#(and yes ik someone probably requested the label or something. it was up for a bit before i got the notif lol)

[monsterfuckermilligan]

fine. be like that 🙄 i’m doubling down

what? oh, sorry! i can’t hear u infantilizing jack over the sound of me fucking him. what’s that? sorry, i didn’t quite get that over the glass shattering. oh shit, my bad i didn’t mean to make him cum so hard that he manipulated everyone in every reality to experience what he is. oops! and no, i don’t think legs are supposed to do that….

[rattlung]

sorry this took so long! it kinda got away from me after a bit (it’s like 6k words so i’m rlly hoping this read more works on mobile lmao) and turned into a lot of introspection, as my stuff often does when it comes to mirage for some reason. hope you enjoy :^) and ty for sending smth in

(yeah ik mystik keeping in contact through fuckin fan mail is a bit of a stretch especially since crypto mentions burning letters, implying communication through paper, but it was the only thing i could come up with and i didn’t want this to take longer than necessary. just kinda shrug it off because at this point - eh yknow??? the letter mirage comes across is based off the one crypto sends to mystik in the loading screen with him and gibby

also, i looked up a ton of different sites and even checked the wiki but i’m still nervous about crypto’s name and how to write it properly. if i’m still doing it wrong, please please PLEASE let me know. i will literally rewrite this entire thing lmao)

established relationship kinda idk and also set in a kinda canon divergent au where the games hold seasons that last a few months with set teams

----=----

Despite popular belief, Elliott was a smart guy. He lived and studied under his mother, an amazing engineer in her own right, and even had a huge part in the development of some of the tech he used in the arena. It’s just that, sometimes, even he forgot about his own intelligence. Standing next to his fellow legends, it was like any confidence he had left in one fell swoop. He would stutter under their gazes and second guess himself on anything he said the second he said it. It’s something he’d always berate himself on later when he’s alone in his dorm where no one could see him.

Because he was smart. He’d tell himself that when he looked at his own smiling face, as surrounded as he was by it. Apex merch, some fanart, some cutouts they had stood up in stores he’d been sent. Elliott would stare at it all and remind himself that Mirage in the media was who he was. He’d gotten to legend status on his own, and that wasn’t something to write off. He was as intelligent as the rest of them, he just needed to remember that.

Though, admittedly, it did take Elliott a good minute to realize that the message he’d been sent wasn’t for him.

But, in his defense, this wasn’t an issue that had ever come up before. After their breach that forced them to move planets, the Apex Team had taken extra precautions when it came to legends getting fan mail. Elliott hadn’t blamed them, but he still couldn’t help but raise a brow at the extent they went to. In his opinion, it was just, like, two steps above sending it in on paper the old fashioned way. Honestly, that would go faster, since that didn’t need to be scoured by security software. Sometimes the dates lagged by so much that Elliott would get things months after a someone sent it.

So, yes, it did require a few read through’s for him to parse what was going on in the small paragraph. To be fair, it had his name in it. Don’t act so pretentious, TJ, everyone knows who Mirage is. The rest of the message was written in the same way: to someone who wasn’t actually Elliott and from someone who’s seemingly exchanged letters with this “TJ” before.

Maybe the program was on the fritz, picked out Elliott’s alias and sent it over to his inbox. It was something worth mentioning to the higher ups, because that absolutely had to be a liability in their new safety protocols. But more importantly - and definitely the thing he was going to address first - who was this letter for? Who was TJ?

There were only a few options, as most of the legends had opted to come forth with their real names when signing up for the Games. Elliott knew Bloodhound still operated under a veil of mystery, but he doubted they could be TJ. From what he remembered when he walked passed their dorm - which was usually something he tried to do quickly, since the bird Hound kept in there with them seemed to like Elliott only a little more than it liked Pathfinder - they didn’t even have a computer set up. No contact to the outside world unless it was through interviews.

Wraith just recently came across her name, Elliott remembered. She’d mentioned it in passing before disappearing for a few weeks in an abrupt request for time off. Wraith never really talked to anyone, so it kind of made sense. Everyone needed someone to vent to, even if it was about Elliott. What could TJ stand for? Taylor Jenkins? Tanya Jones?

Tilly Junior.

But then again, it really could have been any of them. Elliott wouldn’t put it passed Caustic to be using a fake name. Any of them could be using a fake name, and he doubted going around and asking would get him anywhere. 

Elliott let the holopad slip onto the cushion of the couch he’d been lounging on, his head falling back to thump against the wall. Crypto would be able to help with the new mystery, that was at least something he was sure of. The amount of badgering and begging needed to actually get the hacker to relent and do any helping? Now that was unknown as well. 

In the months that the season encompassed, he and Crypto ended up getting closer than probably either of them would have liked - at least in the beginning. Elliott couldn’t imagine what he would have thought then if he was told that most of his nights out of the arena would be spent at the other’s side, in his dorm, Crypto fiddling with some of the tech Elliott had lying around as Elliott himself talked his ear off.

Crypto was a good listener, he found. It was something in the quiet he maintained around him, a whole lot different than, say, Bloodhound’s. Not that Bloodhound was cold and off-putting; it was more so like what Elliott imagined stepping into an ancient library would be like. Something about Bloodhound made anything above a whisper seem too loud, and out of respect for said library, Elliott left them alone.

And then there was that time Crypto had caught Elliott staring at him when he blasted Caustic with a Charge Rifle from about 300 meters away. The only thing he’d done was give Elliott that knowing smirk then followed it up with an honest to god wink. Elliott was gone after that. 

Things had changed in a steady progression. Instead of Elliott being the one to find him, Crypto would seek him out rather than hide away in his own dorm. When Elliott would invite him to his dorm, mostly joking, Crypto would surprise him by accepting. There wasn’t any verbal confirmation in the shift, though, and sometimes Elliott would worry about it, wonder if he was reading too much into things. Not that it was a big deal. He never cared much about labels, except when he really, really did.

But then Crypto would sometimes push Elliott against a wall in the downtime during the games while they were looting, or even when they were just hanging out. He’d silence ramblings by covering Elliott’s mouth with his own, and who was Elliott to tell him no? 

