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gamerwoo · 4 years ago

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[Tales from the Pack] Joshua: Second Chance (Part Four)

Characters: Joshua x female reader

Genre/warnings: werewolf au, fantasy, fluff, fluffy angst, Josh being a grumpy old man lmao

Word count: 2,042

Summary: After his mate died, Joshua always blamed himself and never wanted to imprint again. However, fate has other ideas when he meets you: a young, energetic werecoyote that’s quite the opposite of him. He insists he doesn’t want a new mate – nobody’s even sure if he’s ready for a new one – but he can’t ignore his instincts.

Previous | Next | Second Chance Masterlist

Because of how exhausted he was, Joshua was in and out of consciousness for a while. He couldn’t even keep track of days because he was sleeping at weird hours -- but it had really only been two days. He never stayed awake for very long -- the longest was always just to eat and go to the bathroom if he had to, and then go back to sleep -- but the first thing his eyes always found when he opened them was you.

You, however, weren’t asleep for nearly as long. You woke up again in the morning to see Joshua was still asleep -- you didn’t know he’d ever woken up. You still had a million questions bouncing around your head about who he was, what happened next, and the like, but you decided to just go with it until you found out. No point in panicking, right?

“You should be all set to go home today,” Minjee reported.

The wolfsbane was cleansed from your system -- mostly thanks to Joshua, otherwise your recovery would’ve been slower since you didn’t heal as quickly as the werewolves -- so all you really had to do was rest until your body fully recovered. But that was the same for Joshua, so it worked out.

However, Minjee wasn’t sure what was happening when you were discharged. Would you go home with Joshua and his pack mates? Would he turn you away and have you go off on your own? Even Hansol and Kyung said they weren’t sure when Minjee had asked.

But you just nodded, not even having those thoughts cross your mind, “Okay.”

Minjee sat down on the edge of your bed and studied you, “Do you mind if I ask a few questions first?”

“Sure,” you shrugged without hesitation.

“What’s your name?”

“_____ _____.”

“And where are you from, _____?”

“The Capitol.”

Minjee’s eyebrows raised, “So you’re not too far from here, then. We’re in the Capitol -- southeast of the castle.”

Huh. You didn’t know that. That was at least convenient to be close to a familiar place. But the Capitol was huge.

“Do you have a pack or family?” Minjee continued.

You shook your head. You’d been on your own for a few years now.

“You’re alone?” she asked.

In the other room, Kyung and Hansol looked at each other.

“So then why were you running around the forest at night, _____?” Minjee continued.

You shrugged, “Got bored.”

Minjee definitely thought you were...interesting. You were all by yourself, you were running through the woods in the dark for fun, and you still somehow didn’t seem fazed by any of it. And to top it all off, you still kept glancing over at Joshua and rubbing one thumb over his knuckles like you were already comfortable with him. He was a complete stranger to you, you hadn’t even spoken to him or seen him awake, but you didn’t seem to care. You weren’t even asking her questions like she expected. It was like you didn’t care about anything, you were just rolling with whatever came.

“Hey, Jee?” a girl opened the curtain and popped her head in. She had loose springy curls that were tied into two buns on her head, brown skin, dark freckles dotted over her cheeks and nose, and golden eyes that shifted over to you. Her eyes widened slightly for some reason before returning to Minjee. “Two of our other alphas are here. They want to know what’s happening with Joshua.”

“He’ll be good to go home when he wakes up,” she replied warmly with a nod. “He’ll definitely need the help home, though.”

The foreign girl turned her head, listening to what someone else was saying to her before turning back again, “Jihoon wants to talk to you.”

“Send them right in.”

The girl stepped aside to let two men through the white curtain -- you wondered if it was actually a bedsheet. One was short with light brown hair, and the other was taller with silver hair. The shorter one had an undercut with the rest of his hair looking a little wavy, while the taller one’s hair was fluffier and parted to the side. Like the girl, they both had golden eyes that seemed to study you curiously.

Jihoon and Seungcheol assumed you must’ve been the girl they’d heard about considering your cot was still beside Joshua’s, and your hand was wrapped around his. You didn’t react to their staring, just blinking back at them. But they took note of one physical difference that Soomin either forgot to mention or simply was unaware of: instead of gold eyes, your eyes were an icy blue.

The taller one’s eyes moved over to the doctor, while the shorter one continued to blatantly stare at you. Of course, you stared back.

“Is he really well enough to come home already?” the taller boy wondered. “It’s only been two days.”

Minjee nodded, “Hansol has medicine he’ll have to take three times a day to help with pain and healing, and Joshua will have medicine to take every twelve hours. ______ will need medicine as well, but... Um, other than that, the two just need a lot of rest -- especially Joshua.”

“What about her?” the shorter one asked, nodding his head toward you.

Before Minjee could say anything, you opened your mouth, “What about me?”

Jihoon’s eyebrows raised in surprise, almost like he didn’t think you could or would talk, “...Sorry.”

“Can you guys keep it down?” a groggy, raspy voice asked beside you.

Your head whipped to the right as you felt Joshua’s fingers squeeze yours. He was rubbing one eye with his free hand and letting out a yawn before he blinked his eyes open and looked between the two alphas.

“He lives,” Seungcheol chuckled. “How do you feel, Shua?”

“Like shit,” he replied, draping his arm over his eyes.

The two alphas noticed Josh was keeping his hand in yours despite being awake. Their eyes flickered from your hands, to each other.

“What’re we talking about?” Josh asked after a few seconds of silence.

“Uh...well…” Seungcheol tried desperately to find the right words to ask what he planned to do about you, but he was too scared to bring you up to Josh. He didn’t want to upset him already.

Thankfully, Minjee spoke up, “I need to know what’s happening with _____.”

Hearing your name, you broke out of your trance of staring at Joshua now that he was finally awake, and looked at the doctor.

Joshua tore his arm away from his eyes and lifted his head slightly to narrow his eyes at Minjee, “Who?”

She gestured to you, “Your mate.”

Hearing the title made him growl lowly in his chest as he slowly turned to look at you. Despite the aggressive noise, you could hear his heartbeat pick up when his eyes landed on you. It was also the first time he was seeing you awake, and deep down, it felt amazing to see you actually alive and well.

However, he still managed to tear his hand away from yours.

“She’s not coming home with us,” he scoffed. “She’s not my problem.”

“Josh--”

“Jihoon, you can’t tell me what to do,” he cut off the alpha. “I’ll do perfectly fine on my own, thank you. I don’t want or need another mate.”

However, everyone was surprised to see that you weren’t speaking up. They looked at you and found that you didn’t even seem bothered by Joshua’s words or actions. You had lifted your now empty hand closer to your face, looking at it as if you’d see traces of Joshua or something. But your expression was neutral before you looked up at Josh and shrugged.

“Alright.”

Seungcheol blinked, “A-- Alright?”

“Yeah,” you shrugged again. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It kind of is…” Jihoon said like you were stupid.

Hey, maybe you were. You didn’t know how any of this worked. You didn’t even fully grasp what was going on.

“It’s a good thing you’re braindead, I guess,” Joshua snorted under his breath before laying his head back down.

“We’ll just...take him home now,” Seungcheol told Minjee awkwardly, bowing his head slightly in a silent apology.

“I’ll go get their medications,” the doctor replied as she stood. “You can get Hansol and Joshua ready to be discharged.”

The curtain was pushed aside so the two patients could now interact. Seungcheol and Kyung were going to have to help support Joshua as he walked at least to the edge of the forest so Seungcheol could properly carry him without getting odd looks. But Hansol was good enough to walk home on his own, and you were, too. So you got out of bed and changed back into the clothes you were in when they found you -- but now they were washed and clean.

“So..._____,” the taller alpha began just to make some sort of conversation in the awkward silence, “where are you going to go now?”

“Uh…” you trailed off before shrugging. “I don’t know, probably back to the cave.”

“Cave?” the girl repeated as the group looked at you with varying looks of surprise. “I thought you were from here?”

“I am,” you nodded, “but I don’t live here.”

“You live in a cave?” the shorter alpha checked.

You shook your head, “Well, no. Recently, I’ve been staying in a cave because I found it. Before it was just...wherever there was some sort of shelter.”

“So you don’t live anywhere?” the wolf you had yet to meet asked. He had shaggy strawberry blonde hair and stayed close to the other girl.

“I guess not.”

You were too busy going back to putting your shirt on that you didn’t notice the way the pack pointedly looked at Joshua.

As the pack was leaving and walking down the few steps -- going slowly as to be accommodating for Josh -- you followed behind them. You weren’t really sure what to do with yourself for the rest of the day since you still weren’t feeling 100%. Maybe you could just go find a place to nap or something.

The pack continued onto the path, but Joshua turned his head. He saw you still standing on the middle step, looking this way and that with a thoughtful look on your face as you held a small paper bag with your medication in it. He stopped walking, causing the two who were helping support his weight stop. So the two behind him stopped, as well. They all turned to look where he was looking, which was at you.

Joshua very loudly cleared his throat, catching your attention. He was looking at you in annoyance, and his eyes rolled when you continued to just stand there and stare at him.

“Well come on,” he snapped.

“...Huh?”

