and he stood on the court again stronger, slower, more deliberate. You watched from the stands.

He spotted you right after the final point. They’d won. But the look on his face wasn’t victory. It was peace.

——————————————————————————

Later that night, in the quiet of the locker room, a teammate asked him. “Hey Ushiwaka what changed? You play different now.”

He paused. “I found something that matters even when the game ends.”

——————————————————————————

As time passed the lake was quiet again. You sat on the bench, older now. Still just as in love.

He came up behind you, arms wrapping around your waist. You tilted your head to look up at him, grinning.

“You’re early.”

“I missed you.”

You beamed.

And he did something he only did for you. He smiled.

You lived together now, in a small home near the city but close enough to visit his hometown. He still played, but more balanced. Not like it was life or death because now, he had a life outside of it.

A life that included you. Warm meals. Early morning cuddles. Your voice reading out loud while he rested. He talked more now, always honest. Always tender. And always yours.

Sometimes, you’d trace the scar on his knee before bed. Kiss it. And every time, he’d close his eyes and breathe a little deeper. Because you never saw it as a wound. You saw it as a part of him like his silence, his strength, his love.

And slowly, he started to see it that way too.

“I love you.” He’d whisper every night as he held you close to him.

“This would be quite awkward if you didn’t.” You laughed, caressing his face softly, the metal of the ring on your hand that matched his felt warm against his skin. “I love you too.”

He kissed you slowly and tenderly because now he had the rest of his life to do so.

Taglists are open so let me know if you want to be added for future works! :)

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mcsiggy · 14 hours ago

Note

The reason you received so many hate asks the past few days was because of margaretkart. Her followers accused you and your fans of being racist because you draw certain Greek gods with darker skin tone and margaretkart agreed and started enlisting what she considered to be everything wrong with your comic DESPITE NEVER READING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE AND ONLY TAKING (MIS)INFORMATION FROM WHAT HER FOLLOWERS SHARED WITH HER!!! HOW MORE ANNOYING COULD SHE BE??!?!!

You know, I expected you two to be on good terms, since you're both Ariadne/Dionysus girlies, but it's so sick how she regards you without making any effort to actually know you (she said something about you blocking her??)

I mean that's pretty sad use of their time. especially since all this started, it's gotten me to work on my comic more where the first 8 pages of the 4th chapter is already more or less ready for me posting some new pages within the next month lol.

like i wish i could befriend every artist who has the same interest as me, but alas, I didn't want to interact w/ them anymore than i already had, which was literally me reblogging their art once in awhile if i saw it in the Dionysus tag.

Really I don't care if they like my comic or not, It's obviously not made for them, and me blocking them didn't really affect them until her followers decided to tell them i'm somehow disrespecting greek culture for not having enough white greek god designs.

#this isn't an invitation to attack margaret or any of their followers #i contemplated on posting this ask or not #but the fact that theyre openly talking about me kinda opened that door for me to do that too #but it still doesn't mean i want people to attack them either #I now goes back to drawing comics

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befemininenow · 21 hours ago

Text

Do a dare, or should I say a task, and please share this post if you support our right to exist, as well as for others who are also struggling right now!

This was a very difficult caption to make, not just because of the celebrity worship topic that I'm not used to making, but mainly because of the divisive topics mentioned in the captions. The latter is not the kind of stuff you often see in feminization captions since they are meant to be a form of entertainment, but I couldn't stay quiet anymore. If what I wrote has got you mad, whether you agree or not, it should: because all of what is currently happening will also affect you. Interested in reading? Continue below.

Warning: Don't be surprised if this gets taken down. This post is going to be very long.

This Pride Month has arguably been the most tumultuous June I've ever experienced in my entire life. Let's see:

A bunch of goons posed as "agents" forcibly kidnapping mostly innocent people without warrants while creating havoc amongst communities for the past month

Governments actively censoring or shutting down voices for speaking out and labeling them as dissidents, like what happened to the Norwegian guy for having a meme of the couch fucker in his phone and being tortured for hours

Bills being passed that are stripping crucial medical help while charging a premium for basic insurance (making life-saving HRT more expensive and difficult to obtain), not to mention that tariffs and corporate greed are the cause of everything getting so expensive. Oh, and the Trevor Project being shut down, all of this during Pride Month.

Courts actively allowing injustices without putting up a challenge (ex. birthright citizenship, being arrested for using the "wrong" bathroom/WC, banning HRT for anyone under 21, letting sex offenders off the hook, etc.)

The threat of a potential war happening anytime soon, (not just in Gaza and the Middle East, but anywhere) which the most affected are always the younger generations, who are also most likely to be trans. While trans people aren't allowed to serve, that doesn't mean the government won't force you to detransition. (Hope that doesn't happen, but I wouldn't be surprised.)

Even mentioning a bit about this could put me at risk, but I don't care anymore. I'm happy that my platform has grown thanks to all of you, but I also want to use it to speak out. Because at the end of the day, we don't fit the "traditional" role in society.

Seriously, if you spent a lot of your free time wishing to become a "full-time" girl and browsing feminization captions while also presenting male in daily life due to societal pressure, do you really think you're still cis, though? These kinds of spaces are a refuge for us who try to "boymode" in the real world, but are anything but cis in reality. While the circle you try to fit in cheers about gender affirming therapy being banned for people under 18 or 21, deep down you want to scream because you were that kid that had to wait until they were older and are now scared that you can be next. HRT isn't cheap, coverage doesn't cover it anymore, and it's possible you can't even access it nearby. Cross over to another state and get apprehended for buying hormones while being misgendered and deadnamed? Not very ideal. Heaven forbid you just started HRT and are forced to postpone it due to being drafted for an uneccessary war.

There's too much to list, but it's unfortunate that a lot of slippery slopes are becoming true, especially for us who are trans. HRT is being taken away, trans people are seeing their gender identities being erased, lifelines are being shut down, traveling even to the shop next door is increasingly dangerous, and somehow the biggest danger isn't the wealthy hoarding all the declining wealth, but trans girls participating in sports? Give me a fucking break! Even the media is tired of using trans people as a punching bag, and yet very few are brave to say the truth: Leave trans people the fuck alone!

I'm glad people like Pedro Pascal are stepping up for trans rights by popularizing the "Protect the Dolls" phrase and shutting up monsters like the one who must not be named. After all, his sister is trans girl actress Lux Pascal and both have the blessing of being very attractive, something that bigots will never have in their life. However, the reason I'm using Jenna Ortega here is for three reasons:

This was supposed to be a Woman Crush Wednesday post, pun intended. However, this is the last day of the month and I couldn't upload it in time due to technical issues. Oh, well.

Jenna is outspoken about current social issues affecting our society, as well as certain affected groups. This includes, but not limited to, the Palestinian G.E.N.O.C.I.D.E., the forced deportation of migrants and citizens, undocumented or not, and her support for the LGBTQ+ community. It also helps she has a very active online presence compared to other celebrities.

This is my take on the current trend of celebrity feminization captions. Although celebrity captions aren't new, they've been catching ground for the past year or two to the point where there's even blogs specialized in celebrity feminization captions. Though I'm not a huge fan of those since they're the worshipping type, I do like making Woman Crush Wednesday posts as a way to acknowledge the girls that seem inspiring. Jenna Ortega is one of those girls.

I can argue that this "essay" is my longest post ever, but it's definitely one of my most divisive yet. I do find it ironic, however, that a few people that followed me or chatted with me and loved my content and vibe also happen to have views that are against one or two of these topics covered here. To those people, aren't you aware that you're in a page from someone who is also part of an affected group? You do realize this isn't just a page where fantasies are expressed, but also harsh realities that will strike a nerve or two? Like, where's the self-awareness on these people? SMH.

Lastly, I want to thank you, my supporter, for reading this very long post. I would be even happier if you shared it as well. Like I said before, this isn't your typical feminization blog that posts smut or fantasy desires. I also post struggles, realities, and thoughts as well. Remember, Pride Month may be over, but our pride will never be!

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chrolloswrld · 3 days ago

Text

ART HEIST , chrollo lucilfer

authors note. she finally posts again ??? i’ve been thinking about this idea for so long and i wanted to turn it into an actual series but anytime i’ve tried to write a multi-part fanfic i haven’t gotten past chapter two so take a completed oneshot for now. ending was ambiguous bc i was lazy sorryyy. erm can u tell ik nothing about art. lowk a lot of time jumps

warnings. stealing? like that’s it. chrollo’s normal in this ( as normal as he can get )

wc. 1.1k

THE GALLERY WAS sterile. White walls, white light, white wine in thin glasses tipped between conversation. People milled in circles, clinked glasses, and spoke in tones of admiration or derision, depending on how many eyes were nearby.

You stood tucked in a corner, watching.

Your painting hung beneath a track light that washed it in pale warmth, making the brushstrokes shimmer—oil on canvas, a ghostly woman reaching for something unseen just outside the frame. It was disturbing, purposely so. No nameplate, no acclaim. It was a last-minute addition, hung crookedly between two larger, more marketable pieces.

“Beautiful,” someone murmured behind you.

You turned.

The man looked disinterested, which was the first sign he meant it. Dark hair, half-lidded eyes, a quiet tilt to his smile like he’d been let in on some private joke. He didn’t hold a wine glass. He didn’t wear a name tag. But there was a quiet wealth surrounding him, the kind that didn’t need to be flaunted with designer bags or luxury cars.

“I didn’t paint it to be beautiful,” you said before you could stop yourself.

“No,” he agreed. “You painted it to be remembered.”

You shifted, moving your weight onto your other foot. “It doesn’t matter what I painted it for. No one’s looking.”

“They will,” he said, like it was a fact and not wishful thinking. “Eventually.”

“Eventually is a long time to wait.” You exhaled, scratching your arm. “Most artists die before anyone realizes their work mattered.”

“Then perhaps they painted the wrong things.”

You looked at him.

“It’s not about painting the wrong thing,” you said slowly. “No one remembers anything that doesn’t cause a stir.”

“The Mona Lisa wasn’t famous until it was stolen. And how many people cared about those thirteen paintings before they were stolen from the Stewart Garden Museum in 1990? Some did, sure, but you can’t deny that the unsolved heist brought global notoriety.”

His gaze sharpened, just enough to register the shift. “So you’re saying art becomes immortal through theft?” There was a glint in his eyes, like the idea genuinely amused him.

You frowned. “Not all art. And I’m not saying stealing is noble or anything. Just that fame isn’t built on talent alone. It needs attention—scandal, mystery, obsession. It’s not about painting well. It’s about being seen.”

He turned to you then, full-on. “Then maybe it should be stolen.”

The words hovered in the space between you—absurd and disarming.

You laughed, dry and humorless. “If only I had the nerve.”

—

Two nights later, the Phantom Troupe gathered in the half-dark of an empty building across the street from the gallery.

“It’s not even valuable,” Machi said, arms crossed, pink hair catching in the moonlight. Her voice was sharp as glass. “Why bother?”

“Not everything we take has to be priceless,” Chrollo murmured, flipping through his leather-bound notebook in his hand.

Nobunaga snorted. “You getting soft on us, boss?”

Chrollo didn’t answer. He was watching the gallery through the window, eyes on the painting. “Some art is worth stealing simply because the world doesn’t realize it yet.”

Shalnark leaned in over the blueprints, propping his chin on his hand. “So this is for fun, then?”

“Symbolism,” Chrollo corrected. “I’m curious what people will make of it when it vanishes. Maybe it’ll finally matter.”

Feitan snorted, lounging like a shadow in the corner. “You bored.”

“Perhaps.”

“Or,” Pakunoda said from the doorway, arms folded, “you’ve just taken an interest in something… or someone.”

At that, Chrollo finally smiled but made no attempt to reply.

—

The Troupe had come for something else—a gilded heirloom, locked behind reinforced glass and tagged for a black-market auction. That was the real job.

But as Chrollo passed the corridor where your painting hung, he paused.

There it was again. The ghost. Still reaching. Still ignored.

Chrollo studied the strokes again, slower this time. The longing in the hands, the quiet plea in the figure’s posture. It wasn’t perfect. There were mistakes in the anatomy, wildness in the shading. But it wanted to be seen. It begged for it.

Chrollo tilted his head. He remembered your voice.

“The Mona Lisa wasn’t famous until it was stolen.”

He didn’t need it. But now he wanted it. Not for profit. For legacy. For you.

“I’ll return for it,” he murmured, half to himself.

He lingered another moment, then turned down the corridor after the others.

—

When Chrollo came back, Pokunoda and Phinks flanking him, the painting was already gone.

The frame was there. The wall light still humming. But the canvas had been pried from its mount. A screw dangled loose.

Phinks stared at it. “What the hell?”

“Someone beat us to it?” Pokunoda asked, glancing toward Chrollo.

Chrollo smiled, eyes fixed on the empty space. “Apparently.”

He reached out and touched the wall, like he could feel the echo of the painting lingering in the wood.

Then he turned on his heel.

“Let’s go.”

—

They found you two blocks away, in the alley behind the gallery, half-hunched in the cold. Your breath fogged in the air as you clutched the canvas to your chest like a stolen child.

“You beat me to it,” Chrollo said quietly.

You jumped, turning. The painting shifted under your arms.

“You—?”

He stepped closer, hands in his pockets. The streetlight hit his face then, casting half of it in gold. The other half stayed shadowed, unreadable. “I had the same idea. For different reasons.”

His voice was calm. Pleased, even.

“You really did steal your own work.”

You looked down at the painting. “It felt ridiculous until I was already doing it.”

He tilted his head. “What will you do now? Call the news? Submit an anonymous tip? Feed the storm?”

You hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to see if I could.”

“That’s the start of most things worth doing.”

You looked up at him. “You weren’t joking, were you? Back at the gallery.”

“I rarely do.”

A silence bloomed between you. Heavy, but not awkward.

Then: “Are you going to take it from me?”

He stepped even closer. “That depends.”

“Do you want it back in the world? Hung on another wall, forgotten again?”

You didn’t answer. But silence was an answer in itself.

—

By morning, the painting was hitting international news.

Unknown Work Stolen in Midnight Gallery Heist — No Security Footage, No Leads.

It was all anyone could talk about. Who had taken it. What it meant. If it was performance art, or a statement, or the first in a string of copycats.

But the original painting was gone.

And so were you.

#xreader #fanfic #chrollo lucifer x reader #yandere chrollo #chrollo x you #hxh chrollo #x reader #anime

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gryphis-eyes · 1 day ago

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⊙ Post tenebras spero lucem

【After the darkness I hope for the light】

Haha you thought I abandoned the over the garden wall pac ? Well almost but it's better late than never uh ? I guess I wasn't in the right mindset for it but now that I'm using what I put as a title like a mantra everyday to not go mad I guess it's time to help the people. The goal is to give you advice in order to get out of a dark period

◇ Deck used ; medieval tarot, shakespeare oracle

Pile 1 pumpkin

Cards ; 10 of swords, Ace of wands

Troilus and Cressida - Act 1, scene 2

【Cressida】 - ” Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing. "

In your case maybe the dark period just ended or its still going, no matter where it is you’ve just went through a tragedy. Something put you down maybe even backstabbed you and now you barely have the strength to get up. In a less dramatic way some of you might have just ended a really hard project that took all your energy, burnout perhaps ? The third case I got is for my people who are dealing with mental illness who had hard time maybe it was harder than usual or simply a period where depression came back full force.

No matter the case, the way out is the same ; you have to bring back passion into your life. If you have a clear idea of it and what you have to do, take it easy do it slowly. For some of you before jumping on the ”do it” step you might have to remind yourself what is/are your true passion, ask yourself what can light the fire in your heart, what truly make you vibe regardless of people’s opinions. Do not stay stagnant you need to move in order to make your heart beat again. Recognize what makes you happy and let it make you shine. It's ok to feel overwhelmed when something end but staying in this grieving instant will only increase the pain and make things darker. Let your light come back at its own pace there is no need to go mad if you don’t manage to do this new thing everyday, what is important is to let yourself rest when needed, push yourself when you feel like you're just making excuses. An advice that worked for me ; try to use one of those habit tracker but without putting the days on it, just the amount of time you’ve managed to do your thing even if its only 5 minutes or 2 hours.

Have faith in yourself you deserve to shine ☆

Pile 2 the beast

Cards ; 3 of swords, Knight of swords R

King Lear Act 5 scene 3

【Edmund】 "Th’ hast spoken right. ’Tis true. The wheel is come full circle; I am here."

I've had a quite precise image and I hope I'll describe it correctly ; you know when a wheel with something on it turn and there is a little moment where it slows down because of the weight but then goes faster cuz the weight moved ? I hope it's clear omg Basically you're being slowed by a weight that is quite harmful as if there was a little monster on your back who keep pocking at your back with a dagger. This monster can either be your self-criticism habit or straight up someone ”close” to you, it can also be an accumulation of problem that lead to you ending up confused on where you are in general. Perhaps the wheel slowed down so much that it made you forget what was the initial goal or where you were going. Since everything is slowing down a little pause won’t create any problem, stop trying to move forward not only to rest but also to have a little brainstorming moment. Where are you going ? Why ? Is this weight on your back really worthy of stopping you ? Maybe even try to get rid of it or make it lighter. Moving forward while being exhausted and weakened will only create more obstacles and make you more tired. It's a moment of solitude but use it for yourself, get yourself on solo date, get a little treat. I feel like this advice might sound annoying to some of you but do you wish to be efficient or to push yourself until you burn out which will make you unable to continue, take on your health and might ruin the things you're trying to do because you'll be exhausted ?

Choose wisely, the wheel won’t turn just because you want it to

Pile 3 ; Wirt & Greg

cards ; Page of Pentacles and you got 2 oracle cards !

Twelfth Night - Act 2, scene 5

【Malvolio】 (he reads) " If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em. Thy fates open their hands. Let thy blood and spirit embrace them"

Richard III - Act 3, scene 7

【Catesby】 "He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord, To visit him tomorrow or next day. He is within, with two right reverend fathers, Divinely bent to meditation, And in no worldly suits would he be moved To draw him from his holy exercise."

I think your path is unusual for society standards which also make it harder than it's supposed to be, after all you got the opposite of the normal spread for this PAC, 2 oracles instead of 2 tarot cards and only one tarot card instead of one oracle card. You're on a great path but also on a phase where everything is either slowing down or fully stopped. You've been brave, deciding to take a path where you will build everything brick by brick everything is self made including yourself. Like Greg and Wirt all you want is to get out of this damn forest but you've reached winter and everything is harder (harsher would be a better word). Like it is required in all dark times and winter, it's better to let yourself slow down (or pause) in order to reflect because forcing yourself to move forward will only make yourself even more tired. The soil is fertile and you've put the seed in it, they haven't got out of the soil yet but it doesn't mean they aren't growing. Tho an other scenario might be more logic in your case : The problem is the root and this seed needs to be planted somewhere else. I get that the environment is really bad for you, you're still an apprentice (and a bold one) but people around you are probably all against whatever you're moving forward so all they do is crying behind you so you have to go back on your steps to baby them. It is a painful and long thing to do but it's time for you to accept the idea that your current environment (that might be your place since forever or social circle) isn't for you. It's unfair but if it can help you remember that you're not alone on this path many people (especially from this generation) are in the same lonely path as you. It's time to move on, if your current social circle wish to support the real you they will reach out or at least they won't start discouraging you or try to make you look back. This moment of slowdown happen because you look back way too much and maybe you realize how far you are from the village, you barely see the smoke or lights because you're deep in the forest but it's time to take a deep breath and move on.

Maybe the next town will be yours, maybe you'll find your place in the woods but what is sure is that your place wasn't this village full of vipers.