They were close, now, yes, but for as good as Crypto listened, he didn’t talk much. It was something Elliott attempted to change. He tried to get him to open up in various ways, but the longest he’s ever gotten Crypto to talk was when he asked about the Holo Gear Mirage used on the field. Even then, Elliott did most of the talking. He’d gushed about his mom, how she did a lot of the work and he handled more of the fine tuning, reminisced about their workshop, the long days they used to spent together. Elliott remembered picking up something different from Crypto, then, something almost sad. Like maybe he’d been missing something, too.

Elliott never got to ask about it. Crypto had retreated to his own quarters pretty fast after that. He was too confused to wonder what he’d done wrong, and the worry was put to rest before he ever actually got to worry about it at all when Crpyto sidled up next to him the next day right before the drop. The situation just reaffirmed that there was a lot that Elliott didn’t know, like what kept Crypto so quiet, who he thought about when Elliott talked about working with his mother, what he always seemed to be working on when he was alone.

Or his name, Elliott realized.

After a pause, he scrambled back into a sitting position and grabbed the holopad again. There was public information on every legend that signed up for the Games, but the last he’d checked there had been something wrong with the page dedicated to Crypto. It showed multiple different error codes that were random upon opening the page and sometimes it would even crash a browser entirely. Forums still existed, though, and Elliott would use that to his advantage.

Quietly, in the back of his mind, he felt guilty, felt like he was doing something he shouldn’t.

A lot of the threads were just talking about the recent games and Crypto’s happenings in them. They talked about his marksmanship, which was pretty impressive, Elliott had to say. It wasn’t until a few minutes of scrolling - spent looking through GIFs and videos of highlights, that he won’t admit to - brought him to a specific thread. The person who posted was wondering about the drone Crypto had in his possession, asking about its name, speculating on the model. The top comment on it claimed to have spent time behind the scenes on the Apex Games Production team and declared that the drone Crypto used had a lot of similarities to the ones they use to film the Games. 

The next comment didn’t exactly discredit the correlation, but they did say it was likely that the drone’s blueprint was leaked and got sold to another company, not Crypto having the clearance to use Apex equipment.

I doubt they’d let him have one of the official ones, with all the controversy surrounding them, the commenter said.

Elliott bit the inside of his cheek and narrowed his eyes in thought. It was a stretch, but it didn’t stop him from backing out of the forum and searching “apex filming drones”.

The first result wasn’t a link to the Apex Game’s website. It was another website with comment threads, its title “look what i found???”.

So, Elliott did.

i was doing some VERY LEGAL digging around, because i was wondering where the new guy came from and all that, but there’s literally NOTHING that isn’t hidden behind encrypted messes that would take like ten years to get through but when i tried, i got something on some dude named hyeon kim but when i went around looking for more i found this

??????

Below the post was a screenshot of an article from a news site called Outlands’ Journal. Elliott read it over, but the only thing he processed was “Disgraced computer technician, Tae Joon Park” and “Mystik, Joon’s former caretaker”.

And then, a little more down, was the comment, “Isn’t that the dude who’s wanted for murdering his sister or something?”

----=----

Despite popular belief, Elliott was a smart guy. In that moment, though, it really didn’t seem like a good thing.

----=----

The decision was one he made almost subconsciously: Elliott was not going to tell anyone what he’d found. 

How would anyone even believe it? Elliott was hardly sure he even believed it. Spoken out loud, it would seem like such a tin-foil-hat conspiracy, and it’s not like he could use the thread he’d found the information in to back the claim up. He’d checked it again when he woke the next day, wanting to make sure he hadn’t had some fever dream, but the entire thread had disappeared. Even the account it was posted from was wiped from the site. On a whim, he checked his history and went to the link directly, but that only got him an error page.

The code was something he remembered from Crypto’s buggy Legend profile.

Elliott had almost been late getting ready for the games, he sat there for so long and stared at it. Luckily, the turbulence that signified they were getting close to the closed off arena literally jolted him as a physical reminder. Elliott shook his head and stood, making his way over to the collapsible, garage-like door in order to pull it down.

Isn’t that the dude who’s wanted for murdering his sister?

He was almost regretful that he wanted to go looking for more information. What if Crypto was somehow able to track the searches that were relevant to the article? That could be how the thread was taken down so fast, how the account disappeared. Was that what he was doing all the time, bent over his computer? Working to hide what he’d done?

Why even join the Apex Games, a program that was widely broadcasted across planets? Wouldn’t he want to keep a low profile? How did he even get the clearance to sign up? The producers had run background check after background check when Elliott had been brought in for an interview. So his public intoxication got put under the microscope, but the murderer they let in for free?

And yet, that didn’t sound right, even when he thought it. Sure, yeah, they all technically participated in a blood sport - but the technically was heavily implied. No one actually ever died; sometimes bones were broken and people had to retire after a serious injury, but that was just about it. Everyone who signed up was capable of killing.

But capability of killing was different than cold blooded murder. At least in Elliott’s opinion.

He was just pulling on the last of his Holo Gear when the door rattled in its frame. “Pull y’self outta bed, we got a game to win!” 

“Door is closed for privacy,” Mirage berated.

Lifeline only cackled shortly before replying with, “I ain’t lookin’ at you, am I?”

Mirage pulled the door up so she could see his put-off pouting, which didn��t do much of anything besides getting her to laugh again. He followed her into the loading bay, passing Bloodhound and Wraith. They each gave him a respectful nod, always frighteningly eager to board their dropping platform. Still, Mirage responded with a courteous wink and two solid finger guns.

As the automated commentator announced the approaching drop zone, Mirage was suddenly very aware of the empty space beside him being taken up by another person. At first, neither of them said anything, but that was weird for him, so he had to say something, didn’t he?

“Fashionably late, as always,” he greeted, going for something half-joking, half-flirty. Honestly, he would proudly say he hit the mark, but Crypto didn’t say anything back. “Long night?”

Then, a too long second of silence fell between them as the dropping platforms began to hiss. Freezing air blasted, chilling his face, blowing his hair around, but it wasn’t the reason why his blood went cold in his veins. A voice went off in his head almost like an alarm. He knows, it said. He knows you found out. He knows.

“Always,” Mirage heard, just barely above the wind whipping between them. 