“Let’s go,” he said with more force. “I’m tired and wanna go home. If you trail behind and get caught in another net or get attacked by wild animals, that’s not my problem.”

He turned back and continued walking again, the two beside him moving with him despite them continuing to glance back at you.

Was he...inviting you home with them? But didn’t he say you weren’t going with them? So--

“You should probably hurry,” the short one -- you realized his name was Jihoon -- told you, though he had traces of a smile on his face. “He’s pretty irritable.”

“Shut up, Hoon,” Joshua called behind him.

Jihoon chuckled but continued walking.

Hansol, however, stayed back to wait for you. He understood you must’ve been a little confused. You were dying, only to wake up to a mate, members of his pack, and now you were being told one thing and then something completely opposite. So he waved you over.

“C’mon, _____,” he called with a warm smile. “We’re gonna take you home.”

Home. That sounded nice to you. It was a word you hadn’t heard or thought of in a while now. So you bounded down the steps and walked beside Hansol as he began telling you about their pack and the house.

Ahead of you, Joshua was grumbling to himself in annoyance about the whole situation.

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wavesmp3 · 4 years ago

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[yjh] are you happy?

jeonghan x reader post-apocalyptic au | wc. 2.3k | warnings: death, gore a/n: originally posted as a tbz fic as a fake title request, so thank you to the anon who sent in this title

time has a funny way of waxing and waning through your life. it slows and stops for years and years and years. and then it's running past you, a blur of moments painted before you in hues of pink and blue. time was slow when the rekshi came. when they appeared five years ago, stealing the scream from your lips and people from your life. you swear time stopped when they got seungcheol. and sometimes it feels like time hasn't restarted since. like you're still stuck in that moment, the stench of gasoline, the rekshi's screech, seungcheol's. burned flesh smells terrible--you know that now. people, no matter how small, have a lot of blood. you know that too. you learned about amnesia after trauma in a psychology class seven years ago. you wish it'd happen to you already. that you could wake up and forget all of it. every wretched second of the time that hasn't moved since the rekshi took seungcheol from you.

but then again, time isn't always so unbearably still. other times it's quick, like a bullet. like disaster. it's knocking your door down and pushing you against the wall, gun to your head and knife to your throat. time can be faster than any car or ship or aircraft. it's faster than you can run. faster than anyone. but the funny thing about time is that once it does finally start, it doesn't know how to stop.

time re-started, a year after seungcheol and five days after meeting jeonghan through a close call with a rekshi that you just barely saved him from. near-death experiences do that to people. bind them together like red threads of fate. "it's a good thing we don't meet a lot of people then," you had told jeonghan, five days on the road with him and the soulmate metaphor still falling off his lips.

"why's that?"

"everyday is near death."

he had laughed. and you swear that alone made time start again. a distant ticking of a clock buried under the sound of his giggle.

and time hasn't really slowed down since. it didn't slow when you told him about seungcheol nor did it when he told you about joshua. time doesn't even hesitate when you kiss jeonghan for the first time, doesn't stop to breathe when he kisses you back. it doesn't pause when you and jeonghan meet seokmin. and when the rekshi take seokmin, the same sickening way as seungcheol, time only seems to speed up.

"no one else." you whisper against jeonghan's neck one night, a month after seokmin. a vow to yourself between the lines of your request to him. a vow to never make yourself feel that pain again. "only us two from now on."

"okay." he whispered back, just as solemnly, just as heartbroken, just as lost. "only us."

the mutual promise is broken by you and him five months after that night. but neither of you could turn away when the little girl asked for help, neither of you could walk away when it was so obvious that she had nowhere else to go.

but even then, time doesn't slow down. time doesn't stop or break or pause when the rekshi get her too, a year after you both found her. time doesn't wait for you to catch up. you want to take your fist and shatter the entire concept. you want to take the entire idea of time in your arms and throw it off the tallest cliff in the farthest corner of the world. you want to be something else altogether, something beyond time. unaffected by it.

things change after the little girl goes. a gut-wrenching realization that lands like a rock in the pit of your stomach when jeonghan's laugh no longer manages to bury the ticking clock. jeonghan laughs, and you can only wonder how much longer you have with him. it's been three years now, almost as long as you had seungcheol before the rekshi came.

you remember what he said to you all those years ago, when you were both still strangers, before you knew his heart like your childhood home, before his name sounded like prayer slipping off your tongue. you remember how he said near-death experiences bind people together like the mythical red threads of fate. is that what it means to be bound to someone? is a soulmate, for all its nuance, simply just the person by your side in the face of death? to stare death in the eyes like an old friend with his hand in yours?

you remember what you said after. how everyday was near-death. and when you said that, you thought you had no more than a year left in you. that even if you had managed to survive past the rekshi, you wouldn't have survived your own head. give it a year, you had told yourself a week before meeting jeonghan, a year before grief wraps me like a blanket and suffocates me with its falsely warm arms. it had been a dramatic sentiment, you were dramatic back then and sometimes you still are. but you believed it. and you kept on believing it until a year had passed. seokmin still alive and you still alive too. grief hadn't encompassed like you thought it would. instead, it slithered away the way the cold does between february and march. a surprisingly warm day. and then another. and then it's may and you're laying in the sand with jeonghan under the sun. seokmin gone, but still not cold. not the way you were after seungcheol at least. you lay beside jeonghan, eyes closed and relishing in the light of the sun, and wondering when grief stopped being a weighted blanket that sat on your chest and threatened to crush your lungs. you wonder when grief became a small presence that sits at your feet, unbothered, until you decide to take it your arms and hold the freezing thing against your cheek and heart. you wonder when grief stopped being the default. when it became a choice, not one made to feel sad, but rather, one made to remember.

that day, in the sand and under the may sun, you remember turning to jeonghan and saying it was more than soulmates. he was more than just bound to you and especially not by some wavering red thread. he was your air. your water. the sound of laughter. a reason to keep on running after time. someone to hand the cold weight of grief to, passing it back and forth like kids playing catch, someone to hug when you held it for too long. someone to remind you to set grief back down and that it's okay to occasionally forget about the lives that were. about seokmin and seungcheol. someone to catch you when you spend too long staring at the grief by your feet, someone to push your chin up and tell you to look at the sun. look ahead. look at me. someone to say don't go. someone to stay for.

but that was nearly two years ago. that was before the little girl. before he looked at her and saw what you see in him. things change after the little girl, but it's less to do with you and more to do with jeonghan. more to do with the fact that the girl is gone and you aren't enough to stick around for.

"stop the car." you say one day, abruptly, the words coming out like a confession. he does. as suddenly as you said it.

you're out of the car immediately. running through a field of tall grass and white flowers. you run and run and run. it's been five years since rekshi appeared, not much less since they took seungcheol. four years since you met jeonghan. three since seokmin died. a little over one since the girl. you run past those memories, collecting them in your arms, carrying each of them, their burdening weight slowing you down because you can't breathe anymore. so you do the next most reasonable thing. you grab the grief at your feet and swallow it, let it inflate your lungs. then you keep running. the field is infinite like time. but you run, never faltering, ripping out the grass accidently, tearing every moment of the past five years apart. and then you stop. at the edge of the cliff. at the rim of the word. you stand in the face of death and beside time itself. finally you've caught up to it. finally you gather it in your arms, fit the seconds between the memories and throw them all off the edge of the world.

you remember a documentary you watched once. you don't remember when you watched it, but you remember it now, at the edge of the world while watching time fall. the documentary was about buffaloes, how they travel in herds and fall off cliffs together. how they must not know what they're doing. how they must be blindly following the buffalo in front. you wish to be like that now. to run and throw yourself off the side of this cliff and have it not be a choice. you've spent so long chasing after time, that now, it almost feels natural to run off the edge of the world behind it. it feels like the only thing left to do. to follow the one before you and fall.

"don't jump!" you hear jeonghan scream from behind you.

you turn and he's already running towards you, through the field you just tore through, the same one you just stripped bear. he runs to you like he could hear how much you were thinking about the jump--or more accurately--thinking about the fall.

"don't jump." he repeats, breathlessly, coming to a stop ten paces away from you. too far away. he looks scared. hesitant. as if he knows that if he comes any closer you just might. "please. don't jump."

neither of you say anything after that. you stand facing jeonghan and your back turned to the edge of the world. you both stand in a field beyond the rest of the world and beyond time. you both stand like you're the only two people who matter. and maybe that's not just a stupid simile. maybe that's the truth.

you step towards him once. twice. a third time. he doesn't move. he stands seven paces away from you now, but it feels like worlds apart. like he's at one end and you're at the other.

finally, you ask, "would you?"

and a timeless silence follows.

despite the world between him and you, you still hear every break in his voice when he chokes out, "it's just been so long."

he falls to his knees.

and you cross the world to get to him. you've always been willing to.

he cries next to the flowers. face half covered by the grass. you stand above him. wondering whether he wishes he was like a buffalo too. wondering if he's waiting for you to fall so that he can follow. for how long have you both been standing at the edge and refusing to fall off for each other?

"jeonghan," you kneel down in front of him, "where did you go?"

