#+ another hour at least to drive to the intern place

[ocdhuacheng]

I feel like a greedy asshole saying this but I hate sharing work with other interns I wish you would just go away I want the advisor and the project all to myself

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 4: You Want to Live Where?

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary:  When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.  (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Protective Ben/ Soldier Boy.

Word Count: 7.6K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), swearing, mentions of sex, sexual innuendo, sexual tension. Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

You lay down the $2.50 map of NYC that you bought at the bodega next door to Butcher's apartment building on the giant threadbare wooden table that serves as the group dining room table.  Everyone was still in Jersey, for what reason you didn't know, but it meant that the apartment was silent.

Aka. Ben wasn't here to drive you to murder.

After Annie and you had said goodbye, she went back to Vought Tower because Ashley had called and complained about something that you couldn't hear over the sounds of the city outside the coffee shop. You were hoping that she'd text you later to dish about Ashley's probably insane request. While you kept your promise to Butcher about plotting out where the carjackings were happening and noting the auto shops nearby.

He had left you the complete lists of where the cars were stolen, what time, and how many. It was your job to mark them on the map and see if any of them were like the others. He was getting frustrated with how little the team could find on the electric wielding supe who was jacking cars, and you wanted to help out as much as you could. In a few days you were going to go to the auto shops in the same area to see if anyone heard anything about him.

Best case scenario someone would give you a lead, worst case scenario you were back to square one.

You lean down over the table, making the first mark on the map where the initial carjacking took place. It was at the top of the map which meant that you were practically laying on top of the table to reach.

The door to the apartment behind you opened but you didn’t think about it, too absorbed in making the correct tick mark.

"Don't stop on my account Doll." You hear Ben's low rumble break through the silence of the apartment.

You fight the urge to audibly groan when you realize that he's back from Jersey and here to make your life a living hell.

You stand up and turn around to face him. He’s wearing his Soldier Boy suit, standing  inside the front door and looking just as handsome as he always does, as much as you hate to admit that. He's got some soot smeared just under his left eye, and the left sleeve of his suit is singed, but other than that he looks okay.

“I thought you wouldn’t be back for at least another hour-“ You begin to say, but Ben interrupts.

“I missed you Petals.” He smirks wider, setting his shield down against the base of the kitchen counter. “You and that perfect ass of yours.”

“Where is everyone else?”

“Fuck if I know. After I bagged the supe I didn’t ask questions.” He shrugs moving into the kitchen to pour himself a drink.

You roll your eyes and turn back to the map laying on the table, making another tick with the red marker in your hand where a car was stolen, but avoid bending over the table. “So which supe did you go after? The electric guy?”

“No this girl had fire shit coming out of her hands.”

"Oh guess you've got a new girlfriend, huh Gramps? Though I will say you definitely have a type. First Countess and now-"

"Jealous?" Ben responds from right next to you.

You weren’t expecting him to be so close, so close in fact that you could practically feel the heat of his skin through the air between the two of you from where he leans over the table looking at the map. It immediately reminds you of this morning when he pinned you to the counter, how his body felt pressed against yours, and how his gaze seemed to hold you in place. His eyes really were beautiful, more green than you'd ever seen anyone have, but you were biased because your favorite color was green for obvious reasons.

“You’re doing it again Sweetheart.” Ben smirks, his eyes shifting to where you pretend to study the map with a newfound fascination.

Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him.

"Doing what?" You ask making another tick on the map as you go down the list Butcher made last night when you were researching.

"Thinking about fucking me." Ben says.

"No I'm not." You reply tapping the map with your red pen.

"You're a terrible liar doll. It's what I love about you." He laughs, but then takes a sip from his glass. "Um." Ben pauses. "How was your day?" Ben says it slowly, awkwardly, like it's difficult for him.

"What?" You turn to look at him, surprised.

"How was your day?" He repeats. Ben's green eyes are shining in the soft light coming from the lamps lit around the apartment, his dark hair softly curling around the back of his ears. Again you're struck by how normal he looks. Because despite wearing his supe suit, Ben looks relaxed, calm, sipping from the amber liquid in the glass like he belongs here and not forty years ago.

"Why are you asking me that?"

You were confused. Ben had never asked you about your day never seemed to care about how you were. You remember earlier when Ben asked if you would be at the apartment later, like he genuinely wanted to know what you were doing.

This is weird.

Ben shrugs.

"It was okay." You say slowly, narrowing your eyes in suspicion. "I fixed a shipment of African Violets-"

"African what?"

"African Violets." You answer. "It's a flowering plant, has fuzzy leaves. We always sell out of them. I have some in the windows at my apartment."

"The purple ones?" Ben interrupts.

He noticed that?

"Yeah." You blink in surprise. "And I got coffee with Annie."

Where she mocked me endlessly for kissing you and liking it.

"Did Hughie go with you two? Kinda seems like he doesn't do much without her say so." Ben laughs at his own joke, the ice in his glass clinking against the sides as he tilts it back to catch the last few drops. "Poor bastard's pussy whipped."

You can't help, but snort. You knew how Annie seemed to have a bit of a hold on Hughie, but where Ben saw Hughie as being "pussy whipped" you saw Hughie as being in love with Annie and willing to do things for her.

"No he didn't come with us and I think that he'd disagree and say that he loves Annie. When you were with Countess didn't you guys do anything together?"

"We did lots of things together." Ben's eyes darken slightly. "Things I wouldn't mind showing you."

You shake your head at him and nudge his shoulder. "Come on. You didn't go on dates or anything?"

You were probably crossing a border by asking Ben about Countess. You'd never asked him about her before, had heard about how the relationship exploded, LITERALLY.

Not to mention she was probably the closest to love that Ben had ever come. Maybe you were just curious, curious if Ben had actually cared about her, if he'd actually had feelings or if it had been a lie.

Ben hesitates for a second. "Why do you care?"

"Just making conversation." You look back down at the map noting the streets that run within the circle of carjackings.

It can't be a coincidence given how many auto shops there are within this circle. Someone has to know what’s been going on.

He hesitates and you wonder if that’s because it’s painful to talk about her or painful for him to open up. "Once or twice." Ben says finally. "We didn't really do that."

"Oh."

"We went to premieres and fucked a lot." Ben doesn't seem that disappointed by it, as if he thinks that is what a healthy relationship should be.

Didn't need to know that. What else did I expect? He said that he wasn't into emotions earlier today of course he doesn't care about that. He's so confusing. He told Hughie that he loved her and that he wanted to have kids with her, how is that born from going to premieres and fucking? Kinda feels like you'd need to spend more time together and have deeper conversations for that to happen right? You know what? I'm not gonna judge his relationship, maybe they had a great connection or whatever.

You think about your only serious relationship which was 7 months with your high school boyfriend Newton. You thought that you loved him, and then he broke your heart. But Newton and you had done more than go on one or two dates, it had been a relationship, you had depended on him, told him things about yourself that you didn't tell anyone else.

"How about you?" Ben's fingers trace one of the roads along the map.

"How about me what?" You put another 'x' over another place where there was another carjacking.

"Have you ever been in a relationship or have you just been waiting around for Jake to fuck you?"

"I don't want him to fuck me-"

"Sorry. You want him to make love to you." Ben says make love like it's a curse word.

"You're not making me want to share anything about my life with you."

"Come on Petals, I shared my deepest darkest secrets with you." He nudges you with his elbow.

"I wouldn’t say that you telling me that you and Countess fucked and went to a premiere together is your 'deepest darkest secrets.'" You make air quotes with your free hand. "But, I’ve only had one serious relationship and it was in high school."

"And?" Ben presses

"It was 7 months lasted just until he went to college. What else do you want me to tell you?"

"Why did it end?" Ben pours himself a new glass of whiskey.

"Why does that matter?"

"Come on doll."

"I-" You bite the inside of your cheek in contemplation. I can't believe I'm about to say this. "He wasn't a supe and when I finally told him that I was a supe he didn't react appropriately and I locked him in a tree." You make another tick on the map.

"You locked the fucker in a tree?" Ben snorts into his glass.

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Because he asked me if I could shapeshift and made a few comments about my body." You say it quietly more to the map than to Ben.

Ben's hand gently comes under your chin turning your face towards him. He looks pissed, his green eyes dark as he gazes down at you. "What did he say about your body?" Ben's voice is more of a growl than anything else.

His touch was gentle, almost caring, and he’d never tried to do that before.

"Nothing worth repeating-"

"Tell me." Ben breathes. "Please."

"Just that I could lose a few pounds and make myself a little more busty."

Ben doesn’t move. His jaw clenches tightly, muscles tensed, eyes hardening. “He said that to you?”

You nod because you’re not sure what to say. Ben was acting different all over again.

“Fuck him. He’s wrong.” Ben says, voice tight. “He’s an insignificant asshole who didn’t understand how to speak to a woman and who deserved to be locked in a tree. Hell, if I had been there I would have beat him with a tree.”

“I’m not exactly sure you know how to speak to a woman either Ben.” You crack a smile remembering every time that Ben had made an inappropriate comment to you.

“Well I’d never call a woman fat. And he must have been blind because you have the most perfect body-“

“Shut up.”  You roll your eyes at him, but all he does is grin.

Ben stands there for a minute, still holding on to your chin, his skin burning through yours where the two of you are touching. Your eyes shift down to his lips for a millisecond thinking about how soft they were last night and Ben clocks the movement.

You wonder if he wants to kiss you as much as you want to kiss him. If he's remembering the kiss you shared with him last night, if it felt as good for him as it did for you, because it couldn't have been just you.

You hated seeing this side of Ben because it constantly gave you whiplash.

Was he a jerk or was he actually deeper than you thought and he locked it all underneath the macho bullshit?

You pull back, letting his hand fall from your chin to continue working on the map, but can’t fight the way you miss his touch against your skin.

An awkward silence follows and you keep looking at the list that Butcher gave you to avoid looking at Ben, going down the list with the marker checking them off. Because you knew if you looked at him again you would definitely try to kiss him and after what he just said to you, you really wanted to.

Deep down you wonder if that was him trying to connect with you, trying to not be such a jerk or if he was changing tactics to try and get you to sleep with him, just like when he remembered how much you liked ABBA.

There's no way that he actually pays that much attention to me, that he actually cares enough, right?

Finally you ask. "How was your day?" It comes out hesitant, as if you can't really form the words. Honestly it was weird to ask him something so mundane, without it being sarcastic. Saying anything was weird after the moment the two of you just shared.

"Better now that I got to see you doll." Ben catches your eye with a wide smirk, slipping into old habits.

Why do I even try to-

"It was okay." He follows up with a shrug. "Firey bitch got a few hits in."

You glance over at where his suit is singed over his left arm, and then raise your eyes to the soot smeared under his left eye, wondering if it actually burned his skin. "Are you okay?"

Sometimes it was easy to forget that he was almost indestructible. And after all the tapes that you'd seen of Ben being tortured in Russia, you did hate it when he got hurt. He didn’t deserve that, not after what he'd been through.

"I'm a little harder to roast alive, but I like that you worry about me." Ben leans further towards you, so close that his breath tickles the right side of your neck.

"I'm not worried about you." You turn to glare at him.

"You know when you lie you get this little scrunch right here." Ben's finger gently touches the space between your eyebrows making your face turn bright red. "It's cute."

"Don't touch me."

“I think you like it when I touch you.”

“No I don’t.”

I do.

“Then why does your heart start beating a little faster when I do?” Ben smirks as if he thinks he’s caught you.

“To pump all the hate faster through my body.”  You snap. You move around the table to the other side to get further away from him and his stupid perfect face. “And if you couldn’t tell I’m working on something and I’d like to be done with it soon so I can go home.”

“You sure you don’t want to take a break? I’ve got to take a shower. Might help you relax a bit.”

“I’m perfectly relaxed!” You snap back, crushing the writing utensil in your hand. 

Ben looks from the ruined red marker in your hand that drips ink down your skin and then back up at you. “Are you? Because that pen says otherwise.”

"Don’t you have anything else to do? Like get someone pregnant with Homelander 2.0?” You say, wiping the ink from the pen on an old rag that hangs from one of the chairs.

At the mention of his son, the expression on Ben's face turn murderous, and you can't help but feel a little guilty. It was a low blow. You hadn’t meant to bring him up, but Ben always had a way of getting under your skin worse than anyone else. Ben never talked about him or brought him up in conversation. You knew why. Ben might not have said it aloud, but you saw how he acted whenever his son was brought up in conversation, how he seemed just a little more tense than usual and almost a little more quiet.  You knew that he was hurt by what had happened even if he didn’t want to admit it.

You figured that finding out that he had a son that was made in a lab without his permission was enough of a slap in the face, not to mention the whole thing about Homelander being the replacement for him and being the reason why his team was "allowed" to stab him in the back and send him to Russia in the first place.

Fuck.

"I didn't mean that Ben. I'm sorry." You say touching his wrist before you can stop yourself. As much as you didn't get along with him, he didn't deserve to be reminded of something like that.

"Why the fuck should I care?" Ben yanks his wrist back from you, his tone harsher, no longer teasing. The humor is gone from his eyes and the guilt builds in your chest as you look up at him.

"Because I know that you're still a little upset about everything that happened with Vought and Homelander and-"

"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" Ben spits moving around the table to tower over you.

It's the first time you'd ever seen him really mad at you, the only other time was when you met for the first time and he tried to rip you in half, but got a face full of tree branch instead, the night Homelander finally got put on ice.

"I'm not some fucking pussy that talks about their feelings or someone who gives a fuck about anyone else." He continues, eyes blazing. "I don't give a fuck about feelings or emotions or any of that shit. So do me a favor Sweetheart, don't put me on a fucking white horse, don't romanticize me, and don't turn me into something I'm not. Because the only thing that I want from any woman is to fuck them. Don’t forget it." Ben pushes past you to go to his room, slamming the door so hard the entire apartment shakes.

Well that went well.

By the time you finish the map and make a complete list of all the auto shops contained within the large circle you marked on the map when you connected where the car jackings were happening, everyone was back and Ben was gone.

He had left about thirty minutes after he yelled at you, didn't look in your direction once as he stomped out the door of the apartment wearing his signature leather jacket and dark t-shirt jeans combo.

You assumed he had a tinder date or he was just trying to get away from all the noise. Bagging the supe had definitely  boosted morale. Even Butcher seemed less moody than usual, the dark cloud that hung over him dissipating for a few hours while everyone laughed and ate greasy pizza.

But despite the happy atmosphere in the apartment, you couldn’t help but think of Ben. Yes he yelled at you, but you shouldn't have brought up Homelander. It wasn't your business and Ben might have tried to cover up what he was feeling with his usual angry, loud, and sexually forward advances, but you could see that he did have emotions, he just tried to hide them.

He just needs to drop the bullshit macho attitude.

You didn’t think that it was weak for a man to show his emotions, if anything you thought that it showed emotional maturity and it was nice to meet a man who was actually open about what he was feeling rather than keeping it locked away and repressed.

Sometimes you thought you could see the man that Ben was, when everything was quiet and it was the two of you, but then he'd make a pass at you or revert back into whatever the hell kind of person he was a few hours ago when he yelled at you for apologizing.

For APOLOGIZING of all things.

You walked back to your apartment quickly and quietly, taking note of the place that is overgrown with weeds where you had fought the muggers last night. The bodies were gone now and you wondered if they were at the hospital or in prison. The blood stains on the ground where Ben beat the man were still on the pavement, and again you thought whether or not the man was alive.

You doubted it.

When you round the corner and approach your apartment building you notice that someone is sitting on the front steps, but you don’t pay any attention to it, you just continue to walk forward.

“Hey Petals.” Ben leans back on the steps smoking a blunt. His hair is more tousled than usual as if someone has run their fingers through it and you assume that the reason why he left earlier is because he had a “date.”

You watch the way the thick darkened strands lay on his head, admiring how it looks in the light that comes from the street lights that line the sidewalk. You were trying not think about how it would feel to brush the strands back from his face, to twist your fingers in his hair.

No. Not thinking about that right now.

“What are you doing here Gramps?” You cross your arms over your chest and use his nickname to offset the annoyance you feel when he calls you 'Petals.'

“Well I left some clothes here this morning and thought I’d come up to get them.”

“I can just bring them to the apartment-“

“You could.” He interrupts, taking a hit from the joint. “But I didn’t want to put you out.”

“How chivalrous of you, but aren't you the guy who forced me to let him crash on my couch yesterday?”

“Well I could have slept in the bed with you, but you were so adamant about me ‘respecting your boundaries.’”

"Thanks." You force a smile. "Fine, you can come up for two minutes-"

"If you make it 10, I promise I'll make it worth your while." Ben's lips pull into a mischievous smirk around the blunt perched between his lips.

You roll your eyes and pass him as you go up the concrete steps, feeling his gaze on your ass the whole time.

When you finally get up to your apartment Bean greets you at the door, purring loudly and rubbing against your ankles. You stoop down to pet him, running your fingers through his thick gray fur.

“Hey buddy. You missed me huh?” Bean purrs louder and pushes his neck into your fingertips to signal you to keep scratching him.

Ben walks past you to the couch where his clothes are waiting but instead of picking them up, he sits down and grabs the tv remote before propping his feet up on your coffee table.

“What are you doing?” You look up at him.

“One of my old films is playing tonight. Thought you’d want to watch it.” The tip of the blunt burns bright red like a beacon in your apartment.

“No. The only thing I want is for you to leave.” 

Ben huffs out a cloud of smoke. “Look I know you like me-“

“I don’t.”

“You do.” He smiles. “So why can’t I stay here?”

“Because this is my apartment!”

“I can pay half the rent if you want me to.”

“It’s not about the money-“

“Then why?”

“Because this is my home! This is where I come to get away from people. This is where I come to decompress when you piss me off! And I don’t want you to live here because you’re a huge dick, stuffed full of macho shit, who keeps trying to sleep with me!” You shout, standing from the ground to plant your hands on your hips.

Ben only smiles as if you've complimented him. "Come on, was last night all that bad? I didn't bother you-"

"Because all we did was go to bed, if you stay here, that’s you 24/7. I need a place to get away from you." You emphasize again.

"Your bedroom isn't far enough away?"

"Nope."

"Come on Petals. I'm not so bad. At least I'm nice to look at." He smiles wider.

"You're not making me want to let you stay here."

Bean saunters over and begins to rub himself on Ben's ankles, purring loudly like the traitor he is. "The cat wants me to stay." Ben quips looking up at you while he scratches Bean under his chin.

"The cat doesn't get a say." You cross your arms over your chest. “And why do you want to stay here anyway? You’ve got tons of money! You don’t exactly need a roommate. And you certainly don’t need to live back at the apartment with Butcher and the team.”

Ben frowns for a minute as if what he’s about to say next is difficult. “I just-“ He sighs. “I don’t want to live alone okay?”

“What?” You blink in shock. It was the last thing you were expecting him to say.

“The lab and all that shit-" Ben looks away from you and takes a hit from the joint. "It- fuck." He mutters it more to himself than to you, eyes leveled at the hardwood floors.

It was the first time you'd seen him look a little bit vulnerable, surprising since he'd yelled at you a few hours ago when you'd accused him of having feelings. The truth was you felt bad for Ben. He was all alone, didn't have anyone left, his old boss literally took his genetic material and made a monster, and he was stranded in a world that he didn't know anything about. And maybe he didn't want to admit it, but maybe Ben was lonely. Which made the whole bed hopping thing make sense.

You examine his posture, notice how he still won't look at you, and how he almost seems to be ashamed that he admitted that.

“I’m just not sure it’s a good idea for us to live together.” You say quietly.

“Why? Because you think I’m going to try something while you’re sleeping?” Ben looks up at you suddenly angry. “Do you really think that I’d do something like that? I mean I’m a lot of things Petals but a fucking rapist isn’t one of them.”

“No I don’t think you’d do that Ben.” It was the truth, Ben might be obnoxious and inappropriate at times, but you didn’t believe that he would ever force you to do something you didn’t want to do.

“Then why?”

“Because we don’t get along. You’re-“ You wave your hand up and down at him.

Yes I know that gesturing to all of him isn't an answer, but maybe I'm trying my best.

“I don’t know what that means.” Ben raises his eyebrows as if trying to solve the secrets of the universe.

You sigh, blowing out a breath. "I just don’t think we’re a good fit for roommates.”

“Because?”

“You’re loud, and you always have those women with you. You smoke and drink and you put your feet on my furniture! Not to mention you don’t really seem to like plants all that much-“ You gesture with your hand to the room covered in plants in different stages of growth.

“I like plants.”

“Uh-huh? What plants?”

“What?”

“What kind of plants do you like?”

Ben blinks for a second. “You’re fucking crazy.”

“That’s another thing! We drive each other crazy Gramps. I don’t think this is a good idea. Not to mention you wouldn’t have a room, you’d be out here on the couch.”

I mean did he want to sleep on that couch? It was sort of comfortable, but not live on forever comfortable.

“It’s not a bad couch?” Ben says it like a question.

“I got it free from a guy with a foot fetish, Ben. It’s a bad couch. I just-“ You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. “You really want to live here that badly?”

“It's quieter here than it is at the other apartment."

“Nothing about Mike’s singing in the morning is quiet.” You crack a smile for the first time since you saw him sitting on your front step.

“It’s not so bad. There was this hero in the 70’s who could super screech. Fucking blew out my eardrums one time.” Ben shrugs. “Plus I don’t want you to miss me.”

Your smile drops into a frown. "I wouldn't miss you."

"I think you would doll."

You stand there for another minute considering what it would be like for him to live here.

I can't believe that I'm considering this. That would mean that he would be a pain in my ass 24/7. Him drinking, smoking, and doing God knows what on my couch. And why does he want to live on the couch anyway? It sucks. He could live anywhere he wanted and yet he wants to live here with me? Kinda feels like there's another reason for this.

"If I say yes there are some ground rules." You bite the inside of your cheek, rocking back on your heels.

"Like?"

"No sex."

Ben rolls his eyes. "I don't know why you're so against you and me-" He begins to say, but you interrupt him.

"I'm talking about you. You’re not allowed to bring any of your harem into my apartment."

“Want me all for yourself huh Petals?” Ben smirks stretching his hands back behind his head in a way that makes the end of his shirt pulls up enough for you to see the sliver of skin just at the top of his jeans and a peak of his muscular abdomen.

Keep it together, it’s just skin.

You frown at him until Ben finally sighs.

"Wouldn't it be our apartment if I lived here?" He raises an eyebrow.