⊙

#pick a card #pick a pile #pick a picture

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yoongleboonglepie · 23 hours ago

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Pechsträhne Chapter 20

BTS OT7 x Reader

Series Masterlist

Chapter playlist-Youtube music

Chapter Playlist-Spotify

Word Count Approx: 23k

_________________________________________

A/N: PHEW. She is here! Let's all give around of applause to my heating pads and ice packs that carried me through writing this, and the endless thunderstorms that watered my garden so I didn't have to. Love you all, and I'm seriously so excited for the next chapter, y'all don't even know what hit you😈😈

I apologize for any typos-I'll read over it for a third time later. I got new glasses and I keep forgetting to wear them LMAO.

Also I'm such a boomer, bc I'm going to post it on AO3 and the entire tagging system confuses the shit out of me. My wife is going to be teaching me the way around the site since I'm not fluent with it as a poster LOL

~Delyn

_________________________________________

recap:

“Have a nice trip, Yoongi?” Hoseok chuckled nervously, one of his hands coming up to swipe hair from sticking to his sweaty forehead. All four heads turned to him with varying levels of dissatisfaction–Yoongi’s fists clenched and released themselves at his side to keep himself from swinging one of them at him.

“Shut up.” Yoongi bit back breathlessly, Namjoon and Jimin respectively sharing similar sentiments, their annoyance overlapping one another like a choir.

“Not now, Hoseok.”

“I suggest you remain silent for your own well being.”

Hoseok scanned all of their faces with visible defeat etched into his features, stopping to take in Jungkook’s deadly glare before he closed his eyes and tipped his head to land on the floor below him with a thump. “Yeah, guess I deserve that.”

Music crackled from the speaker table to Bear’s right, filling the ballroom that was vacant and lifeless with sound. The red drapes swooped down in elegant cascades of burgundy and wine and met the reflective golden surface in a clash of red and gold. The perfect mix of color brought forth memories of freshly trimmed pine trees and swiping more imported chocolates from overflowing dessert tables than his stomach could handle. But now all that it reminded Bear of was what he no longer had. The person he enjoyed spending those days with the most, flouncing around this very ballroom in the middle of the night before helping her line the gifts for her children out beneath the tree–almost all of them purchased by him–was gone.

Grief wrapped around his heart and squeezed, limiting his breath until a choking sound escaped his mouth into the empty ballroom. He couldn’t find himself. He felt lost. His lifeline was the letter he clutched in his hands that was now peppered with damp spots from his hands that whipped across his cheeks more times than he could count.

And the worst of it all, was that he could tell no one–show no one of how this really felt. Not if he wanted to keep his head attached upon his own shoulders and his intestines pulsing within his middle instead of writhing on the floor.

“Bear?”

The ballroom door opened just a few inches, enough for a face still rounded at the edges with youth and a nose that resembled the person he wished to see the most. A stronger resurgence of emotion flooded through his system that he had to smother.

Dorothea had always looked just like Patti.

“What’s the matter, Dottie? Do they need me to come help clean up at the hotel?” Bear mopped at his face with his jacket sleeve, rushing to hide the extent of his misery from her keen tawny eyes that looked at him the same way Patti’s had; they both had a very specific way of using the observance of others as a guise to screen their own feelings.

She shifted, one black dress shoe balancing behind the other and her face partially obscured from his view as she glanced about the empty room. She inherited everything from her mother: her dark curls, her complexion, her face shape–everything about her was a spitting image of her–a living memory of what was now gone.

“No,” Dorothea finally answered, sounding just as shaky as he felt. “I just wanted to…” Her voice broke off and her shoulders cowered in on themselves, hands wrapping around her middle to soothe herself. “I just wanted a hug.”

Bear was on his feet the moment the first sob left her mouth, his own emotions clouded to focus on hers. He engulfed her in his arms and felt the way she broke. Just sixteen, and here she was saying goodbye to her mother–what right did he have to wallow when the children needed him the most.

“I got you Dottie.” Bear whispered, pressing her into his shoulder and letting her lean on it as he pondered what led her creeping back up the path to him and not Duane. Though he likely knew the answer, he wanted to have some kind of hope. “Where’s your old man? You know he could probably use one of these as well.”

Dottie sniffled, and brought her face back up to meet his gaze. “He’s at the bar.”

That was an answer enough. While Duane had every reason to drink, he had three children to worry about first–a thought that had rage pooling in his belly and gnashing its teeth at his heart. Bear knew if he spoke, it would be unkind. Thus he just held her close to release some of her own strife onto his jacket.

After a few moments, Bear swallowed down the tightness in his throat and tried his best at offering words of comfort. “You know, he’s trying–”

“Don’t.” Dorothea cut him off, silencing any further effort. “He’s trying but it’s not enough.”

Bear couldn’t even fight her words, for they were the blatant truth that he himself believed. Even at the funeral that morning, Johan held little Henry tucked into one side, and Dorothea in the other–he was shorter than his father, but he was twice the man in Bear’s eyes. Bear made a mental note to try and check on both brothers later in the evening. Henry was not yet ten years old, and his own father hadn’t even held him during one of his hardest moments. Johan may be in his early twenties but he was nonetheless a child in Bear’s eyes, and was just as deserving as a hand to hold. He deserved a father as much as the rest of them.

Bear opened his mouth to speak, but Dorothea didn’t let him. “Please don’t defend him. Not today.”

“What shall I say then?” Bear offered quietly, waiting for her to leave the hug first–you would never catch him being the first to let go.

“You shall be honest. Say how awful he was and has been!” Dorothea pulled her face from his shoulder to wipe aggressively at her eyes, her eyes burning with passion. “Say the truth! She is dead and still he had nothing special to share. I want to hear something real about her–not some generic eulogy about love and grace.”

Bear sighed and ran the tip of his tongue over his lip apprehensively, holding her stare, too afraid to speak in fear he would say the wrong thing.

“I know,” Dottie’s eyes shined up at him with unshed tears, her words wet and earnest. “We know. I want to hear about her from you.” She used her hand to slip the sheet of paper from his pocket that held Patti’s final goodbyes to him in the air between them. A physical embodiment of the secret being unleashed out into the open.

The dam had been released, all of his feelings of guilt and horror pouring out of him as he crushed her to him. “I’m so sorry,” He choked out with a gasp. “This isn’t how you should’ve found out…”

Despite both of their predicaments, Dorotea managed a small meek laugh and shook her head. “Don’t be silly. We’ve known since we were children.”

“What?” Bear managed a chuckle of his own through his burning shame, wiping a fresh tear. “Was it that obvious?”

“Very,” Dorothea gave him a bittersweet smile, her chin crumpling into shapes as it shook. “I never saw her happier unless it was with you.”

Bear tried to smile but it came out more of a grimace, and the backs of his eyes burned with a new wave of saltwater. “Are you angry with me?”

“Not at all,” She shook her head with a shrug. “If anything I’m grateful. Life would have been a lot worse without you here.”

“Don’t say that! Duane was–”

“I said don’t defend him today.” Dorothea held a finger up to his lips with a look that dared him to continue. “Not when you know full well who painted our nurseries, tucked us in at night, helped with our homework, came to all of our recitals, and sat with us each night at the dinner table. Because it wasn’t him.”

Bear couldn’t speak.

It really was that obvious.

He finally settled on something truthful, something he had never spoken aloud to anyone but finally let himself utter now. “I couldn’t stand by and watch it happen. Not when I know he has it in him to do better. I don’t leave anyone behind. Especially not family–not the ones I love.”

Bear led them out of the ballroom and up to the rooftop terrace, the two of them reclined in patio chairs with their black attire standing out amongst the vivid shades of the summer blooms. He told her of everything he could remember of Patti–her resilience, her laugh, her favorite foods and what dress she liked to wear the most (even though she already knew that one). He told tales of the day he first met her, of her pregnancy with Johan and how he used to make her shoo fly pie with sliced strawberries on the side because it was one of the only things she could stomach during her first few months pregnant. He shared how the first time he had made it had been within his first few days back home after a long while away. He had served everyone a slice after supper, and watched as her eyes light up after the first taste hit her tongue. That one slice hadn’t been enough it seemed, because she had come to find him in the study far past midnight with a nervous smile and a belly hungry enough for two, starving for his creation of molasses and sugar and topped with vanilla ice cream. He had no choice but to oblige the moment he laid eyes on her standing in the door way, looking at him so.

That night the two of them stayed in the kitchen until dawn as he prepared her a new pie entirely of her own. It was the first night he had heard her laugh freely–the first time he had felt the warmth in his chest of a newly kindled affection for her.

Bear and Dorothea were still crying, but not for the same reasons as before. These tears were now warmed by their shared love of one of the best women they knew, not by just the shadow of her loss. It wasn’t long before Johan and his girlfriend found them, Henry’s lanky form trailing between them with one hand held up by the couple.

Margaret was his long term girlfriend who had made a habit of coming around the house as often as possible as of late. And while from first glance she seemed rather rigid and inflexible, religious (which Johan was definitely not), and strict in behavior–she was kind and headstrong with the intelligence to match. When the two of them were together it was like watching a scale tip into balance, seesawing back and forth as the weight evenly distributed into a perfect equilibrium. Johan softened her edges, while she toughened his.

Bear had a feeling he would be seeing her around the estate long after the the night ended.

The new addtions found their own seats, Henry tucked on Bear’s lap with his head buried in his neck and his small arms wrapped around his shoulders and Johan and Margaret curled and posed on the floor next to one another–and the five of them (after Henry had dozed) continued to share their favorite memories of their mother until the sun had started to set and the breeze began to cool.

Hurried footsteps on the stairs and labored breathing were the welcoming the fanfare for Youngho’s abrupt entrance, stopping once he spotted Bear and the children all circled around one another. Their conversation died out at his abrupt entrance, all heads turning to greet him.

He smiled, tense and riddled with discomfort. He gave everyone a short wave before beelining over to Bear and bending at the waist to whisper in his ear, sliding a piece of torn notebook paper into his awaiting hands. “I suggest you guide the children away from here–quickly.”

Bear stiffened as he thumbed the paper, scanning the large blocky capital letters that ran from one edge to the other.

“Squirrel ate a bad nut–stomachache. We need pollen and sunshine. – J&S”

Bear regarded Youngho with concern. “What kind of ill are you implying?”

“All of it.” Youngho sighed, voice low enough to be kept between them, rising with a hand on his hips and red rimmed eyes facing the children to address them kindly. “I heard they are serving pie and ice cream in the dining room shortly, came to find you and give you all a heads up.”

“Thanks…” Johan wearily eyed both Bear and Youngho, scrutinizing their interaction as though under a microscope. He found Bear’s eyes, and nodded curtly as if sensing the tension, rising to his feet from his seat and tugging Margaret up with him. “I think we should go. We’ve been stowed away from the guests for quite some time now.”

He helped his sister up to follow, and went to scoop Henry up from Bear before the four of them took the steps at a slow pace, Dorothea casting sidelong glances back at Bear with worry etched into her features until she had disappeared down to the balcony.

Bear waited until he was sure they were out of earshot before his smile wiped from his face, and he turned to Youngho with urgency. “How bad?”

“Bad.” Youngho affirmed, leading him into the attic to rush down through the dark cramped walls and down the stairs into the right hall of bedrooms. It would be best if the they avoided the children from here on out.

Bear kept up with the taller man’s nimble speed easily, taking the stairs two at a time and shutting the door behind them. “Where?”

“The Adelaide. Seonggi is already with him.”

The Adelaide–like the rest of the hotel–had been closed and vacated for the day as was customary when the family was in mourning, making their speedy pace through the front doors and lobby much easier than it would have been otherwise. Bear and Youngho skidded to a halt outside the closed doors of the Adelaide where Seonggi stood ramrod straight, an image of perfect professionalism to anyone that didn’t know him well enough to recognize the tension pinched between his shoulder blades and brow.

The moment his almond eyes found the two of them, they visibly relaxed and he ran a hand through his cropped hair. “Lord have mercy, where have you been?”

“I was with the children.” Bear caught his breath easily, giving the door a look of disgust. “They needed someone to be there for them.”

“Well they are lucky it wasn’t him,” Seonggi began to unwind the lock he had placed on the outside of the door, presumably to keep Duane in, not them out. “Things really have taken a turn for the worst. First Adelaide and now Patti–we are outnumbered.” Seonggi turned his face skywards and sighed, as though gathering the strength from god himself before sending a pointed glance Bear’s way. “Don’t make it worse.”

He tugged a bell from his pocket, waiting for the other two men to do the same. Bear tried not to let his remark get under his skin, but it was hard not to. This had nothing to do with Bear’s choices but everything to do with Duane’s own. He refused to take the blame this time.

Once the cool cylinder’s of metal were lodged in their fists, they shared one last look of courage before Seonggi placed his palm on the door handle, not quite getting to push before a voice called out to them from the hall.

“What are you guys doing?”

Margaret, Johan’s girlfriend stood with both hands on her hips at the end of the entrance hall, one black shoe tapping on the rug beneath her feet expectantly. It took a moment for the men to respond, shared looks of uncertainty saying enough for them.

“This is hotel business. Please return to the Estate to partake in the food and drink provided.” Seonggi gave the brightest smile Bear had ever seen, like he was talking to a customer and not a friend.

She sized the three of them up, quirking one eyebrow at the excuse, and both arms coming up to cross over her front. “Hotel business? The hotel is closed.”

A vein in Seonggi’s neck twitched, but he withheld his smile, shifting the bell into his pocket to wave at her dismissively. “That you are right it is. However, some things still need to be taken care of even when no guests are around to enjoy it.” Youngho and Bear shared a nervous glance when a thud sounded from within the restaurant, but Margaret was too far to hear it.

“If you are to sin enough to tell a lie, at least make it a worthwhile reason to repent.” Margaret started down the hall and stopped just beside them much to their chagrin, and gave them each an individual once over. “So I shall ask again: what are you all doing here?

Spunk. She had spunk that made the corners of Bear’s lips quiver upwards even on a day as terrible as the one he was having. He quite liked her, he decided, and an idea so absurd it made his heart thrum in his chest came to his mind.

Seonggi’s eyelid twitched involuntarily, and he tried to give her another sweet smile that had begun to look a bit too forced. “Miss, it would be best–”

“Are you going to marry him?” Bear interrupted Seonggi, addressing Margaret directly with all the seriousness he could muster. “Johan–do you intend to marry him?”

The young woman looked quite taken aback, a hand coming up to fidget with the string of pearls around her neck with squinted eyes. “Perhaps.”

Bear let his military persona take hold of him, his eyes lasering in on her features and his demeanor shifting from friendly to one that meant business–a demeanor he barely ever used at home. “I asked you a question. Do you intend to marry my-” my son. Bear cut himself off, his tongue nearly slipping with a word he knew he shouldn’t say. Though he knew if anyone deserve to, it would be him. “-my nephew.” He corrected himself swiftly, barely a beat passing between it.

Margaret met his stare with one of her own that was just as powerful. “I do so hope to, sir.”

Bear examined her closely for any sign of dishonesty, his well trained eyes finding none. He chewed on the tip of his tongue, the gnaw of the muscle instinctual as he weighed his choices and the gravity of what he was about to ask of her. If what she said was true, then she would be the next lady of the Estate, thus taking on the role Patti had held for many years prior–but she would have no one to teach her of the role she was to take–the parts that had remained invisible to most until the more recent years would have to be learned on the job. Pieces of it would remain forgotten, as parts of it were even forbidden for Patti to share with him–lost to time and sickness. He prayed they would do without, and even as the prayers made their rounds within his mind he knew they were weightless.

“Take this,” Bear tossed her his bell which she caught effortlessly, peering down at the metal dubiously.

“Bear!” Seonggi hissed through his teeth, trying to garner his attention but failing to do so.

Margaret looked back up at Bear quizzically, one eyebrow raised in question. “A bell?”

“Yep,” Bear nodded, turning back to the door and readying himself to enter. “Welcome to the Wörner’s. Usually the lady of the house would teach you this, but as you are well aware she is dead, so you will have to hit the ground running. Hope you don’t mind the head start–but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Seonggi looked at Bear with wide, scandalized eyes. “Barrett Wörner!”

There was an ear splitting crash from the other side of the door as though a shower of glass had rained down from within, and she let out a small gasp through parted lips, clutching the bell tightly in her fist. Bear stared at her expectantly, awaiting a proper answer. Finally she turned to him, giving the bell a gentle shake in her fist and eyes aglow with determination.

“What do you need me to do?”

Bear managed a half-hearted grin. She really was growing on him already.

_________________________________________

“Twenty seven!” A man’s voice bellowed out in astonishment. “Why–that’s practically all of them!”

Four little girls huddled in a half circle in front of a plush red armchair, their hands all outstretched in offering to the man seated within it, his mouth agape and his eyes wide. In their tiny palms was an assortment of chocolate candies, all of them beginning to melt and smear onto their skin.

“It is what you asked for!” One of the girls cried out, giggles pouring from her chest and her feet unable to hold themselves still.

“What you asked for!” the girl next to her repeated her phrase–albeit in a bit clunkier manner than the first–and held her own fist of sweets closer to the man's face.

Y/n blinked slowly, watching the scene unfold in front of her the same way as one watches trash television, like she was watching but not really seeing.

She had watched this scene roughly eight times now from her spot against the living room wall. It would start with Ernst sitting hunched in the arm chair, a newspaper in his fist with the back door propped open to let in the warm early spring air; a cigar would be pinched between his lips as he hummed along to the headlines he skimmed.

After approximately thirty seconds or so (Y/n started counting by her third viewing), a gaggle of four young girls all dressed in vintage dresses speckled with dirt would come thumping into the living room with fists held high in triumphant victory with their stolen delicacies. Two of them Y/n vaguely recognized as Louise and Madeline from her late night family tree studies–Candida’s two daughters. The other girls Y/n recognized immediately as one of the first Kim daughters, and next to her was someone Y/n had almost forgotten about: Ani. But Y/n felt like she had forgotten about everything anyways–was she supposed to care about Ani? Something pinging in her mind told her she should.

They would offer him the chocolates, he would guffaw and wink at them before splitting them up for them all to share by the time Philomena would come barreling around the corner like a steam train with smoke billowing out from both ears, calling for Ernst in a tone Y/n recognized all too well–as she had been on the receiving end of it from the countless women in her life as a child. Then the scene would end as the children left him in the dust with chocolate smeared on his chin to be scolded by his wife for the thievery. Sometimes it would immediately restart, and other times she got to see something else.

This was one of those times it seemed that they were giving her a break.

Ah yes.

The grassy field.

Now this one Y/n had only gotten to see twice so far, and it was quite short and boring in her eyes.

Dogs, a pack of four of them–maybe five–would bounce through the tall grassy fields with their tails pointed and noses twitching with the thrill of the hunt. Behind them trailed a small group of men with hunting rifles strapped onto their backs as they chased after the canines with sweat beaded brows. Y/n counted the men: there were three of them.

By the time one of the dogs bounded past Y/n, the scene would vanish and she’d be back in the living room, listening to Ernst hum pensively and thumb the corner of the newspaper he held in his fingers.

She waited for the girls to come in, straining her ears for the tell tale sign of their small feet running down the hall from the kitchen.

And they came just as expected–this time she counted twenty seven seconds.

Y/n let her head loll to the side, and enjoyed the view of the backyard from the open door, admiring both how little and how much had changed. She couldn’t remember what she had done to get here. She couldn’t remember much at all–but had she said that already? Her brain felt muddied, like a river that a group of hikers had waded through, kicking clouds of dirt and substrate into the waters as they went–except the water was her mind, and for once it wasn’t racing fast enough to clear the waters up.

She listened to the girls' excited breaths as they waited for Ernst to count out the chocolates, her eyes trained on the sway of a tree on the horizon and a small bird that chittered from branch to branch. The smell of trees, spring blooms and fresh forest air billowed in from outside, inviting her out into the sun–though Y/n knew she only had seconds before the scene would restart and any distance she walked would be mute.