"i knew her." he sobs. you stare at him. "the girl. she was from my hometown. she didn't remember me. she was so young, but i remembered her. and i knew her mother and her sister. i knew. and it felt like she was untouched by this world, that they couldn't touch her. she gave me hope. like we weren't just sitting and waiting for death, like maybe there's an end to all this. but she's gone. in my head she was invincible. but still, the rekshi got her. and they got seokmin and joshua and everyone. and i don't want to wait for them to get you too."

you don't say anything. you sit in front of him silently. waiting for the flowers to soak up his sobs. you wait for him. long enough for your memories to have crawled back up from the edge of the world and take their place beside you. the girl was his seungcheol, a tether to life before. you're beyond time. have spent the past four or so years chasing after it, and finally today you caught up and threw it away. all this time, you thought jeonghan was right behind you, running after time, after you. but you were wrong. he's been stuck in time since the rekshi got her. and before he could catch up to it, you threw it off the ends of earth. you look behind you. you wait for the time you flung past the cliff to crash. and then you wait for a new clock to start clicking. you laugh, for a number of reasons, but mainly to drown the sound of it.

time is a funny thing. you always thought it waxed and waned, slowed down and sped up. but really, time is a circle with you in the center. and time is the only thing standing between you and jeonghan.

you take the grief at his feet and place it next to the memories beside you. you hold his frozen grief in your hands the same way he's done before with yours.

"deja vu." he mutters, like he can see what you're doing. but he can't. there is no tangible grief for you to hold. it's a metaphor.

"are you happy?"

he sighs. "i was. i am. it's just--"

"no. jeonghan." you take his face in your hands, holding him in your palms. this isn't a metaphor. in a world of things that are, this is real. "are you happy?"

he must hear the clock ticking. he frowns. "are you?"

a/n: there are probably so many typos in this, i apologize, if anyone thinks i should expand on this then lmk cause ngl i am toying with the idea

#seventeen scenarios #seventeen smut #jeonghan x reader #jeonghan imagines #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfic #jeonghan fanfic #seventeen #yoon jeonghan #jeonghan scenarios #svt scenarios #svt fanfic #kpop fanfic #seventeen fluff #seventeen angst #mine #are you happy?#lowqualityseventeen #omg i havent used that tag in so long. miss my lowqualityseveneen days

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solarwonux · 4 years ago

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10. “I still remember the way you taste.”

31. “Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

villain!wonwoo x superhero!f!reader

w.c: 2.6k (it was mistake okay I got carried away we should know this by now)

warnings: fluff, talks of death, ghosts, torture if you squint, graveyards, digging up graves (don’t do that yall), angst a little, it’s hinted that the reader can communicate with ghosts. (if you’re uncomfortable with any of these themes this one is not for you)

note: I CAN EXPLAIN OKAY I KNOW YOU WANTED JOKER WONWOO BUT LIKE IT STARTED OFF THAT WAY AND THEN I GOT SOFT. Enjoy let know your thoughts please, they mean so much to me.

Also i will answer asks at some point, school is just keeping me super busy, BUT IM NOT IGNORING THEM THEY MAKE ME SMILE EVERY TIME I SEE THEM.

masterlist || drabble game

Wonwoo wiped the sweat off of his brow with the back of his hand, panting slightly as he stared down at the empty grave. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Vernon asked, digging his shovel into the ground with the heel of his boot. He rested his forearm against the handle looking at Wonwoo through his sweaty bangs.

“There is no reason, I was just bored.” Wonwoo shrugged, his cheeks were dusted with dirt and his white dress shirt was anything but white. The truth was he had a reason, he needed a way to meet you halfway and causing chaos was the only way to get you out of that shiny tower in the middle of the city where all the heroes resided. But his reasoning would never be voiced out loud, especially not to Vernon and so he lied like it was second nature to him.

Wonwoo missed you, He missed getting under your skin with his snarky remarks and idiotic plans to take over the world. Or at least the city. The world was his end goal, but in order to do that he needed to succeed at taking over the city first and so far he had failed. Mainly, do to you and your teammates interrupting his plans. Though along the way something unexpected happened. He had undoubtedly fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with you. It had annoyed him at first, his mind was constantly enveloped with thoughts of you. Interrupting everything he spent years working on.

It took him months to come to terms with his unwanted feelings and if he hadn’t snuck into the masked ball held every year at the tower; he probably wouldn’t have. But the second he saw you come down the grand staircase of the ballroom wearing a dress so blue, it put the night sky to shame; he kissed you before he could stop himself. Despite the mask he was wearing you had spotted him in the crowd and led him down an empty hallway when his urges got the best of him causing him to sin. When he pulled away he was shocked just as you were, but he was definitely floored when you had cut his apology short and kissed him again.

“So you decided to dig up an empty grave for fun?” Vernon pushed his dirt stained hand through his hand, leaving behind little specks of dirt in its wake. “How did you even know this grave would be empty?”

“It’s mine...well used to be mine. Obviously I’m not dead.” Wonwoo’s nonchalant tone sent shivers up Vernon’s back. Once again he found himself wondering why the hell he always found himself going along with Wonwoo’s schemes. He knew there was a reason. Wonwoo never did anything without calculating all his moves beforehand, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the true reason, more so if he was going to find out soon anyway. His suspicions were confirmed when he caught sight of you. He should’ve known that this was just another one of Wonwoo’s ways to get to you.

Vernon didn’t understand your relationship with Wonwoo, scientifically it didn’t make sense. In simple terms Wonwoo was hated by everyone and you on the other hand were not. But the two of you had snuck around for years up until the accident five months ago. Ever since then Wonwoo’s spirits were low and he was going mad. If he wasn’t holed up in his tiny room at the apartment he was bent over a desk mumbling to himself, trying to come up with ways in which he could see you again. All of Wonwoo’s attempts before this one had failed and to say he wasn’t surprised to see you sit down, legs hanging over the edge of the grave while looking down at Wonwoo lovingly, he would be lying. Though, he supposed it had to do with the fact that Wonwoo’s grave was dug up.

“You guys having fun there?” Wonwoo jumped. He rapidly smoothed down his shirt, leaving behind streaks of dirt, and fixed his hair before turning around. A smug smile adorning his features. Vernon shook his head and rolled his eyes. Sometimes he missed the days in which Wonwoo wasn’t in love.

“Princess what brings you here?” He winked. His clammy hands grew more wet as he leaned against the shovel, before it failed underneath his weight causing him to trip. Seeing you again was like a breath of fresh air, the pictures he kept of you and looked at every night did you no justice. For you shined brighter than the stars in the night sky and it always made Wonwoo’s heart skip a beat.

“Cut the shit Wonwoo, I know you’ve been turning this city upside down at least once a week to get under my skin.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do? You haven’t been answering my calls, texts or emails.” Wonwoo threw his hands up in disbelief and you rolled your eyes at his ignorance.

“Apologize, that’s all you had to do and you wouldn’t be here digging your own grave...literally.” You huffed crossing your arms in front of you, ripping your eyes away from his. Suddenly the memory of the accident came lingering back. You knew, given his nature, Wonwoo was calculated. He used his powers to affiliate pain on his victims without moving a muscle to get what he wanted. Though, he had never used it on you, until that night.

He had been blinded by rage and pain and you had never seen him use so much power in your years of knowing him. It scared you and when you had tried to coax him out of whatever state he was in. He did the one thing he promised he would never do.

He used his abilities on you.

Wonwoo sighed before hosting himself out of the hole and taking the empty seat next you. “I wanted to do it in person, but you never showed up.” He looked down at his hands playing with his fingers, twirling the ring on his pinky. His body was consumed with guilt as your screams of agony replayed in his head. Just like they did every night. He had never once felt anything but satisfaction and bliss whenever he used his powers on someone. In fact he loved the way his victims begged him to stop, that was until you were on the receiving end of his torture.

“You know where I live. It’s a big shiny tower in the center of town. Pretty hard to miss honestly.” The airy playfulness of your voice made his stomach swirl. He truly missed you and not just on nights when the two of you gently explored each other's bodies, but just in general.

“I know but you know how much I hate the others, especially Joshua. He always has to stick his nose into matters that don’t concern him.” He huffed, flicking a tiny spec of dirt off of his trousers. “And I was scared.” He confessed lowly, shocking Vernon who had now taken it upon himself to sit on the soil filled ground to watch the spectacle in front of him. Wonwoo never admitted his fears and though Vernon sometimes could feel them radiating off him. It was different hearing it come from his friend's mouth.

“Of Joshua? Dude’s only got super strength and-”

“No of you. I was scared to see you suffer and to turn me away. I was scared that if I did show up putting aside indifference for your friends just to hear you say that you didn’t love me anymore.” Wonwoo let out a deep sigh at the ending of his words. He dropped his shoulders feeling the weight being lifted off them. He felt your body shake next to him and it confused him greatly, even more so when it was followed by your laugh. Though he loved it and missed it greatly. He couldn’t deny the anger he felt towards you as you laughed at his vulnerability.

Slowly, he felt his heart close up again and brought himself up to his feet faster than he could blink. His feet moved faster than the doubt racing through his veins and your laughter came to a stop.

He now remembered why he swore to never love again all those years ago.