And it was stuff like that that made him felt immediately guilty for the fear he held just moments before. There was that haunted, pained tone that took hold of Crypto’s voice that Mirage always seemed to catch when he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Just like how he caught something like longing when Mirage had spoken of his mother. How Crypto’s empathy felt different than others when Mirage mentioned his brothers.

He didn’t talk often, sure, but Crypto couldn’t stop himself from expressing in some ways. Not around Mirage, not anymore.

Obviously, there was the possibility that Crypto had done something - that very specific something - but Mirage just couldn’t see it. He had that gut feeling, and following those types of feelings got him to where he was right then. Standing among Legends.

Legends, and Tae Joon Park.

----=----

It’s about a month of doing his best of forgetting what he’d uncovered when he realized a problem he’d overlooked. Elliott had already come to the conclusion that Tae Joon and Mystik were close, close enough to risk each other’s safety by maintaining their pen pal status. They kept in contact that way, so the fluke Elliott had gotten in his inbox was not the first letter that had ever been sent between them.

Which meant that Crypto was going to be expecting a letter from his former caretaker that Elliott didn’t know how to give him without starting a shit show.

Just another thing to add to the reasons he wasn’t getting sleep at night, because “doing his best to forget” was awfully hard. Tae Joon’s silences were just periods of dreadful anticipation to him now. Every time they were together and the tapping on Crypto’s keyboard would pause, Elliott would expect to look up to see Crypto already staring at him, glaring, asking him how long Elliott had known - 

But Tae Joon’s eyes would be on the monitor when Elliott would brave looking up, watching text wrap around the screen at all kinds of speeds. Sometimes it would freeze all at once, certain words blinking, and a corner of Tae Joon’s mouth would pull in an annoyed grimace - meaning he’d done something wrong, and the typing would start back up with a new kind of spiteful energy to it. Elliott would go back to what he was doing, wishing he could let out the breath he felt he’d been constantly holding, because sooner or later the typing would stop again.

Elliott was stressed out of his mind and it was starting to affect his performance on the field, but a horrible, evil little part of himself relished in knowing something others didn’t. That stupid, childish thrill of secret keeping. He wanted to hold it close to where no one else could see it, because he really, really wanted to. If not telling anyone meant protecting Tae Joon, then he wouldn’t tell a soul - even if that included Tae Joon himself.

But that was kind of backwards, wasn’t it? He was literally harboring a criminal, wasn’t he? Regardless of what Elliott’s stupid gut told him. Crypto was wanted for murder - but what was he supposed to do? Tell the authorities and get a potentially innocent man potentially killed? Or tell Tae Joon himself and be proven wrong, find out the very dead way that people Elliott found attractive really are out to get him. 

Knowing what he did and not doing anything about it was dangerous either way. Hence the trouble sleeping.

People were starting to notice, too. Tae Joon noticed - and it was stuff like that that was going to get Elliot into trouble. He found himself switching the names around in his head. Tae Joon Park and Crypto were now interchangeable; the only way he avoided not messing up out loud and inadvertently revealing himself and what he knew was just by... not talking. 

Which was hard to do. 

It was easier than trying to condition himself to stop using the name, though. Because Elliott liked knowing it. There was a certain level of intimacy to it; it felt different now whenever Crypto would corner him or when he’d let Elliott turn him away from his computer. It felt like he was holding someone more, in a way. Not a mystery, but a person. He was holding someone. He was holding Tae Joon, kissing Tae Joon in secret, making a mess of Tae Joon’s bed. It was so much, and in those moments the secret was something he almost couldn’t bear. He’d just barely hold himself back from breathing the name, he’d bite his tongue to stop it.

And then the guilt would flood into his head, because he was lying. It felt so wrong to know this when Tae Joon wasn’t the one to tell him. So, Elliott withdrew. He was polite in the games, communicated as much as necessary, still bantered with Lifeline. Slowly he weaned himself off of flirting with their other teammate and reverted back to the beginning of the season. Except, not quite, really. Even in the beginning Elliott couldn’t help himself when it came to Crypto, but back then it was petty arguments that he didn’t know he craved. Now, it wasn’t much of anything besides civility.

The worst part of it might have been that Tae Joon never asked why. He allowed the regression to happen nonchalantly, but that was on purpose. Every so often, Elliott would still get pushed against a wall, when no one else was around. Tae Joon wouldn’t ask why Elliott didn’t talk to him, didn’t visit him, didn’t invite him to his dorm anymore. He would just kiss him, hard, desperate. It was almost like it wasn’t surprising to him. Like maybe Tae Joon had been waiting for it to end the entire time.

Shame would tear Elliott up after he’d pull away without a word. It would tear him up even worse when the next time Elliott saw him, Tae Joon would act as if nothing happened. Business as usual.

----=----

It had to end in some way, so Elliott really shouldn’t have been shocked when it actually happened - or that it was his fault that it went down the way it did.

----=----

He never had liked fighting Wraith. Mirage had been on her squad a few seasons ago and they’d spent a lot of their time in the arena watching the other work. So Mirage knew her tricks, but worst of all, Wraith knew his. Besides his good looks, charm, and being a crack shot with the Wingman, tricks were just about all Mirage had. 

She had followed the sounds of his footsteps when he’d cloaked earlier in the gunfight to heal, weaving through the decoys he’d dropped without skipping a beat. It was a mess of bursts from SMGs, Wraith phasing away to duck behind cover. Another few bursts and MIrage would get sprayed down, only to disintegrate into lights and have him reappear around another corner. 

Mirage strained to hear over the firing outside for her footsteps, placing her somewhere downstairs. He continued up, for once being grateful for the Skyhook buildings and the buffer they provided with their multiple levels. It gave him time to repair the damage done to his shields as Wraith presumably did the same before she began her chase again. They were bound to run out of supplies and floors at some point, but all Mirage needed to do was buy time for his teammates to secure their kills so they could come and take her off his hands.

It was a good plan up until it stopped working. Thing was, Wraith was fast, and Mirage was learning that if you’re not in her squad as often as you used to be, you forget just how fast she could be.

He heard the cocking of a Peacekeeper after he was a few paces onto the roof, which is also when he remembered seeing a fucking zipline in the building on his way toward the stairs. He hadn’t thought about it, immediately stored it under the dumb idea section; zipping straight up to the top floor just for Wraith to light him up and have him fall straight back down like a ton of bricks? No thank you, he’d take the stairs.