Well, she guessed she hadn’t tried to walk anywhere. But why try? The scenes were enough entertainment for the time being. Something sharp and aromatic carried over the wind, and she blinked, searching for the little wisp that she had gotten. It was so familiar…

“No, I don't know what a spell bag is. The fuck is this–Halloween Town?”

Y/n jerked off the wall, her head whipping about in all directions for the familiar voice that had broken through the sounds of the girls devouring the treats with excited squeals.

Another voice, equally as familiar responded to the other. “Don’t be a smartass. Give it to me–here just grab the-” there was a pause followed by a heavy sigh and an intense scent of roses choked Y/n’s senses. “Great. Now you’ve done it.”

Y/n knew those voices, they stirred something in her chest that made her eyes water unwillingly. She spun in circles to find the source–the old red living room and her ghostly companions oblivious to the intrusion.

A sneeze stopped her in her tracks–for Ernst had been the one whose head jerked forward with the outburst. Y/n watched as he did something he hadn’t done in all of the nine times she had watched it play out: he took a handkerchief from his pockets and held it to his nose as a second sneeze overcame him.

Ernst turned his head to the side to discard it onto the end table, his eyes passing over where Y/n stood bouncing right back to her in astonishment. They maintained eye contact, both of them equally as shocked to see one another. He opened his mouth to say something but the scene disintegrated before he could get a single word out.

Y/n was dropped onto the front lawn beneath a bright hot sun in a new scene that she had yet to watch as of yet. One of her hands came up to block the light from blinding her vision, making the surroundings sharper, the details familiar as though looking at one of her own memories.

She had seen this before–but it wasn’t necessarily her memory.

It was as though she had been dropped into one of the photos that was hung up at the historical society–the lines of children with their stick weapons drawn at the ready in battle. Everyone was in place: Leon was reclined on the front steps, lower legs gone and in the hands of his children. The women sitting off to the side with babies on their laps looked with a stern press of their brow as though waiting with a scold already perched on their lips.

Bear was–wait. Bear was gone.

The place where young Bear should have stood was empty, but the leg in Duane’s hand was still gesturing at the empty spot with squinted eyes. Leon quipped out a sharp whistle and the children’s fighting commenced without care for Bear’s absence.

They moved as though Bear was still there–dodging from invisible attacks and lunging at something unseen.

Children screamed with laughter and over dramatic battle cries that felt comforting and familiar, and the sun was warm on her skin. Y/n sat herself on the stairs and peered up at the clouds distractedly–had she been looking for something? Why was her heart racing? It surely wouldn’t hurt to sit and watch the children play…

“He’s literally the opposite of a goblin if he has a vacuum cleaner in his room.”

“I’d say he would be a brownie if he was any sort of household creature.”

“What even is that? Is that some DnD thing?”

There was a sputtering noise from someone’s mouth before one of the voices cried out in defense.

“You’re acting like you’ve never read a fantasy book. We literally all read Spiderwick and Lord of the Rings together!”

“Focus please, all of you! We can discuss Jungkook’s creature status later!” Y/n felt something soft on the skin of her palm and a comforting weight settled between her fingers. “We all know Jungkook would be a barbarian anyways…”

Y/n shot to her feet–Yes! The voices! She knew them!

She turned abruptly, her memory trying to squeeze up into her consciousness as she ran up the front steps and pushed through the front doors. While her memory was still hazy, she was able to pull up the urge to run back to her room which was–Her feet came to a slow stop in the entranceway, the red drapes and carpet surrounding her felt wrong.

Where was her room again?

Music floated from the study, the chirping of a flute, the singing of a violin and the low timbre of a cello all swirling with one another in a uniformed swell. Y/n stole a peek through the study doors, but the room was empty–only sound emanated from the space from phantom musicians.

A stronger floral smell engulfed her, planting stakes into the folds of her brain and making them pulse with the start of a headache.

“Lavender is usually used for sleep, but it can also be an effective cleansing herb. I don’t care if I have to use up my entire greenhouse stash–we will keep trying.”

Y/n was standing still one second, and the next she was running. Up the stairs and following the scent of lavender to the right hand side of the landing and straight down the hall. As the doors sped past her, the hall grew darker as though the sun had fallen from the sky and the moon had shot up to take its place.

She was almost there–her friends–she needed to get to them to tell them…something. The smell led to the second to last door, and she grabbed the handle to give it a strong twist, shoving it open and out of the way.

Yoongi’s bed was scattered with dried rose petals and a pot of dried lavender was smoldering on his bedside table. Her friends were spaced about the room on whatever surface they could fit–hands all busy rooting through glass jars of plant matter and seeds Y/n recognized from the greenhouse as some of Namjoon’s collection.

Y/n made a move to run straight to them, to her body that lay lifeless on his comforter next to Jimin’s head that he rested on folded arms next to her with his fingers playing with the stiff digits on her own hand. The only indicator that he was stressed was the steady bounce of his knee and the can of soda next to the lavender pot.

“I’m right here!” Y/n cried out to him, and she watched as Jimin’s head snapped to face her with wide eyes unseeing–searching for her.

Then she was back in the living room with Ernst humming at the headlines on the daily paper, smoke snaking from the tip of his cigar and drifting out the open back door. She had twenty seven seconds until the girls would come in and share their hoards.

Twenty seven seconds is all she had to run back up the stairs.

She ran full speed down the halls, passing the children as they made their escape with their stolen treats from the kitchen and taking the stairs two at a time as they appeared. The hall was darker than before, nearly black with shadow this time as she ran wildly back towards Yoongi’s room with just the scent of lavender, roses and sage to guide her.

“No!” Someone howled out from behind her, startling her to trip over the threshold and sprawl onto the carpet. The floor fell out from beneath her like a trap door and her stomach lurched into her throat with a scream as she plummeted through the main floor straight into the basement; the piles of old furniture and children’s toys breaking her fall. A cloud of dust had her waving her hand in front of her face to relieve her airways of the particles that choked out her breath.

“One more lap mother! Just one more lap please!”

Y/n sat up straight on the soft blue blanket that was sprawled out beneath her upon the grass, a few blades that escaped from the fabric tickling the skin of her ankles and making them itch.

“Alright then–just one more! Then we have to return home for supper!” The woman to her right waved back to the girls that splashed about the lake with glee, sending them off on another sprint across the water. A towel was draped over her own lap and her hair was shoved up into a swim cap to keep it dry, one hand lined up on her brow as she carefully watched the young children paddle the width of the lake.

Y/n got to her knees and waved a hand in front of the woman’s face, but she had no reaction to the movement or proximity. Y/n was invisible–at least for the time being–for she was invisible to Ernst too until the unexplainable few seconds when she wasn’t.

“Can you help me? I need to get back home–to the Estate. I need to find my friends…” Y/n tried speaking to the woman, who had about the same amount of notice as she had prior: none. She brought her fingers up to tap at her shoulder, and the woman was solid and warm, the flesh dimpling beneath her touch and bouncing back into place as a real person’s would.

Y/n furrowed her brows, and pressed her palm to the skin of the woman’s upper arm–for the skin was hot like she was developing a maddening fever. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t know if you can hear me but…I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I should have come back the first day we talked on the phone. I should have hung up and jumped on the first flight back. Just keep fighting to get back here. We can figure this out together….you know…stick together and all that crap.”

A featherlight sensation traced across Y/n’s forehead and down the skin of her cheek, moving down to tickle at the skin of the back of her hand, and her heartbeat hammered in her ribs as something soft and hot pressed to the back of her knuckles.

“I’m right here. I’m not going to let you stay in there–I will find a way to fix this.”

The woman turned robotically to Y/n, her eyes raking over her face and a scowl forming on her features and hissing through her teeth. “You are going to get us all in trouble if you keep doing that!”

Dogs bounded in front of her. Three men carried the rear of the pack, trudging through the tall grass under the unforgiving sun. The woman and the lake were gone. Y/n clutched at her head, squeezing her skull between it like if she pressed hard enough she would be able to squish her sanity back in place.

“I’m not mad at you.” This voice was quieter than the last, merely a whisper that was broken and molded around a carefully constructed air of composure that was crumbling. “I know you think I am, but I’m not. I just…I need you here.”

Her entire left side was warm, but not uncomfortably so. It felt safe, and brought forth the scent of clean linens and fresh smelling body wash–the weight shifted but the warmth stayed, her cheek feeling hotter than before like it was pressed to a furnace.

“‘ In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.’

Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, colored, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her followed…’”

“I can’t understand who in their right mind would think their lover’s silence is anything but awful.” She heard a tsk, and a soft chuckle before something warm pressed to her temple. “I think silence from you is the worst thing imaginable.” Pages fluttered, and the gentle voice continued to read forth more from the pages of what she recognized as Pride and Prejudice that she could no longer hear.

Y/n’s head spun as she was thrust back into the living room, Ernst mumbling to himself absentmindedly around his cigar that burned bright orange at the tip. The voice was gone but she knew where to find it.

Twenty seven seconds.

Y/n pumped her arms and legs, kicking up the red rug beneath her feet and tearing up the stairs down the hall.

“I can feel you. Can you feel me?” Long fingers squeezed down around her own. “I will come find you. There’s no place they could hide you from me where I wouldn’t reach you.”

Sage. Y/n smelt sage and Frankincense, and she clung to it blindly even as the hall shrouded into darkness that threatened to drop her down into the basement or throw her into whatever scene they wanted next. She willed herself forwards until she was practically flying through the door, ignoring the way the shadows extended outwards to catch her from the walls, floors and ceilings; curling up her ankles and grappling for her arms as they passed.

Y/n leapt blindly onto the bed, sailing over the threshold and bouncing onto the mattress, the smell nauseatingly strong but oh so inviting.

_________________________________________

“Can someone pass me the Rosemary?” Namjoon’s voice blotted in from a distance, bleeding through what felt like mounds of cotton blocking Y/n’s ear drums.

Her entire body felt as though encased in cement, each muscle and tendon weighed down and immobile, like they weren’t connected to her brain. Y/n attempted a single twitch of her finger and found the motion impossible. She could not even open her eyes.

There was a barely audible rustle of leaves, and an overwhelming aroma wafted over her face that would make even the most repleted metaphysical shop jealous, pulling whatever moisture was left from her skin until a slight stinging sensation buzzed on its surface.. Each inhale scratched at the insides of her airways, and her lungs struggled to expand like the movement was foreign to her–and perhaps it was. Someone squeezed her hand again, stopping just at the point where the pressure might start to hurt.

Jungkook breathed, and relief wasn’t even a strong enough word to describe how he spoke. “It’s working…”

The smoke grew thicker, and her throat dryer with each passing second. She swallowed, the saliva thick and sharp as knives scraping done her esophagus, forcing her to repeat the motion in rapid succession.

Hands brought forth the lingering smell of antibacterial hand soap and lemon scented cleaner splayed across both sides of her face and held it still. Thin wisps of hair tickled her cheeks, and a forehead pressed against hers.

“Come back.” Jungkook commanded softly, sparks pulsing from the tips of his fingers and tickling her skin, melting the cement on her limbs and bringing a wave of goosebumps over the expanse of her body.

Y/n moved her pinky finger, then her pointer finger even more so. It was no grand movement, or even considered much of a movement at all–but it was enough to elicit a response from nearly everyone in the room–the energy around them all charging and buzzing around them even though all outbursts were silenced by Namjoon’s authoritative command and willing them to remain quiet.

Jungkook gasped quietly and his hands started to shake, his breath quickening as nearly silent curses fell from his lips–he was pulling her forwards and willing her awake, willing her to open her eyes.

He was the first thing she saw simply because of his nearness alone, though she would’ve imagined she wouldn’t have seen much else anyway as his eyes demanded her attention, her own drawn to them like magnets. How grateful she was to see his eyes glistening and full of life in front of her.

In an instant she froze, bristling at the sight of their reflective surface and bracing herself for the worst–for Candida to be there waiting for her to let her back in. But there was nothing but herself, tired and worn looking back at her.

Y/n tossed the blanket off in a hurry, startling Jungkook away from her face and sending him leaping back and out of her reach as her feet touched the floor. She didn’t even think to look at the worried faces that surrounded her or their layered voices telling her to do something–sit down? She wasn’t sure. All she could think about was the mirror in the corner of Yoongi’s room and how it faced her.

She stumbled like a newborn giraffe using its legs for the first time as blood began to flow back into them, they still felt heavy but she couldn’t let it stop her–she needed to check.

It was only a moment that she had in front of the mirror. A split second of uninterrupted time where she was able to breathe with just her own reflection staring back at her in the mirror–and as disheveled and unkempt as she looked, she had never been happier to see herself as such.

Hot tears pooled in her eyes that she couldn’t stop from dripping down her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to look at something and not be scared of what she would see–the nearly two weeks of Candida haunting her every move feeling like an eternity.

The second of peace ended when Namjoon appeared looking equally fatigued behind her, the bundle of rosemary still smoking in his hand. “Y/n, you should really lay back down. You were out for a long time and you need to take things slow.”

Right as the words left his mouth she felt the stiffness in her joints make itself known, and the fogginess of her brain that left her dizzy and teetering from one side to the other. But one thing that wasn’t present was the homicidal urges she had felt before she had–

Y/n gasped, feeling herself fall backwards towards the mirror with her hands bracing themselves for the impact that never came.

Yoongi who was leant up against his desk closest to her was at her side in an instant, tucking an arm around her waist and throwing hers around his shoulder to keep her from falling into the mirror, Jimin following closely behind to do the same on her other side.

“You have a really bad habit of not listening when someone tells you to slow down, don’t you?” Yoongi chided teasingly, though the light of his jest did not reach his eyes as they shuffled back to his bed. Namjoon followed closely behind them, constantly waving his hand in circular motions to guide puffs of smoke towards Y/n.

Jimin bumped his hip against hers with a small curve of his lips. “You could just stop at ‘bad habit of not listening’.”

Y/n sniffled, both hands clasping down on either man’s shoulder like if she let go this dream of normalcy would shatter. They helped her fall back down onto the comforter next to Jungkook with a light bounce, and after a few beats of tense silence, she managed to rasp out her first words. “How long?”

They shared a look of uncertainty that said all that she needed to know.

“How long?” Y/n tried again, her voice still rough with underuse.

Namjoon chewed on the inside of his cheek and looked down at her with a weary expression. “Two weeks. It’s almost June.”

“W-what?!” Y/n blanched and wilted like the dried up rose petals below her. The time spent locked in those loops felt no longer than a couple hours at most. “That’s not possible. How am I not dead? I would’ve had to eat and drink.” Heat rushed into her face as embarrassment made her short circuit. “To pee–”

“You weren’t completely out the whole time. Sometimes things would…come through.” Jimin offered, taking up the spot on her other side.

As if reading her mind, Yoongi responded from back at his desk. “You were possessed. This isn’t the first time your body has come to with someone else taking the reigns. We’ve been mostly able to remove one of them–but the other is a bit more…complex.”

“Candida is gone?” Y/n let hope color her expression as she glanced up at him.

“No.” Jungkook answered this time, shaking his head once. “The ‘other’ one is gone. Candida is refusing to let go. She’s hiding.”

Y/n brought her hands up to shield her face with her hands as more tears stung at the back of her eyes. The freedom she had thought she had felt was a false hope, and her breath threatened to quicken in her chest against her will. Jimin’s delicate fingers encircled her wrist and brought them down, intertwining their fingers in one and offering the other to Jungkook, who hesitantly took it, holding it loosely on his lap.

“We still don’t know who the other one is,” Namjoon started with a sigh, plopping himself down on a folding chair they had propped next to the mattress. “They left as soon as Jungkook started pushing them. We were hoping that you could give us some answers on that front.” He looked up at her expectantly, the bowl of embers and leaves cradled on his lap.

“I don’t…” Y/n pushed the boundaries of her memory, poking and prodding at whatever her brain could muster with little reward. “I can’t really remember it’s all fuzzy. I remember coming back from the greenhouse…” Y/n shuddered at the memory, her chest tightening at the flashbacks of the vision she had seen, but she couldn’t let herself dwell on it–not when Yoongi was watching her so closely. “ And I remember sitting with my plants but that’s about–” Y/n gasped louder than she had when she had woken up, a new wave of grief settling over her. “My plants! Are they okay? I don’t remember putting them back, and two weeks is a long time without water…”

The longer she spoke, the more her voice grew in strength, but the more unnerved Namjoon grew. He shifted in his seat as redness crept up his neck. “Well you see…your…you…”

“We can check on your plants later,” Yoongi offered with a pointed look at Namjoon. “If you really can’t remember anything then there is something else we can do…you just might not like it.”

“What is it?” Y/n shrunk in on herself. “The last time we tried one of your exercises it didn’t go very well.”

“Exercises?” Jungkook repeated, glowering up at Yoongi with lips pressed together tightly. “What exercises?”

“Not important right now,” Yoongi waved his hand dismissively at the younger one, fixing Y/n with an unreadable expression. “While you were out, someone else decided to lend a helping hand. I don’t know if you remember seeing them–or if you remember coming to at all.”

“I don’t think it wise to stress her out too much right away.” Jimin cut in, one of his eyes twitching.

“Agreed,” Namjoon dragged a large hand down his face.

“Well that isn’t really a decision when it comes to this. If you think he’s going to stay away you all really are dense.” Yoongi scoffed with a disbelieving shake of his head. “We can approach some things carefully, but not everything can be handled with tweezers and CareBear bandaids.”

Y/n thought back to the voices she had heard clipping into her time loops, checking them each off of her list one by one.

Jungkook and Yoongi had spoken to her multiple times–Namjoon too. Jimin had been the one reading to her, it was easy to recognize his melodic voice anywhere. But there had been five.

“What even is that? Is that some DnD thing?”

Just as the thought struck her, the same voice pushed Yoongi’s door open, supported by the sound of groaning wood and jingling metal. “Alright, I picked up that stuff you wanted from the–”

Hoseok’s words withered down to a croak in his throat as he closed the door behind him, a pair of leather driving gloves still pulled over his hands that carried a set of keys and a decently sized brown paper bag. Time stopped.

“Get out!” Y/n shrieked, climbing over Jungkook’s lap towards the end table and grabbing the first thing she could–an empty soda can that had fallen onto its side on the end table–and chucked it at him. “Get out!”

“H-hey, wait–oof!” Hoseok brought the bag up to shield his face from the projectile, dropping it just in time to catch a pillow straight to the face.

Y/n leveled her next pillow at him before it was yanked from her grasp by a disgruntled Namjoon. “Give him a second!” He tossed the pillow across the room and pointed a finger at her when her eyes flickered to the last remaining cushion. “Don’t even think about it.”

He snatched that one up too for good measure, and glared at the three other men that had made no move to get in her way. “Thanks for your help,” he gestured to Yoongi, Jimin and Jungkook with his chin, “not like you weren’t within arms reach or anything.”

Yoongi shrugged and a teensy smirk made its way onto his lips and he pathetically attempted to raise his arm. “Eh. It was a long reach.”

Jungkook almost smiled, and averted his eyes from Namjoon. “I was surprised. Sorry.”

“Whatever.” Namjoon rolled his eyes and returned to his seat.

Y/n couldn’t believe what she was seeing. None of them were responding appropriately to the situation–especially after what had happened at the guest house and the spring pop up. Fine, Y/n grit her teeth, she didn’t need a pillow to do her dirty work.

Y/n clambered down from the bed and started at Hoseok with a clumsy charge that was stopped by Yoongi’s hands fisting in the back of her shirt. “As much as I would personally love to see you land a good hit on him, I think you should hear him out.”