“Wonwoo, wait come back.” You hurried to your feet, smoothing down the creases on your leggings. Vernon copied your movements. He could sense the fear coming from your body, and it overwhelmed his senses. Behind his soft eyes he quietly told you to hurry before Wonwoo did something he wasn’t supposed to. Even though Wonwoo always did without planning ahead of time, there were a few instances where he didn’t care and acted carelessly. And he found himself fearing more for your heart rather than his friend's safety.

You sighed tugging on the sleeves of your sweatshirt before turning around and ran after the only man you had ever loved. You passed many tombstones, silently paying your respects until you stopped in the middle of a small clearing, home to one familiar tombstone and Wonwoo. His hands in his pocket, eyebrows furrowed and his teeth chewing down on his teeth.

“After she died, I promised her I wouldn’t love anyone again.” He whispered, “but then you came along and ruined it.” He turned his head, his eyes glossy with wanted tears. “Do you know how much I beat myself up every day for what I did to her. For what I did to you. I hate myself for it, I hate that I can inflict pain on everyone else but myself because I’m not one that should be suffering, not everyone else.”

By now he had finally let his tears go. They raced down his cheeks rapidly and it shattered your heart.

“It hurts me that you think that way about yourself. She didn’t die because of you, you tried to save her and-”

“I was too late.” Wonwoo snorted and rolled his eyes. He stared intently at the tombstone in front of him, reading his little sister’s name over and over again, letting it burn feverishly inside his mind. He missed her dearly and sometimes he wondered why you never told him anything about the conversations you would have with her whenever she visited you. But you had told him that it was a family secret between the two of you and he never questioned you again because you had used the word family and it made him feel all giddy inside.

“Let me talk Wonwoo.” You said closing the gap between you and Wonwoo. You grabbed his face in your hands and wiped away his tears with the pad of your thumb. He had always been there to comfort you on your lowest days. His sweet words and warmth grounded you back onto the Earth, but you had never gotten the opportunity to do the same to him. He always kept himself closed off and reserved. It had taken almost a year into your secret, not so secret relationship for him to tell you about his sister’s unfortunate death and a few more months after that for him to say that he loved you. Despite all those small passing moments of vulnerability he had never once cried in front of you.

“I love you and you’re stupid for thinking that I would love you any less because of what happ-”

“I hurt you though,” Wonwoo cut you off, earning a ground shattering glare from you that sent shivers up his spine. “Sorry you can continue.” He whispered.

“Thank you.” You smirked and wrapped your arms around his neck, making him freeze. You were the strangest person he had ever had the pleasure in knowing because normal people would never be as comfortable as you were in his presence. “I know the kind of person you are Wonwoo, through this cold exterior there is the most loving and sensible person I have ever known. I mean, baby, you spent a whole day sulking because you forgot to water your plant.”

“You gave me that plant for my birthday, therefore he’s our child.”

“This is exactly my point, you have the biggest of anyone I have ever known. Unfortunately, you have been dealt a bad hand in life and I really don’t understand your obsession with taking over the world. But you’re not a monster.”

“I hurt people though, sometimes for fun.” He whispered against your skin. In the midst of your speech he had given in and circled his arms around your waist before burying his face into the crook of your neck. Leaving the two of you in an awkward and uncomfortable position.

“And who are those people?”

“Bad people.”

“Exactly baby, they’re the scum of the Earth and you have helped stop them.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t make me a hero. I’m just doing what you guys can’t do. On top of that Joshua’s super strength is useless, he only gets praised because he’s hot.” Wonwoo finished and raised his head, smirking. He sent you a playful wink, tears long forgotten, causing you to roll your eyes.

“Mingyu takes forever to get ready, but that’s besides the point. You’re not a monster so stop treating yourself like one.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?” He pouted batting his eyelashes at you.

“Yes you big idiot.”

“Then...why haven’t you kissed me yet?” He puckered his lips and made kissing noises, making you laugh. “Hey I’m waiting and you know I’m impatient.” He spoke through pouted lips as he leaned in closer, his lips hovered over yours teasingly until you finally caved and kissed him. He sighed happily against your mouth and deepened the kiss. He had spent five months without the feeling of your touch and it scared him that he would forget how it felt. Yet, now as he kissed you with everything in him he realized he hadn’t and it overjoyed him to the point in which he accidentally let out a moan; making you pull away quickly and eyeing him down.

“Control yourself, your sister, her friends and Vernon are here.” You scolded making him pout.

“I’m sorry, i just...I still remember the way you taste, and I got excited.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Before he could plant his lips on yours again he was met with your hand pushing him away. He whined as you tore his arms away from your waist, his body growing cold. “Nooo, one more kiss.” He reached out making grabby hands at you like a child. Instead of giving into what he wanted you turned and started walking away, “Wait, where are you going?” He stumbled against his own feet before following you.

“Home.” You looked over at him and stuffed your hands into the front pocket of your hoodie. “You have a grave to cover up with Vernon.”

“But I haven’t seen you in five months, just give me five more minutes please.”

“Wonwoo you just didn’t look hard enough baby.” You said giving him a knowing smirk before leaning over, giving him a chaste kiss on his cheek. He felt his eyes grow in realization as everything started to click in his head. If what you had hinted was the truth and you had shown up to every single sight he had caused trouble in, then he had to give it to you. You were a lot more clever than you led on. “Don’t think about it too hard, I’ll leave my window open for you.” You smiled widely giving his cheek a pat and disappeared through the trees.

“You live on the twenty fourth floor.” He yelled after you, his hands falling down at his side in defeat. He heard someone snort next to him and suddenly he remembered that Vernon was there silently observing everything, just like always did.

“Figure it out baby, you always do.”

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adifferenttime · 4 years ago

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Honest Hearts: A Rough Rewrite

Hey! I’ve been working on an Honest Hearts rewrite-type-thing for a bit and figured I’d solicit feedback/assemble a post to store some of these ideas.

A detailed explanation of the premise is under the cut, but I’ve made this as a more interesting reintroduction to major locations, along with the characters who live there. I also have some lore consisting of letters, scripture, and holotapes that’s still in the early stages, along with a complete companion wheel for Salt-Upon-Wounds (he’ll follow you around for a little if you decide to help him out). Endings are now finished as well. I’m not planning on expanding this into a full mod, but I’m assembling everything in Twine so I can utilize branching dialogue and mimic skill checks.

I want to keep adding to and editing this because I’m having fun with it, so if you have any input, let me know!

Essentially, the story proceeds as written up until the point where Daniel sends you to either kill the White Legs or destroy their war totems. You quickly realize that their camp is deserted, at which point Salt-Upon-Wounds ambushes you, convo-locks you, and tells you that there’s an entirely different side to things here that you might not have considered.

Factions

The Mormons have established a theocracy in the Utah called Deseret, with New Jerusalem - what was once Salt Lake City - as its capital. Large numbers of them survived the initial apocalypse due to their pre-War focus on strong community ties and disaster prepping; over time, they have returned to the model of self-sufficient agrarianism that characterized the historical Mormon state of Deseret that existed in Utah in the 1800s. Their President, who wields supreme executive power, is also their Prophet. The Mormons believe he communes directly with God, but there’s some discontent in New Jerusalem over his hands-off approach to foreign policy and unwillingness to assemble a standing army. The Elders of the Priesthood are pushing him to allow for some kind of formal military to oppose what they see as revived versions of their ancestral enemies: America, Rome, and the “Lamanites” (this is what Mormons call Indigenous Americans; the “Lamanite” idea has historically been used as a justification for racism, and I’m reflecting that here because it’d be kind of heinous not to). In more than a few respects, Deseret serves as a mirror to the Legion and an exploration of the other side of the coin re: the tactics utilized by colonial empires to present themselves as legitimate while still claiming territory and steamrolling the opposition.

The White Legs are now more explicitly Shoshone, and I’m relying most heavily on the Timpanagos Band for names and historical inspiration (apparently the question of whether they’re Ute or Shoshone is pretty controversial, but I’m sticking with what the Timpanagos have said about it until someone corrects me). After migrating south in the wake of the Great War, the White Legs eventually settled in Ogden, about a day north of New Jerusalem. Initial interactions with the Mormons were friendly, but as New Jerusalem grew and its need for farmland and resources increased, tensions rose before culminating in open violence in around ‘76 or ‘77. Deseret’s party line is that the White Legs conducted a “raid” on one of their settlements and had to be driven away from Ogden; the White Legs claim the violence was not a raid, but a revenge killing after a Mormon killed a young man and was found not guilty by Mormon legal authorities (this is a theocracy, so “legal authorities” here can be understood as indistinct from “the church”). The Mormons established a new settlement on the ruins of Ogden, which they called New Canaan, and the White Legs fled to Salt Lake, where they have been dwindling in number ever since. Salt-Upon-Wounds’ plan to seek entry to the Legion is a last-ditch attempt to save his people from eradication when their neighbors and the land itself seems intent on killing them (not that that makes all the war crimes ok, which is a sentiment you’ll be able to express to his face if you engage him in conversation).