"No women." You say firmly.

“Fine.”

“No going in my room under any circumstances.” You point down the darkened hallway as if he didn't know where it was.

“But what if-“

“No going in my room under any circumstances!” You repeat.

Ben mutters something under his breath.

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch that.”

“I said okay.” He grouses.

"And no killing my plants." You look at the ones growing on the coffee table where they could be easily pushed off by his large feet, narrowing your eyes.

“What if it’s an accident?”

“Too bad. And how do you accidentally kill a plant?”

“I don’t know there’s a fuck ton of them in here! I could step on one or trip. Not to mention in the shower-“ He begins to shout.

“It’s you that wants to live here! And if you want to, you have to follow my rules.”

“You really are a bossy little thing. Didn’t think you’d be into domination.” Ben cocks his head to the side examining you.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“Because you’re so damn guarded. It’s like trying to get into the U.S Mint.”

That made you pause. He wants to know more about me? What?

Bean purrs louder and brushes up against your legs as if asking your permission for Ben to live there.

This is insane. Why here? Couldn’t he go off and live with Legend or something?

“Are you sure you couldn’t just live with Legend? Y’all seem to get along better-“

Ben shudders. “I never want to live with him again. I stayed over at his house a few nights one time and walked in on him naked and covered in cool whip.”

“I don’t think you have the right to kink shame other people-“

“He was alone Petals.”

“What?”

“There was no one else there.”

“Okay yeah that’s weird.” You snort.

“Then again if I walked in on you covered in cool whip I think it would be a nice surprise.” Ben winks at you as he takes another hit from his blunt.

“Keep dreaming Gramps.”

“Oh I see it in my dreams all the time.” He tilts his head to the side, his eyes tracing the curves of your body.

You sigh exasperated. On one hand you felt bad for him and were kind of flattered that he was willing to confess that he didn’t want to live alone to you. And on the other hand you didn’t want him to live with you because you knew he would drive you to the brink of insanity. And you were already close enough to that.

“Fine.”

“Fine like you’re going to pull some cool whip out of the freezer?” Ben perks up.

“No. Fine as in you can live here and pay rent. But, if you break any of the rules or if you start driving me more insane than usual, I reserve the right to kick you out on your ass.”

“Can I make a counter offer?”

“Nope.”

Ben sighs mulling it over, before he stands from the couch and holds out his hand towards you. “Deal.”

You take it hesitantly. Sometimes you weren’t used to how warm Ben was. You figured that it was because of the nuclear radiation, but you didn’t mind it. In fact, you kind of liked it. Plants and cold didn’t mix and you noticed that you didn’t do well in the cold either, which meant that Ben’s body temperature almost seemed to soothe you.

And you noticing how warm he was again lead back to the memory of him pinning you against the counter earlier, how warm his body was when it curved around you, how he dipped his head down towards yours, how he-

I’ve got to get this under control. You grit your teeth together to avoid the strawberry bush on top of the refrigerator to go back into full bloom.

“Well now that this is all sorted out, I’m going to go to bed.” You let go of his hand and try to step around him, but Ben blocks you.

“Come on roomie, watch a movie with me. This is a good one.” Ben nods his head back to the tv, where the opening credits have started to play.

You’d never seen this film before, but wondered why Ben was so adamant about you watching a movie with him. You’d seen most of his others and hadn’t been impressed with his acting skills. You assumed he kept getting roles because of who he was.

What? Does he think that watching a film with him in it will make me sleep with him? I wonder if he does that on his Tinder dates, gets them all hot and bothered with his old films and… I am not thinking about this right now.

“I don’t watch much tv.” You lie, eyes shifting back to the dark hallway and the solace of your bedroom. In your bedroom you couldn't make the mistake of kissing Ben, in there you could only fantasize about it.

“There’s that adorable scrunch.” Ben coos poking his finger directly between your eyebrows, signaling that he knows you lied.

“Fine.” You sigh, swatting away his hand. “I’ll watch the stupid movie. But can I change first?”

“Sure.” 

You vanish down the hallway and into your room, looking around at the familiar objects inside. You take in a soothing breath, feeling the energy from the plants in the room sink into your bones and take away your anxiety and nervous energy. You gently touch the petals of a honeysuckle on your chest of drawers to perk it up, the happy yellow blooms making you smile.

I don’t have to go back out there. I can just hide in here forever.

It seemed like a good plan, but apart of you felt guilty, because Ben was asking you to do something that was normal with him instead of asking you to sleep with him.

Maybe he’s trying to have a sort of friendship. Maybe I should be supportive of that and-

“If you’re debating whether or not to come out of your room naked, the answer is yes.” Ben shouts from the living room. "I can check the freezer for cool whip for you."

Never mind.

When you finally come out of your bedroom you’re wearing a pair of your softest sweatpants and a maroon t-shirt with a picture of a potted plant on the front, toting your latest crochet project- a black cardigan with small white flowers the size of the tip of your pinky that you were making for Annie's birthday that was coming up in a month.

Before you hadn't minded that the only place to sit in your living room was the couch. Annie and you had spent many nights sitting on it drinking wine and watching ridiculous movies, but now you wished that you had tried to shove another armchair into your living room, because the only place for you to sit was beside Ben.

Ben, who now had shrugged out of his jacket and was looking much too good for someone wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He grins when he sees you and pats the cushion next to him.

"Come on baby, I don't bite." His grin turns wolfish. "Unless you ask me to."

You shake your head, but sit down beside him, bringing your legs up underneath you and place the cardigan on your lap before finding the cold metal of the crochet hook in the bundle. Ben's thigh is almost touching yours, just an inch of space between the two of you, but you can still feel the warmth of his body in the space.

"What the fuck is that?" Ben zeroes in on the project in your lap.

"I'm making a sweater for Annie's birthday. It's next month." You don't bother looking up at him, instead you try to find the stitch where you left off.

"And you call me old." Ben laughs.

"Keep talking Gramps and I'm gonna make you a pretty pink hat with big yellow flowers, tie it to your head while you're sleeping, take a photo, and make it your profile picture on Tinder."

"You've seen my pictures on Tinder?" Ben leans towards you and wiggles his eyebrows. "Were you fantasizing about me Petals?"

"Have you ever had a filter or did it get thrown away when you got the Douchebag iOS 8 upgrade?" You ask beginning to work down the row of stitches.

"I have no idea what that means." Ben frowns in confusion.

"Ask Hughie. Now be quiet I'm trying to watch the movie."

Ben chuckles and leans back on the sofa.

The movie was better than the others you'd seen. Ben was playing a man who was surviving in an apocalyptic world following the fallout of nuclear war that turned everyone into mutated creatures. It was broken up by flashbacks to a perfect world where Ben was in the military and had the perfect nuclear family.

There was something about seeing him in the flashbacks with the family that made something stir in your chest. Seeing him so gentle, playing with his kids, sitting at the breakfast table with his wife- it reminded you of how Ben acted with you sometimes, when he acted calmer and less like the macho asshole he was around Butcher and the rest of the team.

It made you think about what Hughie said that Ben said about having a few kids with Countess.

He’d probably be a good dad.

You think to yourself finishing the row and starting the next one, the bright blue metal crochet hook weaving the yarn together.

That must have been painful, to find out that she never loved him. I wonder if he waited for her to come get him everyday.

A part of your heart broke for him despite how much he annoyed you. You couldn’t imagine someone you loved letting you down like that, leaving you behind and not coming back.

It would be like me waiting for Annie each day and then find out that our friendship didn't mean anything to her.

You could see Ben glancing over at you every few minutes as if gauging how much you liked the movie, and it was hard not to smile.

“What?” You ask, threading your hook.

“Are you paying attention?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like it?”

“Huh?” You look up from your crochet at him. You weren’t expecting him to ask you that. “Um yeah. I like this one. I can't believe they got Charleton Heston to star in this with you." You say watching Ben and Heston on the screen. Heston was playing another survivor who was leading what seemed to be the last group of survivors in New York. Ben's character had just discovered them living in the sewers and was happy to learn that he wasn’t the last man on earth. “You like Chuck Petals?”

“My dad did. We used to watch all his films, but we never watched this one.” You look back down at your crochet, smoothly working down the row. The rhythmic motion of the hook and the yarn is serene and calming. It’s why you started in the first place, because after a long day it was the only thing that lowered your anxiety.

You hadn’t thought about your father in years, hadn’t tried to watch one of the films he loved so much in ages, sometimes it was too painful to think about your parents, hard to think about what happened to them.

“What was he like?” Ben asks.

“Charleston Heston? I hate to break it to you Gramps, but if you’ve forgotten what he was like and you were in a movie with him I’m pretty sure that’s a sign of Alzheimer’s.” You reply without looking up.

“Your old man.” Ben rolls his eyes.

“Oh.” You bite the inside of your cheek. “He was a dad.” You say it hoping that Ben won't press you for more answers.

“And?”

“Why are you asking me that?” You insert the hook into the sweater, not looking up at Ben.

“Humor me.”

“I don’t really want to talk about him.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like to.”

“Why not?"

“Because I don’t!" You shout, shoulders tensing. "Why? Do you like talking about your dad?”

Ben’s mouth dips down into a frown. “Not really.”

An awkward silence grows between the two of you, broken only by the dialogue between Ben and Heston on the screen.

“My parents died when I was 12.” You whisper, continuing down the row of stitches until you get to the end and flip the sweater around. "I don't like talking about it."

Ben presses his lips into a tight line. “I’m sorry.”

“I’d say it’s okay, but it’s really not.” You begin the next row of stitches, not looking up at Ben. You hadn't talked about your parents with anyone since you were in a relationship with Newton. Annie of course knew, she'd been there with you the whole time, through the funeral, through the aftermath when you had horrible nightmares, through the fallout with your brother when he vanished for a month and didn't seem the same when he came back, and she always made sure that you were okay. Annie was more than your best friend, she was family.

Another silence builds as the two of you watch the movie continue. Heston had just revealed that it was his fault that the nuclear fallout took place and that he was secretly a Nazi. You were sure that there was going to be an epic fight scene within the next few minutes.

“My mom died when I was young too.” Ben murmurs still looking at the screen, barely audible over the music as it begins to swell.

You stop crocheting to look at him. “I’m sorry.”

He nods once, not looking at you, taking another hit from his blunt.

And as you sit there examining him, you wondered if Ben, despite everything he said and everything he did, if he was just as human as you were.

A/N: I realize that this might be becoming a lot of domestic fluff and soft Ben and I'm not sorry. 😂

As always thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to be added to the taglist please let me know! :)

Taglist:

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@ifyouwerethemoon @ririshkin @peachhiz @fitxgrld @sukunassfinger

[enidette]

I ALWAYS WILL BE carl grimes x fem!reader

warnings — violence, gun usage, reader gets injured, mentions of death, hurt to comfort (i tried at least)

carl met you in alexandria. you had lived there since the beginning of the apocalypse, so your knowledge when it comes to fighting it’s very limited. the two of you bonded immediately and it didn’t take much time for you to become extremely close. relying on each other, mostly you relying on him, for nearly everything.

he at least taught you how to shoot, and you could do it. as long as it’s either a close or still target. and you were prepared.

so maybe you weren’t that ready to go on a run or fight flesh eating dead humans… but rick was running low on people he needed to get the job done. and despite having little knowledge, you stepped up. it didn’t seem like anyone else would.

this leads you to now, in the passenger seat while carl drives around in search for a place to raid. you have to say, it was funny watching rick internally battle with letting his son and you go of all people. but you needed to scavenge and you two were the only options.

carl was just a tad on edge, not because of a fear of something happening to him, oh no. a fear of something happening to you. he hadn’t taught you what all you needed to know just to have the odds in your favor out here.

everything went well for the first few hours, you were able to get plenty of resources that negan would most likely show interest in. but of course, not everything is sunshine and rainbows in an apocalypse.

you’re both at an abandoned store a long way away from alexandria when you hear growling behind you and begin to silently panic. carl is too far from you for you to get his attention without yelling, and you wouldn’t want to do that or pull your gun in fear of drawing in more.

but your gun is all you had. all you knew how to use.

a knife couldn’t be too hard? or something sharp. you look around frantically, finding a piece of broken glass on the sidewalk near you. you wait for the walker to come to you, the overwhelming stench of death accompanied by it’s fucked face made you grimace. you shove the glass shard through it’s eye and use your knee to push the body off of you.

you make an uncomfortable noise at the dark walker blood, whatever that substance was, that dripped down your hand. you were so focused that you didn’t hear the growls of a walker coming at you from another direction. and another. another. another.

you mentally curse yourself for being weak, you shouldn’t have agreed to come here in the first place. you’re surrounded before you could even blink, “fuck it.” you mumble, clumsily reaching behind you and grabbing your gun.

you fire at the growing herd, unable to see carl’s scared expression when he realizes what’s happening. “shit, shit, shit.” he throws what he has in the car and slams the trunk hard, purposefully making a lot of noise to divert the herd from you to him.

it only works slightly, the walkers on the outer part of the herd stumble towards him. every one of them eating the bullets of his gun.

you’re honestly surprised by how many you’ve knocked down, but it’s not nearly enough. carl’s come to your rescue, yes, but the herd dissipates slower and slower. you back up the more they get closer and resort to shooting at one and stabbing at another that gets to close.

it’s working until it isn’t. you get cornered up against a broken window, your back hitting it harshly and a piece of broken glass piercing the skin. you do your best to stifle a pained noise, bending your body as much as you could without pushing it deeper and getting bitten.

your left leg comes up to stop the ones coming at you from that direction, your gun still raised and shooting at any target it could get. you hear carl’s shots get closer when a walker reaches out for you. it’s hands land on your shoulders, pushing you down. multiple pieces of glass stab into you and your hand begins to bleed from the intensity you’re squeezing the shard in your hand to numb the pain.

you head-butt the walker and twist your body to try and get free and hear a loud snap. you feel nothing, you assume it’s the walker’s bones. but your vision begins to darken from blood loss, and the last thing you see is the walker in front of you’s head getting blown to pieces.

your head is rushing, everything sounds and feels fuzzy. the surface under you is soft and everything smells clean. you blink your eyes open and look around the room, recognizing the infirmary quickly. you hear rustling before carl is face to face with you.

“oh my god…” his hands run along your body before leaning down to hug you. you wince at the contact he makes with your leg. you hear him mutter apologies before he pulls up a chair beside you. “you’re never going on a run again.”

you don’t even fight him, you just let your head fall back from the heaviness of it all. “what happened?”

carl moves his chair closer to your bed, grabbing your hand and softly running his thumb over the skin. “you lost a lot of blood, gave yourself a concussion, and broke your leg really badly.” carl laughs dryly, “you have a lot more to learn.”

you hum and giggle, reaching your hand up to feel a bandage wrapped around your head. your back is killing you and your leg is propped up. “i’m pretty banged up, huh?” you try to joke through the situation, but your smile falls when carl sniffles.

he hardly cries, unless there’s a good reason. “i could have lost you easily in that herd. you were seconds away from getting bit.” you shake your head and squeeze his hand, a way of nonverbally telling him you’re still here. “no, i just… i don’t know what i would do with myself.”

“go on.” you answer for him, looking at him sincerely. but the look in his eye is different,

“go on? there’s not a lot to live for. another one of the people i care about most dies…” carl runs his free hand down his face, “a part of me does as well.” you sigh, you knew he would say something like that. screw whatever happened to him, but something happening to you, rick, judy, michonne. he’d turn into something you wouldn’t even want to imagine.

“look at me,” carl takes in a breath, looking up with a calm expression. you can’t help but laugh a little at the tough guy he’s trying to be. “i’m still here, and as long as i can help it, i always will be.”

[cloudyyoimiya]

omg please May i requet chuuya, fyodor and tecchou when they beg for s/o atention

yes ofc! good lord i rlly like this idea. just the idea of these tough, masculine men resorting to begging for a sliver of attention is rather funny in my eyes, but yet it would prove how far they’d go for their s/o. anyways, thank you for requesting!! <3

Begging for Their S/o’s Attention; Chuuya Nakahara, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Suehiro Tecchou

Format: Scenarios

Possible warnings: Fyodor most likely being out of character

Chuuya Nakahara

Currently you were typing away on your computer for work. By midnight you had to fill out several reports, thus you had no time to spare for breaks or even making dinner for yourself. You weren’t a slow worker, no, but you weren’t a quick one either. You didn’t even procrastinate this time! Why did your boss have to dump all of his work onto you for the night?!

Chuuya sat by idly, doing some random surfing of the internet on his phone. Every now and then you’d ask him to get you a food or a drink, and he’d oblige. He knew how much your work meant to you, so he didn’t wish to interfere by asking you to spend some quality time with him.

But Chuuya could only take so much of no attention from you. Thus, after a while, he finally decided to try to get your attention.

He got up from his seat on the sofa and walked to your desk. Chuuya then bent over a little bit so he could become eye level with your sitting form.

“My dear?” He asked with a forced smile. “When will you be done?”

“Oh I dunno… Maybe in a few hours. I still have a few reports to fill out,” you responded, still furiously typing on your keyboard. “Sorry!”

Chuuya internally rolled his eyes then folded his arms across his chest. “D’ya think you can take a break?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t wanna risk not reaching my deadline,” you murmured.

Your boyfriend let out a rather loud sigh. It almost seemed like he wanted you to hear his disappointment.

“Can you please take a break?” He asked, his voice becoming sickeningly sweet. It sounded extremely forced.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Please?”

“I told you I can’t, Chuuya.”

He let out yet another loud sigh, but this time it was a borderline groan. “I’ll do anything ya want for a week if you take a break.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” you said as you started a new paragraph of your report. “But my answer is still no. I have to get these done, Chuuya. There’s no room for breaks.”

Chuuya stayed silent as he continued to stare at you. Apparently it was time for drastic measures on his end.

“When is the last time you saved that document?” He asked, trying to keep a friendly smile on his face.

“Just a few seconds ago. Why do you ask?”

When you finished talking, Chuuya immediately placed a hand on the back of your laptop and forced it to close. He then looked back up and you, a small smirk forming onto his features. He seemed rather proud of himself for this small stunt he pulled.

“That’s why.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very,” Chuuya huffed. “Is it so wrong that I wanna spend my free time with my partner?”

“Not at all, but you could have at least waited until I was done!”

“You wouldn’t be done for the next couple of hours,” your boyfriend deadpanned. “Now c’mon. I wanna spend time with you.”

You sigh as you sat up from your seat at the desk. You then stretched your limbs, your bones making a subtle popping noise. “Alright, alright. Fine.”

Chuuya smirked. “Good! Now lemme just…”

Your boyfriend threw you over his shoulder and started to bring you to the living room.

“Really?”

“Mhm.”

“You’re lucky I love you, Chuuya.”

Chuuya let out a soft chuckle. “I love you too.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You were currently in your shared home with your boyfriend, relaxing in the living room while reading a book. You read about a chapter or so before the front door to your home opened. You shifted your glance to the noise, curious as to what it may be, and you were greeted with the sight of your tired boyfriend.

His posture was only the slightest bit worse, and he has eye bags slowly starting to form on his pale face. He looked like he had gone through a lot today; maybe that Ukrainian clown was bothering him again? Who knows…

You shrugged your shoulders and continued to read your book in silence. When Fyodor seemed like he was exhausted from work, he’d rather be alone than be with you. He has told you that it had nothing to do with you, it was just that he needed a little alone time to destress from the day. Who were you to argue with that? You were the same way if you had a particularly terrible day.

Fyodor sat down next to you as you continued to read your book. He seemed a little bit more fidgety than usual, but you brushed it off as he was still overwhelmed from whatever happened today.

“Love?” He eventually spoke up. His voice was as flat as ever.

“Hm?” You hummed as you turned the page of your book.

Fyodor stayed silent for a little while, most likely trying to gather his thoughts. He then spoke up in a whisper. “Can you do something for me?”

“Of course,” you said as you nodded. You then closed your book, making sure to place a bookmark where you finished your reading. “Do you need me to leave and give you space? I can do that for you y’know.”

“No, no. It’s alright,” Fyodor spoke, his tone getting gentler. He then went to say something, but stopped himself.

“Then what do you want me to do? Make you some dinner? How does chicken alfredo sound tonight?”

“No that’s not it either.”

You sat there, mildly confused. You put your book onto your lap and then crossed your arms. “Then what do you need?”

Fyodor seemed rather embarrassed as he spoke. “Can we please cuddle?”

“Pardon?” You asked, your eyes widening only the slightest bit.

Fyodor has always been really blunt as to what he wants and needs. He has never once hesitated to tell you what he desires, but this time he seemed embarrassed. Fyodor has never really outright asked you to cuddle with him, so this was a slight shock to you.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Fyodor muttered just loud enough for you to hear it.

“I won’t but… Are you sure? Don’t you want some alone time after a stressful day?”

Fyodor scoffed then glared at you. “I don’t need that right now. If I did then I’d already be in our room sleeping.”

“I see… Alright then. I’ll oblige,” you said with a small chuckle escaping your lips.

Fyodor scooted closer to you, then leaned his head onto your shoulder. You then let out a small sigh of content as you wrapped an arm around his waist. Fyodor was really never one to beg to be held like this, so you made sure to make him feel comfortable.

“Feel good?”

“Yes, thank you, myshka.”

“Of course, my dear. Anything for you,” you said with a small smile.

Fyodor let out a small sigh. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Suehiro Tecchou

With a whisk in hand, you were busy in the kitchen baking something for your boyfriend. Recently he had told you that he had a craving for chocolate cake with some cloves and cayenne pepper, so being the good partner you were, you decided to surprise him and help him satisfy his cravings.

Tecchou was currently sitting in the living room, scrolling through his phone. He was never really one to go into social media, but he felt like he needed to distract himself from you. The Hunting Dog wanted to get your attention, but he knew that he would never be able to get it while you were baking. After all, you had a very specific way you liked to bake, and he didn’t wish to intrude. He learned that the hard way.

Though, he could only take so much. That’s why Tecchou decided to get up from the couch and enter the kitchen.

You were whisking together your batter when you suddenly felt muscular arms wrap around you from behind. You let out a soft gasp then immediately whipped your head behind you, looking at your boyfriend straight in the eyes.

“Do you need something?” You asked as you continued to whisk the batter. You then directed your gaze to the mixing bowl once more.

“I’m bored,” your boyfriend simply stated, resting his head in the crook of your shoulder. He seemed content with holding you like this.