_________________________________________

Y/n’s back was pressed against the wall with her knees bent to keep a level of space between her and where Hoseok sat on the desk chair he had rolled a few feet away from the bed to hopefully ease her discomfort. (It didn’t by the way). She was freshly showered and donned the fresh change of clothes Jimin and Jungkook had swiped from her room, with a spare comforter hugged to her chest that replaced Yoongi’s while it was sent down to be washed.

Memories were beginning to come back to her, as was her mind and body connection. She hadn’t stopped shaking since her shower, the hot water had probably started to help her process her adrenaline and release pent up stress from her last days consciousness. While her last moments were still fuzzy she could feel the emotions of it returning to her all at once, and one thing was clear was that she was still angry with the sheepish man in front of her–no matter how guilty he looked.

Hoseok had yet to speak. Each time his mouth opened to find his words, it snapped closed like they had escaped him, leaving them in a suffocating silence that was teeming with palpable tension. It was almost unbearable.

Thankfully the two of them weren’t entirely alone in this silence; while the others had left to give her and Hoseok privacy, Yoongi had stayed back with the excuse that it was his room, and he could stay if he liked. Thus he sat on the fold out chair with a pair of over the ear headphones pulled over his head and a sketchbook open on his desk, his pencil gliding over the paper in quick handed sketches of trees and clouds from his window.

Y/n was grateful for his presence–not only because she technically hadn’t gotten to greet him properly since his return, but also because it meant someone else was there to keep her from doing something rash if she felt cornered.

“So…” Hoseok started weakly, clearing his throat behind a gloved fist. “The last time you spoke you said–”

“I said not to talk to me ever again.” Y/n finished for him sharply, picking at the thread of the comforter and refusing to look at him. “I thought I made that pretty clear.” Y/n could’ve sworn she saw the corner of Yoongi’s mouth quirk up from the corner of her eye but she must have been imagining it.

Hoseok visibly paled, and hurriedly spoke again. “Yes–but you said I could talk to you again if I was willing to come clean.” The chair released repeated squeaks as his leg bounced uncontrollably, and he shifted his weight from one hip to the other. “And I want to do that.”

“Then do it? Who is stopping you?” Y/n smoothed the blanket over her knees again.

Silence overtook them, even the bouncing of his leg stopped. “Can I show you instead?”

Y/n finally looked up at him, taken off guard by his request. She feigned disinterest though her curiosity had been piqued, and gave him a brief once over before turning back to the blanket. “And how do you intend to do that?”

Hoseok pinched the tip of his middle finger and slid the driving gloves off his hands and dropped them on his lap. He held his hands out between them with the unspoken expectation that she would take them, and from their vulnerable and suspended state she could see them shaking. He was nervous.

“I’m going to try and control it, Yoongi and Jungkook have been letting me practice with them but…” He trailed off, eyes imploring her to believe him. “But sending is a lot harder than receiving.”

“He was already vetted by the kid,” Yoongi offered from his seat without so much as a second glance. “Do with that what you will.” He flicked the one side of his headphones back on and disengaged from the discussion once more.

Y/n flitted her gaze between Yoongi and Hoseok, and with Yoongi’s words in mind, she crawled forward across the bed and parked herself at the edge so her hands could reach across the gap and grab his.

She felt an internal tug towards him similar to how it felt when Yoongi would swirl about her, but the sensations he brought were nothing like Yoongi. Hoseok was hot, his pull burning at her insides like a scalding cup of tea–bordering between painful and satisfying.Scenes like small movies crashed in and out of her vision one my one, pristine doctors offices, pill bottles, dark wooden cabin rooms with her mothers face towering over her, a little boy–

No. She was pulled away from the image of the little boy and thrust back into the doctor's office to look at a collection of x-rays and MRI’s, her eyes skimming the charts for key words.

Fall. Injury. Surgery. Permanent.

The boy was back, crawling through the dark in a room Y/n couldn’t make out–was that metal? Hoseok exhaled sharply and the scene changed.

Her mother stood looming with a pill bottle snatched in her hands, and emotions raced through her chest that weren’t her own–desperation, helplessness, self-hatred–trapped. She watched a collection of scenes come forth of Hoseok’s hands grasping whatever her mother tossed at him, and then her giving him a pill as a reward. She felt the relief. She felt the frustration.

Then she saw something else that had her mouth running dry.

She saw a view of herself walking out of the woods with Jin at her side, the two of them trailing up the front steps and disappearing into the front doors. After a few minutes she saw Jin leave alone, as though he had dropped her off inside. He was wearing the same outfit he had worn that night at the guest house.

He let go of her hands once they began to sweat, and pressed them down on his thighs with a shaky sigh. Y/n’s hands lingered in the air for a moment, soaking in what she had seen and running it back through her mind like she was replaying a tape.

“I don’t expect you to just forgive me. They all caught me up to date with…” He waved one hand in lazily circles. “Everything.” He cleared his throat and dropped his hand back to hang at his side, looking up at her through timid glances. “But I just want to say that I didn’t know what she was–If I had any kinda idea what she was doing with what I was seeing, I wouldn’t’ve done it. Please believe me. I know I shouldn’t have just blindly accepted but I just–”

“You were hurting.” Y/n cut him off, her eyes trained on her lap.

Hoseok turned his head down with a nervous twitch, leg shaking faster and his words falling out in a whisper. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me, Hoseok? Tell any of us? Do you think we would have made fun of you?” Y/n finally looked at him–really looked at him. How could she not have put the pieces together? His constant shifting, his tired looking eyes and his body that seemed to sag when he thought no one was looking.

Hoseok took a second to line up his thoughts in a concise sentiment, clearing his throat again to cover up the slight grit in his tone as it closed. “No….I dunno…maybe.” He smiled at his lap with a humorless chuckle. “Maybe somethin’ in me thought if I kept it a secret then I wouldn’t have to face it. I could keep pretending.”

“Pretending what?” Y/n scooched to the edge, hesitantly lowering one of her hands down onto his clothed knee. “Hoseok, you have always been one of the most important people in my life. I don’t care if you can’t dance, or if you can’t run–or if the way we spend time together changes entirely. Everyone changes. Look at all of us? We lost one of us entirely, gained someone new, went to school, got jobs, some of us traveled–we grew up. I don’t care how you change, I just wish you would’ve told me. Think about where we could’ve been–the shit we could’ve avoided if you had just been honest.” Y/n took in a deep breath and leveled him with a somber expression. “I’m not…I’m not mad at you for hurting. I’m mad at you for not telling me, and I’m mad at myself for making it feel like you couldn’t and that you had to turn to my mother of all people.”

Something in Hoseok’s expression snapped, his upper lip curling with heat. “Y/n–let’s be serious here. Would me telling you have really changed that much? Even if you knew–your mom still would’ve been in charge of my insurance, my housing–my fucking job and my parent’s job.” Hoseok blinked aggressively to keep any wetness out of her sight. “I had nothing after you left–my future is fucking wiped, dude. Anything I wanted to do? Trashed. I can’t travel the same way everyone else can, I can’t work the same way they can, I can’t dance the way I used to…my life isn’t over technically sure, but my life as I knew it is. And I’m sorry I wasn’t ready to just embrace that with smiles and jokes yet. The only thing that was made certain to me was that I’m going to get left behind, and I just wanted to delay that as much as I could.”

Y/n shook her head with a trembling lip and furrowed brows. “We wouldn’t leave you behind–”

“But you did!” Hoseok cut back, voice cracking ever so slightly. “You literally fuckin’ left and didn’t look back once. I left you messages–so many messages that you never returned. Joon went to California and got to experience life on his own. Jimin just got his masters degree. Jin is set to take his dad’s job by next year and then he can do whatever he wants. Yoongi went off to New York and none of us expected him to come back. The only person who would've stayed with me would be Jungkook, but at least he can choose what job he wants. I’m just…here. Watching everyone else do whatever the fuck they want.

“So yeah. I’m sorry. I’m sorry your parents made us lie to you. Trust me, I’ve beat myself up for it since the day you left. I’m sorry that your mom held power over me and that I couldn’t stand up for either of us. But we were all raised on the same foundation: ‘No one gets left behind’, and you were the first one to do just the opposite of that–to everyone over something that would’ve also threatened our livelihoods if we had pushed back. I could’ve talked to you? You could’ve talked to us about it first. Jungkook was in therapy for two years after you left with not even as much as a goodbye. Jimin pretty much became an empty shell until he started school. Everyone else dipped. So what else was I supposed to do Y/n? What was I gonna do, say ‘Hey Mariah, I know you pay for all of my medications and treatments so I can exist barely below baseline function, my parent’s salaries, and all my friends are gone so I have no one else but you to support my care needs if I suddenly woke up bed ridden–but fuck you!’ with no back up plan?”

Y/n’s mouth fell open in shock, he had never spoken to her like this before, and she couldn’t quell the self-defensive rage that pooled in her belly.

“I’m gonna ask you something and I want you to be one-hundred percent honest with me,” Hoseok leaned forward to challenge her stare. “If I had showed up on your doorstep in D.C with an apology and suitcase, would you have let me in? If I told you about this, would you have forgiven me and helped take care of me, or slammed the door in my face?”

Y/n snapped her mouth closed, her gut immediately rushing to answer with a resounding ‘Yes I would have let you in!’, but she paused. Would she have? When she was still nursing the wound their betrayal had left, and her remaining pride was stinging and raw?

Y/n’s hackles lowered, and she slumped back against the wall again in defeat. “I don’t know.”

“Exactly. And we all know who my mom’s favorite is…” Hoseok visibly deflated, and ran his fingers through his unruly hair that desperately needed a haircut. “Look, I don’t want to fight about it and compare who was hurt the most. What I’m just trying to get you to understand is that we both made the best choices we could for ourselves at the time we made them. We can’t just pretend the aftermath didn’t happen and that we didn’t hurt each other–but I wouldn’t expect you to apologize for how you handled your shit with the cards you were dealt, so why should I apologize for how I handled mine?”

The question hung in the air between them heavily and Y/n knew she didn’t need to answer. While his words stung–he did have a point. She had no idea what his situation was like, and might not ever understand what he was going through. They might not ever be able to understand where they were each coming from–but could they live with that?

“So what now?” Y/n asked with a sniff, wiping at her eyes that had become wet. “How do we move past all this?”

Hoseok shrugged, and chewed on his cheek as he stared at his fingers that twiddled in his lap. “We just do. We can’t fix it, so we just try and do better. I want to try and do better.”

“Okay.” Y/n breathed, pointing at him with her index finger. “I don’t forgive you just yet, but I understand why you did what you did. From here on out, no more secrets. No more lying and no running away from each other.”

“I think I can handle that,” Hoseok managed a small lopsided curve of his mouth, and his shoulders visibly sagged with relief. “Fuck–I hated you being mad at me.”

“I still am.” Y/n gave the most threatening look she could muster, but couldn’t help the smile that tried to break through it. “You still worked with someone that was trying to kill me, and you made me angry. I need to work through all of that still.”

“I’m booked through the week,” Yoongi suddenly butt in, turning in the chair to face the two of them, “so I think you’re going to have to find a new quack.”

“Booked? By whom?” The smile did worm its way on her face.

Yoongi removed his headphones entirely and tucked them away in his drawer. Y/n had a sneaking suspicion that there hadn’t been any music playing on them throughout their entire discussion. “M’not sure. They signed their name as the annoying one on my schedule… ”

Y/n snapped a finger in mock disappointment and clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Damn–couldn’t be me. You won’t even have ten minutes for little ‘ol me?”

Yoongi slid his tongue across his lower lip before sinking his teeth into it with a playful smile and a wink. “Hmm…maybe if you ask nicely I’ll think about it.” With that he stood with an exaggerated stretch, earning a few pops from undisclosed locations. “Now that that is out of the way…” He picked up the chair and turned it to face them, plopping down next to Hoseok. “Let’s call the other guys back in to talk ghosts.”

_________________________________________

Y/n felt stupid. So utterly stupid and used.

The six of them sat in a circle on Yoongi’s floor with intertwined hands, their first time as a full group doing a seance. This time they had Hoseok take the lead, using his powers to prod her mind (with consent of course) for her final memories on Thursday–forcing herself to watch her make terrible mistake after terrible mistake.

Her memories were beamed into their skulls, and they all watched as Y/n glowed in humiliation as she tossed her incense out the window on the call with Yoongi, how she isolated herself–how she let in some random fucking ghost from the hallway like an amatuer. And to make that worse, they hadn’t been able to gather any useful information from the interaction whatsoever.

They moved on to trying to pull Candida out of hiding to expel her entirely, but that remained a futile effort as she eluded them, disappearing into the deepest crevices of her mind and staying there. They sleuthed out her memories of seeing her–her bathroom, the ceiling lights, doorknobs, glass, the greenhouse…

Hoseok had almost replayed the mirages of violence and death from the greenhouse when she had begged them to take a break–she didn’t think she had the energy left in her to watch it again. She barely had the energy to hold her own head up despite having been in and out of consciousness for two weeks.

It was so hard to describe–it was like she was looking back at those memories and the choices she had made from outside of her body. She couldn’t even fathom not telling them if she saw something now, or making the choices she did.

She guessed that’s what possession was like.

Nothing would have prepared her for the devastation she felt when they let her run back to her room with Jungkook and Jimin by her side for her phone charger, only to find a few of her plants smaller and more sickly than she remembered, their colorful pots nowhere in sight. Jimin tried to soothe her with warm embraces and comfortnig words of how Namjoon had been nursing them back to health with what snippets he had been able to salvage–but her Aloe and her African violet hadn’t made it. That felt like almost her final straw.

She might need a few business days just to recover from…recovering.

Hell, she still hadn’t even gotten to properly greet Yoongi.

They ate dinner in Yoongi’s room much to his mild annoyance. With Y/n being informed that Seokjin had taken time off to go on a vacation with his parents, and her mother and father had mysteriously left for a work trip with little explanation, there was no need to eat in the dining room. They suspected it had to do with Hoseok joining their side and thus losing one of her accomplices. This made it easy for Namjoon to lie about Y/n’s attendance at work, which he shyly admitted he had been clocking in for her so she wouldn’t lose her paycheck or get terminated while she was out–something that had her gratitude growing exponentially.

Y/n wished she had the energy to revel in the fact that they were all eating dinner together again, messing around and tossing jests from tired mouths and weary eyes like soldiers that had returned from battle. Her head had slumped onto Jimin’s shoulder before she knew it, letting it rest there with her plate practically licked clean next to her. She hadn’t realized how hungry she had been until Jungkook and Jimin had brought up their makeshift pasta creation still steaming and fresh. It had only lasted a few minutes before her hungry eyes were set on it.

When the conversation had slowed, she remembered what the spirits had used as leverage to build resentment and distrust: her friend's shady behavior that she had yet to get any answer for.

“What were you guys even doing the whole time I was going insane?” Y/n suddenly asked, her sleepiness making her straightforward, her thoughts uncensored. “I know I was stupid for letting myself get that fucked up, but you guys sneaking around and hiding things from me definitely added fuel to the fire.”

Hoseok held his hands up in surrender, pushing the desk chair back to roll a foot away from the rest of them. “Don’t look at me–that’s something I wasn’t a part of yet.”

Namjoon gave him a mild glare that melted into a sheepish smile towards Y/n. “We were trying to figure out a way to help you, but you were…inhabited Y/n. Compromised. If we had gone to you with our plan, Candida might have been able to prepare herself or fight back–make you lash out even or hurt yourself to protect her. We couldn’t risk it.”

“Oh…” Y/n looked down with warm cheeks at her own idiocy. Of course that made sense. It made perfect sense–Christ why hadn’t she just trusted them??

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Yoongi chastised her with a knowing glint. “Trust me, we are all well aware that you were not yourself.”

“What did you find?” She inquired, trying to shift the conversation into a one with a silver lining, before backtracking when they shared an apprehensive look. “Wait–never mind. If she’s still in here then–”

“Bear has a few ideas. Some of which helped us make you cognizant–he says he’s sorry by the way. But he can’t risk his safety just yet.” Jimin offered with a kind smile, one arm lifting up and over her shoulders to hold her in place against his side casually. “He says he dealt with something similar before.”

“Is there anything I can offer to help? I know her pretty well now unfortunately…” Y/n looked to each of them, hoping they could find something for her to do. She couldn’t stand sitting around and doing nothing.

Yoongi dropped his mostly cleared plate down onto his desk on top of Hoseok’s, pushing the stack towards the edge so Jimin could add the both of theirs to the pile. “Well actually maybe there is. Bear said we need something to get her attention. Between you and Hoseok I’m sure we can make a good bet as to what that could be.”

“She liked music and the theater. Ballet.” Hoseok twitched in his seat uncomfortably, one hand coming to scratch at the spot behind his ear. “But she’s…she’s messy. Never a straight train of thought–her brain is scattered like a squashed bug. I’m lucky if she gives me a coherent thought that lasts longer than a few seconds.”

Y/n pondered his antidote, and thought over her own experience with the woman. She had never felt anything positive about anything–only negativity. “I honestly have no clue. She is only ever pissed when I see her.”

“Well pissed attention is still attention.” Yoongi shrugged with a sigh. “Let us keep brainstorming. You can offer ideas as they come to you but we can’t have you getting too riled up. We don’t want it triggering anything.” Though his dark eyes narrowed at her with one final warning. “But if something starts bothering you, you need to tell us this time. You can’t let it push everyone out.”

Y/n stifled a yawn and resigned to her fate of taking the backseat for the time being, knowing she full well deserved the light scolding. She couldn’t deny how appealing it sounded to just focus on relaxing and giving all of this a rest after her previous week. Her parents being gone lowered the stakes for the moment as well. She’d be a fool not to take some time to recoup so they could come back swinging harder than ever with their new and returned allies.

“You should sleep.” Jungkook remarked, a challenging quirk of his brow ticking upwards.

“I’m not going to fight you on that this time.” Y/n slumped back down on Jimin’s shoulder with a sigh. “Are the wards back up in my room so I can try and fix it up?”

“Not quite. We came to the unanimous decision that you should probably camp with someone in the evenings, in case Candida or that other nasty bastard tries to try anything when you’re alone.” Yoongi stretched back over his chair, grabbing the remaining plates and ambling towards his door to return them to the kitchen. “You can choose where you want to go.”

Y/n didn’t know what had possessed her that evening to choose the roommate she did. Her first instinct had been to choose to remain in Yoongi’s room as it had grown familiar to her, and she already had her basic necessities tucked in a bag in the corner of his room and waiting (courtesy of Jimin). But the guilt of taking up his space for another night after supposedly crashing there for two weeks was too strong, and thus she moved onto her next choice.

Jimin would be the obvious answer–except he was currently housing Bear on his desk, and it might put Bear’s safety in jeopardy for her to invade his safe space like that until they knew for sure that Candida wasn’t an active threat.

Something in her gut pulled her answer from deep within, guiding her with dragging feet and her toiletry and clothes bag tossed over one shoulder and a pillow cradled against her side kept in place with her elbow, trailing after Namjoon across the landing into the left hall. He bid his farewell to her once he dropped her off at her destination, shutting the door softly behind her and wishing her a goodnight.

Y/n waited, frozen in place near Jungkook’s door in his dark bedroom for him to make his way through the attic and onto the terrace to join them. She hovered in front of his shelf by the door, too nervous to touch anything or to make herself comfortable until he gave her the direction to. Butterflies erupted in her stomach like this was a sleepover at a friends house she had never been to–nerves tickling at her and making her wonder if she had made the wrong choice. They were still on strange terms as well. To distract herself from her discomfort, she let her eyes take in his room that had grown and changed often over the years. But one thing remained the same.

His room was spotless as always, dusted and vacuumed with his bedding freshly washed and tucked neatly around the edges. A little R2D2 wax warmer emitted a cerulean blue light from its base, illuminating the dark space enough to map out his furniture–she was too preoccupied with anxiety to finger through his belongings and turn on one of the many small lamps littered about his space in fear of messing up his meticulous organization. He never really cared for the overhead lights even when he was a kid.