The Dead Horses are a pastoral society from out of Dead Horse Point, and are split almost down the middle along political lines. The more conservative, religious side opposes intervention in Zion. Graham desecrates the corpses of his enemies as an intimidation tactic, and because the Dead Horses’ religion is so eschatological and heavily focused on properly cleaning, preparing, and interring the dead, a big chunk of the religious leadership opposes him on that basis - they think his tactics are ungodly. They’re also worried that any Dead Horses who die in Zion and are interred there will be severed from their connection to Dead Horse Point and doomed to a separate, lonely afterlife. The younger, more progressive elements of the tribe are less traditionalist, sometimes less religious, and overall not as concerned about Graham’s treatment of the dead because of the potential benefit they might be able to derive from him. Follows-Chalk is their de facto leader, and while the Dead Horses don’t formally allocate political power, he’s among the most influential people in the informal tribal leadership. Most of the Dead Horses who’ve come to Zion have done so either because they support Follows-Chalk politically, or for practical reasons - namely, Graham’s access to a dizzying number of guns and his willingness to give them to anyone who’ll fight for him.

The Sorrows are now a terrace-farming agrarian society instead of hunter-gatherers (Zion has a lot of agricultural potential, and there’s already a few farming plots in the Sorrows camp you see in-game, so it’s not a huge departure from the canon). I’m keeping their Mexican heritage, but I’d like to give them some Ainu influences as well - partially for selfish reasons, but also because bears are extremely important to our culture and theology, which gels well with the elements of Sorrows culture and religion that appear in the canon. I’d like to keep the Survivalist because I like him, but I want to expand on their faith. One of the ways I’m doing that is by deciding they can still read English, even though they no longer speak it; it’s basically their equivalent of liturgical Latin. They’re also rigidly matriarchal and in contrast to the Dead Horses (who eschew formal political hierarchies) or the White Legs (who elect a chief who serves until he dies, is deposed, or voluntarily abdicates), leadership positions are allocated through matrilineal primogeniture; Waking Cloud inherited her position from her mother. Religious leadership, likewise, is only available to women. You’ll be able to talk to Waking Cloud about some of the ways this framework is incompatible with the Mormon perspective, and can appeal to her desire to retain power.

Characters

Canon Characters

Joshua Graham and Daniel are largely unaltered except through the addition of lore that gives insight into their cultures, motives, and pasts.

All three tribal leaders (Follows-Chalk, Waking Cloud, and Salt-Upon-Wounds) are either given new backstories, a different set of motives, or different approaches to one another/Graham and Daniel. They’re also explicitly leaders now - what power Graham and Daniel have, they derive from whichever tribal leader they’ve managed to attach themselves to. Of those three, I’m altering Waking Cloud the least and Salt-Upon-Wounds the most. Like I mentioned, I have a companion wheel for him so far and the bones of two other conversations - one, where you meet him for the first time, and the second, where you speak to him before the final battle. Will link as I finish them.

Original Characters

Each tribal leader now has a rival or right hand within their tribe so I can reflect the different ways the values of a specific community can express themselves.

Follows-Chalk’s primary rival among the Dead Horses is a man who refuses to tell you his name. That’s because using someone’s name in casual conversation is considered unspeakably rude, and the fact that Follows-Chalk is willing to share his own with you is, to Mysteriously Named Old Man Character, yet another sign of how disrespectful and laissez-faire Follows-Chalk is about their shared traditions. Old Man Character is suspicious of you initially, but if you speak to him more he starts to warm to you. The goal is to give you a sense that this he’s pretty xenophobic but for good reasons, and despite his political conflicts with Follows-Chalk, has a lot of love for him. He just wants what’s best for his family, and Follows-Chalk is part of that, even if Mysteriously Named Old Man Character thinks he’s making the wrong choices.

Kiiki is Salt-Upon-Wounds’ right-hand woman and intended as a contrast re: the approach to war and its costs. Salt-Upon-Wounds has done some horrible things and gets a fair bit of dialogue about that, but Kiiki is willing to go even further than he has with very little prompting. Her chief copes with what he’s done by trying to assure himself that the ends of war are worth the cost; Kiiki deals with it by trying to convince herself that the means weren't so bad, actually, and that anyone who isn’t nailing corpses to walls is being naive. All of that makes her sound pretty shitty, but she’s nowhere near as devoted to the idea of a Legion alliance as Salt-Upon-Wounds is. It only takes one very low Speech check to convince her that going Legion is a bad move, and one of the paths involves assassinating Salt-Upon-Wounds and installing her as the new leader as a way to stop the White Legs from joining Caesar. I haven’t added this path to the ending Twine because I’d like to finish Kiiki’s dialogues before I do that.

I’m replacing White Bird as the Sorrow’s spiritual leader with a woman named Imekanu. She’s incredibly old, savvy, and knowledgeable - she’s never been outside Zion, but has a store of books in English, Spanish, and Japanese that have allowed her some insight into what caused the war, if not the current state of the world. She’s also aware of the Survivalist’s origins - not because she’s entered any of his hideouts, but because she’s read over the scriptures and has correctly identified them as letters. Her perspective is that the Father in the Caves was a human being, but that doesn’t diminish his religious value. She sees him as analogous to the Buddha or a Catholic saint: human, sure, but still with access to some deeper truths about the purpose of man and the nature of human goodness. You’ll discover that this idea (that the Survivalist was a holy man rather than a literal god) is the most common perspective among the Sorrows, and you can talk to her about how this departs from Daniel’s perspective that the archetypal Father is divine, not human.

Quests

Each tribe has a specific quest that will either lower or bypass some of the penultimate checks that will determine your ending (people are more likely to believe what you’re telling them if you’ve already won their trust).

The Dead Horses: Joshua Graham has been putting the heads of the fallen up on pikes across Zion. The Dead Horses’ religion is deeply concerned with proper treatment of the deceased, and Graham’s decision to desecrate the corpses of his enemies goes against virtually everything they believe. The old man who won’t tell you his name asks you to take the heads off of the pikes and bury them deep in Zion, and to bring Follows-Chalk with you so you’ll have someone to tell you how to treat them properly. Over the course of the quest, Follows-Chalk will share some of his own beliefs about death, and you’ll have the opportunity to share your own. If you complete this quest without sabotaging it, Follows-Chalk will be willing to betray Graham to the White Legs before the final battle.

The Sorrows: This is basically just Ghost of She, but after defeating the Yao Guai you’ll discover a holotape revealing that the girl wasn’t killed by the bear, but by one of the murderers from Vault 22. Waking Cloud will speculate that maybe the Yao Guai wasn’t the ghost of the little girl at all but some other force that wanted to push you to discover the truth. If you wait until the end to tell Waking Cloud about the death of her husband, you’ll have to pass a Speech check of 75 to convince her you’re telling her the truth; completing this quest drops the check to 50.

The White Legs: Salt-Upon-Wounds will ask you to help him sabotage the Mormons’ preparations for the battle. If you help him with this, it’ll drop the Speech check for you to convince him to leave from 100 to 80. It’s not necessary at all to get the tribal confederacy ending, but a new note will appear in your inventory if you finish it and meet a couple other requirements (asking him certain questions, not attempting that one Speech check about religion, etc).

Endings

I’m trying to incorporate as much variety as possible, but there are three main ending paths: siding with the White Legs, siding with the other two tribes, and peace. The basic idea is that the outcome is predicated less on your direct intervention, and more on how other people act based on the facts they have available to them. Most of your influence is through your choices to hide or reveal key pieces of information, and the skill checks you need to access certain endings are less you convincing a character to do something and more convincing a character to believe you’re telling them the truth. There’s one major exception to this, it requires maxed Speech, and the ending it gives you is markedly bittersweet because you’re trying to get a guy to act against his own best interest. I’m writing all the endings up here, and will probably edit them as things change. The post where I explain them in more depth can be found here.

And that’s the story so far! Thank you for reading, and again: if there’s anything here you think is poorly-conceived, let me know. Thank you to @baelpenrose, who’s a grad student in the history of the American West, for helping me workshop a lot of this stuff. If you’ve got expert knowledge on any of the concepts I touch on or are personally a member of any of the groups I’m describing, please feel free to hmu: anon is on, and you’re always welcome to DM me. I’m just doing this for fun, but I still want it to be as not-shit as possible.

#fallout new vegas #fnv #honest hearts #honest hearts rewrite #probably should have started with initial conversations but oh well lmao

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give-me-back-my-rhodey · 4 years ago

Text

Make ME

Title: Make Me Creator: Purple_ducky00 Rating: Teen Warnings: none applicable Relationship: Sam/bucky Square Filled: O3 – Undercover Mission for @samwilsonbingo Summary: Sam and Bucky get under each other’s skin, and neither of them can stand the other. How long til these idiots learn that it’s not hate, but love between them? Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29754915

Prompted from this post by @rambeaus

“Who died and made you king?” Bucky grumbles.

Sam throws up his hands in annoyance. “For fuck’s sake Barnes! You know this is the best way to do this!”

“No, I don’t! This way has many flaws. The slightest movement could set off a chain reaction of…” Bucky’s tirade is cut off by Natasha walking between them with sterile gloves and picking up the mouse trap, sticking the remains of the mouse and the trap in a plastic bag. She rolls her eyes at them and walks out of the kitchen.

“Do you see what you just did there? This could have all been taken care of if you just listened to me!” Sam growls.

Smirking Bucky turns away. “Bite me.”