“Fuck,” Mirage said quickly, just as a shotgun blast exploded in front of him. Most of the spread was dodged by running around one of the pallets stacked with construction materials, but it still cracked through what was left of his shields. 

He was dead, Mirage was absolutely dead. There was no way his Wingman was going to win against a Peacekeeper, not unless he hit every shot and Wraith missed all of hers - which she didn’t, she never missed.

A kick was placed neatly between his shoulders and Mirage flailed wildly, gripped at the metal framing of an empty wall and used the momentum to swing around - 

- directly into another shotgun blast, one of which he took right into the stomach. That sent him sprawling. He landed hard on his back and the air was knocked out of him, leaving him gasping for it as he skidded a few paces forward. 

Calmly, Wraith sauntered over to stand above him, reloading the few shots she’d used in her Peacekeeper. Mirage wanted to say something to maybe lessen the blow his pride and his body just took, but the only thing he could get out was a wet cough.

She grinned at him and knelt, shotgun going to one side so she could show Mirage the blade she held before pressing it to his throat. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, leaning in close. “I would have gotten you either way. Zigged or zagged.”

Mirage would’ve rolled his eyes had it not been for the kunai at his jugular, so all he did was swallow and wait for the push. But it never came. In the very next moment, Wraith was sent flying to the ground next to Mirage, her side smoking from a fresh Mastiff shot, the sudden sound of it nearly deafening him.

She pushed up unsteadily in an attempt to get to her feet, but Crypto beat her by grabbing at the scarf at her neck. “It seems like you zigged,” he started, mocking her previous low tone with his own smug lilt. Mirage watched as he raised his hand and his drone seemingly appeared in his grip while he finished with, “When you should have just quit and gone home.”

The drone came down against Wraith’s head hard, and in the time it took Mirage to blink, she was replaced with a golden case.

Crypto turned to face him, then, showing off the small smirk he’d been wearing. “Fashionably late,” he announced with a shrug.

Mirage couldn’t help the relieved grin that spread across his own face. “As always. Love that about you, kid.”

Crypto knelt at his side, taking the place Wraith had left behind, and fished around in the pack around his waist for the syringes he kept there. Once it was plunged into his chest, all of Elliott’s muscles seemed to twitch, but he felt his heart rate lower down to something manageable. He lost a lot of blood, though. He was going to have to huddle in a corner and lick his wounds for at least another five minutes before he’d be anywhere close to mobile.

“Thank you,” Mirage said in between a few deep breaths. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Match isn’t done yet,” Crypto chided lowly. He stood up straight and held out his hand for Mirage to take.

Which he did, but he only got halfway up before he hit the ground again. The cracking snap of a Kraber shot echoed in the empty air above the buildings and Mirage stared up at the blue sky, wondering why he wasn’t feeling any pain. Then, he heard the sound of himself hitting the floor for a third time and thought, that’s weird, I thought I already did that.

 After that, he thought, I lost a lot of blood.

Tae Joon, is the next thing that came to his mind in the form of a horrible realization, one that he ended up voicing out loud in fear, in panic. He sat up from the adrenaline that panic gave him, hysterically hoping that maybe that the other hadn’t heard him, but mostly to satisfy the need of having to see if Tae Joon was okay.

And he wasn’t, not really. He was on his back, too, propped up on one elbow, one hand clutching at his shoulder that was spilling red between his fingers. But worst of all, he was staring at Mirage like the pain was second to the shock.

Mirage didn’t like the look he was getting, and it was especially devastating that it was Tae Joon who was the one giving it to him. Underneath the cloud from the medicine coursing through his system, he knew he had to explain, had to make it so Tae Joon could understand that Mirage knowing his secret wasn’t a big deal, that’d he’d known for a long time and nothing bad had happened.

So, he began with “Tae - “ and then, for some reason, finished with, “Tae - tuh - tuh - uh - totally thought you were going to die from that.”

Finally, he thought, Nice save, and collapsed.

----=----

They didn’t win, but that was the least of their worries. Well, maybe not Lifeline’s, but that was beside the point.

Elliott left the medbay as soon as he could, which still took a good amount of time. The nurse had mentioned something about the side effects of the Revival Syringe along with blood loss and not using anymore meds to stabilize after he was injected. They spent extra time checking his vitals and Elliott didn’t have to be a doctor to tell them that those were going to be skewed.

His heart was still racing when he made his way back into the dorms. It was a little relieving to find that it was empty; after the games, everyone typically accumulated in the mess hall to celebrate the winners. But the at the same time, it was disappointing. He almost wanted to see Tae Joon standing around every corner Elliott rounded waiting to confront him, because getting this over with meant getting back to normal, and Elliott couldn’t wait for that.

So, he risked a glance over at the other’s dorm across the sitting area as if getting a look at it would help him decide on whether or not he should knock, initiate it himself. The door was pulled up, though, left open. Elliott blinked at it once before wandering closer.

The room had always seemed bare, but the emptiness was emphasized now. He noticed that the blanket that was supposed to be folded and draped across the back of the couch to show off the South Korean flag was missing. The box Tae Joon had shoved under there and filled with parts and drives was pulled out, tipped over and empty. Even more, the drone’s docking station was gone.

Elliott rushed over to the desk and tapped the first key he could reach. Only one of the monitors flashed on, glowing blue and asking to proceed with setup. 

“Oh, no,” Elliott muttered. He hurried back out to the seating area and looked up to the screens displaying that day’s match stats. Scrolling across the top was the ETA for the ship’s landing. Ten minutes. “Oh no, no, no you fucking don’t,” he continued to say, practically running to the hall for Boarding.

It Tae Joon got into the city before Elliott could catch him on the ship, it was likely that he’d never see the man again. He couldn’t let that happen.

But Boarding was empty, too, bar the few bots that managed the floor. Elliott practically skidded to a stop in front of one of them, startling the unit’s arms up and out.

“Hey, buddy, you wouldn’t have happened to see a guy, this tall - “ He holds up his hand, palm down, level with the top of his own head. “ - might have looked pissed off, which would be my fault, so I’m trying to find him. Have you seen him?”

The bot’s screen on it’s chest flashed red in the negative, then blue in an apologetic sad face.