Y/n jumped as the terrace door clicked open and Jungkook slipped in, closing and locking the bolt behind him. His eyes quickly found her in the dimly lit room, his confusion clearly outlined in the blue light.

The expression never left his face as he stepped by her, close enough for her to feel the heat from his side as he reached an arm over her shoulder to flick on a small warm toned mood lamp, one eyebrow poised in a silent question at her hesitancy as he did so.

“Where should I…?” Y/n gestured to the bag on her shoulder and the pillow tucked under her arm.

Jungkook grunted, and gave her the tiniest of shrugs. “Wherever.”

Y/n took slow steps to his desk, plopping her bag onto the chair and unzipping it to fish for her toothbrush and a pair of sleep shorts, taking both in hand and disappearing into his bathroom wordlessly, shutting the door behind her just enough to offer them both a bit of privacy but not latched. She didn’t want to be completely alone.

She avoided any eye contact with the mirror–even if Candida was laying low, it didn’t mean that the risk was none. Slipping on the shorts she opened the door a few more inches to hopefully let Jungkook know that he could come in if he needed to, and started the task of brushing her teeth.

Jungkook peeked his head in first, making sure she was decent before sidling in the tiny bathroom to join her. They stood side by side in a heavy silence, the chorus of toothbrush scraping against teeth accompanied by the occasional spit was the only sound heard. Y/n almost found herself enjoying the silence and domesticity of the interaction, save for the two of them sharing awkward stolen glances through the mirror until she padded back into the main room and lingered by his desk for further instruction.

Y/n watched him through the open door, wiping his mouth off and cleaning the sink of water droplets with a fresh cloth. His hair had gotten longer since she had arrived, and was almost due for a trim if the way he kept pushing it back behind his ears with a sharp exhale through his nose was anything to go by. As if his senses could feel her eyes on him (actually a probable conclusion she realized with a start), he found hers through the doorway and hurried his motions, tossing the towel in his laundry basket and reentering his room.

“Are we blowing up one of the air mattresses for me to sleep on? Or am I just crashing on the floor like old times?” Y/n shuffled from one foot to the other, hugging her pillow to her chest, observing his head disappearing into his closet.

Jungkook recoiled from the shelves and looked at her like she had just said something outlandish, blinking at her with blank eyes as he registered what she had said. “Neither.” He disappeared into his closet, retrieving an air mattress bag and turning to the space she was standing, crouching beside her to plug the pump in. “You can take my bed.”

“I’d feel better if I didn’t.” Y/n shook her head with a nervous chuckle, stepping aside as he shooed her to make room for the mattress. “I’ll just take the airbed.”

Jungkook sat back on his heels to give her an unyielding glare. “No.”

Y/n returned it, taking a step closer to the terrace door to give him more space. “Yes. I won’t let you give me your bed. Especially when you wake up earlier than me for work.”

“Too bad.” Jungkook shrugged plainly, flipping the pump on with a small smirk to drown out her protests with its deafening whirring. When she tried to complain over the noise, he brought one tattooed finger up to his ear and shook his head, before pointing down to the pump with a shrug.

Y/n gave him a deadpan stare to cover up the fact that her mind was already hatching a plan of her own while she monitored the expanding fabric of the air mattress rising until it reached just below her knees. When he finally flipped the switch off, the silence that enveloped them felt deafening in comparison to the grating pump that still left her ears ringing. She kept her composure while helping him tuck the edges of the fitted sheet over the rounded corners, and even when her turned away from her to poke through his closet for a spare blanket.

Jungkook fluffed the fabric out to rid it of any dust, then tossed it up to fall onto the mattress. However while the blanket was still suspended in the air, Y/n dove head first onto the airbed, snuggling up to her pillow and spreading herself over it with a satisfactory sigh, pulling the comforter up to her chin to stifle a laugh as it fell onto her. She could practically feel his irritation ebbing from where he stood and made the conscious effort to push his buttons a little further.

“Ahh yes. Perfect. Thank you for making my bed for me, Kook.” She snuggled down into the blanket and looked up at him with a mischievous smile that rounded out her cheeks.

Jungkook’s stare was blank as he cast it down to her, his lips pressed into a thin line that threatened to give way into the smallest of smiles.

“No.”

Without warning, he wrenched the blanket from her grasp, both of her hands coming up to make a grab for it which he snatched up in his hold, using the tight grip to hoist her up to her feet with enough force to send her careening forward onto his bed with an audible ‘oof’. She rolled over just in time to see him smirking at her while reclined victoriously on the airbed, looking as proud as ever.

“Ugh. You’re such a pain in my ass sometimes.” Y/n groaned, flopping back onto his mattress in defeat.

Jungkook licked his lips, his eyes glinting in the low light at her. “Same goes for you.”

Y/n grumbled to herself, knowing full well the moment his physical strength was added into the equation, she was surely to lose. She crawled under his covers and settled herself down–not before tossing his pillow at his face with full intent for it to collide with it, but his hands were too quick, catching it just before it landed its blow.

He fluffed the cushion placing it neatly where hers had been, then he leaned forwards with hers held out in what seemed like a peace offering. She took it from his grasp and shoved her head down into its comfortable embrace, sinking into his mattress and tugging the comforter up and over herself.

She would never admit to him that it was actually more comfortable than the airbed.

Jungkook turned off the lamp, blanketing them into darkness that was only broken up by the wax warmer, which he promptly powered down as well. The air mattress let out a few final groans while he made himself comfortable, stopping only when he had situated himself and his breathing had started to even out.

She listened to his breath, counting along to each inhale and exhale in her head, seconds turning to minutes until she couldn’t be sure how much time had passed. For someone that had been so unbelievably exhausted before, she sure couldn’t find where that feeling had gone now that she had her head resting against a pillow and her eyes squeezed shut.

Perhaps it had been chased out by the unease that crawled up her throat and settled itself in her chest, making her heart pound and her eyes dart along each shadow's edge at any sudden sound from outside on the terrace. The day was catching up to her–as were the days before she had lost consciousness. Everything was swirling about and sending her nervous system into overdrive; relief, fear, guilt, shame, uncertainty for what was to come.

Y/n cast a cursory glance down to the mirror above his dresser, and barely caught what could have maybe been a flash of gold that moved too quick for her to truly tell. Her heart hammered in her throat, and for half a second she entertained the idea of trying to ignore it–of forcing her eyes closed and counting down from a hundred until she succumbed. Though thoughts of today resurfaced, reminding her of how the isolation had only fed into her power, the more fear Candida could elicit, the more power she held over Y/n. To keep anything like what had happened before from happening again, she needed to do the exact opposite of what her fear wanted her to do.

“Jungkook?” Y/n whispered softly into the dark.

There was a soft creak of the airbed, then his response came shortly after. “Hmm?”

Y/n swallowed through the tightness in her throat that told her to just leave it–to handle it on her own. “I think I saw…I might’ve…She…” God she sounded pathetic. Why couldn’t she just spit it out?

Jungkook didn’t seem to mind that though, appearing to understand what she was trying to force out of her mouth without any further need for explanation. The air bed gave a much louder groan and she heard his feet moving swiftly around the end of the bed before the R2D2 wax warmer clicked back on, the soft blue glow dim enough not to hurt their eyes but light enough to make her feel comforted by it.

“Where?”

“The mirror.” Y/n pointed a shaky finger at it.

Jungkook peered at his own reflection, examining every inch of the room through its reflective picture. Once satisfied with his examination, he pivoted back to her with a shake of his head. “She’s not there.”

Y/n wanted to cry again. It wasn’t his fault–but it didn’t make her feel any less crazy. She almost wished he could see her–because then it meant he would be able to punch her in the face if he did.

“O-okay.” Y/n kicked herself for how weak she sounded. It was obvious with just a single word that she was crying.

Jungkook stood still, undecided on what he should do before deciding on his new favorite offer he seemed to always have at the ready. “Do you want me to get Jimin?”

Y/n sat up, observing the way he stood uncomfortably by the mirror with a vaguely worried expression. She genuinely pondered his question, only finding one answer. She should. She should want him to get Jimin. And on one hand she kind of did–Jimin always managed to make her feel even the slightest bit better by just his presence alone. But it dawned on her that it wasn’t Jimin’s presence that she necessarily craved at the moment. It was Jungkook’s.

“No,” Y/n shook her head, sitting up and pulling back the covers enough to swing her legs out to dangle over the edge. All of her shame seemed to leave her body in the face of fear. She plucked her pillow up and held it on her lap, sliding down off the mattress and onto the floor.

“What are you doing?” Jungkook moved to step in front of her, blocking the path towards the air mattress to keep her from swapping their pillows.

Y/n looked up at him and took in a steadying deep breath, holding their eye contact even when her face burned with heat. “I want to lay with you for a bit. If that’s okay…”

Jungkook made no motion to move, not for what Y/n could’ve easily believed to be a few minutes. When he did, it was in the form of his hands guiding her shoulders to walk back to his bed until the backs of her knees hit the edge, forcing her to sit on it.

“Wait here.”

He left to the other side of the room, returning not seconds later with his pillow under his arm which he placed next to hers. Y/n let herself be guided into a reclined position and listened accordingly when Jungkook directed her to scooch to the other end to make room for him.

Jungkook joined her not long after, laying next to her with his body stiff as a board, leaving as much distance between them as possible on the wide mattress. With bravery only the dark could give her, she reached for his arm, sliding her fingertips down the skin until she found his hand to interlace their fingers and brought them both up to rest against the skin of her cheek that was still damp.

“Thank you.” Y/n whispered to him, letting her eyelids slip shut.

He didn’t answer, but he did shift closer–if only marginally so–their hands now able to lay more comfortably between them without his elbow being bent at an awkward angle. Candida’s golden eyes felt more like a memory now, not a reality. Not when his skin was warm against hers, and his breathing lulled her into the early edges of sleep.

She could’ve sworn that she had heard his heartbeat too during the last few moments of consciousness–but that would have meant he would’ve had to have moved closer–and that the soft fabric against her face wasn’t her pillow. Because she couldn’t remember her pillow having the ability to breathe.

_________________________________________

The days went by in a much similar manner to how they had when she first arrived–only in some strange turn of events–almost better than when she had first arrived; even with Candida lurking in the corners of her mind, only showing her face occasionally in mirrors and window panes. Her image held little power over her at the current moment when she was surrounded by more of her friends than ever before. This new phase felt…freeing–even with it hanging on a delicate balance of whether or not it could escalate at any moment. This was the closest to normal she had felt.

With her parents gone and Jin on vacation, there was no hiding. Bear was in charge of the cameras, blipping them out on command so they could scurry from dining room to landing, or bedroom to bedroom without having to make Jungkook trump through the attic. She wasn’t ready to go back to the greenhouse just yet, so her mornings were spent passing the time in Jimin’s office with Tree and Arrow when he was called off to give a tour.

It was nice to get to know a ghost that didn’t want to kill her–she would even go as far as to call it fascinating. She grew a habit of grabbing snickers bars from the hotel lobby and sneaking them to Tree when Jimin wasn’t looking (Jimin believed he was becoming too spoiled, and disapproved of the excess in treats she was supplying). If she had the time, she would read books from Jimin’s shelf aloud to Sergeant–and as pages turned to chapters she would swear one some occasions that a faint fuzzy outline of his shoulders would appear on one of the armchairs, paired with the soft puffs of breath that escaped his mouth while he listened intently. And when she wasn’t doing that, she was expanding Arrow’s music taste with a few records she was able to swipe from her room.

Speaking of her room, it was still a force to be reckoned with. Yoongi and Namjoon proposed that they leave her room in disarray as a means to look for more clues into Candida’s behavior, but they could not tell her exactly what they were looking for in case it triggered another ‘episode’. Thus she was on a need to know basis when it came to their plans, their group chat alive and well again (and increasing in size) as their main form of communication. It was usually used as casual communication, or to ask Y/n vague and inconspicuous questions (read: suspicious, especially if they were from Namjoon) about her day to day experience.

In the afternoons, she would eat lunch with Hoseok in his car in the historical society parking lot before trading off with Jungkook when he got off of work to reestablish their daily walks along the trails. Dinner was the most nostalgic event in her opinion; a race against time as they slipped from room to room at just the right time to miss the camera signals. Her and Jungkook had somehow gotten into the habit of seeing who could make it from one room to the next in the sneakiest manner while Jimin manned the walkie, reliving their childhood adventures as secret agents. Yoongi did not participate, but insisted on offering pointers on how to ‘increase their stealth level’ from his curled up spot on a dining room chair. It was in those moments when his gummy smile would make a guest appearance and Y/n was reminded of just how long he had been deprived of a relaxed family meal where he wasn’t preoccupied with carefully piecing together a guise of nonchalance and innocence.

She would finish off the night on an air mattress in someone else's room, usually Jungkook’s or Namjoon’s. Though Namjoon’s was a shot in the dark if the two of them were to actually get any sleep–they were both incapable of keeping their mouths shut and their brains quiet, thus when one would ask a seemingly innocuous question that was swirling about their minds, the other would most certainly respond like a pair of twittering birds until one of them passed out first in the middle of a mumbled sentence.

The only thing that was left unexplained was Taehyung, who had continued to keep a strong distance from the rest of the house–Y/n wasn’t even sure if he was still around anymore. When her and Jimin had gone to check on him with an invite to join them at the Adelaide for lunch, he was not in his room, and he didn’t answer any of his messages. Y/n was beginning to worry about him…

Thursday morning went about the same as the first half of the week, lazily reclining on Jimin’s loveseat with whatever book her and Sergeant had been working on with her head on Jimin’s lap when he wasn’t busy. That was until her phone buzzed with an incoming message.

[New Message in The Most Annoying and Toxic Coworkers]

[Zoltar 🔮]: Who’s babysitting the invasive species? Is she still with Jimin?

[Midass✋🃏]: I’m omw to pick her up for 🍗. What’s up?

[Morning Glory 🌼]: EXCUSE ME????? The WHAT??

[Zoltar 🔮]: Cool. Can you bring her up to the hotel? I’m on floor 11, south side.

[Morning Glory 🌼]: HELLO?? I’m literally right here

[Morning Glory 🌼]: What’s the field trip for?

[Midass✋🃏]: ✔️🚙💨

[Morning Glory 🌼]:Are you just going to pretend I’m not here or….

[Zoltar 🔮]: You guys hear something?

[Zoltar 🔮]: I swear it’s like I hear something…

[Morning Glory 🌼]: ME. IT’S ME sending a curse your way.

[Morning Glory 🌼]: If you yawn it means it’s working.

[Zoltar 🔮]: Fuck.

[Zoltar 🔮]: Guys I think I’m cursed.

[Morning Glory 🌼]: 😈😈😈😈

[Zoltar 🔮]: Oh wait

[Zoltar 🔮]: Nvm. Just tired from carrying this team on my back.

[Morning Glory 🌼]: fuck you dude.

[Zoltar 🔮]: That’s bold of you to say considering you tried to s t a b me

[Morning Glory 🌼]: You said you weren’t mad at me for that😢

[Jimin: 👂👻]: Look what you did, now you made her cry 🙁

[Jimin: 👂👻]: <sent a photo>

[Zoltar 🔮]: I’ve never seen something so fake. This is blackmail.

[Morning Glory 🌼]: No it’s real see

[Morning Glory 🌼]: <sent a photo>

[Zoltar 🔮]: That’s just a close up picture of your eyeball.

[Zoltar 🔮]: Try harder 🥱

[Jimin: 👂👻]: Do my eyes deceive me, or is he cursed?

[Midass✋🃏]:🫵😯 CURSED

[Midass✋🃏]: Im outside btw.

[Morning Glory 🌼]: I am becoming too powerful, you must all bow before me. It’s the law I’m afraid 😌.

[Morning Glory 🌼]: I'll be out in a sec!

[Zoltar 🔮]: Sorry, I actually forgot how to read so laws don’t apply. Brb.

Her and Jimin were still giggling by the time they made it out to Hoseok’s car, he was barely able to contain them when he planted a chaste kiss on her cheek with a reminder to text him later when she had the time.

She waved to Jimin as they pulled out of the lot, flushing hot when he blew her a kiss which she hid from Hoseok by keeping her face out of the open windows in hopes the wind would cool it down. She hoped once this Candida shit was all settled and down, that her and Jimin could sit down and actually discuss what exactly they were–and where The two of them were still relearning how to be natural around each other, but their daily lunches had certainly helped push them in the right direction. They were now able to hold adjacent to normal conversations.

“So what’s this field trip for? Or am I not allowed to know?” Y/n turned her head towards him, eyeing his profile.

Hoseok used two fingers to turn the volume of the radio down, shooting her a quick sideways glance when he turned the wheel back onto the private driveway. “I have no clue. Believe it or not, they may trust me to an extent but they aren’t wagging their tails in excitement to tell me what they are up to.”

Y/n hummed distractedly in acknowledgement, watching the guests putter about the grounds and making the best of their stay, even offering a small tour group that was huddled around a stone plaque near the tree line a shy wave as they passed.

He left his car in front of the estate, the two of them walking alongside each other towards the back entrance of the hotel, a bag of takeout swinging off Hoseok’s arm and keeping a good amount of space between them. Strange–the distance now suddenly taking on a new meaning to Y/n with the understanding of his...abilities. This dance was becoming cumbersome. How many new secrets and secret abilities was she going to have to adjust to? At this point someone could tell her they could fly and she’d believe it.

Y/n shook her head at the absurdity of the thought, though it did lead her to a new more interesting one.

Had Hoseok had his since birth too? They had all been pretty elusive to the specifics of his powers for the time being. And quite frankly after their argument (their second argument to be more specific), she was treading their discussions carefully. But she supposed in order to return to normal, she had to act like it. Fake it till you make it.

After making it across the lobby, she took the time it took to wait for the elevator as an opportunity to ask a few of her questions. “Hoseok?”

“Yea?” He whipped his head to her instantaneously, like he had just been waiting for permission to look her way.

“Have you always been able to do your…” She wiggled her fingers towards his hands. “Thing.”

Hoseok laughed, the force of it jostling him forward slightly while he fidgeted with his keys in his free hand. “No. They uh…they just showed up after my injury. I think they are related.”

The golden elevator doors slid open, followed by the inner layer of antique golden lattice peeling back to make room for their entrance. Hoseok followed behind her, using his index finger to hit the button for the eleventh floor.

“How so?” Y/n felt like she was interrogating him and the bright lights certainly added to that atmosphere.

“Well….I think you're smart enough to figure out I didn’t break my leg by playing tag.” Hoseok’s eyes shook, darting about the small metal box to the beat of the floor numbers dinging passed overhead.

“Gathered as such.” Y/n nodded.

Hoseok clicked his tongue a few times, his head twitching to the side as he thought up his next answer. “I can’t tell you too much because I’m not allowed to just yet. But Mr. Brains upstairs thinks that because of how severe my incident was, I could have gotten stuck between worlds, and because I was so close to the other side I took a piece of it with me.”

A sinking feeling weighed down Y/n’s stomach, and she felt herself subconsciously take a step closer. “How…How close were you?”

Hoseok gave her a half smile that didn’t entirely reach his eyes, blinking his eyes a few times in quick succession. “Let’s just say that I’m lucky to have celebrated as many birthdays as I have.”

There was a ding overhead as the box came to a smooth stop, the doors opening not long after to welcome them into the hall, Hoseok stepping through the second the gap was wide enough. Y/n didn’t need any superpowers to tell he had little interest discussing the topic any further.

The walls were a spotless cream, accented with wooden panels that came up to roughly hip height. Antique photos and art pieces aged by time hung every few feet to break apart the paint, each piece either made by someone that had lived on the property, or brought over from overseas from the family that existed before them.