Sam’s temper flares as he watches Bucky walk away. What is it about the soldier that makes Sam’s blood boil? Every interaction they have ends in an argument… And for some reason, Rhodes had put them on the same team! When a few deep breaths don’t calm him down, Sam heads to the gym. Might as well let out some aggression on something he can’t hurt.

++++++++ “What were you thinking putting those two on the same team?” Tony laughs as he lays down in his husband’s lap. “The UST is off the charts. They are going to finally snap and either kill or fuck each other.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “I know. And that’s why I put them on the same team. I’m sick and tired of them skirting around the issue. No use delaying the inevitable. They both have too much of a sense of duty to not complete the mission, and I’m going to assign a mission leader to go with them to keep them on track. Now, who should that sucker be?”

“I would tell you Steve because I love trolling him, but he would only stop them from doing either. Give the job to Sharon. She deserves it after the whole blow-dryer incident.”

“Tony, that was five years ago.”

The retired superhero sits up to glare at Rhodey. “I’m still not over it.”

“Ok, ok. I’ll send Sharon. She’s close with them anyways. Hopefully, she knocks some sense into them.” Rhodey concedes.

+++++++++++++++++

Sam and Bucky are seated across the table from each other in the conference room, listening to Sharon’s plan. “So, we’re going undercover as actors in the Bachelorette. We have intel that the host of the show is somehow funneling contraband drugs and black-market arms for HYDRA. Bucky, Tony made you a flesh-like sleeve for your arm, and we are all going to be using holomasks to cover our identity. Do you both have your characters memorized?”

“Yes. I am Tucker Acktenbee. Raised by my mother and her sisters, I know how to appeal to the feminine side. Growing up in Massachusetts, I love seafood and cranberry jam and pies. Before I applied here, I graduated from LSU with a bachelor’s degree in English. I am twenty-six, and my birthday is October 19.” Bucky says as he pulls the holomask over his face. He looks like a completely different person.

Sam rolls his eyes and does the same. “Hey, baby. My name is Joshua Perkins. Born and raised in New Orleans, I also share an affinity for seafood, but my insides can handle the spice. No one’s going to want a bland piece of white bread like Tucker when this bombshell is available. With a master’s degree in psychology, I’m here to help with whatever emotional needs a woman has. I’ll be twenty-seven on April 15th.”

“Good. Good.” Sharon nods. “Just so you remember, I am going to be in the camera crew so my ears will be open for any rumors. Pack your stuff. We have to be on set in 24 hours to rehearse.”

“I don’t know about you, Barnes, but I’m going to win that Bachelorette’s heart.” Sam nudges Bucky with his shoulder.

“Better a fake relationship than none for you, I guess.”

This man makes him so angry! “Fuck you.”

“Nah, better leave that for Miss Bachelorette.” Bucky sends him a syrupy grin and walks out of the room before Sam can reply.

“Arrrgh!” He groans, and Sharon looks at him strangely. “Sorry, Shar. He just gets under my skin so easily. I just want to strangle him sometimes!”

“Yeah… strangle him…” She nods slowly.

“What are you implying?”

Raising her hands in surrender, Sharon backs up. “Hey, I’m not kink shaming. You do you, my friend. Just don’t tell me about it.” She picks up her clipboard and tablet. “Wheels up in nine hours.”

Kink shame? What the fuck? Needless to say, Sam is very confused. There is nothing kinky about his and Bucky’s relationship. They clash at every turn. If he slammed the door when he stormed out of the room, he’ll never admit it.

++++++++++++

“Hello and welcome to The Bachelorette! I am your host, Chris Harrison. Join me as we find this year’s Bachelorette a husband. At age 28, Penelope Darnea previously worked in insurance but is looking to branch out to another occupation. She loves baseball and the beach and is always down for a margarita. Now, let’s take you to our woman of the hour as she greets the contestants!”

Bucky is one of the first contestants to the mansion. Penelope Darnea is a beautiful woman with societal “perfect” features. As he walks up the stairs to the mansion, she greets him. “Hello, welcome to the mansion! Tucker Acktenbee?”

“Yes, it is.“ Bucky leans down to kiss her hand. “Can I tell you just how ravishing you look? The man you choose will be incredibly lucky indeed.”

Blushing, Penelope waves him on. “I can tell that you’re a charmer.” Bucky is escorted to a room in the mansion as Ms. Darnea greets the next contestant. He uses the time he has to think about the mission. Somehow, they have to act as contestants for the Bachelorette and figure out how they are funneling the money without the network realizing. And he has to do it with Sam.

His therapist once asked him “What does Sam do that gets on your nerves?”

“The better question is what does he do that doesn’t get on my nerves?” Bucky had replied. They always have the stupidest of arguments about the most meaningless things. Both of them hate to lose. His head perks up when he hears someone in the hall. “Here is your room, Mr. Perkins. If you need anything, please ring the bell.” The host goes through everything as he did in Bucky’s room.

“Thank you, sir. Much appreciated.” Oh fuck. That’s Sam’s voice. Bucky understands why they would put Sam beside him in case a quick update to the mission is needed, but to hear that voice at all times of the day? He can only take so much torture. Thankfully, a host comes to get him for an “exclusive” interview. Bucky stays true to his character but does not miss Sharon manning the camera.

After the interview, he is told that he can fraternize with the other contestants, but he cannot use someone else’s set time with the Bachelorette for his own. That is an instant disqualification. Bucky confirms his understanding and returns to his room. Changing into a new outfit, he decides to take a walk through the house. He’ll let Sam come to him first.

++++++++++++++++++

A week goes by, and the second rose ceremony is coming up. Both Sam and Bucky make sure to spend time with Ms. Darnea, but also meet up in Bucky or Sam’s room every night to see if they’ve seen anything suspicious.

Bucky has kept a close eye on the host but so far nothing looks fishy. Sam has been scanning other cast and crew members and has come up with nothing. They are quickly running out of options, but there are still a good portion of contestants left.

“Why don’t we check the host’s quarters? He has to have something there.” Bucky suggests. That was the dumbest fucking thing Sam has ever heard in his life. “Dude. There are cameras everywhere. If we get caught, our cover is blown. We have to just wait for some kind of shipment to get here. The set can’t have had enough food stocked for a month.”

“But what if we can’t wait that long? What if he’s getting stuff out another way? Then HYDRA has supplies, and they’ll hurt more people. We can’t let them do that.”

Sam scoffs. “What do you think they have? Air ducts under the mansion?”

“Go fuck yourself.” Bucky gives him the finger.

“Make me.”

Bucky’s eyes darken in anger. “I just might….” He cannot finish his sentence before there’re is a knock on the door.

“Mr. Perkins, your date is set up.” Someone calls through the door.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Sam smirks and straightens his collar, “I have a woman to seduce Tah tah! Have fun!” And then he sashays out, enjoying the look of pure anger on “Tucker’s” face.

He walks down the hallway with the camera crew following him to the porch outside where Penelope is waiting. “Well Joshua, what date do you have planned for us tonight?”

“Well, my lady, you say you like excitement, correct? I have bought us tickets for skydiving. Does that sound enjoyable to you? Once done, we will grab dinner at that new Italian restaurant, Sal’s, I think? They serve the best tiramisu.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely.” Penelope purrs, rubbing his arm with her hand.

Crooking his elbow, Sam offers his arm. “Shall we go?”

It is long after midnight when the couple returns from the restaurant. Sam looks up and sees the curtains are halfway open in Bucky’s room. That means he has some news. “I dd not realize they like you stay the entire night.” Penelope marvels. “Wow, Joshua, you are so cultured.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. “Sam waves it off. “Just something I’ve picked up in my travels. Have a good night Beautiful. I hope to see you again tomorrow. Water aerobics class?”

“Why yes. I do love water aerobics.” The bachelorette pokes his shoulder with hard, bony fingers. It hurts! Taking his leave of the lovely Bachelorette, he goes back to his room until the cameras leave. Then he walks over to Bucky’s, who updates him on the next shipment coming in. They will be ready then.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is the day after the latest Rose Ceremony. There are only five contestants left. We have gathered these remaining contenders to give another “exclusive” interview. “So how are you feeling about the contest?” The host asks each participant in their interviews. Here are the responses.

“I’m feeling pretty good about it. Ellie and I have had many a good date together. I do think she will choose me in the end.” Carlton Hayweather comments.

Nathan Abbey snorts. “Well, there are five of us left, so she can only pick one, right? And the amount of time Perkins and Acktenbee spend in each other’s rooms, we really don’t have to worry about them. So basically, there’s three of us.”

“I’m feeling confidant,” Joshua Perkins leans back in his chair. “I believe I have made her laugh the most, and I do believe humor and friendship are major keys in a relationship.”

Terrance Filippo tilts his head. “Eh, if I win, I win. If I don’t, I don’t.”

But it’s Tucker Acktenbee who wins the hearts of most watchers. “Penelope is a very strong woman. I trust that she knows who is best for her. I do hope it is me, of course, but should she choose another, we must all concede fair and square. We have to stop assuming we know what women want or need. She is capable of knowing it herself, and I wish her the best.”

Are you excited for the next round? I am!

++++++++++

“Tucker, Joshua? The producers of the show would like to meet with you.” An event manager pulls them from the pool area.