Elliott grunted in disappointment. “Nah, don’t sweat it,” he assured the bot, even thought he was absolutely going to. 

He was biting his lip when he exited, nervous. The ship held at least sixty people on it at once. It was a decent size and if someone like Crypto was hiding on it, someone like Elliott wasn’t going to find him.

Elliott swore, once in frustration, twice in shock when he was thrown roughly against the hard, metal wall of an empty hallway. Someone held him there with a fist against his shoulder and the threat of a pistol pressing into his abdomen. He was blinded before he could gather his bearings by a sudden flash of green light, leaving him blinking rapidly to clear his vision.

“Where did you get a gun?” Elliott chose to ask, deliriously, for some reason. “They don’t let weapons on the ship - “

“Who are you?” Tae Joon questioned. The aggression in his voice was something Elliott hadn’t heard since the first few weeks, around the same time Tae Joon was just as likely to twist his arm as he was to snap at him.

“What? Babe, you know who I am - “

“Elliott Witt is too clean, everything on him was too easy to find - they wouldn’t send an Elliott Witt to hunt me down.” His expression was neutral, but there was so much going on in his eyes that Elliot couldn’t look away, even when the gun reminded him of its presence with little jabs. “So who are you?”

And maybe there were a few things Elliott should have been offended by. Like how he wasn’t prestigious enough to warrant a protected record, or Tae Joon’s implication that he wasn’t capable of something he had already done - mostly on accident.

But what he ended up asking was, “You think I made everything up? You think I lied about my entire life for, what? Getting into bed with you?”

Tae Joon didn’t seem taken aback by the hurt that was evident in Elliott’s voice, but it did leave enough room for one second of hesitation. “Then they got to you,” he whispered, somehow sounding equal parts flat and devastated.

Elliott shook his head in confusion. Who was they? “No one fucking got to me, I actually don’t know who or what you’re talking about,” he tried to explain.

“Then how?” Tae Joon asked - angry. Elliott was finally able to identify one of the things burning in Tae Joon’s glare. Anger, and maybe confusion as well. Fear. 

How did this happen, they both seemed to be thinking. How did I let it get to this?

“How did you find out?” Tae Joon snapped when Elliott spent too long watching him. “Who told you?”

“Mystik,” Elliott blurted, shocking the other enough to pull back just a little bit. “Kind of,” he went on in a hurry. “She sent you something, and I - I think the new software they implemented for security read my name enough times in it so it got forwarded to me - I don’t know exactly! I didn’t do it on purpose, it must be mald- malfuk - bugging out! So, I went to check, and I’d show you the forum post I found, but it’s gone already, I swear.”

Tae Joon took a step back, then another. “What did you find?”

Elliott let out a breath, wet his lips in a nervous tic. He shrugged. “Just - just an article.”

Disgraced computer technician - 

Wanted for murdering his sister - 

Tae Joon looked away suddenly and down the hall, like he was planning on running again. His frown was so intense a crease began to form between his brow.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Elliott said firmly. “I promise. But - what happened?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Tae Joon told him quickly. “If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”

“Okay,” Elliott replied, despite how much he wanted to push.

Tae Joon seemed to sense that, gave him a troubled look. “I didn’t do it.”

“I know,” Elliott told him. “I believe you.”

It it was so easy to say, but they both knew it was more than the words spoken out loud. The admission meant Tae Joon’s shoulders could drop from their high strung, protected hunch. It meant they could both breathe. It meant Elliott could push off from the wall, get close - slowly - and gently retrieve the gun Tae Joon held to find that the safety was on. Because if he didn’t have to, Tae Joon wasn’t going to hurt him. He‘d never wanted to hurt anyone.

He put his fingers on the cool metal lining Tae Joon’s jaw to get him to look at Elliott.

“I believe you,” Elliott repeated, and Tae Joon kissed him for it. He put an open hand on the back of Elliott’s head and threaded his fingers through the curls that were there, pulling him in roughly. Elliott made a surprised noise but recovered fast enough. He pushed an arm underneath Tae Joon’s open coat to wind it around man’s waist and pressed his front to the other’s, hoping that somehow he’d get Tae Joon to feel the honesty in his words through an embrace. Thinking that he could show off the part of Elliott that was dedicated purely to him by just holding him against his chest.

Anything to get Tae Joon to stop kissing him in that same, desperate way as before, like he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Elliott said when they broke apart. He didn’t let the other go, though, and rested his forehead against his. “So you can’t either.”

Tae Joon’s features darken in a very particular way. “Don’t say that.” When Elliott lifted his head a little to show him a confused expression, he goes on to explain. “They take everything.”

Who’s they? I’ll kick they’s ass.

“They can’t take Mirage,” he said, smiling. “According to you, he’s too hard to carry.”

Instead of laughing, or giving that smarmy little smirk, or even rolling his eyes, Tae Joon raised a brow and asked, “What about Elliott?”

“Elliott’s yours,” he told him without thinking. “No one’s taking that.”

Tae Joon Park moved back in to kiss Elliott again.

=====

thanks for the prompt :^)

[troutpopulation]

It Becomes A Chain (Sigma x reader) pt.2

A/N: pardon the terrible Dutch I used 100% Google translate for that. Also yay! Siebren is actually in the story now!

Present day

  "Alright! So, do we have any requests? Roses, bonsai, squash, anything you see." Your students were deep in thought, until one of them raised her hand.

"Yes, Darcy, go for it." The girl put her hand down.

"Can we do sunflowers today?" She asked. You nodded, smiled, and opened the drawer from the plastic shelf that sat on your countertop. It was labeled with a small card of a sunflower and the name printed in swooping ink. You plucked from it a single seed and pressed it between your palms. It took barely a moment but you felt a sprout. A small plant grew from your hands, rapidly unfurling into a full grown flower in your grasp. You gave it an approving smile before you plucked it from your hands and dropped it into the vase. The students watched with smiles. No matter how many times people saw you do this, it was always something to marvel at, like a magic trick. An incredibly practical magic trick that had its uses in feeding yourself, others, selling flowers, and in this case, drawing a still-life of a sunflower.