The carpet was red, freshly vacuumed and deodorized as was customary for the cleaning department. There was a cleaning cart parked beside an open room, and Y/n could hear the billowing of linens and the running of water as the worker stormed through it with practiced precision like a well-oiled machine. She found herself humoring the fantasy that it could be Jungkook that was busy turning up the room, but she knew the chances of that were slim when the entire hotel was a possibility.

Though her stomach still flopped dramatically back down in disappointment when it was a much shorter man she saw stuffing the pillows into new cases and not Jungkook’s mop of unruly dark waves.

They came to a crossroads where the hall split into two opposite directions: one to a completely vacant hall, and the other to a much shorter hall that ended abruptly–signaling that the two rooms on either side were their massive family suites that took up the space that would otherwise be more hallway and rooms. Taking up the entire walkway between the walls lined with numbered doors was a silver ladder parked and balanced against the back wall so the person on it would have easy access to the air conditioning unit up near the ceiling.

Yoongi had one leg propped on the top and the other a few steps down, the sleeves of his red workman’s overalls rolled up to his elbows and a screwdriver wedged between his teeth as nimble fingers fiddled with the internal pieces of the unit he had taken the front off of. On cue, he twisted his head to greet her, nodding at their arrival.

He plucked the tool from his mouth and gave her a lopsided grin that showed his teeth. “Well, well, well–Looks like the garden’s been overgrown. Anyone got any weed killer?”

“Nope. I’m too strong for the chemical shit.” Y/n chuckled, approaching the bottom of the ladder to get a closer look at his movements looking up at him with a playful smile. “Try harder.”

Yoongi shook his head with a breathy laugh, reaching into his belt for a rag that he splayed over his hand to wipe at the accumulated dust within the machine. “Oh that’s right I forgot–you are all powerful or whatever bullshit you typed out with those meddling fingers of yours.”

“So what’s the news?” Hoseok interrupted them by leaning his weight on the other end of the ladder and used his thumb to pop open his lunch container.

Yoongi’s eyes zeroed in on the carton. “You didn’t bring me any?”

“Did you ask?” Hoseok quipped back up with a raise of his brows, stabbing a fork from the bag into his food and shoveling it into his mouth.

“You can have some of mine, Yoongs.” Y/n added dismissively and put one hand on the leg of the ladder to peer up into the open machine. “What are you up to?”

“You don’t have to do that.” Yoongi’s cheeks flushed the faintest of pink, and he followed her eyes up to the machine. “Just cleaning it. Someone reported that this one was rattling a lot, so some kid probably threw something in it. Just got to find whatever it was. ”

Y/n hummed while grabbing for her own meal, cracking open the lid and revealing her meal to the both of them. She took a bite while he fished his hand through the cracks in the machine for anything out of the ordinary.

“I asked you two to come up here because I wanted to talk to you about tonight.”

Y/n swallowed her bite quickly so she could respond, wracking her brain for whatever it was he was referring to. “What about tonight?”

“Exactly that.” Yoongi brought his hands out from the machine with a crease forming between his brow as he raked his eyes over it one more time, then he dropped the rag in defeat and lowered himself down two rungs so he could crouch to her height. He looked at her expectantly, one eyebrow higher than the other and a cheeky smile ghosting his face. When she stared blankly at him, he licked his lips and gestured towards her food. “You said you’d share, Miss Glory.”

Y/n’s cheeks glowed with heat, and she fumbled with the bag for a spare fork but found none. Not wanting to leave him hanging, she skewered through a piece of roasted broccoli with her own fork and held it up to his lips to take. His cheeky persona faltered momentarily, his eyes flickering down from her eyes to the fork and back to her eyes like he was asking for permission.

“Go on then, don’t take all day.” Y/n moved the bite closer and he parted his lips to take it, his ears twinged pink and his eyes never once leaving hers.

He coughed into the side of his fist while he chewed, breaking their eye contact to flit his eyes around the hall before regaining his composure. “Tonight we are meeting up in your room for seven. Try to get there early and wear something comfortable.”

“You couldn’t text that?” Hoseok whined from beside her around his meal.

“Nope.” Yoongi paused, eyes tracking her next bite that she put into her own mouth. “Because I need to take her phone.”

Y/n made a noise of surprise around her food, eyes widening at him. “My phone?”

“Yeah. It’s just a precaution.” He shrugged, wetting his lips again as with his eyes trained on a piece of chicken in her container.

Y/n took the hint, and prepared another bite with both chicken and vegetable on it, holding it up for him to take. He did so without hesitation this time, his tongue peeking out briefly to catch it. Y/n didn’t understand why the interaction had her short circuiting and her heart fluttering in her chest encouraging the spread of heat–but it sure did.

“How will I know what time it is then?” She kept her tone in check, not wanting to expose herself anymore than she already could be to his perceptive eyes.

“Don’t be silly,” He tsked. “ You’ll have the kid.”

Y/n handed him her meal to continue eating from as he talked softly with Hoseok about his day, while she was much more interested in the sweet treat Hoseok undoubtedly grabbed as per usual. She found the smaller carton and her mouth watered at the sight of chocolate and raspberry cake–and of course, tucked in the lip of the dessert container was the extra fork. Well, it was too late now.

Hoseok’s fork immediately dove in from beside her, swiping a large forkful of cake with a giggle.

“Rude! Not my first bite!” Y/n glared at him, the action nearly costing her the entire slice when Yoongi attacked from the right with his own fork, taking one of the raspberries from the top with it. “Oh–my god!” Y/n took a defensive step back to dodge any further swipes with a shake of her head. She gave them the most offended look she could muster. “It’s like you guys don’t even care about me!”

The two of them snickered at their own mischief, and Y/n finally gathered the perfect bite on her fork. “Assholes” She was sure to grab the prettiest looking raspberry and pop it into her mouth, keeping her eyes locked on Yoongi’s as she did so. His eyes took on a look that was indecipherable, and he wet his lower lip almost subconsciously, eyes lingering on what she could almost believe was he mouth long after the berry disappeared.

They finished their meal with Yoongi, and as instructed she left her phone with him in one of his dozen pockets when she and Hoseok started back towards the lobby. Hoseok was trailing behind her for most of it, and when he thought she wasn’t looking he would grimace–something she didn’t miss from the corner of her eye.

“Do you need me to slow down?” Y/n’s question startled him, his mouth partially open in an unfinished response. “You look like you might be having a bad day. I can slow down if I’m walking too fast.”

Hoseok chewed on his cheek in contemplation, but nodded nonetheless, letting his pace slow. She matched it all the way to the elevator, and this time he got in first and rushed to stand at the opposite end, waiting until she was nestled inside to tap the lobby button.

“You don’t have to do that.” Hoseok coughed, adjusting his jacket over his short sleeve button down.

“What?” Y/n tilted her head in confusion.

Hoseok turned his face to look at her. “Slow down.”

Y/n scoffed and made a face at him. “Whatever. I’ll do it if I want to. I don’t mind.” She took a half step closer to him, the gap having gone from a full foot to only a few inches. “If something hurts for you, we can find a way to do it differently so it doesn’t.”

Hoseok didn’t respond, but she could feel the weight her words held in the air between them. She inched closer once more, their arms only a breath away from touching, and there was no way he couldn’t feel her hovering presence.

“Can you control it?” She asked softly.

“Sometimes.” He choked out.

“Sometimes?” Y/n looked down at his hand that hung between them. “How about right now?”

He tipped his head to her, swallowing thickly. “I could try.”

Y/n took that as permission, testing the waters with her middle finger first, letting it brush against his knuckles. He took in a deep breath through his nose but didn’t pull away. Her index and ring finger followed after, weaving between his and holding them gingerly in her own. “Just because we are in a bit of a funk right now doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. We can navigate your pain together, yeah?”

“You say that now. But when it becomes inconvenient I don’t think you’ll be saying the same thing.” Hoseok ran his thumb over hers, just barely so.

“I think I will be.” Y/n shrugged, taking the plunge and resting her head in his shoulder for the last few seconds before the doors opened. “There’s plenty of trouble we can get into together that doesn’t involve a lot of walking.”

“Like?” Hoseok snorted.

The elevator started to slow, pushing Y/n to spit out whatever word vomit she could before the doors opened, ticking each one off on her fingers as she went. “Quilting? Sewing? Get a fish tank and watch the fish swim around. We could have Yoongi give us painting lessons. I could teach you to crochet–or we could learn a smaller instrument together–both sound fun! We could get you a wheelchair that I can push around and decorate so it looks cool. Develop the biggest board game collection imaginable and be those people that host game nights every other week. The possibilities are endless, we just have to be creative.”

During her spiel, the doors had opened but neither of them made any moves to leave yet. Hoseok stared at her with glistening eyes that threatened to spill. The doors shut again, and they stood like that for a few beats while Hoseok tried to control his breathing. Y/n had begun to wonder if she had pushed the topic too far and too quickly after a few breaths. Should she apologize?

After what felt like an eternity he cleared his throat and tapped the button to open the doors with a quick wipe of his sleeve across the tip of his nose. “That sounds…fun.”

“Yeah?” Y/n followed him out into the lobby, their hands still loosely connected.

“Yeah,” Hoseok kept his eyes forward and out of her sight. “Fun.”

_________________________________________

Y/n had no idea what time it was.

With no phone she was relying solely on Jungkook to make sure they got back to his room in time to change before heading over to her room. Jungkook was nothing if not punctual, and had them back in his room by five to give her time to change and prepare for whatever it was they were planning. His demeanor was quiet and reserved, like he was compartmentalizing himself for the evening, thus only furthering her unease about whatever was to come.

It didn’t help that for the past ten minutes, Jungkook’s were darting from his phone and back to her like he was waiting for something. Waiting for a sign that she had no clue on.

Something stirred within her with the rising anticipation of the mysterious endeavor. Something that felt all too familiar and suffocating, like a cold hand danced its dainty fingers on the strings of her mind and had begun to pluck and pull on them–moving them this way and that against her will.

Candida.

Y/n didn’t wait around once the first wave of goosebumps cascaded down her limbs, ripping open the bathroom door that separated her from where Jungkook sat on his bed waiting. She came on hard and fast, bringing a torrential wave of anxiety and panic with her that Jungkook must’ve been able to feel from across the room, as he had leapt from the bed the second the door opened.

“She’s–she’s here. I can feel her–” Y/n went to close the distance between them, but the tightness in chest had her stopping against her will.

Jungkook’s expression firmed to stone and he discarded his phone onto his mattress to let it bounce down to the floor before he lunged at her, hoisting her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and out his door.

“What the fuck are you–wait–aren’t we supposed to be going to my room?!” Y/n grasped for the fabric of his shirt, her stomach churning as she swung to the side when he turned left to go further down the hall instead of right.

He didn’t answer, and she couldn’t see his face to get any sort of information from either.

“Jungkook!” Y/n tried again, feeling herself grow more frantic. “What’s happening?”

They stopped in front of Jimin’s door that opened almost immediately, welcoming the two of them into his pitch black room and shutting the door and the remaining light from it.

Her feet touched the ground, and then Jungkook was gone. His dark attire made it easy for him to disappear into the darkness of the room that her eyes could not see through.

“Guys? What’s going on…You’re freaking me out…”

She could hear someone breathing–or maybe it was the sound her own breath, she couldn’t be sure. The darkness was beginning to warp her mind and feed into Candida’s power, her pulse skyrocketing and her head beginning to throb.

Match struck box, and a small flame lit up Yoongi’s face close to the floor–then four more strikes; all of her friends' faces lit up by the matches they pinched between their fingers to light a ring of candles around her feet as fast as they could. In seconds she was surrounded, and the matches were snuffed out to leave the burning candles in their place.

In front of her was a wooden desk chair with an oblong shape propped in the seat, shrouded by a black cloth and placed within the circle of flame. Her friends stayed outside the line, crouched close to the floor where Y/n could barely make out a collection of salt, crystals, and sigils she didn’t recognize.

“Candida Wörner,” Yoongi spoke first, eyes cold and narrowed on her. “I call you forwards into the circle to show yourself.”

Y/n’s stomach lurched with the overpowering urge to vomit as the invisible sensation of ice-cold water pouring over her skin and seeping into her skin pulled a yelp from her mouth. The water moved with lithe, calculated movements through her system, striking and prodding in places that felt tender to touch. In an immediate response, her lungs stopped expanding mid breath–staying frozen in place. Her hands clawed at her throat as she struggled to breathe in, her own body not listening to the commands, her skin cold to the touch beneath her fingertips.

“If you cause a scene, we will not hesitate to use force.” Yoongi continued stalking each movement her body made and every breath she missed.

Her hold did not lessen even when Y/n’s lungs started to burn from lack of air and her chest twitched with uncontrollable coughs. Namjoon’s voice started droning on from the darkness of the room in swirly prose that Y/n’s thundering heartbeat snuffed out entirely. Rage that felt like it was from outside her own body brewed deep in her belly and came ripping out of her throat with a high pitched shriek.

Y/n still choked, gasping around nothing for air that would not come–like her lungs had been turned to stone or removed from her insides entirely. She fell to her knees as her legs grew weak, her limbs quaking from lack of oxygen.

“She can’t breathe!” Jungkook hissed from outside the circle somewhere to her right. Y/n spun in search of him–to hold or to hit she wasn’t sure. Her mind was not her own. However her vision grew too fuzzy for her to see anything clearly in the low light, and Jungkook did not step forwards when she tried to call for him.

Namjoon’s voice grew louder and Y/n’s felt as though her skull might splinter open, and her eyes might explode from the built up pressure behind them. Yoongi barked commands to the others that stood just out of sight. “Here she comes! Start the second phase–now!”

Jungkook leapt into the circle with Hoseok hot on his tail, the latter disappearing behind the oblong object with his fingers buried in the cloth, waiting for further command to remove it. Jungkook stood over her, and she watched as his brown eyes melted to black and his hands came up to press on either side of her face.

“Candida Wörner, I command you to come to the surface. Show yourself to me.”

Y/n gargled, one of her hands trembling in a desperate grab for his wrists–she needed to breathe or else she wasn’t going to last very long. Voices swirled about her mind, hissing and snapping their jaws at her with accusations aimed at Jungkook, their wild grovels for attention trying to blame the pain on the hands that pressed into her cheeks. Jungkook slid one of his hands down to her throat and gripped the side of it, his touch bringing oxygen rushing into her lungs for a few short breaths before the sensation was ripped from her again.

“No!” Words scratched from Y/n’s mouth, but they weren’t her own. The voice didn’t belong to her. “He is hurting me!”

He’s going to kill us!

Stop him!

Jungkook’s nostrils flared and his chest heaved, his other hand joining at the base of her throat to let another burst of air into it. If he was hurting her, why did it feel like he was the one letting her breathe? Her skin burned where he touched, and she tried to push him away–no–Candida tried to push him away. Y/n wanted him to stay right where he was.

Sweat started to surface from every pore of her skin, forming droplets and drying out her lips. She could feel the skin cracking as her mouth stretched in screams of protest as more pain bloomed in her middle like Candida was running her internal organs through a shredder. Her brain was throwing forth the images of Jungkook’s dying face to the forefront of her mind, forcing her to watch the scene over and over again until she started to cry out, begging it to stop.

“She’s fighting it,” Jungkook spat out through gritted teeth. “She’s hurting her–I can’t-” She could feel his hands starting to slip away.

Get him off of us! Look what he does to you! Liar! Liar!

Her mind was screaming at her to hurt him–but she knew not to listen this time. Her eyes flickered over his shoulder to see Yoongi’s that had gone dark like a stormy sea, his hands shaking and his chest heaving, his mouth moving but no words sounded from them. Trust me.

Y/n took one hand and slid it into Jungkook’s hair, pulling on the strands to keep his attention on her face croaking out her words through battered vocal cords. “Don’t. Don’t let go.” Y/n gave a firm shake of her head–locking their eyes onto one another. “You get her out of me, you understand?”

Jungkook looked torn, his expression struck with horror.

“Get her out–I’ll only be okay if you get her out.” Y/n gave one last good tug on his hair, and let her hand drop to the ground as it gave out.

Jungkook scooped her back up to a standing position from beneath her arms, another set of arms joining in to help him hold her upright. Jimin.

“Do it now, Hoseok.” Jungkook growled, and in the next second the black cloth was tossed aside, an old looking mirror with a dusted ornate frame sitting proudly out of its covering–looking more terrifying than even the worst creatures hell could birth to her at the moment.

Jungkook forced her to stand in front of it, to take in the reflection of herself how Candida had made her: like she was on the brink of death.

A radio sputtered to life, and Yoongi held it up behind the mirror, just outside of the circle.

“Tantchen, bist du da?”

Y/n’s body gave a shudder, and she would have fallen forwards if it wasn’t for Jimin and Jungkook holding her upright.

“Warum hast du deine Kinder getötet, Tantchen?”

Y/n’s body charged forwards blindly towards the voice, the reflection of her body nearly splitting in half as Candida’s face overlaid her own.

“Namjoon!” Hoseok tossed something across the room to the man in question, and Y/n heard pages frantically flipping from her left. Namjoon started reciting something in a language she didn’t know, and without warning, Jungkook grabbed for Y/n and pushed her towards the mirror–only it wasn’t her body in his hands.

With a blood curdling scream, Y/n and Candida were ripped apart from one another–every muscle in her body contracted and spasmed like he had torn her tendons out with her, and she collapsed to the floor in a writhing heap, Jimin softening the blow. Jungkook slammed Candida into the mirror, her body vanishing into its surface almost instantaneously.

Hoseok and Namjoon ran at the mirror with hands outstretched, Namjoon’s fingers dragging shapes onto the glass with oiled fingers, and Hoseok planted both hands on either side of the frame, squeezing inwards like he was the one keeping her in.

Namjoon was almost yelling now, but to Y/n it sounded so far away. Candida was thrashing from within the mirror, throwing herself at the glass to escape its confines with her eyes latched on Y/n’s–almost desperate.

Y/n whined at the residual throbbing sensation in her head, and closed her eyes to block out the candles that now looked too bright. The yelling and banging vanished, as did the smells and the pain. The rushing river from within slowed down to a gentle sway, soothing the stinging wounds Candida’s separation had made.

All had gone quiet.

They all waited on baited breath, too hesitant to assume victory already. But when Hoseok covered the mirror with the black cloth once more, the entire room took a shared breath of relief, and Y/n let her head fall back onto the floor.

Candida was gone.

_________________________________________

Bear pushed open the Adelaide doors, directing his companions to spread out on all sides–Margaret was assigned to Youngho’s side and took towards the stage. They were to stay out of the situation unless absolutely necessary.

It was no feat to find Duane, his massive form slumped over the bar counter with empty glasses either smashed or lying on their side from the abuse he had put them through. A mess. His brother was an absolute mess.

Bear kept his steps light and controlled as he approached his brother, placing a hand onto the countertop a yard or so away.

“Duane…” The man in question made no move to signify he was cognizant, but Bear tried anyways. “Today is undoubtedly one of the hardest days you will ever have to face,” Bear slid into a stool a few away from his brother, keeping his eyes on him at all time. “But it is also the hardest day for your children. They need you out there–”

“Do not,” Duane’s voice was muffled by the counter his cheek was squished against. “Do not lecture me on my own children, Bär.” His words were spoken with venom as they peeled from his lips.

“I am not lecturing. I am advising.” Bear gripped the counter’s edge with his fingers.

Duane shifted, and his shoulders began to shake. For a moment Bear thought Duane was crying and started forward to comfort him–until the sounds grew faster and louder; he was laughing. Cruel and cold.

“Advising? You, advising me, Bruder?” Duane raised his nearly empty glass to his lips with a condescending shake of his head. “I would rather die than take advice from you.”