“Can’t you entertain yourself with your phone or with a book?” You asked, your voice remaining neutral.

“No. My phone isn’t you.”

You let out a soft hum. “Then I suppose you can stay in here while I bake. Just promise not to touch anything, alright?”

You could feel Tecchou nodding into your shoulder. “Of course, angel.”

“Good. Now give me some space,” you said as you carefully swatted away his arms.

Your boyfriend let out a small groan, clearly disliking that he won’t be able to hold you while you bake. He did respect your wishes though and let go of you for a little while. He then sat at a nearby barstool.

“When will you be done?” He asked.

“Soon-ish.”

“Soon-ish?”

“Mhm. Just be patient,” you said with a kind smile. “I’ll be done in no time.”

Tecchou let out a small sigh as he rested his elbows on the kitchen counter. He then continued to watch you, making sure you don’t somehow hurt yourself while baking. He knew that you were a careful person, but sometimes you had your days when you were clumsy.

After around fifteen minutes of you not being done, Tecchou got up from the bar stool and wrapped his arms around your waist from behind once more. And just like before, he also nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck.

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” he mumbled into your neck.

“Has it? I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he continued to mumble. “Are you done yet?”

“Just about. This can go in the oven to bake,” you said with a smile.

You walked over to the oven and carefully placed the cake tin full of batter inside all the while Tecchou was still latching onto your backside. Once it was in you set a timer and wiped some sweat from your forehead with your wrist.

“That just about does it!”

You could feel Tecchou nod into your neck before be picked you up and held you in his arms bridal style. You let out a small yelp as you felt in carrying you into the living room.

“I just wanna be with you for a little while, alright?”

[timberwind]

Yarragardee Basin, Mangala, 7995 A.D.

------------------------

Accompanying music: You’re On Fire by They Might Be Giants. Summer road trip music of all time, in my opinion.

Here’s a little expository write-up on the history and geography of the worlds shown here. Someday I’ll have more to show of the personal story of these two critters and their travels; until then, a more macro-level description.

------------------------

(most of this info has become outdated as modeling invalidated some original assumptions and I changed my mind on what I wanted here; future art of Mangala will reflect this)

Mangala and its sister world Kahira (visible in the background) are binary planets, orbiting one another in a manner not entirely unlike that of Pluto and Charon in the Solar System. Mangala is a relatively small world - just about twenty percent the mass of the Earth, something like if you took two copies of Mars and smushed them together; without the internal heat to drive a carbonate cycle long term, it had long been a frozen, dusty, and arid place when transhumanity first established a permanent presence in the Tahoka system almost a thousand years ago. Since those early days, terraforming using a Birchian soletta system (a huge but foil-thin Fresnel lens of mirrors, with a secondary focal lens for burning atmospheric gasses out of the regolith) has rendered it shirtsleeve habitable to baseline humans across much of the surface, although the global water inventory remains low* and the air in the “continental” uplands is stratospheric, with only the hardiest lichens establishing a foothold. Most of Mangala’s major metropolitan areas are located in the deep rift valleys and basins, where air pressure is highest.

Kahira on the other hand, a rock almost a fifth the mass of its sister world (a little under the mass of old Mercury), remains only slightly terraformed - surface conditions are persistently cold, with a thin barely-Martian atmosphere. Some of its larger rift valleys and craters have been tented over, aerated, and planted with tall low-gravity forest and grassland, a style of habitat construction dating back to the first Mars colonists almost six thousand years ago. Industrial complexes and buried cities sprawl out across the bare surface of the moon, with huge low-gravity lava tubes seeing extensive urban development.

The Yarragardee Basin, pictured above, is a graben basin in Mangala’s northern hemisphere, notable for the historic industrial city of Tirupati - here we see two road-trippers between cities on the basin’s great plain, taking a break in the long late afternoon of a sunset-day***. Having stopped for a night at a motel near Tirupati’s aerospace complex, they’re now continuing their journey to the city of Redmond-Tonasket, located in the Woronora Valles trench system about two thousand kilometers to the southwest.

* While plenty of water could have been imported from Tahoka’s cometary halo, it was decided not to do so in order to avoid inundating pre-existing cities in the valleys and deep basins. The extremely humid hothouse conditions that come after slamming dismantled ice moons through the stratosphere at over six kilometers a second were also broadly considered unacceptable.

** Smaller worlds have been terraformed in transhuman space, both by worldhouse and more open-air methods, but it’s largely the kind of thing that much more energy-rich systems do as a vanity project. Kahira may someday see blue skies, but likely not for a thousand years at least. (edit, one year later: I actually changed up some of this while simulating this system for stability. I’ll be posting more about this soon.)

*** Mangala and Kahira, being tidally locked to each other such that they always show one another the same face as they orbit their common center of mass, both have days exactly as long as their orbital periods - 403 kiloseconds, or roughly 112 hours. This is for convenience divided into month-weeks comprising four “circadian days” of 100 kiloseconds (~26 hours), with the remaining three kiloseconds added on to the last day of a month-week to keep synchronization.

[urfriendlylocalidiot]

School and interning is hard, but at least I get to drive

Driving w/ aespa

A 2-hour drive never seemed so short

Karina

When you and Karina decided to spontaneously go to Incheon for a day-trip, you didn’t realize how long the drive would be. Of course, you drove, she was your passenger princess after all. And maybe you still a kiss from here at every red light as payment.

You guys would definitely stop at interesting places this you along the way and pick up random souvenirs. Also she definitely takes the aux and plays the best songs. Obviously some aespa, but she would also put on some other artists, like BLACKPINK. During the car ride you guys also finally get the chance to catch up with one another. She might even bring up the idea of adopting a puppy together because of her recent interview.

Winter

Despite you guys usually opting for days in whenever you get the chance, sometimes day trips are necessary. They bring excitement to your otherwise mundane schedules. She would definitely probably, honestly, nap on the way there. And as much as you want to wake her up, she just looked so cute wrapped up in your hoodie and blankets that you just couldn’t.

So instead, you put on some music and just cruise for the rest of the ride. When you guys do arrive at your destination, Winter is definitely going straight to restaurants. And who could blame her? She just endured a 2 hour long car ride, obviously she was going to eat the best food the place had to offer.

Giselle

Definitely the most excited to go on a trip with you, even if it means a 2 hour long car ride. Would literally just be so happy to spend so much time together with you. And definitely has a stacked playlist made depending on when you guys leave. It’s full of good vibes to get you two hyped up during the ride.

Would probably ask to go through a drive-thru to get something to hold you guys over. During the car ride though, it gives you two a space to just talk about how your lives have been. She gets to discuss her recent promotions and you get to talk about anything you want. It just offers a place for you guys to talk together. And it was really something you guys had been needing because of your hectic lives.

Ningning

She definitely made a playlist to listen to on the car ride. And it is straight bops! Would also definitely ask to get drinks throughout the ride, whether it’s boba tea or coffee. Of course, this also results in a lot of bathroom stops along the way, not that you mind of course.

You and Ningning would probably turn down the music around the one hour mark and just start talking about how you guys have been. Since both of you work, it’s been hard to find time to just talk and figure out where the other is. The car ride allows you guys to just talk about anything and everything, you guys even talk about the idea of the future together. But all in all the car ride was a very enjoyable experience because of who you got to spend it with!

[hwaightme]

The meaning of 'Jeong'

☔ pairing: yunho x f!reader ☔ genre: comfort, fluff, angst ☔ summary: jeong (정/情) - the intimate and warm feeling, the closeness and affection arising from one's relationship with another person. ☔ wordcount: 5.8k ☔ warnings/tags: stress, a lot of work stress, burnout, disregard for own health, language, a little arguing, yunho driving, yunho singing, business, office, implied office disrespect, no need for words when yunho knows, knight in a shining automobile, snow and rain, on the verge of a breakdown, starry night, unedited, lmk if anything else~ ☔ taglist: @doom-fics @legohwa @acciocriativity @justhere4kpop @honey-lemon-goose @byuntrash101 @shakalakaboomboo @starillusion13 @hongthoven ☔ network tags: @k-labels @ateezlovenet @kflixnet ☔ a/n: hello there, sometimes we are in need of some yunfort~ warmest hugs, and much love! All reblogs, comments, thoughts, notes appreciated~ Thank you so much Sky for ideating with me, inspiring me, and fueling first my San, and then my Yunho brainrots <3 would not have happened without you~

It seemed that no matter what you did, everything served to further agitate you - another penny in the bottle of emotions that was threatening to overflow if you as much as hinted at your utter exhaustion. With all your might you wanted to convince yourself that this was temporary, you were trying your best and that no matter what happened, it all would end up being for the better. But sometimes, too much was just what it was. Too much.

Your troubles had wounded themselves tightly into an impossible knot, weighing you down until you were in a hopeless crawl, barely sentient and resorting to existing on autopilot just so you could avoid tearing up in a public place. You were not about to give your colleagues the sadistic satisfaction. With hefty heaps of sarcasm and barely concealed impatience, you waded through meeting after meeting, discussing projects that had backlogs larger than your anger. Somehow, as the day progressed, what you had already deemed to be a ‘not so good day’ had managed to one, two, triple-up itself.

First, you were notified, twenty minutes before the official launch of a function update in an internal, company-wide application, that there was a severe bug found, and the release would have to be delayed until further notice. Nothing new for a product manager to hear, but considering that you had just spent two hours in a metaphorical grill with your own senior manager, as well as the director of the department, you were not about to ‘not take things to heart’. The pressure only built as you were pinging person after person, with your dual monitor glowing from all the messaging windows, fighting against the torrent of your subordinates’ uncontrollable procrastination, all an attempt to reconfigure task assignment to fit in the same sprint. You cursed the ‘agile’ framework time and time again as you upped the severity on at least seven story points for your team, and hesitantly, transferred a hefty number to yourself.

This was a never-ending cycle. One which you would never break no matter how hard you tried. Such was your job; at least that was the excuse you gave it, since the monetary compensation was good enough to be motivated to put up with was clearly draining. In calls from early morning until late in the evening. Constantly juggling everyone’s workload and having to keep your finger on the professional pulses of at least fifty people, globally. You were no stranger to having meetings at awkward hours of the day, either. As you watched your colleagues beginning to pack up and leave for home, chatting away about their families, or about some new restaurant that opened in the area, or about some sports game, you realised you were completely deflated. Looking at your calendar, there was only one meeting – with partners in the US, to go, but it felt like an impossibly daunting task. Exhaustion was weighing heavy on your eyes and tension in your neck made it impossible to sit comfortably. But you still did it. Still sat there, in your office chair, accompanied by the squadron of chronic overtime workers whose heads were dotted across the floor as far as your eye could see, and pretended like it was not nearing nine o’clock at night.

You had promised your boyfriend that you would stop drinking coffee at weird hours, him having been horrified at how you could handle the bitter beverage, while you would pretend you did not see him sneak sweetener into his mocha. But with both of you getting busier and busier, and with you additionally trying to drown out the noise that came with not seeing him as much as you would have wanted, you slipped into your routinely coffee machine visits. The rumble of the artificial barista as it brewed up your only source of energy was soothing – the one sound in the workplace that did not pose a threat to your mental health, nor to your growing headache. Every sip was a temporary lull in an otherwise chaotic corporate fiasco you had found yourself in. Oh, how you wished you could tap out; this was your only conclusion to the dull, monotonous interlocution where not once, but twice did one of your co-workers abroad show their complete ineptitude in all things technology related by failing to share screen and check chat.

As you bid farewell to the last of the officemates who you agreed to mutual acknowledgement with, you leaned back in your chair and sighed. With the pitch black night outside, the artificial fluorescence that illuminated your pallid, tired skin appeared to be stronger, drying your eyes. If you were to stay frozen for a while, they would turn off until the next sudden movement, and maybe you could catch up on a much needed nap, cutting your sleep debt by at least a few minutes. But at the same time, could you afford those few minutes? When you were left alone with your mind, the notion of productivity and achievement became skewed, and what you would previously deem to be okay, or good enough, easily moving on to the next task, now metamorphosed – daunting, demanding monsters that haunted you, highlighting their inexistent faults in a dark crimson, covering your vision. If there was free time, that was time that could be spent working, perfecting, editing. And if it was not spent in that way, it was time wasted. Simple as that. Inadvertently, you became a lethal collaborator of the very cycle you dreaded waking up for the last couple of weeks, and were now in the process of breaking it, twisting it into a downwards spiral. You were aware of this, and yet, you remained passive, dismissing all alarm bells as overdramatization. The increase in cooling coals in your ambitious fire did not phase you, for you decided you had more important things to focus on. Like staring at your emails, unable to conjure a single coherent thought.

The words were swimming in front of you, the caffeine no longer doing anything to serve you. All that was left was the chocolatey aftertaste – you had your coffee snob colleagues to thank for campaigning for having proper beans be ordered, so everyone could travel to faraway places at least through the notes the beverage had, the harvest, taste the sun that blazed down on the rolling hills proudly bearing the farmlands. Only the memory of the dark roast sticking to the roof of your mouth, an unpleasant dryness settling along with the realisation that there was no chance you would be making any more progress. You heaved another displeased sigh, and after rolling your shoulders a couple of times, pressed on the power button, seeing how your distorted reflection appeared before you as the screens went black.

It was easy to imagine ghosts waving you goodbye, as the click-clack of your heels resonated through the main reception on the ground floor of the skyscraper where you were one of the many ants. A lonely security guard stationed by the turnstiles nodded you his farewell, hearing the beep of your id card being accepted. You nodded back. He was one of the more approachable-looking guardians of the money-making machine, you had seen him shake a joke with his fellow suited-up brethren a total of two times and you were not about to discourage yourself with the accompanying thought that you had been working in the company for just over a year now. You have not had the share of your favourite megawatt grins that would have dispelled your grim disposition, so every bit of negativity had to be treated with caution. You were a ballistic missile being transported in a rickety mule-drawn cart with one wheel falling off. Bit by bit. Step by step. You just needed an uneventful commute home, so you could collapse into your bed and forget about today, until tomorrow would inevitably remind you, and so the loop would start again.

But there it was. The cherry on top of the disgusting cake. Of course, the weather had to fit the atrocious mood. Even though your calendar explicitly stated spring, and you had been more than excited to welcome the longer days and the blooming trees and bushes, the temperamental elements were bestowed upon you as what could only be an evil prank. A cocktail of clumped up snowflakes and icy cold rain beating down on the side walk, the light emanating from a nearby streetlight gaining the appearance of static due to the rapidly cutting streaks. You cursed under your breath, already saying goodbye to your felt trench coat and blaming yourself for being too optimistic and not metaphorically gluing an umbrella to your hand. It was difficult to hold the tears that began to well up and inevitably blur your vision, turning the puddles and buildings into an urban soup. You had always wanted to see yourself as strong, or at least strong enough to be able to sustain yourself and be proud of your perseverance. But as you stood there, a stride away from being soaked by the downpour, you were trying to accept that you were fated to be ‘that one passenger’ on the metro, wavelengths of stress and misery vibrating out of you. The passenger who would have everyone sitting as far as possible and obviously concerned. You looked down, watching a stray shiny wrapper float down to the curb on a stream of water, stopping once it reached the sewage drain and the holes ended up being too small. Your hands clenched into weak fists, and you trembled, the nervous lump in your throat becoming painfully noticeable and spurring on a growing flood of apprehension. Under the stormy night sky you were so small. A tiny dot that would not leave as much as a footprint, insignificant against the menacing, ceaselessly falling drops of water, like a barrage of nature’s heavy artillery. As you were about you turn up the collar of your coat in attempt to do something, anything to protect you against the rain that you were about to step into, a voice called out, in part muted by the battering of concrete, but you would still recognise it anywhere.

“Would be cool if you could answer your phone sometimes.” Your head turned sharply to the right, in the direction from which you heard the sweet, deeper set tone.

Face slightly obscured by the edge of the huge umbrella that was loyally protecting him, there, approaching you, ambled the man who you would not dare expect to spontaneously visit you. Sure, you had your share of fantasies about how it would be like to have your boyfriend pick you up from work, or to meet up for lunch together, but both you and Yunho had phenomenally chaotic work schedules, and even calls lasting for longer than five minutes had to be planned well in advance. And while you were over the moon when you could spend time with him, the recent scarcity had led into a mounting pressure for you, to maintain a lighthearted disposition, to not let your troubles interfere with him and his life outside of a busy, demanding career. While that could have been your pride talking since such an approach took courage, your comfort was not at the forefront of your mind when you chose to not tell the full story to Yunho, when you faked a smile and covered the bags under your eyes.

"You know I can't use my phone in the office." You huffed, stuffing your hands into your pockets and feeling for the device, which you preferred to keep on do not disturb unless you knew someone was meant to be contacting you.

"Well, you are not in the office anymore, Y/N. But it’s alright, I completely get you. It’s late enough for you to not even bother with it until tomorrow, honestly." Your boyfriend shrugged his shoulders, and as he joined you under the roofing that protected the entrance from the mid-March cries of winter, he lowered and folded the black umbrella, revealing himself entirely to the streetlamp, and dim light emanating from the glass that guarded the reception area. You took in his divinely sculpted form, his smiling eyes and lips, and, in shock, realised that it had been far too long since you had seen this wondrous man in person.

He was dressed as though he had just stepped out of the dance studio, which, knowing Yunho, he very much might have. A beige hoodie, black tracksuit bottoms and some dual-toned sneakers to tie everything together he looked dangerously cuddly, which only further agitated you. Why did he have to come here without warning? Why did your ray of sunshine have to show up when you were nothing but a seething, thunderous raincloud?

"Thanks, Yun. But how and why are you here, exactly?" you did not mean to sound irritated, but your spent nerves were getting the best of you and took control of your speech. Yunho quirked an eyebrow but dismissed his perplexity in favour of lightening the atmosphere and cheering you up.

"My spidey senses told me you might need a knight in a shining automobile. And judging by how you don't have an umbrella, I think I'm right."

It was much more than just the lack of an umbrella; at your happiest, you were the type of person who would sing in the rain. It was the awkward hours at which you responded to his texts, the evident struggle you went through to keep your eyes open whenever you two would video call after work, but most of all it was how you so obviously held information back from Yunho that prompted him to approach his manager and carve out the time he otherwise would not have. If there was anything he learned over the half a year, and counting, of your relationship, was that you were a fighter, much like him - an energiser to a fault. You would give, give and give some more until there was nothing left for you, and then would lead yourself into the illusion that you were just being lazy when you were actually falling apart. You were putting on a brave, calm and collected face, and your hesitation to drop the mask in front of him was unnerving. If there was anyone in your present life who should be your pillar of support, a person you could trust, depend on, lean on be it emotionally or physically, it should be him. In Yunho's eyes, work and some pre-determined timetable was always adjustable when a loved one was in trouble, and hell, you were of the same opinion: when it came to racing across the city in the middle of the night just because he hinted at the fact that he had sustained an injury, you would stop the universe. So why did you not consider the basic healthy principle as something that was not applicable to you?

"But aren't you busy?" your inquiry sounded rhetorical. As though you had already formulated an answer for yourself and were unwilling to accept any other. To be frank, yes, Yunho was busy. So were you. Such was life. However, this element of your lives did not define you, nor did it imply having to take a secondary position in another’s life. Yunho shook his head, stepping closer to you until your arms were almost brushing.

There was a melancholic air to you. Days passing in minor chords, accumulating into a tune, then a song, then a symphony. Your sonata filled with dreams falling flat, and sharp comments forcing you to adjust your dynamics and rhythm. Yunho had fallen in love with the beautiful music of your heart – a beacon of kindness, selflessness and positivity, you had always been the first to encourage him, sometimes messaging or calling him before his members even had a chance to turn in his direction to wish him luck. An innate, deeper sense of what was around you, Yunho noticed time and time again how you elegantly navigated social landscapes, reading people, places and striving to simply do what was best for the situation you faced. You were one to intuitively know something was going on before it could even have the chance to consciously register.

But that also made you prone to wearing yourself out. Sacrificing yourself for those who did not deserve it, and not leaving enough to perform even the most basic human functions. Your boyfriend was always in awe of you, and how you could possibly have so much love contained in your body. As he gazed at your form while you rocked back and forth on your feet – a habitual action that he had realised was one of the most telling signs for your worry bubbling over, the strong urge to erase whatever parasitic dissonance was taking up space in your magnificent mind grew and grew until he could not resist to take your hand in his, smiling when he noticed your lips curl into the ghost of a smile as your fingers intertwined.

"Not busy to love you. No come on, let's get you home, you spent enough time in the glass box as is." He tugged on your hand, ready to open the umbrella again to lead you to the car he had parked around the corner, but you would not budge.

"I swear you had prac-"

"I am here. Okay? Here, now." He desperately wanted to bring you back into the present. What was outside of your control, and was not your decision to make should not preoccupy you, and yet if you caught onto as much as a hint of being the source of inconvenience for another, it sent you into a grim spiral. Not this time, Yunho was not going to let you keep doing this to yourself, even if it took a lifetime.

"It must have taken you so long to get here I-" your voice was growing quieter and quieter as you focused on the sensation of Yunho’s warm hand pressed against yours.

You had not realised how much you missed the feeling, and the reassurance that came with it. He was here, indeed. He was here with you. He was there for you. You raised your head as soon as he squeezed your hand a couple of times but struggled to maintain eye contact due to the evident concern written in his glimmering orbs. The tender, compassionate eyes, irises a dark mahogany hue, a safe haven in your hardship. You wished you could fall into those pools and drift into the blissful serenity they offered. At the same time, it was terrifying how he was peering right into your soul, making it seem as if your vulnerabilities were right there, on display, just for him. A shiver ran down your spine despite the layers you were wearing.

"If you checked your phone, you would now that my schedule changed." He commented, gleaming.

"Oh, so you are saying I'm wrong for worrying now?" you tried to pry yourself away, but Yunho strengthened his grip. He was not about to let you float into that headspace again.

"I don’t mean to make you angry here, just pointing a thing out." Voice level, the dulcet timbre silently posed a question to you – what was the rush? Why were you trying to run from affection?

"I am not angry! Just why is it that out of the blue you decide to appear? I would have been fine-"

"What, have other plans?"

"Uh, no? Going home?"

"So, what is there to stop me from popping by to see my girlfriend?” he pursed his lips, pulling you towards him so that you were facing him directly. Spontaneously interested in everything but his piercing scrutiny, you took to studying the white drawstrings of his hoodie.