When they arrive in the office, the head producer, Carole Teller, claps her hands. “Great acting out there! Have you seen this interview?” She shoves a tablet in front of their faces. Nathan Abbey’s face is centered on the screen.

“Oh, he thinks we’re gay?” Bucky asks.

“Yes, and if you are, we don’t discriminate, although I wonder why you’re here if you are. But it doesn’t matter. The question is, would you be able to pretend at least for the screen? I don’t mean a full make-out session, but maybe the camera catches a glimpse of you two in the corner. Ratings will go up, and there will be added drama.”

Bucky is about to object when Sam shrugs. “Sure. We can do that. Is that all you need?”

“Yes. Thank you for coming in. Good work out there!” She chirps and then turns her full attention onto something else.

“I guess we’re dismissed.” Sam shrugs. “Come back to my room. We have to strategize.”

Once they get back to Sam’s room, Bucky pushes Sam up against the wall. “What the fuck did you agree to that for?” He hisses. “First of all, that means the show is queerbaiting and I don’t like that! Second of all, how is this going to help us?”

“We can hide in little alleyways and closets. Who knows what clues we could find there? Do you hate me that much that we can’t play nice and kissy for a week or so?”

“I can kiss you. I am a great actor, thank you very much.” Bucky leaves go of Sam.

“Then do it. Kiss me.” Sam challenges. “Make me.” Bucky thinks the conversation would be ended there, but Sam grabs him by the face and plants a deep kiss on this lip. Caught off guard, Bucky is not ready for that, but quickly kisses Sam back.

“Wow. That wasn’t so bad after all.” Sam says, wiping his face with his sleeve.

Bucky scratches the back of his head. “Not… too… bad, I guess.”

Now that one kiss has been made, many more are to come. Bucky and Sam take advantage of their “hidden relationship” to sneak into closets and hallways. They find that the next shipment will be coming in early the next morning.

Bucky is taken away to get ready for his date. The dinner and show are quite enjoyable, and Penelope asks him back to her room. Bucky agrees. Once inside the door with the cameras off, she pushes him to a machine and flips the switch. The electricity runs through him and holds him to the machine. Tsk what am I going to do with you?” Penelope asks. “You shouldn’t have come, Asset.”

“You can’t…. control me. The words don’t…. work anymore.” Bucky forces out through his pain.

“True that might be, but I can break you. My mother broke you the first time. Don’t think I don’t have her notes.” She smiles wickedly. “Too bad you had to snoop in places you just didn’t belong. Now I’m going to take you and all my goods< and I’m taking you back to base where we can finish our experiments. How does that sound?”

“Like we got it all on tape!” Sam bursts through the door. “Hands up Lady. We’ve got you.” He rips off his holomask, showing his face.

“Drop the gun, or I electrocute him.” Penelope warns.

Sam puts the gun on the floor and slides it halfway over to the villainess. As she bends down to get it, Bucky summons his strength to break free of the current and kicks her. Immediately, Sam tackles Penelope to the ground and wrestles the switch from her, accidentally setting it on high. Bucky convulses and screams. In panic mode, Sam clicks off the current and frees Bucky, who falls to the ground, unmoving. Quickly chaining the Bachelorette to the machine, Sam works on reviving Bucky. “Bucky! No! You can’t die. I just realized that I love you, and if you don’t wake up and get up, so help me I will kill you myself.”

Bucky’s lips move minutely, and he whispers something. Sam leans down to heard Faintly, Bucky whispers with a grin, “Make me.”.

#sambucky #sam wilson #Bucky Barnes #idiots in love #samwilsonbingo

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aerielz · 4 years ago

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more J/D headcanons

Inspired by this answer from the wonderful @donnaslyman, here are some of my own headcanons from the early days of Josh' and Donna's relationship

(long text under the cut!)

They went to Hawaii for that trip (YES I love how this seems to be a fandom consensus or smth). They spent most of the first day at the beach, and had a great time doing a whole lot of nothing. The thing is that after that the expectations of lots of sex got frustrated by the fact that Donna forgot the sunscreen and got sunburnt to the point where Josh couldn't touch her, bc she's is A KLUTZ. She was mortified but Josh laughed the whole time bc he loves this woman so much, and he loves her even more when she's this incredibly silly woman who does silly things. so the next couple of days after that were a mix of "turn around I'll rub lotion of your back." "no funny business, Josh, this hurts!" "relax I'm a gentleman" and long talks and walks along the beach at night.

Not only Josh was the first to say "I love you", but he's also a full-on sap. and a silent sap, at that. They have some big moments, but even those are reserved for just the two of them. When they’re in public there’s rarely any pda. BUT: now that he has no reason to pretend he's not absolutely in love w her, Josh is the idiot who stares at his girlfriend every time she looks pretty (which, if you ask him, is always). Things like "you look amazing" happen all the time. There's not a soul in DC who doesn't know that Josh Lyman lives and dies by Donna Moss' love, and he makes no effort to hide it

When Donna says she loves him is bc they're having an argument (nothing big, but they're both a bit annoyed), and she says “CHRIST, Joshua, I love you, but you have to stop being this stubborn” or smth and Josh just... freezes. he doesn’t say anything and it’s like it knocked the fight out of him and donna is starting to get worried when he says “really? THIS IS HOW YOU CHOOSE TELL ME?” “oh cmon it’s not like you didn’t know” “still.” neither of them can remember what they were arguing about after that.

the first crash of the Santos WH is actually a very serious one. smth like what happens in No Exit, but at the east wing: someone w bad intentions remembers that a very good way to get to powerful men is to get to the ones they love. Helen wasn’t at the wh (by luck) but donna was, and when josh and Santos get the news josh instantly goes ash-white. “oh god no, not again,” he whispers. “Josh,” it’s Ron who’s come to explain, and they know each other enough that Ron knows what this is doing to him. “she’s in good hands.” josh kinda goes into work mode and Santos is just??????? “is alright, if it was Helen there’s no one who’d convince me I should be working--” “I need something to do, Matt. Something, anything. Or I'll just-- I just need to keep busy.” in the end the system works and nothing happens but it freaks both Josh and Donna out. she spends the night at his place, and wakes up in the middle of the night to find him on the couch. josh feels protective and donna feels like being protected. they finally have a frank conversation about gaza.

somehow, after that, they alway get back to his place after work. it’s not something they think about, or even something they notice. at some point josh finally figures out that it’s been two months since he’s known what is like to fall asleep without her by his side. she’s working on top of his (their?) bed, and he lays down w his head on her legs. “so. we’re, like, living together. right?” donna smiles and starts playing w his hair. “yeah. is that alri--” “yeah.”

#the west wing #josh x donna #donna x josh #tww hc #az talks tww #half of these were supposed to become fics but wHO AM I KIDDING LOL #i might still do it #one day #after I finish my current wips

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oveliagirlhaditright · 3 years ago

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This Is Your Life - NeShiki

A NeShiki AU for Week 2, Day 2. Neo Spoilers. Oneshot.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33449641

Shiki and Neku had been together for three years now… Three blissful years, even amidst all the heartache and pain of them having to live in the UG these days, but blissful they were.

Shiki could still remember well, the time that Neku had wanted to celebrate Christmas with her in the UG (their first Christmas together) and had wanted to buy a tree, of course. And he had… But he’d ended up buying a fake palm tree to decorate with instead of a pine tree, in fearing that if someone happened to see him in the UG… they might somehow link Christmas to the Christian God, and then that with the Composer, and then maybe jump to the right conclusion that Neku knew who the Composer was, and bring even more danger down on them all that way.

So, Neku had bought a fake palm tree. And, truly, it had been silly. Shiki had been sure to tease Neku for it, too. And later, even he’d realized he overreacted (even though they probably wouldn’t take back the chance to try and protect Josh, even if they could… as he had been pretty good to them since enlisting them here)… but even with the silliness, it was probably Shiki’s happiest memory. She’d put a Malibu Barbie on top as the “angel”, and Neku had replied that that seemed fitting of a fashionista like her… and it had all been ridiculous, and so much fun.

And it was for that kind of happiness, that Shiki was mostly glad that she had ended up in the UG with Neku again. She hadn’t killed herself after Coco had murdered him—even though a part of her had been tempted to, to Partner with him in the Game again if he had needed her—and hadn’t gone back to the old Shiki, but rather had gone to work getting Gatto Nero up off the ground with Eri.

But then… Shiki had died in another accident. Not a car accident this time, but a piano falling on her head, of all things, while she was walking down the street. Thankfully, she hadn’t felt that, and the next thing she’d known, she’d been in the UG with Neku and Joshua…

Shiki had then thrown her arms around Neku then and sobbed uncontrollably. And while Neku often tried to act calm, cool and collected, she thought that he had behaved as emotionally as she had when they’d been reunited.

Joshua had explained then, that he was just going to give her the penalty of not being able to play the Game again, since she and Neku were Partners (at the time, Shiki had wanted to slap Josh—thinking that he was trying to rip away her chance of trying to come back to life again—but now she understood he had just given her the solid of not having to play the Game again), and for that reason, they would be his unofficial Reapers working with him to figure out what had happened in Shinjuku.

Neku had apparently been working with Josh on that as soon as he’d died… though Shiki could tell he wanted to come back home, eventually, and so did she.