"Alright, we're going to draw for mm... Lets go for thirty minutes before we move on to water color." Despite all the jobs your powers have gotten you, you never abandoned teaching art workshops in your home. In fact, you found this was the perfect way to integrate them both. Shortly after your first encounter with your newfound abilities, you were rushed to the hospital by your neighbors. You were sent from facility to facility until someone who could actually help you manage your fate did so. Over the span of several months you learned control and tested the limits of your power. You could grow anything from trees to moss and soon decided that this was in fact a blessing rather than a curse. You began getting accustomed to replicating plants, and it quickly became a normal part of your daily life. Although, to this day you still had no idea how they came to be. Everybody including you and every scientists you'd consulted with were in the dark about the strange projectile that had exploded near your greenhouse. The question was a constant tug in the back of your mind.

You complimented your students' work as you opened your tablet and got to emails from commissioners and scientists alike. By now, the novelty of attention had worn off and you were quicker to say "no thank you" to researchers looking to build partnerships with you to utilize your powers. You had a few art commissions you bookmarked to get to later, and plenty of agricultural companies who wanted to negotiate prices for your services. One however, caught your attention. A laboratory studying outer space in The Hague wanted to pay for your flight and visit. They were interested in your status in the scientific community as a "self sustaining organism".

You scoffed and rolled your eyes. What a pretentious way to say 'hey, we know you can feed yourself and they want to know how to get astronauts to do that'. But then again, you could use a vacation. (Of course you knew this was professional but... Come on. They weren't going to keep you in the lab all day, right? You'd have the chance to go out and enjoy some light tourism. Plus it's a free flight and lodging.)

You decided to respond, going through all the usual formalities stating in the most corporate way possible that you were willing an excited to work with them in The Hague. You closed your laptop, twirling your pencil before tapping it to the paper. You felt like you owed science something, but science also owed something to you. You participated in countless research efforts, but not once could anyone replicate what happened to you. They couldn't even pinpoint how exactly it happened. You were beginning to believe that your willingness to contribute wasn't all because you cared about the advancements of science, but out of the sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, while they're doing blood samples and having you grow things for them, they'll be able to find out what it was that did this to you.

You made a face. It's not like you're asking to reverse it! You loved your powers. You spent far less on groceries, you felt great being able to feed people and plant trees. Life was great! You had no complaints! It's just... You really wanted to know. How did this happen? Why you?

You open the email back up and quickly send a follow up.

You ask if they can, at all, try to find out the origins of your mutation.

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

  Siebren sipped his coffee, narrowing his grey eyes. What had he written there? Whatever it was, it was scrawled so quickly and carelessly in the heat of a breakthrough that it was almost completely illegible.

He squinted hard, but the word became no clearer. He was jolted from his thoughts as a brisk knock sounded on the white door of his workspace.

"Ja?" He called, turning towards the entrance.

Yes?

"Jouwe koffie, professor." An intern shuffled inside, bringing him the extra caffeine he'd requested.

Your coffee, professor.

He thanked them and asked them for the latest happenings. He was partial to gossip, for otherwise, he'd probably be completely oblivious to anything going on. He stayed almost exclusively in his lab and couldn't resist rambling on any time somebody came in the ask him a question. A quiet moment like this was rare, and an excellent opportunity to catch up with his surroundings.

"We hebben een gast. Zijn naam is (y/n) (l/n), en hij komt uit Amerika." The intern, knowing this, was happy to comply. They informed him of their guest, and Siebren nodded along, sipping his drink.

We have a guest. His name is (y/n) (l/n) and he's from America.

"Iz dat zo? Om welke reden is hij hier?" Interested, the scientist raised an eyebrow.  The intern looked excited. They grinned, looking around, and leaned in to stage whisper.

Is that so? For what reason is he here?

"Dit klinkt vergezocht, maar ik hoor dat hij op commando en snel planten uit zijn lichaam kan laten groeien.." This bit made the astrophysicist choke a bit on his drink. He gave the intern a puzzled look.

This sounds far-fetched, but I hear he can grow plants from his body at will, and very quickly too.

His look of disbelief melted as he rationalized it in his brain. That sounded a little more than far fetched, it sounded like a flat out joke, but who was he to say anything? Here he was trying to harness the power of a black hole. In this facility, anything was possible. He still took it with a grain of salt, though. Perhaps this was a rumor. This place was prestigious and of good renown, but not immune to tall tales and stories being passed around. No place ever really was. He thanked the intern for the coffee and the update and they were quickly on their way to deliver a paper to another professor's office, leaving Siebren alone with his thoughts and research.

If that was a rumor, that was a very creative one. If not... well, then it'd be definitely something worth seeing.

He chuckled to himself. Oh, who was he kidding? That was silly.

He stared harder at his scrawled notes. Suddenly it hit him.

Ah, it had been a variable he's written. Sigma. He somehow got his wires crossed and wrote out its name rather than the symbol itself.

  ----------------------------

     You had touched down at the airport and went straight to work. You did the usual, live demonstrations, samples of every kind, etc. But between all the activity and the jet lag, you were exhausted. Too much to to do much more than admire the view from the hotel room. It was beautiful, and there were people walking about on the sidewalk below. You felt tempted by the cool breeze that rushed in from your open window.

Alright, just one walk and you'll head to bed.

  Elsewhere, Dr. Siebren de Kuiper had embarked on a similar path: a walk from the lab to his car parked all the way down the block.

Today had been long. It turns out that the rumors about the foreign man with the powers of botanical replication were true, and he had spent most of the day indisposed in the labs. Siebren strolled out and took a deep breath of the nighttime air. The sunset must have been lovely, if the dim wisps of fading sunlight behind buildings were anything to go off of. He kind of wished he'd hurried out of his office, as then he might have been able to watch it. That was one of the reasons he preferred to park so far away. The walks along the boulevard in the evening were exquisite.

On the downside, though, he had important papers with him to stuff into the back of his car and forget about, and the wind apparently decided it felt like picking up tonight. After it died down, he loosened his vice grip on his files, only for a sneaky breeze to take him by surprise and blow half the stack out of his grasp.

Siebren gasped and darted after them, pouncing on them and plucking them up from the pavement, muttering to himself. He turned to grab another before his hand touched not a paper, but another person.

He recoiled with a startled "oh" and his widened gray eyes attempted to make out the person in front of him.

"Ah, sorry," You handed his papers back to him. "You dropped these."