"But… uh… well… There is like, a lot happening right now, isn’t there? For both of us? I mean… you have all that filming to do, the comeback to prepare for… you literally just came back from tour and…” you caught yourself rambling, and trailed off into the sound of rainfall.

"Hm. Figured."

Yunho nodded to himself, clicking the tip of his umbrella against the ground as though dotting a full stop on a page. Confused, you attempted to prompt him for an elaboration.

"Excuse me?"

"That you are burned out."

The phrase was a scalding hot iron thrown at the barriers you had painstakingly been building around your mind palace. You knew that it was true. Hell, if someone had just asked you to speak the truth about what you were feeling, this was the first thing that would come to mind, but were you going to say it? No. Never. What you were feeling and what influenced you was nobody else’s problem.

"Am not." It was childish, but it was the only response you could conjure without making tears well up in your eyes. Yunho was too close, too attentive, too much for your distressed and hurt heart.

"Are too."

"Look I am fine. There is nothing-” you peered at the darkness on the other side of the street. Tuned into the rustling of the trees that lined it, and wished for yourself to become part of the scenery instead of having to confront what Yunho was trying to get you to admit.

“You said there is a lot happening for both of us, and then you just list things off about me,” he was not going to let you go this easily, both in discussion and physically as he removed his hand from yours and instead placed it on your waist, “I am perfectly aware of them. I know my limits, and I know that I am managing fine only because I am honoured to have so many people supporting me. And now, I want one of these people to tell me what this ‘a lot’ means to them, and why they are now looking in the other direction.”

Your head snapped back to Yunho, revealing your misty-eyed state. Immediately, his expression softened, and he pulled you in, keeping you flush against his chest as he absent-mindedly rubbed your back with his thumb, while his other hand was keeping the wet umbrella a safe distance away from your clothing. You bit your lip as you took in Yunho’s comforting scent. He never wore any particular perfume, instead opting to smell like a mixture of fresh laundry and a miniscule hint of soap. And yet, if you could bottle this and keep it, you would in a heartbeat. To you, this was what the aroma of home, of safety was. If he wished to make you unravel your ball of troubles, this was the way to do it, you confirmed as you felt yourself automatically melt into his touch, blinking away tears that you were tired of holding. Not exactly aligned with your scheduled ‘half an hour of breaking down when you get to your apartment’, but who were you to complain about Yunho staying here with you, in the cold, adamant on defeating your inner voice that otherwise would have led you into a further darkness.  

"Let's continue this in the car, yeah?" His voice wavered, dropping into the softest whisper which jolted you out of your guards entirely, and you let yourself be guided by him to his car.

As you ambled, side by side, you were enveloped in a total silence, the raindrops forming an abstract beat on the umbrella above you. Arm around you, fingers landing just under your shoulder, Yunho was afraid of letting you go even for an instant, the fragility in your steps and fumbling for a response as he asked if his hold felt alright for you exposing your inner dejection. And once he had you and him settled in the front and driver’s seats respectively, he put the key into ignition, but did not turn it just yet. As the rain painted a blurry masterpiece on the windshield, he tilted his head, and looked at you.

“Tell me about your day.” A simple ask, but to you it felt like one of those unsolvable mathematics problems. You could lie, and on any other occasion you probably would with a classic ‘I’m fine thank you and you’, but you would be foolish to think that Yunho would buy that. If anything, he would explicitly label the nonsense for what it was and encourage you to give him a real answer with nothing but those gorgeous, hopeful eyes of his.

“It was… you know what, it was a lot. Too much even. Really, the last couple of weeks have been too much.” You uttered, annoyance starting to boil within you as you recalled the rollercoaster of events.

“Tell me.”

“I don’t want to weigh you don’t with it. Really, this is nothing. It will pass.” You fiddled with the buttons on the blazer, now within reach as you had unzipped your coat. Though your words were grammatically correct, nothing made sense to you. What was it that you were saying? Learned phrased out of the automatic deflection compartment, lines of defence in an effort to avoid discussion.

“Then why are you giving it so much power?” Yunho persisted.

“Uh… I don’t know, maybe because it is my job?”

“So, you get paid to have burn outs?” while he asked this in a joking manner, his smile did not spread past a brief flash. When you did not send a retort in his direction, he motioned for you to continue. You hated to admit it, but you agreed. As of late, this was exactly what your job had turned into. You being a hamster stuck in a wheel, running ceaselessly with no rest breaks in sight. Running in the hopes of there being a finish line. A success. A milestone. But all there seemed to be was more paperwork, more reporting, more meetings, more conflict, and more doubt.

“Well, now that you say that…”

“I am not one to judge professional choices and perfectionism. In fact, I respect you so much for being so dedicated, and being such a hard worker. But a siren is going off right now, okay? You are on the edge of a cliff, and we do not want you to fall off it, yeah?”

“What cliff?”

“I am an idiot for not picking up on this sooner, but now that I have, I must tell you: you are being pushed way past your limit, and you need a break. It is basically doctor’s orders.”

“But it’s just wo-”

“Tell me, what was the last thing one of your colleagues had said to you? About your work?” Yunho was no stranger to office gossip, through you having occasionally divulged to him the drama occurring in your workplace, and through the myriad of dramas he had watched with you and noticed that you often reacted to what was happening on screen as if it hit very close to home.

“Uhm… but it was not a nice thing so…”

“Say it.” Interest turned into a demand, and Yunho leaned closer to you.

“I only overheard it…”

“And? You still heard it.” Dropping his voice low, he rejected your subconscious devaluing of what had obviously been harm incurred.

“That I was trying too hard to please my boss…” a mumble escaped you, followed by a ragged sigh. Why was this so hard?

“That is fucked up.”

“…even though I was literally just doing my job. I was asked to do this report and all there was that was extra to it was me wanting to make it look pretty.” While you were not saying anything particularly heart-breaking, at least not by your definition, you choked up and had to force each word out with the strength you had left.

“I swear, humans are strange creatures,” Yunho mused out loud before chuckling, “says I, a human.”

“But that’s exactly why you can say it. And besides, you are a thoughtful human. Pretty much a blessing, Yunho. So don’t even.” Finally, a genuine grin graced your features, reminiscent of the first rays of sunlight after a merciless storm. Basking in the glow, Yunho returned it twofold and proudly wore the blush that started to rise on his cheeks. But he knew better than abandoning his mission so early on.

“Not to be cringe or anything, but to hear that coming from an angel is quite the honour.” He wiggled his eyebrows as you laughed airily. But the moment, unfortunately, did not last long, and your day was once more overcast by rumination. Yunho did not speak, waiting for you to give him as much detail as you felt comfortable with sharing.

“Sometimes, even if I am trying my hardest, I get this sense that I might be better off shutting up and giving the others the reins.”

“So, they are disrespecting their own manager?”

“I guess it's because I am younger than them or something. I mean, I get it, it is a gnarly economic period for the company, and everyone is losing their marbles, trying to stay above the water, but it would be good if they at least took my advice into consideration.”

If looks could destroy, then the glare that Yunho sent your office building would have set it ablaze. To curb his anger, he drummed out an abstract pattern on the steering wheel, though the grip that followed it told all. He blamed himself for not having been there sooner. For letting this pain pile on until it turned to a ball and chain that progressively set out to ruin what had been your dream career. If only it was as easy to wipe away cutting words and agonising actions like faint graphite etchings on a piece of paper.

“They should know their place, that’s what," he hissed, giving the wheel one final thump before pushing himself into his seat and turning to you, "You are being too soft on them, in my opinion. And that is why they are acting out. Promise me this, you will show them that you are a frontline manager, and you are more than capable of keeping things under control-”

“I’m trying-”

“-by taking a break. People can sense weakness, especially people who are not so kind to you. And while I cannot fix their attitude, I can try my best to help you. And before you say it, you are not coming into the office on the weekend, I am booking you up.”

"How do you know I do that?"

"Over the months of video calls you really think I did not memorise that one conference room you use to call me?" He shot back, smirking as you were at a loss, the only option being to roll your eyes and give yourself up to a legally mandated holiday.

“Yunho, you are too selfless, please, I just need a couple more hours of sleep and I’ll be all sorted."

“No, I will be selfish and take care of you. So, sit back, relax, and think of happy things. And that’s an order.”

“But that is not how selfish works?”

“It does in our world. Besides, don't you want to show them who is the boss?" The cheeky boyish grin won you over, and you beamed, whispering an amused:

"Unbelievable..."

Falling in love with Yunho did not give you butterflies in your stomach. If anything, it calmed the anxious knots that accumulated over however long the time between you being in each other's presence was. Sure, you would be okay without one another. Living life, achieving what you wanted to achieve. Brought down by the gloomy days but rising again. But together, those days were just so much less gloomy. The, what could only be described as innate, trust that you had formed in one another, was the invisible string tying you together in the gift that was your present. Falling and being in love with Yunho was like a warm day in the spring, a promise for new life, for blue skies and for a warm breeze caressing the blossoms of affection. It was like the starry night sky in the early summer, with you and him sitting on the rooftop of the apartment building where you lived, on an old bed sheet because you were yet to invest in a proper picnic blanket, but still the happiest people in the world.

As he closed the gap between you, running his fingers over your jawline before cupping your face to get a better angle, you closed your eyes and gave into the adoration that emanated from him. In the subtlest of gestures, in the sentimentality that translated into him understanding you better than how you understood yourself, he was every bit a man head over heels in love. And while either of you were yet to say the words, each action and inaction both screamed it. Perhaps it was something more than love. A proximity of the souls that was built in the quietude, in the shadows of an emotional flurry. In the hustle and bustle of common terminology, labels and anniversaries, a little world that could only come into existence with genuine intent and care became a reality. This cozy corner that housed only you and Yunho. 'Did you eat?', 'I will take care of you', 'I'm outside with medicine' were all manifestations of this unspoken devotion. And as he placed one final kiss on your rosy lips before starting up the car, you were entertained by the fascinating coincidence in the only term you could think of to describe this feeling being the exact same as your boyfriend's surname.

Flickering lights, neon signs and a revelation that the cycle could stop. Though you were on the verge of somnolence, barely resisting drowsiness settling on your eyelids like the snowflakes outside, you watched as Yunho masterfully spun the steering wheel while singing a melody which you recognised to be Standing Egg's Starry Night, one which you had made him repeat again and again as soon as you had heard it once. Upon noticing your gaze resting on him, he broke into a chuckle and fell quiet until the next red light.

"Mmm, why did you stop?" You asked and pouted, glancing at Yunho's arm as he pulled on the handbrake.

"Because I want to look at you as I sing it:

Here we are close to star

I want to stay with you forever like this

Here we are close to star

The endless starry sky and you and me..."

As he sang, in the air hung a promise. One which you did not need for him to say out loud to understand, for more often than not, the feeling itself was the true, and magical meaning.

[word-wytch]

Don't Stand So Close To Me — Chapter 2

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 2/? 3.1k. Series Masterlist

✏︎ The first thing that you learn — how long a touch can linger.

✏︎ Series Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him. Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, smut (18+ mdni), true love, internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

Chapter warnings: sibling death mention (reader’s), drunk driving accident mention, pregnancy mention (not reader’s)

These things are mentioned very briefly but are important for backstory purposes!

Monday, September 30th 1985

“—listening to 93.5 FM WMXQ, MAXimum classic rock. Don’t touch that dial, we’ll be back with a non-stop POWER HOUR of all the h—“

You smacked the radio alarm clock in the darkness, hitting the off button rather than snooze this time. 

5:10 AM. 

Your bed was so warm, blankets heavy like a hug. You could hear rain softly pitter pattering against the window. You rolled over onto your stomach and stretched, warm limbs cooling as they sprawled out across the expanse of your queen size bed. Perhaps there were some benefits to sleeping alone.

After another five minutes of peace you sighed and sat up reluctantly. The room was pitch black save for the faint glow of a street lamp outside your window. So much for bright and early, there was nothing bright about it. Your feet searched for your slippers on the floor and slid them on once they made contact.

You shuffled to the bathroom to pee and brush your teeth in the soft glow of the night light by the bathroom sink. By the time you made it to the kitchen your eyes had adjusted, barely enough, to make the overhead light bearable when you turned it on. It still made your eyes burn. 

There was a sudden pang of missing again. Missing the soft light above the kitchen sink in your old house in Indianapolis. There was just something so sterile about the lighting in this apartment, about the white walls and linoleum kitchen floor. Sometimes you even missed him too, but you wouldn’t let yourself linger too much on that. 

You turned on the radio in your kitchen to combat the oppressive silence. 

Begin the day with a friendly voice

A companion unobtrusive

Plays that song that’s so elusive

And the magic music makes your morning mood

You opened the fridge and rolled your eyes at the song that seemed to mock you. 

Breakfast was simple, as it was every morning. Two eggs over easy and two pieces of toast to mop the yolks with — and coffee of course. 

After eating you sifted through the pile of mail that had accumulated on your kitchen table as you sipped your second cup, throwing out obvious junk into the trashcan beside you. 

Your hands paused over the small card with a hand written address on it. You slowly tore open the envelope with your finger along the top edge and pulled out the contents. 

Robert and Tricia

Save the Date

Saturday, July 20th 1986

You sighed and ran your fingers over raised lettering on the pearl pink card before dropping it into the trash with the rest. There was a pang of guilt as you did it, but you weren’t going, that was certain. You didn’t want to risk running into him at the wedding. Besides, they were more his friends than yours anyway.

After breakfast you rummaged through your closet to pick out something to wear. Something nice, something smart. Something that would make you feel put together, or at least look like it anyway. 

It wasn’t until you were carefully applying your mascara that the phone rang in your kitchen, causing you to almost put an eye out when you jumped. You cursed and attempted to wipe the smear of black off your eyelid but the phone just kept ringing and it was apparently going to take more than just licking your finger to get the smudge off. 

You stomped into the kitchen and snatched the phone off the receiver. “Hello?” you barked.

“Hello dear, it’s Mom.”

“Mom it’s,” you glanced at the clock on the stove, “6:37 AM.”

“I know dear, but see I knew you’d be home. Anyway, as you know, Mrs. Hutchins will be joining us for supper on Wednesday and I had the thought, you know maybe she could bring Andrew along.”

“Oh no, mom I haven’t seen Andrew since I was like twelve.”

“Well you’ll have quite a bit to catch up on then! Besides, I’ve already invited him.”

“Mom!”

“Come on sweetie, let’s not be rude. You know he just got a job at Ignition One, that new computer company downtown?”

“Fascinating,” you said flatly.

“You know computers are really going to be the future. He’s smart to get in early. There’s going to be a lot of money in that business, I just know it.”

You coiled the cord around your finger as you rolled your eyes. “Well that’s great for him.”

“Yes, well, he can tell you more about it than I can on Wednesday.”  

“Mom, please, I tutor a student after school on Wednesdays anyway, I’ll be late.”

“Well I’ll give her a ring and move it to 6:30 then. That’ll give you plenty of time.” 

“Mom, please —“

“Honey, you’ll be 30 in a few short weeks. Now I know that’s still considered young nowadays but don’t you think you ought to try meeting someone here in Hawkins? You know, someone from a nice family? What’s the worst that could happen?”

You dug your thumbnail into the gummy cord. “Yep. Sure. Fine. Mom, I’ve gotta go, I’m going to be late.”

“Alright well you have a good day sweetie, I’ll see you on Wednesday — 6:30. Love you.”

“Love you too, bye.” 

You set the phone firmly on the receiver and dragged your hands down your face in a silent scream.

______

“Happy Monday!” chimed Ms. Click as she fixed herself a cup of coffee in the teacher’s lounge. 

You sighed, offering her what little you could muster of a smile. “Happy Monday.”

It was then that Diane Kelley shuffled over to you, black curls bouncing as she grabbed a mug from the stack. There was a little smirk playing on her lips, her dark eyes looking at you from the side like she had a secret she was dying to tell. 

This time you couldn’t help but smile back. Her kind eyes had a way of disarming even the grumpiest of teenagers, which truthfully you felt like this morning. You could see why she went into counseling.

“I caved and called Darren yesterday.”

“Who?”

“You know, the guy who gave me his number the other night. At Mojo’s?”

“Oh yeah, him.” Truthfully he was forgettable even with the memory jog.

“Anyway we talked for like an hour. He seems nice enough, I dunno, we’ll see where it goes. I’m not sold or anything. He’s got tickets to go see the Colts play in a few weeks, he invited me of course but I didn’t give him a yes or no yet.” 

You raised your eyebrows. “Sports guy, huh?”

She shook her head. “I know, right? Am I crazy for calling him or what?”

“No, you’re not crazy. I mean hey, at least you’re open to it. More than I can say.” You grabbed the carton of creamer from the fridge and shut the door a little too hard.

Diane’s expression softened. “I know you’re still upset about what happened, I would be too. You can’t rush healing from something like that.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m over it. Happy for him.” you said flatly.

Diane sighed and folded her arms across her white sweater vest, her face was soft and full of concern.

“Sorry, I’m really on one this morning. My mom’s trying to set me up with a guy I went to middle school with. Called me at 6:30 in the goddamn morning to tell me about it.”

Diane visibly cringed, “Oh god that’s awful, you’re not going are you?”

You gave her a wide eyed look, “You don’t know my mom, do you?”

“Clearly not.”

“I’m just trying to keep the peace. I mean I love her and all but she can be such a bull. Got ten times worse after what happened to my brother.”

Diane gave a solemn nod. “Oh yeah. I’ll never forget it. I was a sophomore when that happened. Just awful. You weren’t even in high school yet were you?”

“No, not yet. Eighth grade. I suppose most people do stupid things when they’re 17. Can’t say I’ve ever driven drunk before though.”

“I can imagine why not after that.”

“Yeah. Anyway, my mom at least has one child left, so I try to be a good one.”

Diane offered a sympathetic smile, “I think you’re a great one,” she said, “Still, I think maybe having a little fun would do you some good, hm? Take you out of your head a little?”

You took a sip of your coffee and shrugged, “Maybe.”

______

The hallway was packed as you made your way to your classroom before the first bell. The noise of all the voices reflected off the lockers to form a sort of echo chamber. You could hear the lockers opening and slamming in a rhythmic cadence all around you. Suddenly you swore you heard your name rise above the clammer. You kept with the flow of traffic and glanced around to see where the voice was coming from. 

Nancy Wheeler waved her hand at you and called your name again. You met her eyes and returned the wave, veering off to the side to meet her by the lockers and stay out of traffic. 

“Hey Nancy, what’s up?”

“Hey, I’m so sorry but I just wanted to let you know that I left my homework on the kitchen counter this morning. I can run home and get it during lunch but I won’t have it for your class,” she said with a little grimace. 

“Oh don’t worry about it, you don’t have to run home, you can just turn it in tomorrow. I know you’re good for it,” you said with a wink.

It was then that you felt a hand on your lower back. 

“S’cuse me, miss,” Eddie said softly, squeezing past you to get to the locker that you were standing in front of.

You whipped your head around to face him. His warm hand lingered for a moment. He was so close to you. His hair was slightly damp. You could smell the faint shampoo still lingering on his curls, the leather from his jacket, the ghost of his last cigarette.

“Thank you so much, I’ll see you in class!” said Nancy, breaking your trance.

“Sure, no problem,” you said, feeling the heat rush to your face. Suddenly the hallway felt smaller than usual.

“Sorry, just trying to beat the bell,” Eddie said with a little chuckle as his nimble fingers turned the dial. 

“Oh, it’s ok. I’m totally in your way.”

“You’re never in my way,” Eddie said sincerely, opening his locker. You had never noticed before how tall he was. How his denim vest exaggerated the broadness of his shoulders.

“Well, I don’t normally hang out here,” you said with a little chuckle. You clutched your leather grading binder to your chest.

“Well maybe you should, it’s where all the cool kids hang out.” he said, raising his eyebrows sarcastically. 

“Oh yeah? Well I’m cool enough to have a desk here now.”

Eddie smirked, “No offense but I hope I never get that cool.”

You laughed. “Honestly, I never thought I’d be that cool at this school, but I guess life is full of surprises.” 

Eddie’s expression changed. His mouth parted like he wanted to ask you something but the bell rang.

“Gotta jet, see you in class,” you said, turning heel to take off down the hallway. 

Eddie waved his hand, dark eyes crinkling as he smiled at you.

You were grateful for the rush of air hitting your hot face as your feet clicked hastily down the hall. You clutched your binder like a lifeline. Why the hell were you so nervous all of a sudden?

“Sorry I’m late, everyone,” you said, setting your things down at your desk in haste. For once you were thankful for all the noise in your classroom. You took a deep breath as you gathered your notes, trying to refocus. 

You would try all day. 

During first period it was the feeling of Eddie’s warm hand on your back, his closeness to you that kept creeping forward in your mind. During second it was his ringed fingers turning the dial on the locker inches in front of your face. During third it was the curve of his lips when he said “You’re never in my way.”

During fourth period it took all of your strength not to look at him, though you could feel his eyes on you for the full duration of class. 

At least he turned in his homework this time.

When the lunch bell rang you hung back in your classroom for a few minutes to collect yourself. Certainly if anyone had put their hand on your back like that you’d still be thinking about it? Cringing at it, more likely. Typically you hated it when guys did that, touch you without asking. 

But when Eddie did it you didn’t seem to mind, and that was just it. It was the fondness of your thoughts that frightened you.

You couldn’t believe it. You had to be better than this. 

It was not lost on you that today was a Monday.

______

Eddie Munson sat across from you. He was rolling a pen between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. On his left hand you could see the faded ink from what appeared to be a hastily scribbled note to himself, or a drawing of some sort, it was unclear. What was very clear were the tendons in his hands, how they would flex and move under the skin as his restless fingers made contact with whatever was in front of him. 

There were chains sewn by hand onto the sleeve of his jacket in what looked like an effort to fix the zipper that no longer worked. They rattled as he gesticulated. 

“I mean he’s very opinionated, mostly negative opinions though, except when it comes to his family. He’s also really obsessed with ducks for some reason. I haven’t figured out the uh, symbolism yet I guess, but I have a feeling it’s important, or it will be anyway.”

You nodded attentively, trying to stay focused on his words and not the plushness of the lips they came from. 

“Hmm, it seems like you’re starting to understand the book now that you’ve started actually reading it, funny how that works,” you said with a little smirk. “What else have you got going on this week?”