Bear could feel his blood pressure rising, and grit his teeth to keep from snapping. “You don’t mean that.”

“Oh but I do,” Duane exhaled as he brought the glass back down to the counter top, twisting the empty glass this way and that as he thought. “You know,” he started with a tone that made Bear’s heart pound, “I always thought that out of anyone else in the world–you would be the one person I could trust more than myself.”

“Why can’t you?” Bear slid from the barstool in preparation for the blow he knew was building.

Duane looked at him–eyes drooped and merciless. “Why can’t I?” He took one thick hand and fumbled with his breast pocket, sliding out a folded sheet of paper and sliding it to Bear.

It was the note Patti had left him that he was sure he had tucked into his pocket after they had left the ballroom. Bear couldn’t move–Couldn’t breathe.

“Yeah.” Duane stood, stretching up to his full towering height. “I thought so.”

Bear had a split second to dodge the glass that sailed through the air at deadly speed. He made it just in time for it to whiz by the skin of his ear and explode into thousands of little pieces against the counter where he had just been.

Duane charged him, all muscle and height with a strength that could tip a bull if they faced head on. But Bear was smaller–faster–and well trained. He ducked under his arms and danced around his figure, dropping to the floor as Duane gripped a stool and both hands and swung it in a circle with the aim to do as much damage as possible.

Bear had no doubt in his mind that at this moment if given the chance, Duane would kill him.

Duane may be strong, but the amount of alcohol burrowing through his system slowed him down, giving Bear the upper hand.

“I’m not going to fight you, Bruder!” Bear leapt back as Duane made another grab for his head and missed, falling sideways onto the bar counter to catch his breath.

Duane growled under his breath. “You should.”

“I won’t.” Bear repeated, standing firm. “You are one person I won’t.”

“You have the nerve to fuckin’ come in here and tell me how to take care of my kids like you know them better than me after stealing my wife’ Duane shook his head, wiping away a spot of drool that had started to fall from the corner of his mouth. “And now you won’t even fight me like a man?”

“A man is not made by his ability to fight.” Bear shouted back, his temper rising. “And I didn’t steal your wife.”

“You didn’t? So you just happened to be screwing her while she was married to me?” Duane laughed louder than before. “Who cares about that bitch anyways. She’s dead to me now.”

Bear’s blood ran cold, and his hands shook with restraint, his voice low and biting. “You don’t mean that. You are just angry with me–call me whatever names you want and throw whatever shit you can get your hands on–but do not talk about her that way.”

“Then you don’t get to talk about my kids–they are none of your business.” Duane leveled him with an accusatory finger.

“Your kids?” Bear inquired. “Are you sure about that?”

Bear let his fists clench and his tongue loosen beyond his control. He couldn’t even give Patti the dignity and respect she deserved on the day of her own funeral. Couldn’t step up as a father for one singular day. All he saw was red.

Duane cocked his head to the side, a twisted grin taking shape on his face. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Bear couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to watch him burn.

“Obviously Johan and Dorothea are yours–the timelines wouldn’t make sense for I was off overseas. But Henry…” Bear gave Duane a second to soak in what he was saying. “Henry is where things get convoluted.”

The room went still. Even the chandeliers that hung far above them seemed to stop their swaying dances.

Duane was immobile as his eyes glossed over with a dismissive chuckle. But when Bear didn’t back down, his smile slowly wiped from his mouth, and the gears in his head turned over one another in realization.

“His birthday is November 6th in case you forgot.” Bear huffed, and turned to make his way back to the front door. If he stayed any longer one of them would surely kill the other–two trained killers blinded by rage would surely never end well.

The breath was forcibly pulled from his lungs as Bear tackled him to the floor, rolling him onto his back to land a harsh blow to Bear’s face with a curled fist, barely letting it collide with his cheek before charging his next hit.

Bear let him get a few in, taking them one after the other for the punishment he deserved–but then it was his turn.

He grabbed for Duane’s neck and used his size against him, careening his already unsteady upper half back so Bear was the one on top. There was a loud crack as Bear’s elbow made contact with Duane’s nose, spurting blood down his chin and seeping down his neck to the floor. Commotion resounded from near the stage, and in a surge of power Duane’s eyes burst open, bulging with rage and nearly golden with wrath in the dimly lit bar.

In a feat of inhuman strength, Duane sprang forwards and knocked Bear onto his back, both brutish hands coming down on Bear’s throat and squeezing his airways down to slits. Bear looked up at him, defeated and broken–his brother who he had loved more than anything in this world–was killing him.

One of Bear’s hands came up to grip onto the skin of Duane’s arm as his windpipe started to bend under the force, tears welling in his eyes as he gave one final croak. “Duane…Please…”

Something in Duane’s expression twitched, but he did not yield.

A small silver bell clanged violently as it was pummeled into the side of Duane’s skull, Margaret’s fist guiding it into sharp precise hits and creating the perfect distraction for Seonggi and Youngho to rip Duane’s hulking body off of Bear so he could breathe.

“I told you to ring it near his ears, not to bash his head in!” Seonggi hissed as he shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around Duane’s face like a mask, blocking out his vision of Bear.

Margaret caught her breath and wiped the metal instrument on the side of her black dress, bending over to offer Bear her other hand. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Unbelievable, the lot of you are…” Seonggi grunted out, struggling to hold Duane back.

“Don’t be such a stick in the mud,” Youngho had both arms locked around Duane’s middle to aid in his restraint, “She did great!”

Duane snarled from beneath the jacket, his brute strength jerking all three men forwards, nearly escaping with one swift tug. Seonggi’s eyes flashed with worry, bringing his elbow around Duane’s throat to hold him steady. “Bear–Run!”

Margaret acted first, yanking Bear to his feet and guiding his unsteady gait to the double red doors and out into the lobby. He could hear the jingles start to ring out like a church bell choir from behind them with Duane’s voice calling out over the sounds, louder than Bear thought humanly possible.

“Don’t come back!” Duane tore the suit jacket to shreds, launching the two men off of his arms and back while he blubbered after him. “Go off and fight in ‘nam like a good little soldier–die there for all I care!” Duane’s voice echoed after him even as he sprinted across the lobby. With one final bellow from his brother that vibrated the walls, all of the lights in the lobby flickered, some of them even dying entirely as if to prove his point. “DIE THERE!”

Bear tore down the front steps after Margaret, kicking up dust and grass as they went. She herded him to a blue rectangular-shaped car in the parking lot, fumbling through her pockets until her fist closed around a set of keys which she promptly tossed his way. “Take my car. Just go–I’ll tell Johan what–”

“No!” Bear cut her off with a gasp. “You can’t tell him what happened–any of them. They mustn't know! It would ruin them…” He was holding back sobs at this point, beggin the young woman in front of him to heed his words. He could feel his throat swelling with bruises already.

“O-okay! Okay! I won’t,” She grabbed for his other hand and held them both in hers–a promise with shaking hands. “I won’t.”

“Thank you,” Bear sighed in relief and tore away from her hold, wrenching the car door open and slamming it shut behind him so hard the car shook. He looked up at her from the open window, leaning out with a salute. “You’re going to make one hell of a Wörner.”

“You come back now,” Margaret squinted down at him with the ghost of a smile. “Johan talks about you too much for you to leave for good–and I do think he should be getting married soon.”

“Do you now?” Bear turned the engine over with a strained chuckle, feeling it rumble beneath his seat and the yellow headlights lighting up the shrubbery of the woods around them. “I’ll see what I can do then. You’ll tell them I love them for me, won’t you?”

“I will, but I’m sure they already know.”

_________________________________________

“Tantchen, bist du da?”: Aunty, are you there?

“Warum hast du deine Kinder getötet, Tantchen?”: Why did you kill your children, Aunty?

Next chapter

Taglist: @kokoandkookie @rkive-joonie @singdancedreampray @erescheesemelted

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dearweirdme · 1 day ago

Note

One has to laugh at this point 😂

So they made sure Jimin and Jungkook attend the same evening of Jin’s show. Their shippers claiming they arrived and left together. Turns out Yoongi arrived with them and they all left in 3 separate cars. But not even a few hours later we get the first official AYS article - like clockwork - creating buzz 🐝 cause you know them being seen and interacting and then the news of a new Disney + show spreading mhhhh PR 101 💰

Couldn’t have made it more obvious. Everything we’ve seen from Jikook since the day of discharge (one could argue even Jimin teasing stuff like ‘we have so much to tell, so many stories” while still in the military) has been leading up to making & selling content and fan service. It’s work, it’s there to create excitement post military and to showcase a bond between two members the fandom hasn’t seen in a long time. Pre military and post military seasons.

And aside from Jimin and Jungkook who else would have done it? Jungkook is just such a popular and loved member, highly in demand and everything he does creates buzz on its own. But he can’t do it with Tae and the rest of the members are either on tour or unwilling I suppose lol Jimin makes the most sense from a marketing and fan service point.

And I am fairly sure they always knew they’d do a few episodes post military. That also makes sense.

For some reason we aren’t getting any 7 content yet (I actually rather thought hype would ship them off to create travel content together as soon as they took off that uniform but color me surprised) sooooo what better than two young beloved members than nothing?

This band has fantasies to sell, it’s built on their bonds, their love for each other. Built on their closeness to fans and fulfilling fandom wishes and expectations. Not saying none of it is genuine of course not, but surely in some parts heightened or exaggerated. It’s kpop after all.

And then there’s the big question mark of how much choice do they have? How iron are the contracts? The image clauses, the closets. Like we know nothing!

Long story short: AYS 2 was predictable and (especially Jimin’s) complete focus on JK for weeks now and them yesterday closely followed by the show announcement is 0 surprising.

The company or the shippers or or or can try to deceive as much as they want but as soon as those episodes hit, we’ll once again see how much smoke 💨there was and how these two are the most sibling with each other lol

It’s business, it’s frustrating, it’s expected and quite frankly sadly normal. I just wish as they are now entering post military and their 30s and their solo lives with the occasional band comebacks, that they have more autonomy over their images, who they spend time with, who they produce content with…time will tell ❤️

Hi anon!

In hindsight.. it does fit. I’m still open to the possibility of members at Jin’s show having been a somewhat organic result of them having been busy individually…. But, imagine if Tae had shown up with Jm and Jk… we all know what the buzz would have been. Tae and Jk at Hobi’s show, at Yoongi’s show, at HS show in US, Tae and Jk i. AYS, all created much more buzz than Jm and Jk. Tae and Jk together would have overshadowed Jk and Jm. So in that sense, I can see how this was arranged for a purpose.

#taekook #fandom shenanigans

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lunesviolettes · 2 days ago

Text

Void - 010.

(This series was originally posted on my Wattpad, so I’m bringing it over here)

pairing: MCU!bucky barnes x MCU!female reader

word count: 6.4k

summary: Y/N was far from any normal girl in Brooklyn during the 1940s. Her physical and mental strength were far from ordinary and her mother and father were nothing short of strange, just like her. Secrets and strange occurrences were all that she had ever known and with the approach of a second global war, it seemed that everything would only become stranger. A powerful organization, a target on the back of a young girl, a serum, and an infinity stone were all that it would take to change everything she knew about her world.

chapter warnings:

a/n: This fanfic follows the course of the MCU movies (The First Avenger - Thunderbolts). It’s more focused on the story aspect of the MCU and is very much a slow burn type of story with not a lot of focus on smut.

Series Masterlist Next Chapter

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"The Hydra camp is in Krausberg, tucked between these two mountain ranges. It's a factory of some kind." You turned away from the window, eyes following Agent Carter as she handed a rolled up map to Steve. Clouds passed by in a blur and the sky was dark - smoke-filled. Part of you almost wished you had stayed on the ground.

It wasn’t that you doubted Howard’s skills - you would never admit that out loud, but you weren’t sure how well you could handle all of it. This was different…real. You were heading right into enemy lines, on your own accord. From here you could see the realities of war - hear the distant booms. At any moment you could be shot out of the sky. This was the realization that had your heart battering against your ribs.

You were not brave…not to this extent. Standing up to a thick-headed brute was where your courage ended. Working with toxic and radioactive chemicals was far more simple than the complexities of war. Or maybe it wasn’t so complicated. Out here…it was kill or be killed.

"We should be able to drop you right on the doorstep." Howard shouted from the front end of the aircraft. "Just get me as close as you can," Steve replied. His voice lowered as he turned back to Peggy. "You know, you three are gonna be in a lot of trouble at the lab." He wasn’t wrong. The three of them were disobeying direct orders from Colonel Phillips. But you knew - and Steve knew too, that this was what Dr. Erskine wanted. He wanted a brave and true-hearted soldier. Not a performer.

It wouldn’t just be the three of them getting scolded. Steve was as you said, a performer…and he was late. "And you won't be?" You asked. If the time was correct, he was about three hours late for his next performance. You could envision it now - all four of your heads on a pike. Time and time again, doing the right thing somehow felt so wrong.

"Where I'm goin', if anybody yells at me I can just shoot 'em." He said humorously - his smile soon disappearing when neither you nor Peggy shed a single grin. You’d always admired Steve for it, despite how concerned it made you. He was undeniably and annoyingly brave. "They will undoubtedly shoot back." Peggy reminded him.

Steve stuck his arm out, rasping his knuckles against the crest-shaped shield that was perched on the seat to his right. "Well let's hope it's good for somethin'."

"Agent Carter, if we're not in too much of a hurry I thought we could stop off in Lucerne for a late-night fondue." You looked up from your lap, watching the exchange between Peggy and Steve - or rather the silent exchange. His expression clouded over - something akin to confusion…and maybe even jealousy? The air had grown heavy with tension - spurred on as Peggy shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"Stark is the best civilian pilot I've ever seen. He's mad enough to brave this airspace, we're lucky to have him."

The only unusual thing about the interaction was Peggy’s response. Working with Howard for as little of time as you did showed you one thing; he was a flirt. And most women were perceptive to it, but you already knew that Agent Carter had her eyes on someone else. You saw it clear as day when Steve shouted from within the chamber. She had grown to care for the man while he was fighting to claim his spot in Project Rebirth. She, like everyone Steve encountered, came to be aware of his true spirit.

"So are you two...? Do you...? Fondue?" You snorted, failing to stifle it which earned you a sharp glare from Peggy. She didn’t respond, instead pulling out a small device from her coat pocket. “This is your transponder. Activate it when you're ready and the signal will lead us straight to you."

Steve examined it carefully, seemingly unsure of it. It was small and light - which weren’t exactly telltale signs to something working. He directed his attention to the pilot seat where Howard sat. "Are you sure this thing works?"

"It's been tested more than you, pal." From the corner of your vision came a flash of light. You grimaced, looking towards the window. By the time recognition flickered within you, it was too late. It was bright and powerful - striking the aircraft with a force that nearly sent you flying off the seat. The circuit board in front of Howard lit up like a christmas tree. Each blast was seemingly stronger than the last. It was a wonder you hadn’t been knocked out of the sky.

Steve rose up on unsteady feet, pushing himself toward the exit. "Get back here!" Peggy shouted, reaching for his arm. "We're taking you all the way in!" You stood as well, bracing yourself against the seat. "As soon as I'm free, you turn this thing around and get the hell outta here!" Your face was scrunched up as you fought to hear him over the blasts that struck the side of the aircraft.

“You can't give me orders!" Agent Carter commanded. "The hell I can't! I'm a Captain!" He spared you both a grin before turning to the door. You stepped forward first as he tugged the goggles over his eyes. Peggy was at your right, peering out from the edge of the doorframe as Steve dove from the aircraft. Your hand was braced against the edge, wincing as he narrowly evaded each blast from below the tree line. But then again…they weren’t exactly aiming for him.

You spotted it nearing. Your eyes widened, mouth falling agape. A warning shout escaped you as you pushed Peggy back. The blast struck its target, shaking the aircraft. Your grip loosened, your foot lost purchase and soon the ground disappeared from beneath you. Your stomach plummeted as you descended faster and faster. The wind whipped all around you, making something as simple as breathing entirely impossible. You could see nothing but the darkened sky above.

Each blast was a mere echo in the distance. You could think of nothing but your impending doom. As the ground came closer and closer, you knew the end was near. The biting winds had your eyes filling with tears. With blurred vision, you were unaware of the blue sheen that sprouted from your skin. You could see nothing of the tendrils of energy that slithered along your frame. Only when it brightened had you come to be aware of it. Dust kicked up around you as you fell through the trees. Your eyes were no longer visible - instead hidden within depths of bright light as you made contact with the Earth.

There was a deafening boom. The energy that had curled itself around you went soaring outward. What you thought would be a fatal fall had been anything but. When the dust finally settled, you moved to sit up. Beneath you was a large crater, carved out in the Earth from the force of your fall. As you looked down at yourself, you found nothing but the gentle gleam of smokey light as it sank back into your skin. You appeared fine, as if the events that occurred moments prior did not transpire at all.

The only evidence of your fall was the hollowed out dirt you sat in and the few trees around you that had been uprooted. They sat there, leaning from the force of energy that billowed through them. You were vaguely aware of the hissed call of your name from somewhere behind you. Steve moved around you, nearly tripping through the ditch as he sank to a knee in front of you. “What the hell are you doing here?” He whisper-shouted.

You blinked, the furrow in between your brows smoothing out as you finally came to register the sounds existing around you. Steve looked you up and down once - partly unnerved at the notion that there was not a single external injury on you. “I-“ Your voice was soft, almost hoarse. “I fell.” You said finally.

“Yeah I saw. And heard. Every single person in Germany heard you fall. We gotta move. Soldiers are gonna be running guns blazing through here.” He pulled you to your feet and you took an unsteady step forward. You swallowed down a gulp and followed after him. His steps were quick - silent. Yours were loud and you were slowly falling behind. You panted, chest heaving. With a wince you jumped and pushed yourself over a fallen tree.

Once again, you were reminded of a very painful fact. You were human. The kind of human that had never trained a day in their life to race through a forest for their life. The type that was completely unprepared to fight their way into a Nazi base. Steve must have sensed your apprehension as he slowed his once quick pace. “You alright?”

You shook your head, bracing against a tree. Your skin was covered in a sheen layer of sweat. “I can’t do this Steve. Maybe I should just stay behind and wait.” Your heart was pounding against the confines of your chest. You swore you could barely hear anything over the roaring of blood in your ears. It was all too much. This wasn’t supposed to be your life. You weren’t supposed to even be in Germany. Steve was the brave one - not you.

“I can’t risk that, Y/N. I can protect us both okay? I won’t let you get hurt, I promise.” He placed a hand atop your shoulder - a strange gesture considering he once was never able to look down at you. It was strange to see him like this, though you never really seemed to notice it before. In the silence of the woods, with no distractions, you could see it now. The outside finally matched the inside.

Only then did you come to realize that Steve was always brave. Even with his seemingly never ending list of health concerns, he never seemed to let it stop him. He was 5’4 and 95 pounds and leapt on top of a grenade like it was nothing. He had nothing and acted like he had everything. If he could do it then…you could do it now.

The two of you skidded to a stop, crouching behind a mass of overgrowth. Your legs burned and your lungs ached for a break. But finally, it seemed as if you made it. Just ahead was a dirt path, occupied by an approaching vehicle. You ducked down behind the shrubs, hoping they would shield you from the headlights. Behind a towering chain link fence sat the Hydra base. There was a watchtower and a never ending supply of guards stationed along the fence. How you would get in was certainly a mystery.

A small tap on your arm had you silently following after Steve. He led the two of you to the last vehicle in the line of those entering the facility. Without disrupting the silence, he dove through the tarp first and you soon followed. The two of you landed at the feet of not one, but two Hydra soldiers. You froze, eyes boring into the soulless helmets.