"Right, yes, thank y-" His smiled dropped as he spotted over your shoulder the last o his files. He tensed to make his way towards it, but the wind picked up before he could, and it whirled into the air, directly towards a channel of water that cut through the city.

Time seemed to go in slow motion as he stared horrified at his work about to be swallowed by the water.

He raised his arm, whispering a hapless "no" as it descended towards the rippling surface.

You lifted your hand, and in a second the paper was fluttering stagnant in the air.

Siebren couldn't register what just happened. There was a long, smooth stem protruding all the way from your palm, impaling his paper and keeping it in place. Slowly, the vine retracted into your skin, away from the water. When it got only a few feet long, you snapped it from your hand, turning it over to free the paper. You paused as you looked at it.

"Oh my God," You sputtered. "I'm so, so sorry I just- there's a hole in it now and I- I'm so sorry Oh God I really hope that wasn't important I'm so sorry."

"How did you do that?"

"I'm really really sorry, uh, I'm new here."

"How did you do that?"

"Ok not that we usually break people's stuff in America but- I- whatever, anyways I'm sorry."

You and Siebren stared at one another for many moments.

"Uh..." You panicked, holding out a hand to him. He tensed up, not quite recoiling but he did seem wary of the gesture after seeing how you'd just skewered his research paper. "Hi. I'm (y/n). I make plants."

Siebren could barely believe his luck.

[lilacshawn-blog]

Goodnight

request: Could you please make an imagine where in Shawn and the reader are like best friends but shawn feels like theyre more than that and she just says she doesnt love him bc he has a girlfriend who the reader thinks is better for him? ik this is so long but tysm! -p

word count: 2,554

request here

masterlist

“Come on! Don’t you wanna do something, like, you know… fun?” You asked, tossing a pretzel up in the air and gearing your mouth towards it.

“I don’t know your definition of fun is anymore,” he complained while shuffling through all his clothes, looking for his ring. “If it’s like the last time, I’m out.”

“Come on, it’s not like it’s illegal to streak naked across a hotel floor,” you say, quite frankly. You never turned down dares and if you had to, it must be some fucked up shit. It was a Friday night and all you wanted was some fun... and maybe some more food.

“Pretty sure it is, man,” he mocked.

You responded with a groan. “How about we go for a drive? I mean, after all, you haven’t been around in so long! Don’t you just miss good old Pickering?”

“Sure, I guess,” he replied hesitantly as he left his spot in front of the cabinet that he’s been in for the past hour.

You took his hand and left the bedroom that he missed so dearly and guided him towards the front of your parents’ house.

Admittedly, you missed him but you still tried your best to pretend like you didn’t think about him, or need him. Pathetic and stupid, you thought but it could be worse. Just being in the same town since he left; and although you did buy a new house without the help of your parents, you felt dissatisfied for accomplishing so little while he got the chance to travel the world and have opportunities ready for him to take on.

Ultimately, however, you felt happy for him. You felt happy the moment he was signed to a label or when he first flew out the Los Angeles or even the time he invited you over to his release party and how you didn’t go. You feel genuinely happy for him. From a distance, at least.

“Start the fucking car, what are you waiting for?” he joked, looking at me dreamily, probably because of exhaustion.

“Geez, okay,” you laughed, playing it off like as if you weren’t pondering about him. You drove away from the place you two used to hang out, tired or happy, whether he’s only going to take a nap or record a vine or even ask for the goddamn answers to the homework.

“What’re you thinking about, bff?” He asked, half-jokingly since he knew I hated being called that. “No, seriously.” His eyes were searching for something in yours—a thing he has been successfully doing over the years. Yes, even in facetime. He knew I was lying and we both know I’m bad at it.

“Just missed you.”

“Just missed me?”

“A lot. I missed you a lot.”

“I know, I know,” he cockily replied, ruining the sentiment of the moment.

You slapped his arm in response and laughed along. “We haven’t been at our place for a long time, eh?”

“No shit.”

“Drive there?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

His eyes have a different kind of sparkle compared to before, but he doesn’t have a distinct glance for you. His eyes were blunt, there were dark circles under his eyes, his complexion was slightly more pale.

For the entire drive, he was mostly silent - making questions and little chats here and there. It almost seems like he doesn’t know what to say.

You pull up to a secluded area, a hilltop where a faint skyline was visible. The two of you discovered this place a while back, when you two were invited to a house party you never attended to - because you were, in fact, lost, and in the middle of nowhere. Here’s this place.

“Missed this view, a lot,” he whispers. “I really wish I could’ve written my songs here.”

“True that,” I reply. “Is that the reason why your songs suck?” you joke, popping open the back of the vehicle with your keys.

“Wow, excuse me? Wait … does it really?” he concernly asks.

“No, no,” you say, laughing the worry off of his face.

God, he looked so different. Different from when he gave his last wave towards your way at the airport—roughly, 3 years ago. Maybe I’m just holding onto it, dreaming or hoping that there is something. Something more, perhaps.

You both hop in the back and sit on the jeep’s matting, adjusting your posture and leaning your head against the plastic panel.

You continued to talk about how his last two tours were, a little bit of him apologizing for not visiting you when he got the chance to; how you were holding up with your second to the last year of college; and how much he loved doing the things he only dreamt of doing.

“Really? Your college is only a 6-hour drive from here?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Yeah, can you believe it? I’d give you a tour of my apartment but you wouldn’t fit in there.”

“Well,” he said, as-a-matter-of-factly.

You were stuck in a whirlpool everytime you get a smile, no matter how small it is, from him. You were stuck in this stupid conversation in your mind whether or not to touch him or kiss him or hell, even give him a high five.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks as he flips his phone to check the time. 1:03.

“Shoot.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that we were never together, after being friends since 8th grade?”

Yes, it does. You think to yourself—the real question you’ve been avoiding for too long. The question you’ve been meaning to ask since it was eating you alive and everytime he opens his mouth to speak, you wish it wasn’t that question.

“No, I guess. I mean, like, no offense, but I think there’s someone out there for the both of us, yikes—hopefully,” you laugh in hopes to lighten up the mood.

Truth is, you wanted to convince yourself too. You wanted to make yourself think that there is someone else. Someone else, besides him.

“Well, cheers to our someone else,” he holds up his water bottle in the air.