There was a glint in his eyes. “I’ve got a dungeon crawl planned out, first of the season. The boys aren’t gonna know what hit ‘em. See, it’s not your typical dungeon with a bunch of giant spiders and shit. It’s like, this ancient dryad grove with a bunch of earth elementals and at the end there’s a chimaera that you have to fight. It’s gonna go on for weeks, I won’t go easy on them.”

You chuckled, your eyes crinkling to match the deep brown ones across from you that glimmered with youthful energy. 

“I meant in school,” you said, though the truth was you could have listened to him talk about it for hours.

“Oh, uh… I’ve got a history test on Friday.”

“Ok, let me see your notes. I’ve got a great study tactic that I think will be really helpful to you.”

By the look on his face it would seem that Eddie was almost reluctant to pull the beat up spiral notebook from his backpack and slide it across the desk to you. 

You thumbed through the pages. “Eddie, I don’t know how you’re supposed to study with this, you’ve hardly written anything down.”

“Man I really tried last week but it’s just so hard to pay attention. Ms. O’Donnell’s got this voice drones on and on. Puts me right to sleep, you know?”

You snorted a little. “Yeah, I know. She was my teacher years ago too.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Really? Man, it’s hell here. I mean maybe it was different for you but I can’t imagine ever wanting to come back and like, work here.”

You offered a weak little laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t really want to either but here we are.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean you didn’t want to? Somebody forcing you to be here?” he said, glancing around suspiciously.

“No, I mean —“ You paused, wondering if you should even get into it. “I used to teach in Indianapolis but I had to move home over the summer.”

“Had to? Why? What happened?” Concern furrowed his strong brows. 

“I — personal reasons. Sorry, it’s probably… unprofessional for me to talk about my personal life.”

Eddie gave you a deadpan look. “Come on, do I seriously look like the kind of person who’s here to judge you for how ‘professional’ you are?”

Your higher, logical brain wanted to resist — to stand your ground and draw your line but his eyes were just so sincere, so soft and captivating and your emotional brain wanted to tell him. Everything. About how mad you were, about how stupid and unbelievable the whole situation was. About how naive you felt, how lost you were. About how much it sucked and how much you hated being stuck here, back at square one.

You fidgeted with the pen in your hand. “I —“ you took a deep breath to steady your voice, “My fiancé um… well ex-fiancé…” Was there even a tactful way to say it? “He… knocked some other girl up. I just couldn’t live there anymore.” 

Eddie balked. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

You could almost feel the heat of the anger radiating from him. “He’s a fucking idiot.”

There was something about his rage that was so… validating. Something about it that thrilled you to see, perhaps even more than you wanted to admit to yourself. “Yeah, that’s an understatement.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie said with a dry laugh, “He doesn’t deserve you anyway.”

Your voice caught in your throat and you tried to swallow the lump away. It was the way he said it,  his words so thickly coated in a reverent awe that there was no mistaking what he meant when he said it. 

His gaze was so direct, so earnest and piercing that you had to avert your eyes for a moment while you collected yourself.

“Thank— thank you, um,” you tucked your hair behind your ear, “It’s been an adjustment, to say the least.”

His hand twitched on the desk like he wanted to do something with it but he didn’t. He shook his head sadly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” you said, finding the courage to meet his eyes again.

“I mean, I know you’d rather not be here but… I’m glad that you are. For my sake at least.” 

You smiled, full and genuine. “I could say the same about you.”

______

A/N: Ok y’all next chapter is Eddie’s pov and it’s gonna be very juicy so sit tight.

I have one request — If you ask/asked to be put on the tag list, I ask in return that you reblog AND tell me what you like about this fic/chapter, even just something short and sweet! Please engage with me, it’s all I get in return for writing a story that you love for free ����

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[steveinscarlet]

Another vintage Kerrang article for your delectation. This one is loooong. Text below the cut...

THEY'RE ALL concerned and they all want answers. Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, hauling ass down Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, in a sparkling silver Corvette, certainly does. So does Blackfoot mainspring Ricky Medlocke, a recent unexpected apparition within the Marquee's glistening vaults. So does just about everyone I've met in the course of recent field-trips. They're all wearing that 'there but for the grace of God' look and they all want to know. So do I...

"Every time you speak to Rick on the phone you come away with a big grin on your face because he's in such good spirits. He's handling it better than I thought he would. He's matured 10 years overnight. He's totally accepted the fact that he's only got one arm and he's being very realistic about coming back into Def Leppard. He's mad to go for it, though, and we're mad to let him try."

That drummer Rick Allen will try, however, isn't in doubt. He's adamant about it and Leppard vocalist Joe Elliott is equally adamant that the band will give him their unrestrained support. As they've said all along, the decision is totally his "We aren't trying to show off or get sympathy," spells out Joe, "it's just the way we are. Def Leppard is simply five lads - we could have been a football team, we could have been international bank robbers. Rick's a mate, and just because he's had an accident doesn't mean he can't still be in the band. If he physically can't do it then obviously there's going to be problems, but with the technology available today I don't see why he can't play snare drum with his left foot, say. And if he can do that, and maybe have tom tom fills already recorded on a trigger, then the kit would look exactly the same. "Bill Ludwig, who builds Rick's kits, actually got in touch with him as soon as it happened, and it seems that there's a lot of one-arm drummers, guys who came back from Vietnam, y'know. The thing is, they tend to play Holiday Inns and places that like that; it's a different approach to drumming. Rick has a very John Bonhamish style - I mean, the quy doesn't need monitors, he's ridiculously loud! - and he'd never be able to do with one hand what he did with two for an hour and three quarters. It would kill him! So he's gonna need the technology. It's just down to whether he can accept the fact that there are gonna be people in the crowd trying to peer through the cymbals to see a plastic arm. He'll have to wear a shirt now, whereas before he'd always go bare-topped..."

THE DETAILS of the car crash that removed 21- year-old Rick (temporarily at least) from the Leppard ranks have been pretty well documented, grabbing column inches in the Nationals and beyond. The bare facts seem plain enough: at 12.50pm on New Year's Eve, while driving his Corvette along the A57 from Sheffield to his parents home in Dronfield (Derbyshire), Rick was involved in an incident which sent his car spinning out of control, turning over several times, injuring his female passenger and removing his left arm in the process. He remembers what happened vividly, and really can count himself fortunate to be alive. When the debris from the accident was examined it was found that the top half of the steering wheel had been bent back, Rick's particular power clearly preventing the steering column and dashboard from crushing against his chest. But why did it happen?

Picking through the events with Elliott it soon becomes obvious that the whole story is a little more complex than yer typical life-in-the-fast-lane pile up. Think about it...

When you're young and successful, with a streamlined US car and a female companion to match, it can sometimes sting the nasal membrane of the folks you've abandoned to a dole queue existence in your humdrum hometown rut. People have been known to glow green with jealousy, and on New Year's Eve people have been known to take a drink. Sometimes even a life...

"Yeah," says Joe quietly. "There was another car involved in the accident."

Mucking Rick around, you mean?

"That's right. But the people have denied it and there's nothing we can do. The coppers have interviewed them but it's no good I'd love to go round and kill 'em!"

Joe takes a moment to collect his thoughts, then continues... "The arm was placed in a bucket of ice gathered from all the houses nearby and Rick was in hospital (the Royal Hallamshire) within 19 minutes, which is unbelievable. He underwent an 11-hour operation; his arm was back on by ten to one the following morning, but infection set in and after three days they had to take it off.

"His nerves are still alive, though. They've got them wrapped up like spaghetti, and it's possible to have them connected up in a way that can give movement to a prosthetic arm. So the Steve Austin 'Six Million Dollar Man' thing is not beyond the realms of possibility one day. Rick still feels his arm because of the nerves."

When did you hear what had happened?

"I heard at about ten to four the same afternoon and I couldn't believe it. I cried like a baby for about three hours - my face was hurting. Peter (Mensch, manager) rang and said, 'Rick's had an accident, his arm's off, but they've sown it back on'. I've heard of that working before but unfortunately it was torn off, not cut off, so everything snapped and stretched in different places, which made it more difficult."

How soon after the accident did you visit Rick in hospital?

"I saw him two days after it happened... it was the worst experience I've ever had... but he was walking a week earlier than expected and telling the nurses to f**k off after three days because he was fed up having his bandages changed. He sounds in fine form now and wants to get back; drumming's all he's ever done, and he's done it very well."

"It's just up to him if he can stand the strain. I mean, he's going to go through some crap. He's not had it yet, but he's gonna suffer from depression; bad depression. He's being very realistic about it, though. He said to me, 'When it comes, it comes.' He wants to come out here to Holland but he knows he can't."

Presumably he won't be ready to play a part on the forthcoming tour?

"No, and he knows that. Somebody will guest with us until we know the result of Rick's convalescence." Would you consider using two drummers on any subsequent tours?

"Possibly, yeah, and Rick could do specific bits. We've definitely thought about that, but he's got a lot to learn first. I mean, there's certain things that are now a fact of life. If Rick wants to wear baseball boots, for example, he's gonna have to wear Velcro ones. And he's probably gonna need press-stud trousers. He's got to learn to bath himself even..."

"The thing is, at the moment his right arm doesn't work. The ball is smashed so they've had to pin it. He's got a six inch pin as big as a poker in there. Imagine if your elbow was sown to your hip; well that's all the movement he's got. I guess he's a bit of a mess, though mentally he's the best he's ever been."

What would happen if Rick returned to the band yet clearly wasn't cutting it? Would you have to tell him? "No, because he'd know himself. He's said that to me on the phone. He's being realistic- if he can't do it he can't, but he's definitely gonna try. There'll come a time when Rick will say, I'm ready, and we'll get together in a rehearsal room for a month and see what he does. He'll either turn round and go

'Yes!' and we'll go 'Yes!', or else he'll say 'Sorry, I'm not coping with it.'

"The important thing is that he tries, otherwise he'll never know, and that would be awful. I know he'd rather fail than not try at all. Besides, it's no big secret that we use drum machines on the records so, whatever happens, he could still be involved on that side. We would just take a session drummer out on the road."

"At the moment, we're trying not to get too depressed about the whole situation, but we were mega-depressed at first. I was in a real state, like a zombie for five hours, and for quite a time after I just didn't want to get into a car. I know it's daft, but it's true

A BONHAM of the biscuit tins, a Titan of the tupperware, since the age of 11 Rick Allen has thought of little outside of drums and drumming. At the moment he's at home, probably watching Cheech & Chong videos on the new system bought for him by Phonogram Records. But chances are that his thoughts are elsewhere, no doubt wafting with the music around the booths and corridors of Wisseloord Studios near Amsterdam, Holland, where Leppard are recording their fourth, as yet untitled, LP. As always, he's with his colleagues 110 per cent (for now it can be in spirit only), a continued commitment that should spur him on through the tough weeks and numerous hospital visits ahead.

Prior to the accident, he'd laid the groundwork for eight backing tracks, and the remaining two songs on the album were always destined to feature a less human touch, the band specifically wanting a more clinical punch, so there's no problem on that front. As for his work on backing vocals, well, Elliott can easily deputise in that department, leaving Rick free to concentrate on the speediest recovery possible and, as Elliott puts it, "Learn to live again. He's having all these drums built and a special car designed, all sorts of stuff..."

All things considered, '84 certainly wasn't an easy year for Def Leppard, a rude awakening for an almost unbroken streak of good fortune. First longstanding associate 'Mutt' Lange proved unable to produce the new LP, likewise his replacement Jim Steinman (though for different reasons - read on!), and then came The Accident, which instantly eclipsed all previous hassles, reducing apparent mountains of doom and dismay to easily skirted molehills. But, if anything, adversity has caused the four active members of the Leppard clan to virtually graft respective beaks to the grindstone in a collective consummate effort to make their next album their best.

The band's first LP, 'On Through The Night', produced by (Colonel) Tom Allom, took a mere 18 days to record and remains something of an embarrassment in Elliott's eyes (someday he'd like to remix it and touch up a few of the vocal parts), while the second, 'High 'N' Dry', with Lange now at the helm, was laid down in three and a half months, including a month's pre-production, bang, bang, bang, 'Mutt' clearly wanting to capture the excitement generated by these 21-year-old 'let's go for its'. But 'Pyromania' now that was a different story, with band and producer (Lange again) making a conscious decision at the outset to pin back the ears of a generation with something of genuine lasting quality; an attempt to update the glories of Queen's 'Sheer Heart Attack' and 'Night At The Opera' LPs...

They went for it in a big way and 10 months later came up trumps, creating a slice of history that many have doubted they'll be able to top; an album that left the whole of the music industry wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and caused bands both big and small to almost instantly re-assess their directions and aims. A (hard) labour of love still selling around a thousand a week, it broke taboos and set fresh standards right down the line.

"Hopefully, it'll be an Heavy Metal 'Sergeant Pepper...'," says Elliott, "who knows, but we've got to do more. It'd be tragic if our best album was our third and we end up doing 17 LPs."

Whatever the next album sounds like, however, Joe's convinced that it's gonna be slated by the press. He's resigned himself to the fact (not having heard the record beyond a few notes ricocheting out of the studio doors, I really can't comment), but, along with bassist Rick Savage and guitarists Steve Clark/Phil Collen, he's ploughing on regardless, helping to create something different to 'Pyromania' in content yet as good, if not better, overall.

"Since 'Pyromania' we're two years on technically," he explains. "The Fairlights are better, the keyboards are better and the microphones are better. And we're two years more experienced, of course. Actually, we keep putting on 'Pyromania' and listening to it back-to-back with what we've done; you have to imagine it without the mix, but it's definitely up there to my ears."

JOE ELLIOTT leans forward in the chair, tucks a fold of his rather battered dressing gown tight against private parts and pours himself another glass of one cal Coke. This for the moment is home, and has been since the middle of August: a simple hotel room in Holland ten minutes drive from the studio complex. Originally, the band were due to play the 'Mick Wall Festival' in Rio, but they eventually decided against it on grounds of not wanting to interrupt recording. So while certain jammy so-and-so's were sunning themselves on the Copacabana sands (maaaan!!), Elliott and co, tax exiles all, were trudging across frozen lakes, wrapped up tight against temperatures of 25° below! Still, there's always next year And if nothing else, in their present position the four are conveniently cut off from all domestic distractions. Through the hotel room window I can see Dirk, Elliott's treasured Renault 12 (and centrespread star of Kerrang! 79), basking quietly in the hazy sunlight, the central motif on an idyllic pastel canvas shaded only by the distant foghorn fuming of an adrenalised Peter Mensch. Somewhere, behind closed doors, he's informing an unfortunate Halfin that a five-piece outfit close to the latter's wallet have been 'stiffing' horribly in the South, and he doesn't mean Torquay! Let's just say he's on form...

Later, on the flight back to London, having persuaded Mensch to fund my purchase of a duty free Sony Walkman in tasteful pink, I tentatively suggest that the forthcoming Leppard biography should be titled 'Me & My Whine'...

"OH, YEAH, DAAAN-TAY!!" he snaps, blood vessels popping like balloons, "AND HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO THINK THAT ONE UP???"

Back to business...

"We've always upheld the theory," theorises Joe as things quieten down, "that we don't want to put out a record every nine months. We'd much rather put out a record every two to three years that's of real good quality

"When we started this album 'Mutt' was involved; we did pre-production with him in Dublin, Ireland, which is why we've put him down again on the songwriting credits. It's an honesty thing with us. He doesn't write anything as such; the six of us just sit round a table with a piece of paper in front of us and guitars turned down really low, then whoever chucks in an idea - be it Rick or 'Sav' or me or 'Mutt' - we play with it."

"Steve, for example, will come up with an idea and 'Mutt' will say, 'Change that round', 'Use this', 'Do it in another key', ' or whatever. It just creases me up to think that there are some people out there who look at us and say, 'Ha! They can't write their own songs', which isn't true at all. And even if it was, I'd much rather be involved with an album that sold six million copies co-written with a producer than one that sold 200,000 copies that wasn't."

Surely helping with the arrangements and so on is part of a producer's job, though "Yeah, right, but it's almost as if it's some kind of crime to let your producer be involved. That's what a producer's there for - to kick you up the arse and bring out the best that you can do. We encourage 'Mutt' to be involved and we repay him by sticking his name on the songwriting credits. Who cares! It's only a bloody song anyway..."

Isn't it true, though, that a lot of producers are really just glorified engineers and can't make the extra step up to that level of involvement?

"Yes, that is true, but 'Mutt's an exception anway because the guy's a musician, he's been an engineer since he left school - he's been doing it for 17 years and he's only in his early thirties now and he's also a brilliant singer and great songwriter, so you've got everything going for you! Whereas an engineer will be able to tell you if something's out of tune, 'Mutt' can go further than that and say, 'It doesn't feel right' or 'Sing it this way, shape your mouth like this, let's alter the phrasing'. "With most engineers, if it's in tune and it's what you want then it's a take, and that's all their job is, because if it's that way round it's normally the band who are producing, the way we are with this album. I noticed in Kerrang! it implied that Nigel Green is now producing – he's not, we are. Nigel's assisting." "Actually, he's worked with us on our last two albums, though not as main engineer. Mike Shipley was always our main engineer. Nigel's as good as Mike, it's just that at the time he was involved in other projects; so when Mike took a holiday or went to the dentist Nigel would come in. We've never worked with him on a long term basis before but we do know him."

What happened with 'Mutt' Lange, though? As I understand it, he originally agreed to produce the album as well as help out on pre-production...

"Yeah. In fact, he was still going to do it last February. We started with pre-production, as you've mentioned, but it soon became obvious that 'Mutt' was in no state to see the whole thing through. The Cars' album ('Heartbeat City') nearly killed him; our last album nearly killed him, and the Foreigner record ('IV') the same. I think he's just reached the stage now where to attain certain standards you're talking about grafting for a long time."

"The way we worked on 'Pyromania', for example, we were doing 20 hour days and the guy was sleeping on the couch in the control room. You just can't do that forever, so for the sake of his health he made a wise decision not to do our album. At the time, we were panicking; we thought, 'Oh, Christ!', cos things had all been planned. It wasn't a case of us being afraid of what the album would sound like if 'Mutt' wasn't there, it was simply the availability of other producers that we were concerned about. With top people like Ted Templeman, Mike Stone or Trevor Horn, you've got to book 'em years in advance, you can't just get in touch two weeks before you want to start..."

"Actually, we did approach Templeman just to see how much he wanted, and I don't think he was too keen to do it; he put in such a ridiculous money offer that no band in the world would have accepted it! But then we really wanted somebody a bit different, anyhow. We were interested in the people I've already mentioned initially because we thought, well, these are the names that we've listened to, Bob Ezrin, y'know. But then we started to think about people like Alex Sadkin, who we found was doing the new Foreigner album ('Agent Provocateur'). Trevor Horn would have worked with us in England, but Chris Thomas (Roxy Music, Procol Harum) turned us down flat - he obviously doesn't like us. We actually tried to get Phil Collins, who was interested but tied up with the latest Clapton LP ('Behind The Sun')."

So you were looking at people outside the world of heavy rock...

"Yeah, we were looking at up and coming producers like Terry Manning, who's engineered for ZZ Top, and Steve Lillywhite, who's yet to do a hard rock album but possibly could do a good one. Some of us were interested in him, some of us weren't. I like the fullness of Simple Minds' 'Sparkle In The Rain' LP, it's brill, but sounds are really no problem for us now, we can get good sounds; the thing we always like to have is musical input, and that's where we thought Steinman would come into his own. I mean, the guy's a good songwriter and he's had a hell of a lot of success with what he does."

He worked on the last Billy Squier album, 'Signs Of Life', with Tony Platt, didn't he?

"Yeah, well, he 'navigated' it is what Squier says. We thought, OK, we'll get the sounds and let him do the producing, but it turned out that Jim wasn't really what any of us thought he would be. In fact, I wonder how he's ever got a production credit on anything - especially with Squier, the kind of ego he's got. I can't understand why he even let Steinman's name appear on his album cos we're not putting it on ours."

What was the problem with Steinman then?

"Ahh... I wouldn't be lying if I said that you could have done it as well. I mean that. The guy just sat there reading 'Country Life' all day and going, 'Yeah, yeah, that sounds good', when it plainly wasn't. He's simply not used to recording the way we record. When we said, 'Listen, this is the way we work, you'd better get used to it', he tried and he couldn't. He just could not hear if something was wrong."

Were your standards too exacting for him, do you think?

"Possibly, yeah. It sounds strange to say that, though, cos to me those standards are normal. Doing 'Pyromania' was like going to college; I've grown up listening to things a certain way. As far as I'm concerned, getting the timing, the tuning and the feel spot on is the usual way to work, but Jim Steinman for all his reputation - could not hear it."

"After a while, we just thought, well, this is silly, we're wasting our time and money and wasting his time, though we weren't too bothered about that cos he wasn't too bothered about the project. I honestly don't think he was doing it for any reason other than credibility in the States. "We'd say, 'Right, we start at 12', and he'd wander in at 3.30. We'd stay till 12 or one in the morning, then he'd go back to his hotel and start writing songs for his own future projects, and he'd be up till nine o'clock doing that. So when he finally got round to us, he'd only had five hours sleep. he wasn't there half the time. I mean, he was there in body but not in mind. We found more and more that we were doing the work, which was fine, we didn't mind doing it, we just thought, why the hell should we be giving this guy so many points and so many dollars to sit there reading 'Country Life'!"

So how much did you manage to accomplish with Steinman?

"We did about eight backing tracks and scrapped them; almost everything has been done again. And even the things that went down were our decision Steinman never overruled us on anything. If he said a certain take was good and we said it was bad, we'd do it again."

Who was actually getting the sounds at this stage?

"Us and Neil Dorfsman, Steinman's engineer. He was good, actually, cos he was doing all the work. Jim was the ears of the partnership, but the ears were plugged up, I think..."

"Y'know, it annoys me intensely when a producer walks into a control room and says, "This carpet has got to go!' Sod the desk, that's not important. An SSL desk, 150,000 quid's worth of equipment, and the carpet's got to go! He even had the carpet changed in his hotel room. The guy was living in a suite while we were happy in rooms with a fridge and a cooker. Obviously, we paid for it all..."

"And the food! He went out to the North of Holland and had a 12 course meal! Which is fine, that's his personality, but when somebody walks into a studio and says the carpet has got to go... if I'd been there I'd have decked him. Seriously. Who gives a flying s**t what the carpet looks like!"

How long did Steinman last, then?