With a small mustered greeting from Steve, they dove forward. You bared your teeth, grunting as you kicked upward at the nearest soldier. He was knocked back, stumbling against the seat he once sat on. As he recovered, Steve was there at the ready. His elbow struck the side of his temple and the man crumpled. Another kick had him falling past the tarp, landing on the dirt outside the vehicle alongside the other unconscious soldier.

Your hands never stopped shaking. Your nerves only seemed to grow as the vehicle slowed, a single breath escaping you when it came to a full stop. You met Steve’s eyes briefly and he nodded assuredly. You were in it now. There was no time to be hesitant. Every move you made would either kill you or keep you alive.

You had no real life training. No weapons. Nothing but a power source within you that threatened to suck the life out of you.

"On my mark." Steve whispered, breaking you from your inner turmoil. Light seeped into the small space as the tarp was lifted. There were no shouts - no warnings. Steve threw his arm forward in a single breath, knocking back the German soldier.

You dropped down from the vehicle into a low crouch, trying to ignore the twinge of pain that hit your ankles as you landed. You tried your best to ignore the panic that filled you when you spotted the seemingly never ending line of tanks. Any one of them could obliterate you in a second. One second and you would meet the same fate as your father. Your entire body was covered in a cold sweat - your chest almost painful from your rapidly beating heart.

There was no denying that you were dead weight. But Steve made no mention of it. Part of you believed he didn’t even think it himself. Not as he turned, pulling you up onto the hood of the tank. Not as he waited for you to make your way up onto the roof. You had never felt so helpless, but in Steve’s mind, his only concern was your safety. “You alright?” He asked, drawing a single breathless response from you.

Just up ahead sat a security door. Steve pressed his back against the wall to its right, a short curt knock following before the guard inside turned. You winced, pressing yourself closer against the wall, watching as the guard’s face peered through the open door. Steve grabbed onto its edge, slamming it into the side of his head. He gave a short grunt in pain, but quickly collapsed after a fist struck the center of his face.

Steve was quick to drag his crumpled form into the hall and shut the door behind him. The room was heavily occupied with Hydra soldiers. They were at every turn. It was a wonder the two of you were not spotted as you crept from machinery to bombs. Your brows furrowed, following the retreating figure of the guard. In his hands was a weapon - one you had become fairly acquainted with.

There it was. The dark veil creeping up behind you. Your blood turned to ice. Within the twisted depths of your mind, you could hear its faraway blast - the charging up that filled you with instant dread. There you were, surrounded by the very thing responsible for killing your father. The very thing that laid dormant within you. Or maybe not. As you looked upon its blue glow, you felt it within you. Pulsating. Reverberating. Your eyes reflected its same hues.

Your head spun - skin tingling. Something within you was pulling towards it. Like a tether. You tilted your head, face scrunched up in concentration. Within the glowing depths of light, you became lost. As the world around you blurred, you swore you could hear it calling to you. The hand on your arm did little to release you from your mental prison.

Finally, Steve tugged on your arm lightly. Your head snapped up and you looked back. He regarded you with concern, like he half expected you to wrap your hands around his neck and choke the life out of him. Maybe he had a reason to, because as you looked back at him, your eyes contained blue unlike anything he’d ever seen. There was nothing natural about it. It was bright, glowing…almost sickly. “Let’s keep moving.” He said finally.

The longer you were in that facility trailing after Steve, the worse you felt. You were sweating. You could feel it on the back of your neck - on your palms. Your head was growing foggy and each thought became less concise than the last. There was nothing you could focus on other than the thrumming of energy around you. It was everywhere. Every weapon. Every machine.

But you couldn’t understand why you felt this way. If it was calling to you, why did you feel so sick? Like you could no longer keep yourself upright? None of your questions could be answered. There were far more pressing matters at hand.

The lights dimmed noticeably as the pair of you entered the holding room. A number of cages lined the small space, packed tightly with war prisoners. A guard was surveying them from above, but your eyes could focus on nothing but the weapon in his hand.

A single breath escaped you. You were there again. Crouched behind that wall, throwing your hands over your ears as the beam of light struck its target. The memories left as quickly as they had come as Steve disarmed the man. A single blow had him crumpling. A booming clatter followed his fall. The prisoners all looked up from the commotion, finding a man dressed in red white and blue staring down at them.

You quickly moved forward, crouching beside the guard as you fiddled through his pocket for keys. “Who are you supposed to be?” One man asked. “I’m…Captain America.” Steve said breathlessly. You quickly tossed the keys to Steve and he jumped down from atop the cages. The force that his boots hit the ground had drawn the men to their feet. When you finally managed to scramble down the cage, clinging to its bars - you eyed each prisoner as they passed. Within their faces you found that not a single one bore any resemblance to the one you were searching for.

Dread filled you as you searched amongst the sea of soldiers. Bile rose in your throat. Skin growing cold. Eyes brimming with tears. You looked to Steve - worry written all over his once determined face. Your shoulders deflated, but hope was not entirely lost yet. “Is there anybody else? We're looking for a Sergeant James Barnes."

"There's an isolation ward in the factory, but no one's ever come back from it." Your expression grew solemn. You didn’t like the implication. Whatever they were doing to these men for some to never return couldn’t have been good. You’d only hoped Bucky would be there - in one piece. You couldn’t handle another loss. You didn’t think you could return without him. If he wasn’t here perhaps you would just walk into the line of fire on one of those tanks. Grieving was something you could no longer pretend to attempt.

"All right. The tree line is northwest, 80 yards past the gate. Get out fast and give 'em hell. I'll meet you guys in the clearing with anybody else I find."

"Wait! You know what you're doin'?" A soldier called out, drawing Steve to a slow stop. He turned. In truth…he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. But Steve was never one to back down when the ones he cared for were in danger. "Yeah. I've knocked out Adolf Hitler over two hundred times." There was a long pause among the men as they processed his declaration.

Alarms blared as the two of you raced through the main floor. The walls shook with each blast from outside. You could only hope those blasts would come with your victory. You were not alone as the German soldiers charged forward. Dozens of U.S soldiers raced through the doors, armed with weapons they had managed to wrestle from the arms of their enemies. You couldn’t focus. Not while your vision blurred with the rapidly firing bursts of blue light around you.

You panted - chest heaving when a Hydra soldier advanced towards you. In your mind, you could see the scraps of metal rolling towards you. Their metal arms swung at you rapidly. It was just like training. Don’t forget your training. You said to yourself, arms raising. You winced, your chest growing almost painfully heavy as a wave of blue energy seeped from your skin. It swirled around you, moving to your palms.

The soldier pointed his gun, finger tightening down on the trigger. They came towards you fast, but as you crossed your arms over your face - they dissipated. It was like a forcefield - glistening and crackling between you and the man. The bullets struck it and turned to a fine grey mist that settled at your feet.

With teeth bared, you threw your arm forward. Light curled around the weapon, tossing it high into the air. Despite being disarmed, he still charged forward. Your eyes widened as he dove past the forcefield, hands going for your throat. You were thrown to the ground, the wind forcefully knocked from your lungs. Panic filled within you when you found yourself unable to breathe. You kicked and thrashed beneath him.

Your hands came up, tightening around his wrists. But your death had not followed. Your eyes brightened - blinding like the golden beams of light from the sun. The man bellowed out in pain, yanking his arms back. The skin around his wrists was burnt. But not the type of burn you’d expected. His skin had turned bright red in some spots, but the rest was purely black. The type of blackness that reminded you of decay.

He stared down in horror at his hands - visibly shaking. You rose up slowly, almost hesitant as you regarded the man. There was no time to truly process what had occurred. Another soldier descended upon you, a familiar weapon in his grasp. You heard it from somewhere behind you, eyes widening, back tensing. It charged up. The low hum sent a chill down your spine. With a shrill ring, it burst from the barrel of the weapon.

Steve flicked his head over in alarm, defenses lowered as he raced for you. A shout clawed up his throat but quickly died off as the blast struck its target. There was no pain. Nothing but an overwhelming warmth. You fell forward, your knee braced against the ground. As the beam of energy struck your back, it sizzled, crawling along your skin. Your eyes were squeezed shut, fighting against the force of power that surrounded you. It sank into your skin - burrowing deep.

You rose back up on unsteady feet. You could feel it within you. Power. That was the only way it could be described. A living, breathing power that subsided the pounding in your head. Finally you understood why that tether within you was so strong. It called to itself. Vaguely you recalled the tendrils that seemed to reach towards you when you prodded at the small speck of light from the energy cartridge.

Your hands shook as you turned. The man lowered his weapon, taking a hesitant step back. You took a daring step towards him, your knees wobbling. It bubbled underneath your skin, the low hum growing louder. It seeped steadily from you now. There was no voice over the loudspeakers telling you to go easy. No warnings to not use too much.

There was nothing now but the string of whispers circling around you. They were clearer now. They spoke one word. More. Over and over. Hissing and seething as if the voices were truly starved. You made no moves to harm the man. You could hardly concentrate on anything other than keeping yourself upright. Each step was more impossible than the last.

His weapon clattered against the ground - a crack left behind in the concrete from the weight of its fall. There was something in your stare that terrified him. Your eyes were not visible, replaced by the blinding light. But the space around was sunken in, like the force of power was making you waste away. And maybe it was. It pooled at your feet, swirling around and back into your skin. Each breath was treacherous, like there was simply not enough strength within your lungs to take it.

You grunting, throwing your arm forward. A burst of energy charged from your arm, striking the man’s chest. He was thrown back, a terrified scream somehow audible before he hit the ground. He stirred, but made no further moves to get up. Your eyes scanned the space around you. Death met you at every shift of your head.

Soldiers on either side went down quickly. With surprising speed, you spun out of the way of a fist that swung for you. Light danced along your forearm as you struck the side of the man’s head. The force of it echoed within the vast room and he was thrown back, striking a nearby column. It cracked underneath his weight, crumbling down over him as he slid to the floor.

Amidst the chaos, you brought about your own. You battled down each guard who entered your field of vision. Blinding blue light swirled around your fists. Your lungs burned - aching with each treacherous breath. But that was a mere afterthought as the power took control. It was so incredibly potent, it almost made you sick. You threw your arm out, but very quickly sunk to a knee as your leg gave out from beneath you.

You could barely hold yourself up on your shaking arms. Blood dripped onto the floor beneath you and as you wiped your nose, it was smeared across your hand. Bright red blood - a stark contrast to the blue that surrounded you. A weakness. A reminder of your near fatal flaw. Mortality.

However, Steve was there. He was unaffected by the sizzling waves of light as he lugged you up and onto your feet. “Stay with me, Y/N.” He muttered, holding tight to you. You nodded, head lolling to the side as you grunted. The two of you approached a bridge, met by a single guard who bared no weapon in his hands.

Your head lifted and you pushed away from Steve. One arm was braced against the metal railing as you raised the other. Your fingers were tensed, palm facing toward him. A tendril of blue energy curled around his neck. A choked sound escaped him as he was lifted from the bridge. His legs kicked as he fought for air. His hands clawed at the force around his neck.

With a mere flick of your hand, he was thrown from the bridge, soaring down to the concrete below. The room echoed with the force at which his body cracked against the ground. Despite your wobbly legs, you made it to the other side of the railing and peered over the edge. From the high distance above, you could see it. Red. Pooling underneath his helmet, staining the concrete. In an instant, the fire within you simmered.

The light dimmed, sinking back into your skin. Your face was visible now, brows furrowed as you stared down at the man. You didn’t grieve for this man. You couldn’t. Not without thinking of all the soldiers he had killed in this war. A war so meaningless - based on the cruelest hatred you could ever envision. There was no sadness as you stared down at him - no regret. You were clouded by another emotion entirely. Fear.

You were frightened - not because you had taken a life, but because you had enjoyed it. You couldn’t admit that out loud, so you swallowed down your bile, wiped the blood from your face, and pushed away from the railing.

Walking was easier now. Before you had felt as if you were weighed down by the force of its power. It was still quite difficult to keep up with Steve. Your head was throbbing, legs aching, chest heaving. The humidity within this new hallway was certainly not helping. It was dim and yellow. The air was thick with the putrid aroma of death and decay. You couldn’t imagine the type of horrors that occurred for it to smell that way.

The footfalls that echoed against the walls of the isolation ward came to a sudden stop as a short, stocky man scrambled from a hidden hallway. With his hands full and an eagerness to not fight either of you, he scurried in the other direction. You spotted the briefcase in his hands, eyes darkening. Steve took after him first, and you just behind, but it was a low groan that had you skidding to a stop. You nearly slipped against the dampness of the concrete, but the doorframe held you upright as you clung to it.

Moonlight came in through the streaky, fogged windows, cast over the figure laid atop the medical bed. Leather straps were pulled over their chest and legs. Incoherent mumbling filled the room, a single shaky gasp escaping you as it registered within you. “Oh my god.” You moved with urgency toward the table. Despite your blurred vision from the tears that pooled in your eyes, you could see him.

As you stared down at his face, you finally felt as if you could truly breathe. Bucky - alive. Your hand was on his chest, but he stared blankly up at the ceiling. Part of you wondered if he was even aware you were there.

You grunted, wrestling with the buckled restraints. That finally seemed to rouse him, his eyes flicking to your face. “Bucky.” You breathed out, lip quivering as you placed a hand against the side of his face. He said your name softly - his voice groggy and slurred. Despite his state, he still managed to smile. “Steve’s here too.” You said sniffling.

It was Steve who helped him off the table and onto his feet. When you were sure he was stable against the man, you moved towards him with urgency, wrapping your arms tightly around him. His scent was foreign now - sickly, nearly choking you with its severity. And still, you paid no mind to it. He was alive and seemingly well and that was all that mattered.

"We thought you were dead." Steve whispered, and it was only then that Bucky finally seemed to register his new appearance. He blinked, as if he had been imagining it. "I thought you were smaller."

With you in the lead, the three of you ran back the way you came, the faraway sound of gunfire bouncing off the walls. "What happened to you?" Bucky mumbled, slouched over as he all but clung onto Steve for support. "I joined the army." You couldn’t imagine what the reaction would be when he found out what had happened to you. The seemingly impossible had become possible. It had been a long few months - for all of you. The three of you had been changed in ways that many couldn’t begin to comprehend.

The walls shook with the force of a chain of explosions below. You winced, bringing your arm up and over your face to shield it from the assault of heat that came up. The entire ground floor was destroyed, flames rising higher with each explosion. He rigged the ground to explode. So that none could get their hands on his prized weapons.

With your original path of escape covered in a pit of fire, the three of you were forced to retreat upwards. You raced up the stairs, one hand holding tight to the railing as if you expected to trip on a step at any moment. “Captain America!” You’d nearly crashed into Bucky as they skidded to a stop. Finally you saw him. The man Dr. Erskine had described in his stories paled in comparison to the man you spotted across the bridge. He appeared entirely ordinary, but you swore you could feel the madness seeping from him.

"How exciting! I am a great fan of your films!" You took a slow step forward, your hand on Bucky’s arm. Your scowl deepened, rage building as you moved in front of him. Johann Schmidt approached slowly, his demeanor fully relaxed despite the fiery destruction below.

"So, Dr. Erskine managed it after all. Not exactly an improvement, but still, impressive. And I see you brought your friend! We've had our eyes on you for a while now. My dearest condolences to your father." Steve drew his arm back and struck Schmidt. The force of his blow had the man stumbling back, clutching to the railing for support. Surprise was evident on his face as he held the site of impact. You moved to take a step forward but Bucky placed his hand over the one braced on the railing, shaking his head.

As you looked back at Schmidt, your eyes narrowed. “What the hell?” You whispered. The area underneath his eyes was red - blood red. His skin seemed more wrinkled than before, particularly at the edges. In quick retaliation, Johann Schmidt returned the blow, his fist meeting the hard material of Steve's shield. It bent underneath the impact, leaving an imprint of his knuckles behind.

Just as Steve reached for the pistol in his holster, Schmidt struck again, sending the blonde flying back against the walkway. His weapon skidded along the ground, falling victim to the flames below. With Steve on his back and his weapon discarded, Schmidt saw his opportunity. He approached with intent to harm, but Steve was faster. He kicked the man back across the bridge.

The smaller man across the landing held tight to a lever, yanking it down. What once was a complete walkway began to separate, pulling the two men apart.

"No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see I was his greatest success!" His right hand reached across his face, fingers digging into the skin at the base of his jaw. Your eyes widened in horror, stomach flipping as he peeled away at his flesh. You winced, unprepared to see the true horrors Dr. Erskine held back from you.

It was all red. Every inch of skin on his face was bright red. The outer layers of tissue appeared to be gone - melted away until you could see the outline of his skull. "You don't have one of those do you?" Bucky mumbled, eyes glazed over in a state of shock.

"You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!"

"Then how come you're running?" Steve earned nothing but a twisted smile in return as the elevator doors shut in front of Schmidt and the shorter man. There was a look of disgust on your face as you fought to clear your mind on the imagery. When Dr. Erskine told you that it had gone wrong - you couldn’t have imagined it to be to that extent. You had never seen anything like it before, and you hoped you would never have to again.

Another explosion rocked the sides of the building, bits of concrete raining down on you. You braced yourself against the railing, looking up with squinted eyes. "Come on, let's go. Up." Steve grabbed onto both of you. urging you two up the stairs. He had spotted another escape, but the path to it was not a true path.

It was instead a long, thin gantry stretching over the flames below. "Let's go. One at a time." You paused, heart racing as you looked over the edge. “Steve, no. I can’t.” You turned to him shaking your head. He held tight to both of your shoulders, forcing your eyes onto his. “Yes you can! Trust yourself. Use it if you have to.” He eyed you knowingly. Use the power if you have to.

Despite your shaky legs and the nausea building up within the depths of your stomach - you nodded. There was nothing but apprehension as you climbed over the railing and onto the gantry. You could hardly breathe, and the smoke rising from below was not helping in the slightest. Each step was impossibly slow - each blast from below causing your heart to skip. Death awaited you down below…and you could only hope you were lucky enough to not meet it.

You exhaled finally as you reached the other side, pulling yourself over the railing to safety. It was Bucky who went next, and he - like you - walked on unsteady feet. He met your gaze from the other side and you nodded as assuredly as you could possibly muster. When he reached the middle of the gantry, one deafening blast, in particular, had nearly shaken him off.

The gantry shook and you looked down - a single low creak having caught your attention. Each blast from below had it coming loose. Bucky sped up, propelling himself off the platform just as it gave way. “No!” You shouted, leaning over the railing. Your arm reached forward, a blinding flash of light pooling from your palm. It soared towards the gantry, curling around it and pulling it back up from the flames.

You grunted, teeth bared as you braced. There was not a single breath that escaped you as you fought to pull the gantry back into place. It was heavy. You could feel it without touching it. Beads of sweat lined your forehead, a single dot of blood dripping onto the railing from your nose. “What the hell?” Bucky said, leaning over the railing. His brows were furrowed, eyeing you with a look you could hardly describe. Something halfway between confusion and pure insanity. Bright blue tendrils of energy surrounded the entire length of your arm, pulsating and rumbling despite the deafening blasts from below. “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” You grunted.

Steve climbed up and onto the railing, nodding once at you. His trek was much more steady than yours or Bucky’s had been, and he walked with near ease to the other side. Only when he was safely back on the other side of the railing had you released your hold on the gantry. It disappeared into the flames, the sound of its collision with the ground failing to overpower the roaring explosions.

You gasped, your legs giving out beneath you. The only thing keeping you upright was your tight hold on the rails. There was a quick shout of your name from Steve as he hoisted you back up. There was a look of pain on your face, features wound tight together. Your vision swirled, darkness creeping in at the edges. “Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on!” Bucky shouted. Your head lolled to the side, held up by Steve’s arm as he pulled you closer. “It’s a long story.” He said simply.

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#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #james bucky buchanan barnes #voidlunesviolettes #marvel

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