“Cheers,” I reply, taking the water bottle behind me and bumping it with his. It seems so pseudo, as the lie in your voice echoes in your head over and over. 

Cheers? You found yourself saying an empty word. Maybe even he detected the insincerity in your speech or how you held your water bottle with your hands slightly shaking.

You take a swig from your bottle, drinking slightly more than you needed just to avoid conversation; to perhaps avoid saying something else you weren’t supposed to say.

“Do you really think there’s someone out there?” he questions you. He puts down his drink and faces you properly, “For you?”

“I think s—” you say but he cuts you off instead.

“Truthfully,” he sternly speaks.

“What do you want me to say, Shawn?”

“What do you want to say,” he rises his tone, frustration in his eyes. “Y/N, we’ve been pretending like nothing fucking happened.”

“And tell me, Shawn, what happened exactly?”

“You know,” he whispers, facing front and shifting his gaze towards the city.

“I absolutely have no clue,” you reply, softening your tone as well.

Admittedly, you didn’t want to come forward first about what is up. You didn’t want to show that after all these years, you still had feelings for him. You didn’t want to openly throw the idea out there and put your feelings up for debate.

“When I left—,” he was cut off by his phone ringing. “I gotta take this, sorry,” he says, and with that he walked off to the side. 

“Yeah, I’m just talking with my family right now.”

“Yes, baby, at 1 am. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Alright, bye. Love you.”

He sat beside me once again after the phone call I clearly heard. It seems like I didn’t know it’s her, but I did. It was everywhere—in headlines, all over twitter, instagram and god, even my mom knows.

“Do you want me to drive you home?” you ask as if nothing had happened, then hopping off where you previously sat but was soon stopped by his swift movement.

“We can talk,” he replies.

You were annoyed by his action but at the same time, glad that he did since you had a lot to say but couldn’t. You were glad that he pulled you to sit down once more since he looked like he had a lot to say but couldn’t. 

“I fucking left you hanging the moment I was contacted by a label,” he starts off. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, and I forgive you,” you quickly replied and attempted to leave.

He gently pulled you in again, “I left you here when you were waiting for me to say something that night when I told I was called by the records.”

“What do you mean ‘something’?”

“We both knew we were something more, and we were just waiting for the other to say it first.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But you did. You did know exactly what he was talking about. You knew exactly what it was the moment he was trying everything he could just to not bring it up.

“You know what it is.”

“Just fucking tell m—,”

“That I fucking love you!” he shouts and takes a deep breath then gulping.

You weren’t exactly the first one to say it but it made you more nervous that him.

“When I was here, we were both waiting for the other to say it even when we both knew we were something more and what I’m so scared of—” he pauses for a brief second. “–is that I won’t be able to tell you that I do love you until you fucking fall out of love because of waiting.”

“And what if I did tell you I love you then you wouldn’t be who you are now, you’d still be with me, you’ll be like me—stuck in this fucking town, waiting for another goddamn opportunity to come your way and honestly,” you scream back. “for that reason, I’m so fucking glad I didn’t tell you I love you.”

Just like that, you instantly forgot what you are to each other anymore.

He leans against his side and only both your breaths were heard.

“Shawn, what are we doing?” you weakly asked and it took all the strength in your body to keep a conversation up with him. “You have someone else now and you shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I never thought you’d come by,” he replies.

“And so it’s alright for you to tell me this type of shit?”

“No, but you deserve an answer.”

“I wasn’t even wondering about anything.”

“Yeah, oh yeah, right,” he said sarcastically, “Right, ‘cause you had no feelings for me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

You felt like you’ve been staring at each other for what seems like half an hour.

Then, it was blurry and all of a sudden, your lips met. After waiting on each other and debating with your conscience and lying to yourself, you kissed back.

His hands were twirling with a ruffle of hair and placing it behind your ear. He touch was so soft as if you were fragile.

At that moment, you were fragile. You were about the break and give in to him. It was so painful to feel but great to think about. The idea of being with him. The idea of love and whether or not it’s all good. But in your case, it’s not.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

You knew your friendship was out the window, you knew you’d be driving him home and never coming back to his doorstep or even call him when you needed to. You remembered what it was like to be around him, with him.

How fun your 2 am conversations about the most random things were, although you were tired and deprived of sleep because of college and how you hoped you’d be in bed since 4 hours ago by now. You loved spending time since that was the only time you’d see him. Those calls ended after a good 8 months, but you understood. He needed that time for more important things than talking to you.

How he acted platonic throughout the whole relationship that everyone thought you were together. You’d hope that you were but I guess, feeling like it is better than nothing. You’d always fall for it, no matter how much he repeatedly made you feel special—well at least, as a friend, to him. How those same feelings will mean something—someday—to someone who deserves it.

How his stories will always be deeper in detail when he talked to you because of his genuine trust towards you. You were thankful, however, for the moment where in you knew him truly—and only you did. Although someday, he’ll tell the same stories to someone else, maybe even in better detail and meaning. He’ll make new memories and reminisce those moments with someone else.

How his touch was different when it came to you and how gentle he held your hand when you were walking through museums, running through crowds, and climbing roofs just to talk about feelings. Feelings you wish were towards you, at least. There will be a hand fit to yours and warm enough for you to hold.

“We should head home,” you whispered, hopping off the back and heading towards the driver’s seat.

Without a word, he followed and buckled up his seatbelt, staring straight ahead without a single emotion.

You didn’t know what he was thinking, but honestly, neither did he know what was running through your mind.

The ride felt like forever until you reached his house at the end of the street with the outdoor porch lamp lighting the walkway. You take a good look at the house, debating whether or not you should walk with him towards his porch. You decided not to.

You opened the door, leaning against your car and watching him walk up the wooden and damp stairs.

He stopped in his tracks and faced you, “Last question, I promise.”

“Okay,”

“Did even you love me at all, like at some point?”

“Why would yo—”

“Please,” he whispered.

It took a while for you to answer, even if the only valid answer is ‘no’. You feel like you should say ‘yes’ because you did.

“No,” you replied.

And lastly, how you and I ended without anything beginning.

How I mastered the art of pretending that I didn’t love you when I did.

How you and I, and averted eyes all made sense in the end.

How you won the world and how I lost mine.