"Oh, we dumped Jim about November, we gave him a fair chance. We thought, well, alright, we're doing the spadework, what he might consider the boring side of the album, let's see what he's like on vocals, maybe that's his strongpoint. He did tell us that he spent something like five weeks trying to get Meat Loaf to sing one line, so we thought, OK, the guy's definitely got stamina."

"But when it came to doing vocals with me, it was exactly the same situation as with the backing tracks - everything was my decision. He'd say, 'Yeah, that's good', and I'd go, 'Jim, it's f**king useless!' I'd run out of breath at the end of a line cos I wasn't quite familiar with what I was singing, and he'd say, 'It's got a bit of feel'. Isn't that pathetic?!"

"I mean, Steve and Phil wanted to get rid of him two weeks after he was here. But I just kept saying, 'Give the guy a chance, blah, blah, blah' made meself look a right arsehole. But it was only fair to let him get to the vocal stage of things."

"Anyway, when Steinman went we all sat down and asked Mensch to sort out which other producers were available. We put down everybody we thought might be good. Mike Shipley couldn't do it cos he was off co-producing the new Loverboy album, so we just suggested Nigel. We were doing a better job than Steinman, so we thought, well, what's the point getting in another producer? We send 'Mutt' the odd tape now and then and he sends it back saying, 'It sounds brilliant to me', which shows that we can do it, so we are."

Has having Phil Collen involved from the start of this album (he became a Leppard member during the recording of 'Pyromania', replacing guitarist Pete Willis) made things different in any way?

"Yeah, it means that the songwriting's changed a little; Phil's input is better than Pete's ever was. Steve will always be the major songwriter, I think, but he's really encouraged Phil a lot. He doesn't just sit down and say, 'I want to write all the songs', stuff like that. In fact, everything that Steve's written, he's written with Phil in the same room... Phil's probably involved in eight of the 10 songs on the album."

And what about 'Sav'? He writes too, doesn't he?

"Yeah, but 'Sav's weird; I can't get to grips with him sometimes. More than anyone else in this band he likes your Journeys and your Bryan Adams, occasionally even the odd Duran Duran song, yet he was the one who came up with 'Stagefright' and 'No No No'. And on this new album he's got a number called 'Ring Of Fire' - not a cover of the famous Johnny Cash song! which is an uptempo, thrash, crash, Metal job. He just never writes like the people he listens to."

Will Steve and Phil be sharing the guitar breaks on the new LP?

"Oh yeah, 50/50, right down the middle. Actually, they argue about who's gonna do 'em; not in the sense of, 'I wanna do this', but Phil's telling Steve that he should do a certain solo and Steve's saying, 'No you do it, it's more up your street'. I remember hearing stories about KK (Downing) and Glenn (Tipton) from Priest not talking to each other for four months at a time, but it's the other way round with Steve and Phil. The only thing they argue about is who's gonna buy the drinks!"

What about you, though? You play a bit of guitar...

"Badly!"

...have you written anything on the new record?

"Er... I did come up with some stuff but I don't think it got used. I wrote little bits on the last album, but my main worry is obviously melodies, lyrics and vocals."

"Sometimes, though, we'll have a vocal line and work the backing around that. We've got this one new song, 'Armageddon It', which is Piltdown, just two chords all the way through; it's based around a tongue-in-cheek vocal thing."

Is it a 'Rock Of Ages' type number?

"I suppose it is a bit, yeah. The vocals come out from all over the place once it gets going. It's just a totally stupid lyric... like 'Rock Of Ages', just a piss-take of ourselves, though not mocking the fans in any way."

"And then there's 'Ring Of Fire', which I've already mentioned. It's actually about an Indian meal, the day after, but nobody would ever know that... well, they will now!"

When you're writing lyrics, do you ever think about how the song will work live?

"Not really, no. Obviously, a number like 'Rock Till You Drop' is a stage song, and the same with 'Stagefright', but I've never consciously sat down and thought, well, I'd better come up with two songs about 'Rock This Place To The Ground', or whatever, and one meaningful one about Vietnam, and another about a vigilante in New York. They just turn out that way. You do it in moods. I was probably watching something about Vietnam on TV and 'Die Hard The Hunter' (from the 'Pyromania' LP) came out, and I'd probably been to see 'Deathwish' when I wrote 'Billy's Got A Gun' (also on 'Pyromania'). I can't remember, I just do it."

"I actually wrote 'Photograph' (ditto) while I was sitting on the bog. I was stuck for a chorus and I had a picture of Marilyn Monroe staring me in the face... Bob's your uncle!"

When you made the decision to go for something extra with the 'Pyromania' album, were you confident that you could pull it off?

"We were confident, yeah, very confident, because 'Mutt' was producing. We just had so much faith in the guy and in return he had total confidence in what we were doing. We didn't see how we could go wrong, though Mensch was tearing his hair out when we were nearly a million pounds in debt and the record company were drumming their fingers waiting. I think we had to sell 1.2 million copies of 'Pyromania' to break even, we were in a real big mess..."

"I mean, I nearly had a nervous breakdown, I just couldn't handle it. I was going through so much crap towards the end - do it again, do it again... I got what a lot of singers get, 'Lastitis', which comes from the pressure of finishing. We went through a lot of hell on that record..."

Including, of course, the slightly wobbly exit of young Mr Willis...

"Yeah, but in all honesty I think that did us more good than anything. The thing is, you sometimes take situations for granted and then all of a sudden something like that happens and it's like, wow, it's different, there's only four of us, he's gone, really gone. I mean, Phil joined the day after, but then he almost joined back in '81."

"I tried to get him cos we were having trouble with Willis in America. I rang Phil up and said, 'Can you learn 16 songs in two days?' He said, 'I'll try', but that was just totally out of desperation, there's no way he could have done it. However, when Pete started to act in the studio like he did on tour, which was making Keith Moon look like a bloody vicar, it was time for him to go."

Why doesn't he get some help?

"Well, I think he's beyond help, to tell the truth. He doesn't even realise he needs it, he doesn't accept he's got a problem, though the guy's been in hospital twice as a result of drink and drugs. He had a collapsed liver or something, and epileptic fits, God knows what."

That hasn't happened to the rest of you, though, and you're all the same age, you've all worked your way up together...

"No, it's just him. Pete's always had something to prove, y'see, probably because he's a midget. The guy thought he was 10 feet tall when he was pissed and he'd be taking on people as big as you it didn't work. He was like a gigantic ball and chain around our ankles..."

THE LATEST whisper on Willis is that he's currently swanning around the environs of Sheffield, complete with Rolls Royce and minder, recounting tales of some hush-hush supergroup he might be throwing in his frets with. Elliott finds it hard to take the whole thing seriously, and I think it's fair to say that the recording of album number four is proceeding all the smoother for the wee man's absence.

Already, a number of lead vocals are complete, and the band (employing two studios simultaneously) are steadily piecing together their ten new songs, ready to convince a waiting world that Life After 'Pyromania' does exist.

So what's on the boil? Well, in no particular order, there's 'Armageddon It' and 'Ring Of Fire', already mentioned, 'Excitable', 'Gods Of War', 'Fractured Love', 'Don't Shoot The Shotgun' (Stonesy, I'm assured), 'Animal', 'Love Bites' (a ballad), 'Run Riot' and the enticingly handled 'Women', all proudly produced by the Leppard members themselves, who, without the invaluable 'Mutt' Marten to administer the prods, are taking great and serious pleasure in booting each other up the bum! "Actually, I never envisaged us producing ourselves," admits Joe, "I thought it might be the one thing that would lead to us falling out. It's always been dead important to us that Leppard is a friends situation; we want to keep the element of why we started. Five mates who can still go into the same bar and look each other in the face after seven years. Happily, that's the way it's remained, and producing ourselves is working really well..."

The new album, which now looks set to be mixed by Lange in the UK, an added bonus, should be available by August, after which the band plan to tear up the tarmac on a world tour of, well... y'know. The idea, it seems, is to blow away the studio cobwebs with about eight shows in Ireland, some in smaller places, then steer a course for the UK, perhaps for a September stint (the British dates have already been put back four times!) of 20 or so gigs. A headline appearance at Wembley Arena isn't too far off for the boys, according to Queen's Brian May, a staunch Leppard supporter, but this time around I reckon they'll settle for something a little more cosy.

Next tour, though Europe too seems odds on to cop a visit, particularly as 'Pyromania' has now shifted over 100,000 copies in France and is making a late burst for the tape in Scandinavia as well. Business in Germany, however, remains a little slow, and as for Holland... well, now we're talking about a massive 639 units shifted. Still, at least it means the band don't have to worry about being recognised. Def what?!

By December Leppard should be into America, after which it's likely they'll travel to Japan, though probably not Australia, that stage of the tour having lost them around 60 grand last Feb. Indeed, all in all, their schedule will be less arduous than last time, including more days off to recover and recharge. The band should certainly feel healthier as a result, but then with the Rick Allen episode having shocked the Leppard camp into a highly body-conscious state, that's the way things are heading anyway "I don't want to waste away and vegetate," explains Joe. "I'm 25, I'm supposed to be at the peak of my fitness; I'm supposed to be Glenn Hoddle but I wasn't. I'd run a mile and be out of breath. Now I can run a six minute mile, no trouble, and I do half an hour's worth of exercises every day. 'Sav', Phil and myself all go jogging too - we take less for granted now than we did before..."

[favfics13]

Seventeen Recommendations Part 3 - 05/24 - ...

Dream Ride by @bambikisss

Summary: You haven't been able to sleep much lately, so you've been driving around at night to help ease your mind. However, you keep passing by the same jet black colored motorcycle every night, which then keeps showing up in your dreams. So when you stop one night to get gas and see the same motorcycle stopped nearby, you decide to meet the man under the helmet.

Have My Baby by @seokgyuu

Summary: When fertility clinics fail to give you what you want, you decide it’s time to take the matter into your own hands. And who’d be better for the job than Choi Seungcheol?

Always Only You by @honeyhotteoks

summary: the date was terrible, awful even, but you just can't call your brother to pick you up. you have to call his best friend instead.

Ode To You by @lovelyhan

Summary: if there's one thing you've learned from all the lives you've spent together, it's that jeonghan isn't always someone you'll end up wanting. he can be crass. he can be secretive. he can be nothing short of vexing. but in the end, he's everything you need him to be. or: 25 lives in which you find and don't find jeonghan.

I Think We Married In Vegas by @ressonancee

Summary: You and Jeonghan have always been friends, and friends go on a trip together, right? And somehow friends always end up marrying in Las Vegas right? And somehow friends become roommates as well right? That all seems very normal when Yoon Jeonghan has a weird addiction to doing the dumbest things ever just for shock value.

Lens Of Ice by @wongyuuu

summary: jeonghan has only one chance left to make it to the olympics. as he embarks on this decisive journey, you, a documentarist, are set to follow him as he seeks the ultimate glory.

Birds of a Feather by @onlymingyus

summary; You and Shua work together on a petition to get rid of the bird kid and then you fall in love.

505 by @lovelyhan

Summary: i'd probably still adore you with your hands around my neck; or i did, last time i checked.

Burnt Coffee by @highvern

Summary: Running a cafe hadn’t been as glamorous as you initially believed. You loved your job; the cozy aroma of the different roasts, the hum of the espresso machine, the foam art you tediously practiced until a cute bear face stared back from the surface of a cappuccino. But any new shop comes with quirks, like the fire alarm that goes off almost every morning. Luckily, the fire station is just across the street and you unknowingly have one of the fireman wrapped around your finger.

Homewrecked by @ncteez

Summary: Wonwoo doesn’t seem to realize that you’re giving him the best option out of a relationship that doesn’t even involve you. With a cheating best friend on one side, and a loyal Wonwoo loving her from two hours away on another, you decide that home wrecking isn’t always a bad idea.  or the one where wonwoo fights internal demons over wanting you bc he’s in a relationship that he doesn’t even realize is falling apart.

Play Again by @shuarush

Synopsis:  after ten years of not seeing your high school crush you find yourself partnered with him at the company you work for. Since you've been rejected before, you try your best to not let any feelings flourish, but Jeon Wonwoo's charms make that attempt especially hard for you.

Fuck The Neighbors by @sluttywonwoo

summary: curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back- at least, that's what they say.

Guinea Pig by @imloyaltoscoups

Work Me Out by @highvern

Hits Different (...'cause it's you) by @gyuswhore

SYNOPSIS: Kim Mingyu was the first friend your brother had brought home for dinner. Fast forward a couple years, his toothy smile and pierced ears would wedge their way into a permanent place in your heart. Nail to a coffin, never to escape. or; in which you get rejected by the only boy you've ever loved; a rejection you can't quite shake off.

7 Days by @hannieoftheyear

Summary: During a seven-day vacation with your friends, you try to get over your feelings for one of them. Feeling alone, surrounded by people who seem closer to each other than you, you find comfort in the one person that you didn’t know before.

Office Hours by @seungkw1

Hit: Vernon by @smileysuh

Synopsis. You might not be great at taking the large bong your frat friends pass around at parties, but Vernon has at least one pipe you can handle ;)

Drive by @miraclewoozi

Summary: DRIVE -- or, the night you realise it's actually very hard to stay mad at the guy who shows up at your house, throwing stones at your window on a Thursday night, to try and fix something that was your mistake in the first place.

More Than One Member

Forbidden Fruit by @hoshiputa

Summary: “Who do you want to eat your pussy, princess?” “Why do I have to choose? Just let everyone eat.” You felt hands slipping inside your panties, and you just knew they weren't Jihoon's.

Game Over by @lovelyhan

Like We Just Met by @onlymingyus

More Than I Can Resist by @multi-kpop-fanfics

Summary: you love starting your day with your boyfriend and a freshly brewed cup of coffee. but your other boyfriend has a different idea of a perfect morning.

More Than I Can Handle by @multi-kpop-fanfics

Summary: the abundance of snow outside won't stop you and wonwoo from restocking your fridge. and it certainly won't stop seungcheol from getting what he wants from his girlfriend and boyfriend - their undivided attention.

[isabella-kr]

Chapter six: Soldiers

This story will include mature themes, please only read if you are 18 years old or over.

If you are underage, you can read the Wattpad version instead as it will include no smut.

This is a work of fiction and does not represent the real Army.

Synopsis: Just as she begins to lose all hope in the future, things finally begin to go her way. 

Pairing: John Price x Female!Reader

Warnings: Swearing, injuries, mention of imprisonment, I don’t think anything else needs a warning, but if you think otherwise let me know!!

Word count: 3.5k

Notes: You’re all going to love the next chapter! Might even still be published this week ‘cause I’m so excited to finish writing it! We’re also going to finally meet Gaz in chapter 8, yay!!!

Series Masterlist  I  COD:MWII Masterlist

Previous Chapter I  Next Chapter

“She attacked me!” The irritating voice of Dan Morris echoed throughout the room like an ear-piercing screech.  

The blue curtain was pulled around the bed No-Face was sat on, preventing her from staring daggers at the other ‘wounded’ soldier as Laura worked on the injuries that littered her body. She was especially gentle with her face, where her lip had split after an especially harsh punch from the man. The swollen lip was the least of her worries, however, as it was her nose that was causing the most pain despite the numbing agent that was placed around the area. Her left nostril was filled up with a white pack, which Laura was quick to insert after realigning the broken bone, and the outside was covered with a white dressing which added extra support to keep the bone in place.  

She was lucky, as Laura had told her before. The punches against her stomach and ribcage did no internal damage, but the bruises which now decorated her skin were sure to stay for at least a couple of weeks. She had not personally seen them, nor the ones on her face, but judging by the sympathetic look Laura sent her every couple of seconds, she did not look great.  

Her suspicions were only confirmed when the curtain was pulled open and she was greeted with a concerned face she did not expect to see for at least another week or two. The lack of a beanie, or a bucket hat, was mildly eerie when he first came into view, the sight of his hair taking her by surprise.  

So it’s not baldness he’s trying to hide.

Sharing a swift nod with Laura, the nurse left the small area, the sound of her gentle shoes growing fainter with every step she took. The warmth that always surrounded her was immediately missed, as a tense atmosphere enveloped both her and the captain.  

He crossed his arms over his chest, “You gonna tell me what happened?”  

“Are you not supposed to be on leave, sir?” she asked, looking down at her fingers.  

“I was,” he confirmed, “But I got called in as soon as you two muppets ended up in here. So, I’ll ask again – and bear in mind I’m pissed after having to drive here for two hours – what the fuck happened?”

She refused to look his way, and then shrugged.  

Price let out a sharp exhale, his eyes clenching shut for a long moment before he pulled up a chair and sat right in front of her. “Morris told me you attacked him,” he told her, his gruff voice lower in volume than it had been a few seconds earlier, “Did you?”  

Would he even believe her if she told him the truth?  

Would he believe that one of his best snipers was brainless enough to attack her on base?  

Maybe his mind was already made up, and this was just procedure.  

She was about to get kicked out. Sent back to that glorified prison of a house and forced to rot in there for the rest of her useless life.  

Her voice was quiet when she replied, “I don’t know.”  

“’I don’t know’ isn’t going to cut it here. I need to know what happened.” He turned quiet as he waited for a response, but when she said nothing, instead deciding to remain silent, he decided to continue, “Did he attack you?”  

Silence. And then, a nod.  

“Alright,” he straightened his back, looking to the side before focusing on her face. She looked as though she was far away, lost in her own thoughts. She was biting on the inside of her cheek, and her eyes seemed to be blank – numb. “No-Face,” he whispered, but she still refused to look his way, “I believe you.”  

That caught her attention. Hesitantly, she turned to look at him, “You do?”  

“Yeah,” he wet his lips, “I think... if you were the one who attacked him, he would’ve come out with much more than a few scratches on his arm. That why you didn’t fight back?”  

Her bloodshot and bruised eyes looked painful, and he could almost see the dryness that coated them due to lack of sleep. The exhaustion on her face was clear as she spoke, “I thought, uh... I thought that if I didn’t fight back, it would be less believable that I started it.”  

“I hate to say it, but that was a good choice that you made,” he looked as serious, and perhaps even more so, than how he was on missions.

She let out a soft hum, “It doesn’t matter, though, does it?”  

His brows knit together in the middle, “What d’you mean?”  

“His uncle’s a General,” she said, “It doesn’t matter who attacked who. I’m the one who’s going to get punished for it.”  

He turned quiet, his own eyes drifting away from hers to glance down at the floor. He hummed softly, lost in his own thoughts as he contemplated the next steps they should take.  

“He, um,” she spoke again, catching his attention, “He said his uncle showed him videos of me, back when I was first captured.”  

“He did?”  

She nodded weakly, clearing her throat just as the curtain was pushed to the side. With a proud grin, Thomas handed the captain a laptop with a thumb drive with already slotted in. Price was quick to take the pc from the sergeant’s hands, “You got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Southwick answered with a nod, “What now?”  

“Now...” the captain stood up with a huff, “We are going to speak with General Morris. Can you walk?”  

She didn’t answer the question, instead opting to just push herself up onto her feet. Her head proved dizzy at first, the world swirling around her uncomfortably, but she managed to keep herself up. Her arm immediately wrapped around her ribcage as a stabbing pain prodded at her lungs.  

“I’ll be fine,” she told the two men, who shared a sceptical look.  

Despite the disbelief in his eyes, Price nodded, and pulled the curtain further apart to let her through. Thomas was by her side in an instant, hands at the ready to catch her if need be. The captain chose to walk in front of them, his footsteps slow as he made sure the two weren’t too far behind.  

Every step was agony. He muscles burned, and the bruising on her stomach caused a wave of pain throughout her body with every little movement. It was almost unbearable.  

But she prevailed.

Her shuffling feet didn’t stop her from reaching the closed door of the General’s office, but she flinched, not from pain, but rather shock as the captain’s fist banged loudly against the wooden door. The anger on his face was almost transparent, and she could have sworn she had never seen this amount of rage on his face before. Not when they almost failed a mission. Not when a hostile spat on his shiny boots. And, strangely, not even the year prior, when No-Face was placed under his supervision.  

He was pissed, and honestly, she was afraid for the old General.  

There was a loud sigh coming from inside the room, before a deep and exasperated voice invited them in.  

Price was the last to walk through the door, but he was the first to push it wide open. Thomas had placed a comforting hand against her shoulder and gently guided her inside, where he placed her on the only free chair available.  

“What is this?” The General questioned as the door was slammed closed.  

The door opened again, and with a stoic expression, Dan Morris entered the room.  

Fuck.  

“Perfect timing,” Price commented as the sergeant moved to stand beside him, “Your nephew almost beat her to death.”  

“Let's not overexaggerate,” the general defended, “She doesn’t look dead to me – not any worse than what she’s looked like after you’ve returned from one of your bloody missions.”  

John’s eye almost twitched, “This is a very different situation.”  

“Is it?” The old man raised a taunting brow, “All I see is a hostile and a hurt soldier.”  

“She did attack me,” Dan spoke. He looked uncomfortable by the captain’s side, perhaps because you could practically feel the irritation flowing off his body. He wasted no time moving away to stand beside his uncle, where a smile formed on his thin lips.  

“Oh, fuck off, she didn’t even touch you!” Thomas spat.  

“Sergeant!” John silenced him with a shake of his head, “Look at them, Morris. Even you don’t believe that.”  

There was a pregnant pause. The general looked her up and down, his mouth falling into a frown at the sight of the many bruises, the split lip, and her swollen, broken nose. He almost looked sympathetic, but then he smiled.  

“Why wouldn’t I?” He shrugged, leaning back on his chair, “My nephew’s word against an Assassin’s.”

Thomas tensed beside her, and when he turned to look at her with a questioning gaze, she looked the other way.

Shame. 

Guilt.  

“She’s not an Assassin, hasn’t been for the past decade,” Price pointed out, his voice low, “What matters now is that your nephew injured a fellow soldier – a squad mate.”  

“Does that rule even apply to her-”

“Dan.” The general warned.

“No!” He defended, “She’s not even a soldier!”

The general thought over his nephew’s words, and then confirmed with a nod, “He’s right. She’s not a soldier; she’s not employed, she has no citizenship, and she doesn’t even have a fucking rank!”

“Well, I think it’s time she’s given one,” John took a threatening step forward, “Saved your nephew’s arse on more than one occasion, so how about you start treating her like a fuckin’ person.”  

“Funny you’re the one saying that, Price,” He stood up with a slam of his hands against the desk, “Are you forgetting how you treated her before she saved your arse?”  

“She’s proved her loyalty.” Was the captain’s answer, “She deserves fair treatment, and that includes punishing him for what he did.”  

“Isn’t that free labour?” Thomas’ voice cut them both off.

The general’s eyes narrowed, “What?”  

“Do you pay her?” he asked seriously, “She’s been here almost a year.”  

“How dare you, sergeant, that accusation-“

“Is true,” Price piped in, his arms crossed over his chest, “They pay her, but she’s got no access to the funds.”  

“Isn’t that illegal?” Thomas tilted his head to the side, the calmness in his tone causing a shiver to run down the general’s spine. “Besides, if it’s employment, citizenship and rank that’s the issue… why not give it to her?”

A proud smile formed on John’s lips.  

“I mean, wasn’t Morris about to be promoted?” Thomas raised a questioning brow, “Why not give that promotion to her instead?”  

“That’s a ridiculous offer,” the man spat, “I’m not making her a fucking Lieutenant.”  

“Why not? Everyone already thinks she’s a sergeant. And with how well our missions have been going, a promotion wouldn’t come as a surprise.”  

“Except it wouldn’t be a promotion, sergeant,” the general grit his teeth, “There is no promotion to be given because she is not employed! She will be given a rank – of a private – when she proves her loyalty.”

“She has proven her loyalty time and time again,” Price’s gruff voice echoed in the small room, but he remained calm, “Your nephew wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t.”  

“Also, sir,” Thomas cleared his throat, “Respectfully, I don’t think you’re in the position to refuse here.”  

The old man scowled, “Excuse me?”  

Thomas and captain Price shared a look, and then John opened up the laptop and angled it so they could both see the video that was now playing on the screen.  

Even No-Face’s eyes widened. It was her and Dan, inside the ring with the man abusing her whilst she did nothing to defend herself. It looked brutal, and if she hadn’t been the one to live through it, she would have winced at every punch and kick thrown around.  

“I think this is enough to have your nephew Suspended,” the captain commented.

Thomas then approached the captain, and with a click of the button, the audio of the recording was turned on. The groans of pain were not pleasant to listen to, and even the General winced when a punch to the face sent her tired body backwards.

But then, Dan’s voice shook the old man to the core, “My uncle showed me tapes of you. Right after they captured you; when they believed the only way to get intel out of you was through, well… beating the shit out of you. God-“

The recording was paused, and the Captain passed the laptop over to Thomas, who took it with a confident smile. The General, on the other hand, was less than happy. The wrinkles on his face turned harsher as he clenched his jaw, his brows furrowing in the middle as a heavy scowl formed on his enraged face.  

“You idiot-“

Dan took a step back, “I didn’t know there were cameras in there-“

“It doesn’t matter if there’s cameras or not!” He spoke through gritted teeth, “You don’t go around telling people shite like that!”  

“I-“

“General,” The captain spoke again, “You showed confidential documents to unauthorised personnel.”  

The old man looked between John and Thomas, his eyes showing nothing but hostility as he glared at them, “And what do you plan on doing with that information, Captain?”

“That depends solely on you, General.”  

“Dan, leave,” The General told his nephew, who looked at him with disbelief in his eyes. He was shocked. Confused. And perhaps even afraid.  

Nevertheless, he left the room. The door slammed behind him, and once his footsteps grew faint enough to assure them he would not hear the conversation, the General resumed.

“What do you want me to do? He’s my nephew for fucks sake,” he sat back down in his chair and rubbed his hand over his face.  

John didn’t look sympathetic. Not at all. “Punish him as you would have anyone else,” he simply told him, “And he’s no longer on my squad.”  

“Fine,” the General said, clearly eager to get this over with, “Anything else?”

“You’re kidding,” Thomas spoke up, “The rank.”

“Watch your tone,” General Morris held up an accusatory finger, “Southwick, it’s your lucky day. You’re getting promoted. Now-“

“No,” the sergeant spat, “I refuse.”

“You’re refusing a promotion?” He almost laughed.

Thomas didn’t find amusement in his words, “I am. She’s saved me numerous times and deserves it more than me.”

“Thomas-“ she attempted to speak.

“You do,” he told her.

The General shook his head with a sigh, “Do you even know what she’s done?”

“I don’t need to,” he retorted, “The captain said it was a decade ago. She was, what, 19? 20? Look, I don’t care what she’s done back then, what I care about is what she’s done since she got here. She deserves fair treatment and respect, even from you.”  

“No.”

“I have a copy.”  

“Southwick,” John suddenly warned.  

He didn’t listen, “Of the tape. I’ve got a copy.”  

“Are you threatening me, Sergeant?” Morris grumbled angrily.  

Thomas shrugged, “Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on what you decide to do.”  

“Get out of my office,” He raised his voice, “both of you!”  

With a blank stare, Thomas helped the wounded soldier stand back to her feet, and then shared one last glance with the captain before making his way out the room with No-Face by his side.

The corridor felt colder than it did before when they stepped into it. Perhaps it was the tension that still kept their bodies stiff, or rather that the sun was now fully gone from view, with rain pouring against the thin windows.  

“Why would you do that?” She eventually asked, concern lacing her tone, “You could get discharged.”  

He shrugged dismissively, “If I do, at least I won’t have to look at his ugly mug again.”

A small laugh left her lips at his words, “Thomas, seriously-”

“Don’t worry about it.” He told her, pressing a gentle hand on her upper back, “Honestly. If I get discharged for defending you-”

“You weren’t defending me, Thomas,” she let out a soft breath, “You were threatening to expose a superior.”  

“Same thing,” he shrugged, “Honestly, though, don’t worry about it.”  

“Why? ‘Cause you made a copy, and you’ll expose him if he doesn’t do as you ask?”  

He sucked in a harsh breath, “I haven’t actually made any copies,” he revealed, “I just wanted to scare him.”  

The dispirited look on her face was enough for him to know she did not approve of his ways, so he remained silent.  

She wasn’t angry.

She wasn’t sad.

Hell, at this point she didn’t even care about how this would affect her.  

She was concerned of what would happen if none of this went his way. Her only hope now was that the captain would somehow soothe over the situation. She couldn’t have him losing his job because of her.  

“How did you even get the tape?” she had to ask.  

He grinned, “Magic.” She sent him a look, “Seriously, I’m a wizard.”  

“I hope you know that all I’m gonna be calling you now,” she let him know with a smile of her own.  

“What, no-”

“Or better yet, wiz. Yeah, everyone needs a stupid nickname. That one’s yours.” 

He groaned in despair. “Fuck. Guess it’s better than Soap.”  

“Who the hell is nicknamed Soap?”

         Barely a couple of days had passed before she was called into Price’s office. The days felt longer; tense. She always had a nagging feeling at the back of her head telling her something was going go wrong. She half-expected Thomas to be escorted off base - dishonourably discharged - but that moment never came. Instead, the only person to disappear was Dan Morris, whom she hadn’t seen ever since that evening.  

She hoped it stayed that way.  

On a Saturday afternoon, she was approached by captain Price himself, who led her to his office with a comforting smile pulling at the corners of his lips.  

When she sat down in the comfortable office chair, a cup of tea was already waiting for her. She couldn’t help but smile at the gesture, her hands eagerly reaching for the cup to take a small sip of the hot beverage.  

“How you feeling?” was the first question he asked when he sat down.  

“Better,” she assured him, “Don’t think I look it, though.”  

He chuckled, “Well, I’m not here to judge, I’m here to give you this.”  

With a hum, he pulled out two metal chains and placed them in front of her. The metal felt cool against her hand when she picked one up to examine it. Her eyes almost jumped out of her sockets when she realised what she was holding; an ID tag, with all the necessary information needed in case a mission was to go wrong.  

“You wear one around your neck,” he spoke, pulling out his own from under his shirt to show her, “The other you keep safe.”  

“Yes, sir,” she answered, “Does this mean...”  

“You’re officially a soldier.” He said with a joyful smile. The type of smile that caused his eyes to crinkle in the corners – it was a pleasant sight. “That not all, however.”  

“Oh?”

“Here,” he pushed a pile of paperwork in front of her, along with a small card she had never seen before. On the document, ‘CITIZENSHIP’ was written in capital, bold letters.  

She felt her heart skip a beat.  

“That’s a card for your bank,” He told her, causing her ears to perk up, “Guess the threats worked. You’re still not supposed to leave the base without supervision, so it’s a bit useless, but-”  

“Thank you,” she cut him off, “This is more than enough.”  

“You should honestly be thanking Southwick,” He laughed, opening a drawer to pull something out, “Didn’t think the old bastard would actually give you the rank.”

Her words got caught in her throat when he placed the patch in front of her. ‘LT.' was staring back at her, and the shock of it all – the overwhelming feeling of happiness – stopped her from reacting in any sort of way.  

She was frozen.  

Unsure what to say, or do.  

“Gotta sew it on,” the captain added, breaking the silence.  

She only nodded, picking the rough patch up and admiring it as though it was made of gold. In her eyes, it might have as well been. Perhaps, to her, it was more valuable than any gems money could buy. This was all she’s dreamed of for the many months she’s been on base.

Acceptance.  

Trust.

A sense of belonging.  

She didn’t even notice her eyes filling with tears before a lone tear began to roll down her heated cheek. She quickly wiped it off with her fingers, and she wasn’t sure whether John noticed the stray tear, but if he did, he did not say a word.

She was happy, but then, she finally read the whole patch, ‘LT. DOE.” 

“Doe?”

“Guess it’s Morris’ form of payback.” he explained, “They had to give you an actual name for the documents and chose the laziest one. Jane Doe; used as a placeholder name for unidentified persons.” 

She hummed, “Better than three-two-six.” 

A silent pause settled between them. And then-

“I guess congratulations are in order,” he chuckled in an effort to make her smile. 

He achieved his goal. Her lips were pulled into a smile full of glee as she nodded, locking her eyes with his blue ones.  

“Welcome to the Task Force... officially this time.”  

Tag List: @jxvipike @smoggyfogbottom @stressyanddepressyfoodservice @boniscute @ohgodthebogisback @konigbabe @tapioca-marzipan @randomchick546 @jaimiespn @no-one-anon @urfavsunkissedleo @kyuupidwrites @the-sky-writes @urminebutidontwantyou @copiasratscheese @duskwo0d @bowserowser @ilovemoneyandcheese @boxofgasoline @freyjasfenrir @jimmorrison13

[saltydumplings]

hello saltydumpling bae i would like to request a villain x henchman that can put you in horny jail again 🙏

Of course, bae <3

Request #23

Cw: AGGRESSIVE SPICE, SLICE OF FLUFF, SPIIIICCEE

Wrong. It was all going wrong - horribly, stupidly wrong.

The villain let out a groan of frustration as they tore the paper in front of them in two, flinging the scraps off to the side and fetching a blank one as they prepared to start over. This would be their seventh attempt now. It was slowly driving them insane - the supervillain couldn't have possibly given them a harder task if they tried. Breaking into a building of heroes was one thing, but stealing something from its very core and getting out alive was simply impossible: a work of fiction, pure fantasy, the supervillain had to be delusional to think they could pull this off.

If only their superior took no as an answer. The villain would have gladly robbed the bank for them - if the supervillain wanted a fancy weapon then why not just buy one themself?

The villain glared down at the page before them impatiently, willing the plan to manifest itself...It didn't.

They dropped their pen down to the side and hid their face in their hands, the temptation to scream running through their mind more than once - they didn't have time for this! They had problems of their own to deal with: internal vaccancies to fill, documents to sign off on, orders that needed placing for things that should have been delivered last week. Three days ago a hero had thrown a car - a car - through the wall of their HR department. There was so much the villain needed to do - so much that should have been done already - and yet here they were, spending over ten hours of their precious time planning a heist for the supervillain on a budget they couldn't even afford. They didn't have the materials for any of this!

Gods, the villain wished it would all just go away. Why did they have to be the one in charge? It was just too much - they were tired. Why couldn't someone just tell them what to do? It would all be so much easier that way: the villain didn't want to think, they just wanted to--

Three steady knocks sounded from the door to their office.

The villain peered out at it through their fingers, dread pooling in their gut at the notion of another mess in need of fixing. For a second they contemplated sending them away before thinking better on it and instead sitting up straight, taking their pen back into hand and jotting down some vague note upon the paper before them as they ordered the person to come in. The henchman entered the office quietly, closing the door with a soft click. The villain could sense the other studying them from across the room before they approached the desk, standing silently as they waited to be addressed.

"What is it?" the villain snapped.

A pause.

Before them, the henchman frowned, eyes narrowed as they took in the mess of torn papers that littered the floor. "You've been working on that all day..."

"So what?" The villain wrote down something else - nothing particularly useful but at least it made it look like they were making progess.

The henchman continued to stare. "It's getting late. I know you didn't get much sleep last night--"

"Henchman, if I wanted someone to mother me I'd have hired a nanny," the villain said sharply. "It is not you're place to--"

The other reached across and grabbed them firmly by the wrist, a stark line getting drawn down the page as the villain flinched back in shock.

"If I were mothering you," the henchman began, "then I would tell you to stop nicely. But something tells me you might need a little more persuasion than that, am I right?"

The villain swallowed, eyes wide and cheeks tinted pink at the other's brashness. They forced themself to turn away, wrenching their hand free from the henchman's hold. "It's none of your concern."

"It is every bit my concern."

"I'm fine," the villain growled, fixing their subordinate with a stare that could have chased away the devil. "Get out. I have work to do."

With that they turned their gaze back down to the paper before them, eyes twitching slightly at the messy scribble down its centre. They huffed and tore it apart, letting the shreds fall down to their feet as they took out another clean sheet before them, tapping the pen idly against the desk as they waited for the henchman to leave. But they didn't. A minute passed and the other never moved an inch, the villain forced to look back up at them once more.

"Get. Out," they repeated.

The henchman frowned. "No."

The villain's brows drew downward, their patience quickly growing thin. "You don't get to say no: that was an order. Now get out before-- what are you doing?"

The other had started making their way around the desk, heading right for them. The villain dropped their pen and rolled their chair back - fists clenched at their sides as they came to stand.

"I said get out! What part of that do you not understan--mmph!"

The henchman pushed them back down and put a hand over their mouth, the villain's eyes going wide once more as another hand caught in their hair and tugged back - their mind blanking out for a moment at the sudden spark of pain that shot through them. They shuddered, their own hands fumbling to pry the henchman's palm from their mouth but to little avail. They only struggled for a few more seconds before giving in, letting their hands simply rest upon the other's arm as they came to relax in their hold.

"Finished?" the henchman asked.

The villain simply glared.

"Good," they said, removing their hand from the villain's mouth and instead letting it press gently against the villain's neck, enjoying the blush the action brought to the other's cheeks. "Now, are you going to behave nicely? Or am I going to have to drag you away from this desk?"

The villain's mouth opened and closed, eyes glancing to their work and then back again. "I don't have time," they said.

"You need a break. You'll get nowhere in this state."

"You don't know that--"

The henchman pulled back on the villain's hair, the other cutting themself off with a small whine.

"Yes," the henchman said. "Yes, I do. You need to stop."

The villain scoffed. "Make me."

A beat.

The henchman's hand tightened around their neck, the villain letting out a soft gasp at the warning.

"You think I wouldn't?"

"No," the villain said with a slight smile, one hand stroking gently across the henchman's arm. "I know you would: that's why I'm asking."

The henchman's gaze softened a little at that. They leant down, pressing a small kiss against the villain's temple and then another upon their cheek. "What would you do without me?" they asked lowly.

To that the villain chuckled, attempting to lean up and kiss the other's lips. "Probably work myself into an early grave."

The henchman didn't find it funny. They held the other back, eyes filled with concern. "You're too hard on yourself," they said.

The villain's smile faded. "I know..."

"Then why do you do it?"

"Because if I don't then I could lose this," the villain said, their hand moving up to caress the henchman's cheek. "I could lose you."

The henchman shut their eyes, a sigh passing through their lips as they leaned into the villain's touch. "You will never lose me," they assured.

"Promise?"

Their eyes locked with the villain's. "I promise," they said softly, finally letting the other have that kiss they were so desperate for. Their lips met with a gentle passion, the touches between them soft until the henchman pulled back on the villain's hair once again, revelling in the small moan they stole from them. "Besides," their teeth scraped down the villain's jaw, the other practically trembling in their anticipation, "if I wasn't here to fuck you stupid you'd think too much, and that would be a problem for all of us."

They suddenly pulled the villain up and bent them over the desk, uncaring for any of the items that were lost to the floor as they grabbed hold of the villain's waist, pinning them down.

The villain shot a look back at them, brows raising slightly at the comment. "Are you saying that our sex life is the only thing stopping me from blowing up the city?"

The henchman grinned back at them.

"Yes," they said, nudging the villain's legs wider.

"...Huh."

The villain thought about that for all of a second until they felt the henchman undoing their belt, hands quickly stripping them of the few layers of fabric that lay between them.

They were probably right - the villain likely would have burnt this place to the ground by now. Fortunately for the city, the majority of their scarce freetime was spent on their knees, at their henchman's disposal, and not alone in their office plotting mass destruction.

[sparklyslug]

hi! if you are still looking for prompts, steve/eddie, one of them cooking or otherwise preparing food for the other one. if you are not still looking for prompts, totally ok! either way, hope things are looking up for you.

Ask Steve a year ago what his favorite food was, he’d probably struggle with the question a little, internally. Say something simple like, a burger. Steak. Pizza. Just because he knows that’s like, what foods people like. Those are the Favorite Food Groups. And he likes them too, likes them plenty. Has just felt kind of food-neutral, honestly, for most of his life. He’s eaten fancy catering at his parents lavish dinner parties, buckets of KFC at modest kitchen tables, and his own simple chicken and broccoli standing up at the counter alone at the house. And felt kind of the same about all of it. Food was food, generally. Favorite didn’t really make sense, as a concept to apply to it. 

That was then, though. He gets it. He has a favorite food now. 

Eddie has tied his hair back with one of his banadas, shoulders on display and almost irresistible in one of the cutoff tanks he likes in the summer, this one an old Hawkins Basketball shirt of Steve’s that also has a hole right over the nipple (why he had initially stopped wearing it, and why Eddie had quickly claimed it before lopping the arms and a good four inches off the bottom of it, because he thinks shit like that is hilarious). The whole look is pretty well calculated to drive Steve out of his mind, a goal Eddie had made short work of just about an hour ago. 

He’d finally pulled himself up off Steve’s chest, face red and glowing, and shook his hair out of his eyes before saying “shit, I could eat. Grilled cheese sound good?”

It did sound good. Sounded fantastic. Sounded like Steve’s favorite food, is what it sounded like. 

So shirt’s back on and hair’s tied back, but Steve is keeping his hands to himself, just sitting back and watching Eddie at work. Head mercifully clear and nicely floaty, body feeling heavy and warm and right, and yeah, definitely ready for some food. 

He’s watched Eddie make his grilled cheese a hundred times or whatever, and he doesn’t get how it turns out so fucking good. It’s not a complicated process. Getting the pan warmed up, buttering both sides of a couple of creamy-white slices of bread. Four slices of plastic-wrapped cheese per sandwich, always, Eddie carefully tearing some of them in half to create even layers, not too much cheese stacked in the middle or at the ends. 

The butter smells amazing at the bottom of the pan. Smells fantastic when the bread hits it with a little pop, a tiny sizzle. 

Eddie’s gorgeous doe eyes are narrowed in concentration as he works, pressing the flat of a spatula down on the top of each sandwich. This is the stage at which Steve is least likely to catch an elbow, while Eddie is just watching the pan and waiting for the universe or some kitchen god to send him a signal that it’s time for the Almighty Flip. 

“Got a gig tomorrow, mmm?” Steve asks, sliding his arms around Eddie’s waist, and tucking his chin over one shoulder. 

“Eddie Munson, unplugged,” Eddie confirms. “Jesus I really have to try and find a band soon.”

“I’ll keep looking in the papers,” Steve promises, with a grin. 

“Send me on another synth-pop goose chase and I will absolutely shave you bald in your sleep,” Eddie swears, brandishing the spatula into the empty space in front of him, since he can’t reach Steve to swat him with it. Small victories. 

“Never again, I promise,” Steve lies. “Think that one’s ready.”

“It’s not,” Eddie says. “I’m nervous about playing acoustic, man.”

Steve knows he is, he’s been jittery about it ever since he confirmed with the organizer that he’d be playing the open mic. “You’ll kill it,” Steve says. Squeezes him a little tighter, enjoying Eddie’s little bitchy oof of protest. “You don’t need an amp to blow the roof off the place.”

Eddie ducks his head a little, shy and pleased. Steve presses his lips against the top notch of his spine, nosing Eddie’s hair out of the way to get to skin. 

Enjoys the way Eddie shivers a little, the skin at the back of his neck maybe extra sensitive because of how it’s covered all the time. It’s a theory Steve is happy to keep exploring for a good, long while. 

“Okay,” Eddie says, softly. “Now this one is ready.”

Steve peers over his shoulder. “I have no idea how you can tell that.”

Eddie shrugs, and Steve knows his face has got to be fucking smug as hell without even being able to fully see it. “What can I say,” he says. “I’m a man of many talents.”

Well, that’s just a fact, and Steve starts listing them in an undertone directly into Eddie’s ear, until Eddie is shifting a little in his arms, and laughing, and elbowing him out of the way just when Steve feels his breath catch, the shift in his hips– “sit the fuck down, you animal,” Eddie says, twisting enough to sink a hand in Steve’s hair and reel him in for a quick, sweet kiss. “Food first, seduction later.”

“You’re too good to me,” Steve says. It doesn’t… ah, fuck. It doesn’t come out even remotely like a joke. 

Eddie though, Eddie’s eyes just go soft. His full, gorgeous lips twist into a small smile. “Feeling’s mutual, sweetheart. Now. Plates and napkins, please.”

Steve obeys, though they don’t even really need them– Eddie slices the finished sandwiches into neat triangles on the cutting board, and hands one right off to Steve, still loitering and half-draped over him. The cheese is perfectly melted and gooey in the middle, the bread crisped just right and saturated with golden melted butter. The noise he makes at the first bite is genuine bliss, eyes closing to savor the taste. When he opens them again, Eddie’s holding the other half of the sandwich in his hands, eyes on Steve, mouth a little open like he’d lost track of what they were doing here. 

The noise Steve makes at the second bite, okay, that’s for show. And Eddie knows it, kicking a bare foot at his shin with a laugh. 

They polish off the sandwiches in no time at all. You want to savor something that perfect, Steve thinks, but it’s hard to take it slow when you know how good every bite will be. And when you know there’s a bed waiting for you at the end of it, a bed with Eddie Munson in it, and a whole afternoon stretched blissfully ahead of you both. 

Yeah. Favorite food. Grilled Cheese By Eddie Munson. No question.

[artemisbarnowl]

What is life like in Melbourne? I’m looking into moving there from the UK and would love some insights and whatever else from people who live and work there 💕

I've only visited the UK briefly as a tourist so I'm not sure how to compare them in a way that's going to give you useful info. But I'll give you info at least. Please sit comfortably and we'll begin.

Melbourne has 5 million people in it, but is also quite a large sprawling urban area, so it doesn't feel really packed and busy. It sits on a bay, so it doesn't get freezing but does have the '4 seasons in one day' jokes which are true. I never really got in the habit of checking the weather in the morn before I left for work until I moved away from melb where the forecast was such that I could dress appropriately without surprise.

When I talk about what I love about Melbourne I mean inner suburbs and CBD (which is a beautiful grid and shining example of urban planning for the now that is weighed down by no plans for the future). Public transport connectivity is decent (comparable to London imo) but wait times, delays, and travel times on trams and buses might be relatively crap depending on your experience. It's no Moscow metro (my beloved), but you can probably get to where you're going somehow. Also e scooters have popped off. Further out there's no trams and there's more big gaps between train stations (the train lines are arranged like spokes of a wheel around a central city circle. There will be another city loop slightly overlapping the current one in service next year). This is what I despairingly call The Suburbs. Where you probably need a car to get around and it's like at least 20 mins drive to Anywhere for dinner, groceries or fun activities. Mostly Melbourne is not overly hilly so bikes are an option but infrastructure such as bike lanes is really hit or miss depending on area. Especially good in the inner north. Melb inner suburbs are very walkable and I love love love that. I lived in the inner north and could walk into the CBD to do whatever.

In terms of culture things I think Melbourne is the most international of Aus's capitals in that it has a lot of different people but also that there's a lot open late. Sydney probably can and will make the same claim. But that's it. The rest of Aus is a country town. Major shops will probably close 5.30 or six mon to wed but there's plenty of stuff that's open later. You can always find a bar* or 8. There's plenty of different cuisines in gourmet or fast food dining. There's a cafe in the CBD that's open 24 hours where I can sit outside and have a pot of green tea WHENEVER I WANT. Bookstores open til 10pm. There are lots of events throughout the year and lots of cultural institutions to visit on a whim for free! Some are paid also obvi but I find it difficult to be bored when I can go to the museum to see taxidermy or the NGV for art for free whenever. I am a zoo member which means I get to hang out in a beautiful park/garden which creatures for free whenever I want. Again as you go out further this becomes less true. Fringe cities at the ends of train lines are likely to have what you need to live but less fun activities less often. Not nothing though!

Melbournians really do love wearing black. Especially in winter. They also love strategic Grey. I thought people were exaggerating until I left. A head to toe black outfit is uncommon enough to be remarkable where I live now. Even in a regular boring office where people wear very muted colours I'm the only one who does it. There is no functional difference between the a mourning outfit and one of a Melbournian. it's common wear sneakers with a lot of seemingly formal or corporate outfits, but not thongs with jeans. That's some weird Sydney nonsense.

Being around the bay there's plenty of places to swim in summer! Most of the bay is bordered by beach, most famous and reachable from the city is St Kilda beach. Which is excellent and beyond reproach if you're not Australian and 'fine' if you are. Traveling down towards Mornington Peninsula they get better. 5km makes a difference to the grain of the sand. Some are more fine, can get more coarse and shelly as well. Never stony. Only a little bit of seaweed here and there.

There are parks in the heart of the city (nothing huge like Hyde though) and little wildlife corridors or reserves in most suburbs but it's not an especially Nature city. It's only one hour by train and bus or by car to the Dandenongs (a low mountain range, not to be confused with hugely underated immigrant suburb of Dandenong in melb) though which have cool temperate rainforest national park, lots of gardens (huuuuuge rhododendron garden up there), little b&bs, english style cafes (miss Marples in Olinda is the most famous) and lots of walking and biking. I say one hour but Melbourne as an area reaches right to the base of the range, which is why you can get a bus from the shops. There are national parks that are native woodland or grasslands closer to the heart of the city but these are less special to me because that's the standard nature I see every day of my life. There's a pink lake in south melb which is fun. But I love tree ferns and fresh damp dirt and the tallest flowering trees in the world!!

If you have more specific Q's feel free to ask. I am a city gal at heart but did live rurally originally and frequently do short stays (2 weeks to a month) in rural or remote areas so I am used to comparing amenities and connectivity.

*Melbourne has regular bars but also is very big on rooftop bars. Sydney has some, but other cities hear rooftop bar and think 'bar inside but with views or on top floor of building. Probably formal'. Melbourne roof top bars are on the roof. In the open air (maybe some shade sail) and it's very much a casual thing. Jugs of beer or sangria, chips, feels like a good barbeque rather than a refined cocktail bar. Those are often in basements.

[sea-salted-wolverine]

Do you have a favorite Aleutian/Alaskan volcano?

oooh! This is a good question with a long convoluted answer!

So I grew up in Anchorage which has frankly a ridiculous level of volcanic activity in the neighborhood. There are 4 active volcanos that are close enough to cause issues with the airport which is a big deal since its one of the largest cargo hubs in the world. They are Iliamna, Augustine, Redoubt and another one I can not call to mind at the moment but will remember in a few hours and it will drive me nuts until then. They all went off at least once while I was a kid living down in town and ranged from cool looking gas plumes on the horizon to shutting down the city. So those are my childhood friends who will always have a soft spot, but my favorite Aleutian volcano is a tie between Shishaldin where my brother works in the summers and Bogoslof which was a monitored volcano until one day all the monitors went offline simultaneously because the volcano vaporized the entire island.

Also on the list is Fourpeaks which is an honorary position because its technically an extinct volcano that no one even realized was a volcano until it went off. It is also directly under the landing path of Ted Steven's International which is a very bad place for a mountain to suddenly start offgassing. But it was a very funny moment because everyone from the mayor to the federal government was suddenly asking geology questions that had bad answers and then the mountain stopped doing anything and hasn't done anything since, though it is super monitored now. There are 53 known volcanos in AK and only 26 of them are monitored (as of last time I checked) and most of them are directly under multi billion dollar international air cargo shipping lanes.

[mariacallous]

Accused of working with the Russian security service, Latvian MEP Tatyana Ždanoka mockingly donned sunglasses at a press conference – as if in a spy movie. The accusations won’t be laughed off that easily: Re:Baltica has obtained almost 19,000 of Ždanoka’s e-mails detailing how she served the Kremlin.

It’s been just over 10 years since the early February days when Kyiv’s central square, the Maidan, swarmed with thousands of protesters. Since that previous November, Ukrainians had been urging pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych to strengthen cooperation with Europe. The protests came to a head at the same time as the self-proclaimed international movement “World Without Nazism” (WWN) arrived in the Ukrainian capital.

The WWN burst into public view at a massive table in the luxurious Government House, where Yanukovych gave his  account of what was happening on the Maidan. Guests at the table warned Ukrainians of the “threat of radicalization.” Among them, with dyed red hair, sunken eyes, and a perpetual smile that seemed more like a smirk, sat Latvia’s Tatyana Ždanoka. This performance was aimed at the audiences of pro-Russian Ukrainian and pro-Kremlin television channels. 

We at Re:Baltica are familiar with this traveling circus because we investigated it in our 2016 documentary “Masterplan.” The WWN cropped up in places where Russian propaganda about the alleged resurgence of fascism in Europe needed spreading. As a member of the European Parliament (EP), Ždanoka’s presence allowed the Kremlin-controlled media to say that Europe was worried about it, too.

What we did not know at the time was that immediately after the televised meeting Ždanoka corresponded with a person identified by our Russian partners at the independent outlet The Insider as an officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s largely domestic spy agency, which also has a mandate to operate in the post-Soviet space.

“Hello! Do you have any interesting observations after your trip to Kyiv?” wrote one Sergei Krasin to Ždanoka the day after she sat at the table with Yanukovych.

Only that particular Sergei’s surname is not Krasin, but Beltyukov, and he has been working for the FSB since at least 1993.

Ždanoka replied that her feelings were contradictory. Yanukovych is too cunning to read in just an hour and a half of conversation. But he seemed “quite calm, composed and confident. I thought he would be more lost,” wrote Ždanoka. “There is a feeling that he is ready to use force. (…) On the other hand, some observers assume that Yanukovych will sign the agreement with the EU very soon, getting the maximum benefit from all sides.”

Her prediction about Yanukovych’s potential use of force came true. With the Ukrainian president’s permission, special forces and snipers killed more than 100 civilians on the Maidan. When not even lethal violence proved capable of driving the protesters from the square, Yanukovych fled to Russia. Ultimately the agreement with the EU was signed by Ukraine’s new President, Petro Poroshenko, who was elected in May 2014 after parliament voted 328-0 to relieve the departed Yanukovych of his authority. 

At the end of the email Ždanoka sent from revolutionary Kyiv to FSB officer Sergei, she wrote that she had also walked around the Maidan. What happened there seemed to her to be “a mixture of drama, horror film, and comedy.”

Ždanoka corresponded with Beltyukov from 2013 until 2017, according to the almost 19,000 emails sent by Ždanoka that Re:Baltica obtained. And he was not her only FSB contact. Re:Baltica has already written about another – an old acquaintance of hers, Dmitry Gladey.

Ždanoka denies cooperating with the FSB. She answered questions sent to her on a live YouTube stream but said little about the substance of the queries. She calls the leaked emails fake and speculates that it is actually the author of this article who is, in fact, working for the Russian security services.

See you at the Shokoladnitsa

Ždanoka’s letters to Beltyukov are short. The tone is businesslike. Both largely used email to arrange meetings, preferring to discuss substantive issues in person. The FSB officer regularly congratulated Ždanoka on New Year’s and her birthday. When she arrived in St Petersburg, Beltyukov met her at the airport. He did not forget to flatter her.

In one letter, he praised Ždanoka for appearing on Kremlin TV channels: “What you are doing is very important in the current situation.” Ždanoka replied with formal gracefulness: “Thank you for your kind words.”

Ždanoka usually combined meetings in Moscow with television appearances, while Beltyukov came on business. One place they met was a café called “Shokoladnitsa” in the center of Moscow, near the FSB headquarters. Ždanoka seemed to feel at home in Moscow. In exchange for participating in propagandist Vladimir Solovyov’s television programs, she was given a car for the day, and an acquaintance booked an appointment for her at a hairdresser.

Ždanoka and her handler were visibly working to help one another. Ždanoka had information and could organize events that Beltyukov wanted to see take place. He, in turn, could help her with contacts — and money.

In one email, Ždanoka begins with an apology: “Sergei, I couldn’t get a reply. Tomorrow my assistant Andrey Tolmachov will contact by the phone number you gave me.”

Russia needs exhibitions in Brussels

The busiest period of exchanges between the MEP and the FSB officer came in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and started its conflict in the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region. These events would culminate in the full-scale Russian invasion almost a decade later.

In late summer 2014, Beltyukov asked whether Ždanoka “could organize an event on a European platform (for example, a photo exhibition) with documentary evidence of war crimes in south-eastern Ukraine. If you have such an idea, I am ready to join you.”

“Of course, Sergei, it is possible,” replied Ždanoka. “Thank you for your offer to help. But how can I find out more about your assistance?” The question seems to be about money.

At that time, Ždanoka was preparing to hold a hearing at the European Parliament on tragedy in Odesa. In May 2014, a building in which pro-Russian protestors had barricaded themselves caught fire as demonstrators from the pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian sides fought. As a result, 42 people were killed, and more than 200 injured. The event in Odesa is one of the central themes of Kremlin propaganda that calls Ukrainians fascists.

“The date is linked to the events in Odesa, but we will try to draw attention to current events in south-east Ukraine,” Ždanoka assured Beltyukov. 

She continued to organize events dedicated to the Odesa tragedy for several years afterwards.

At the end of 2014, Beltyukov wrote, “You may soon be contacted by D.G. There is an opportunity to apply for a grant offered through St Petersburg State University. At first glance, the idea seems interesting.”

Ždanoka replied that D.G. has already called her and added, “I look forward to meeting our mutual acquaintance in Riga.”

Protest provocations in Riga

D.G. is most likely Dmitry Gladey. Ždanoka previously told Re:Baltica that he is an old friend with whom she took skiing lessons in the Caucasus in the 1970s back when they were students. They continued to meet in St Petersburg, where Gladey and his wife lived, and also in Riga when Gladey’s daughter married a Latvian man.

Recently, The Insider revealed that Gladey was a member of the FSB’s Fifth Service, the group tasked in 2004 with countering the “color revolutions” in Russia’s neighboring countries. Service’s last known task was to destabilize the situation in Ukraine.

Re:Baltica has obtained correspondence between the two from 2005 to 2013, and the exchanges do not sound like normal chatting between friends. Ždanoka reported to Gladey about events she has organized, who has been invited, trips she has made, and what she has observed. 

One example comes from March 16 which Latvian nationalists celebrate as remembrance day for legionnaires who were recruited by Nazi Germany to fight against the Soviet Union during World War II. During their annual march to lay flowers at Freedom monument in Latvia’s capital, pro-Russian activists who call themselves “anti-fascists“ always try to stage a protest.

It appears that in 2005 Ždanoka herself organized provocations at these events in order to “prove“ to her colleagues in Europe that Latvia still harbored Nazi sympathies. That year “anti-fascists” dressed up as Jewish concentration camp inmates with yellow stars on their chests were in attendance, providing material for Russia’s TV channels. 

Her FSB handler’s questions indicate that was aware of the plans before the protest took place: organize the confrontations, photograph them, and send news to her colleagues in the European Parliament with the message that Nazis marched in Latvia’s capital.

“I hope you managed to get some rest? I look forward to the promised updates on the March 16th article – the text of your statement, the reactions of MEPs, and the consequences,” he wrote afterwards. 

“We had a good rest, but also had an adventure,” replied Ždanoka. “I’m sending the text and accompanying photos. The first short text explaining the photo was sent on March 16th to the Greens (53 people) in my group. A longer text was sent on March 17th to the same Greens and another group on minority issues (42 people). We will get the full reaction of MEPs next week.”  (Ždanoka, until April 2022, was a member of the Greens/European Free Alliance group.)

The letter was accompanied by photographs from the march which showed Ždanokas’ costumed supporters  being detained by the police. Another picture showed swastika-adorned posters littering the ground. Only one photo shows the Legionnaires  – old men standing calmly with flowers in their hands.

Ždanoka also forwarded Gladey a statement she had sent to her European Parliament colleagues. In it, “the MEP expresses her outrage” at the violence used by the police “against anti-fascist protesters.” The attachments also included a reaction from other Latvian MEPs calling Ždanoka’s release a “masterpiece of demagoguery.”

Wars of Influence in the East

In September 2013, Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe, received a severe economic blow when Russia banned the import of its wines, allegedly over insufficient quality control. In reality,  Russia was using economic pressure to prevent the signing of a cooperation agreement between Moldova and the EU at the Eastern European Partnership Summit in Vilnius a month later.

The context for  these developments dates back to 2009, when the EU established the Eastern Partnership (EaP) to bring the countries on its eastern border out of Russia’s orbit. Moscow used available arsenal – trade restrictions,  withholding natural gas supplies, information warfare – to prevent this.

As MEP, Ždanoka regularly traveled to the EaP countries and reported her observations to Gladey. This means that Russia effectively had eyes and ears in multiple important European meetings, particularly those that concerned the potential Western accession of countries close to the Kremlin’s heart. 

Back in the summer of 2010, Ždanoka first sent Gladey a program of the visit of deputies from potential EaP countries to Brussels. Later she reported back on who is ready to start the program without Russia’s ally Belarus.

“I checked my notes. Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan strongly favor full Belarusian membership, while Ukraine and Moldova are ready to accept the “compromises” offered by the European Parliament. (…) But all of them are apparently not opposed to starting work without Belarus.”

A few months later, she and other MEPs went to Moldova. In the report to Gladey, she summarized who was present, what was said, and the relationship between politicians there.

Ždanoka mentioned that a lunch was planned with then-President Mihai Ghimpu, who did not turn up due to illness. The president was represented by a deputy with a “thinly disguised dislike” for Ghimpu. “He joked that his illness was a consequence of the wine festival at the weekend.”

In 2012, Ždanoka traveled to Azerbaijan. Before such visits, MEPs are provided with thick folders containing analysis of the country’s economy and politics, CVs of senior officials, information on support from international funds, and briefings on key issues such as the oppression of youth protests. Ždanoka forwarded the nearly 70-page report to Gladey. These documents were not confidential, but nor were they meant for the general public.

And then came the climax. 

At the Vilnius in November 2013, the EU planned to sign cooperation agreements with several countries, and Russia was increasing the pressure. Wine imports from Moldova and chocolate from Ukraine had been banned. Russia threatened to cut off gas supplies, a serious concern given the approaching winter.

The MEPs agreed to adopt a resolution condemning Russia’s pressure. Ždanoka sent this, too, to the FSB officer.

“In the meantime, I am sending the draft resolution prepared by the Greens. I can’t access the other groups’ drafts, but you can get an idea from this one. Tomorrow, a compromise will be discussed and agreed upon with several groups. The debate will take place on Wednesday, and the vote on Thursday. T.Ž.”

Two days later, she sent the final version of the resolution and the text of her speech to Gladey. In it, she acknowledged that Russia was exerting pressure, but pointed to the EU’s alleged duplicity: Moldova would no longer be able to export wine to Russia, but the EU offered no alternative market. She used Latvia as an example, saying that it had joined the EU, but “the marriage was not equal.”

In essence, Ždanoka echoed the message that the Kremlin has been spreading in the Baltics for years: the EU is treating you unjustly, and if you stay with Russia, your country will be better off.

“I am shocked,” German MEP Rebecca Harms, then leader of Ždanoka’s EP group, told Re:Baltica after hearing about the emails.

“It makes clear that she had not only ‘another opinion’ on Russia-related issues (some in my group always accused me of suffering from Russophobia and from a lack of tolerance for different opinions) but was really [an] informant. I really regret that I was not strong enough to organize a majority to expel her from the Green group.“

Complaining about Russian diplomats

Ždanoka didn’t just report on live events. She also offered helpful advice to her Russian friends on how they could be more effective. 

In a 2009 email, Ždanoka sent an FSB officer “an analysis of the errors in the work of some structures that affect Russia’s image abroad.”

She pointed out that Russian diplomats abroad are ill-prepared to work with the media and are easily “outflanked” by their Baltic and Georgian colleagues, who are “young, dynamic (…) trained in the West and fluent in foreign languages.” 

She noted that this dynamic was clearly visible during Estonia’s 2007 “Bronze Soldier” event. Then Tallinn’s removal of a Soviet WWII monument was met with Russian-inspired riots and Kremlin-executed cyber attacks. Another example was in connection with the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, when Moscow’s diplomatic chicanery proved incapable of convincing the wider world that Russia was anything other than the aggressor. 

Ždanoka, in her written analysis, was also critical of Russian officials who treat foreign trips as tourism and compensate for their lack of arguments in discussions with an “arrogant attitude”: “Russia has gas and oil, so you have to respect us.”

Finally, she proposed the creation of a special ministry to promote Russia’s image abroad, taking the example of the “Latvian Institute,” which is mainly staffed by Latvians with foreign roots. They know how to talk to foreigners, she wrote. At the same time, Ždanoka lobbied for her own activities and mentioned that personnel for the proposed the new ministry could be recruited at the European Russian Forum she was organizing.

A highlight event: European Russian Forum

For several years, the European Russian Forum (ERF) was Ždanoka’s most important event in Brussels. She booked the venue in the EP building almost six months in advance and took on the role of hostess, with important Russian officials sitting at her side. Among the Forum’s founding members were representatives from the Moscow Mayor’s Office, the Russian Orthodox Church, and Ždanoka’s political group in the EP. Funders included the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russkiy Mir (Russian World – ed.) foundation.

The forum, along with a series of discussions and exhibitions, allowed Ždanoka to bring a number of questionable people into the EP building: Russian politicians, some of whom are currently on sanctions lists; agents of influence who have subsequently been tried for espionage; and even some with links to the security services.

Through these soft power activities, Ždanoka helped whitewash Russia in the minds of some MEPs while creating content for Kremlin TV channels. The main message was that the EU cannot do without Russia and must make friends.

“What is typical of her and a number of other MPs who work in that pro-Russian style is that the Moscow media exploits it. It is all filmed,” said MEP Sandra Kalniete from Latvia.

However, she and other current and former MEPs interviewed by Re:Baltica believe that Ždanokas’ political influence in EP was marginal.

“Expanding the European Russian Forum was the key,” says another long-term Latvian MEP Roberts Zīle. “To bring the concept of the Russian world to the West.”

Not moving to Russia

After her election to the EP, Ždanoka started actively renovating her family home in Valdai, Russia, a popular holiday destination. The photos show how the sad-looking one-story house with an attic slowly came to life with new, dark green wooden walls and white window frames. Ždanoka sent the builders a kitchen plan and decided where to put the appliances. It is not clear from the emails whether anyone lives there, but it is implied that relatives live nearby.

Ždanoka will no longer be part of the new EP, as the Latvian parliament passed a law preventing her from standing because of her communist past. She has served 20 years in the EP.

After Re:Baltica and its partners published information about her cooperation with Russian special services in January of this year, Latvia’s security service (VDD) initiated a probe but declined to comment on the findings for this article. The European Parliament’s inquiry resulted in a fine of €1,750 and a ban on representing the EP in foreign visits and other events. Ždanoka claims it was a punishment for mistakes in official declaration.

In her YouTube address devoted to Re:Baltica’s questions to her, Ždanoka showed colorful brochures listing the participants of events she has organized. According to her, it had all been transparent. The Russian Foreign Ministry is listed as one of the co-financiers of the events. The rest, like her trips to Russian-backed Syria and Russian-occupied Crimea, was covered by the European Parliament – that is, the taxpayers of the European Union.

Ždanoka also called herself “an agent of peace”.

Asked by Re:Baltica whether she intends to move to Russia after her career is over, she snapped: “I am not going to move to Russia. Where you were born, there you are useful. I was born in Riga.”