So, she told herself that when they stopped whatever was going to happen to Shibuya—Josh had to be mums the word about some things, it seemed—she would try and see if he would let them go back to the RG.

Shiki wanted to believe that Joshua would let them… seeing as how he hadn’t forced them to become actual Reapers, or anything—which he more than had the power to do so—and instead pretty much let them be Players, but without a Game to play.

Shiki did still work on Gatto Nero with Eri. Very rarely, Joshua would tune her into the RG, so they could work on a few designs—she would go and see her bestie in the dead of night—and the next day, they would be back to having to e-mail it again… It was hard, but Shiki would take it.

So, this was the life that Shiki and Neku (and Josh, to an extent) had had for three years. A lot of the time, they would live with Joshua at the Shibuya River—because it was faster to be able to work with him on things that way—but other times, they needed their private time and stayed in an abandoned house together. Relators said that it was haunted, which was why people didn’t go there, but Neku—who had learned how to scan Souls during some of their time in Shinjuku—told Shiki that that wasn’t true in the slightest: to which she had had to giggle, that people could be so superstitious.

This was the life that Shiki and Neku had built for themselves… And maybe it was a little reckless to split up from Josh, when they had so many people gunning for them. But she and Neku deserved some happiness, right?

They both had seemed to think so… but now Shiki was very much wondering about that, when in this new Game… Neku had been caught—after he’d been unable to help himself from aiding Players in need—when he’d been going back from the Shibuya River to their home.

And Shiki hadn’t heard from him since he had headed for the Room of Reckoning this morning.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. And Shiki did find herself going outside, to hear players and Reapers alike talk about how they were going to catch Neku.

“Oh, Neku,” Shiki thought, as a tear escaped from her eyes now, “I should have made more of the trips to Josh myself. I’m less recognizable than you are, since my Entry Fee was my appearance and most people don’t know what I look like now. Nor am I a ‘legendary player’. Your leaving now had foolish written all over it, and I should have seen it and gone in your stead!”

The fact that Neku hadn’t even had time to text her since he’d become the UG’s most wanted didn’t bode well to Shiki, either.

And Shiki was freely crying now—and near a panic attack, as she clutched at her arms—but she told herself to hold it together. It wouldn’t do to start fretting while standing over here at her and Neku’s dining room table…

Their dining room table that Neku had once gotten so sick at, almost acting liking he had Malaria, as he how tripped down the stairs and into it, while Shiki had looked up from her knitting, horrified—even after being in the UG, he had gotten this sick, when she wouldn’t have thought that that was possible—and she’d had to lay him down on the table to get him to drink medicine as fast as she could then, as his fever had been great… and he had finally grown to like the stuff, and the flavor of it that she liked, too… And then, thankfully, he’d been alright.

If Shiki started losing it so that she couldn’t help now, she would never again get to heal Neku, or share more of her favorite flavors with him.

So, she had to do something!

Shiki no longer had Mr. Mew on her… she had given him to Tsugumi for her to use as a psych—as she’d had an even harder time finding a psych she could use than Shiki had—when it had seemed that she might be able to save Shinjuku in those early days… but she hadn’t gotten him back since Tsugumi had been lost.

But still… Shiki thought she could probably use some other psychs now, like telekinesis, if she had to.

She thought about calling Joshua for aid here… but Shiki feared that his hands were tied with the Higher Plane on this one. And if he was going to help Neku, he was probably already doing it or would have done so by now.

So, Shiki couldn’t waste time on that.

Instead… she prepared to run all over Shibuya to find Neku, if need be, but instead ended up going to the Scramble (so close to her and Neku’s home), which was pretty much right where she and Neku had met: since Hachiko Statue was right there.

Somehow, Shiki had known Neku would be there… and her instincts had been absolutely right about that.

Neku looked exhausted, worn down, and beaten, as he knelt on one of the Scramble Crossing’s many crosswalks now… All of the Players and Reapers fighting him must have really taken a toll on him, Shiki thought despairing and empathizing with Neku immediately.

And Tsugumi was about to erase Neku!

Shiki didn’t even think about what to do then!

She thought she saw a blond boy worrying with a certain pin, but she couldn’t process that now. Instead, she dove in the way of Neku and Tsugumi (holding him tightly as he shook, after she’d just saved him).

And after she got her bearings, Shiki very swiftly snatched her Mr. Mew from Tsugumi’s grip, synced up with Neku—and how she adored, that even now… that he was able to do that with her; if that didn’t show what they were to each other, she didn’t know what would—and did a level three fusion with him once more.

And once everyone was distracted by the laser show Mr. Mew was putting on with his eyes, Shiki grabbed Neku’s hand and ran.

Somehow, some way… she discovered she had a new psych like Neku did, as they sped away—that must have been activated the times Joshua tuned her back and forth—because Shiki could mess with their frequencies!

And for now, she got them both to the RG: Neku holding her and kissing her body all over in thanks and worship, as she did so.

She could breathe again.

And Shiki knew that their perfect life together would continue on… thank God or the Composer, she thought, grinning ear to ear and kissing him back.

Author’s Note: So, this is based on how after Tsugumi erases Beat or whatever… if you look closely, there’s a pair of white shoes that walk towards him afterwards.

And tbh… I was mostly certain that Hoodie was going to be Beat, and he was, but just for fun, I let myself imagine it was Neku or could have been him on this day. And I thought those shoes could have been Shiki coming to save him (because I thought they looked like the shoes she wore at the end of TWEWY, but now I think I’m just crazy). I also thought it might have been Rhyme coming to try and rescue Beat, but I doubt that, too. It was probably just Tsugumi walking or something.

But this whole story is based on that first fun AU idea. And that’s also why it ends right when Shiki saves Neku/when we see those shoes walking towards him or whatever.

Hope you all enjoyed!

And the medicine thing, is based on how… I think Neku didn’t like certain medicines in TWEWY? Or maybe none of them? Shiki liked one of them, though (I think). So, that’s what that whole thing is based on. I wanted it to be food, but I couldn’t find a canon food that Shiki liked that Neku disliked, that he could have changed his mind about for her, so this it was.

And it's NeShiki Day! I actually didn't think I would write this for NeShiki Day (I had something else done). And I just wanted to write tonight, and I didn't know where it would lead me. But, hey. It's NeShiki right on NeShiki Day. I think it's only right I share it for that day!:)

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hongnanglen-arina · 4 years ago

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See You On Monday | SVT Interactive AU

03: Listen to Seungcheol

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Masterlist | Previous | Next

Warnings: mentions of blood. but just a little Words: 1.983 A/N: Hey there! Here’s the third chapter of my little experiment. At the end of each chapter you have to decide for the next move (please leave a comment on the chapter’s post/reblog with your decision or send an ask to vote) Each week you have 3 days for making a decision until the next chapter comes out on Sunday. I hope you will like it… and as always, please remember that English isn’t my first language so excuse my grammar ♡

I may make a taglist :) tell me if you’re interested to be added

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Mingyu seems unstoppable. He licks his lips while studying his fries from every angle. Some of the others are trying to decide what food they want to try first as well but some aren’t moving at all. Understandable. The food wasn’t included in the price, yet everything was prepared for the group of you. The building had no second floor, yet you walked up the stairs to find this huge dining room. Also… the boys know they aren’t alone at some sort.

“I will eat well!” With these words, Mingyu starts eating his fries and immediately fills the room with satisfied noises. “Ohmgah.. beddr dhen hmagdonns!”

“What did he say?”

“Oh my god. Better than McDonald’s.”

“Thanks Vernon.”

Seeing how happy their friend enjoys the food, the sceptic expression on the others faces changes. Some are still restraining themselves, some take their own silverware or chopsticks to get their choice of dish. You sit down on the empty seat and watch them eat. Of course you can’t take a bite and although you feel hungry, you know it’s only because of the sight in front of you. Also the smell is wonderful. No restaurant experience can compare to this moment. Props to the game team. They did a really good job in making people hungry. Scoffing, you turn your head to the side. Jeonghan refills his glass of water for the second time already, looking at the boy in front of him.

“You’re not gonna eat, Woozi?”

“Nah.. what about you?”

“Nah. Hungry but something’s super off.”

“Same.”

“Oh stop it and join us! These Tteokbokki are perfect!” Jun has some sauce on his lips as he shoves more into his mouth.

“Try this Pizza!”

“H-hey… I think you should stop… I have a bad feeling about this. Don’t you think that something’s suspicious? Like… what the heck is going on?? I’m hungry myself but-“

The sound of a fork on the white marble floor interrupts Seungcheol’s speech and everyone turns their heads to the source of noise, Mingyu, who has his mouth slightly open, brows furrowed, seemingly searching for words.

“What’s wrong?”

“I….”

Hoshi has a slice of Pizza in his hand and stops just in front of his mouth. “Y-your nose..”

Hearing Hoshi’s words, Mingyu lifts his arm and brushes the back of his hand over his nostrils. A thin layer of dark red fluid can be seen on it when he lowers his hand, all eyes on him. “I… I feel sick…” He grabs his glass of water and chunks it down in one row, the other hand is pressing tightly down his stomach, his upper body slightly bend forward over the table.

“H-hey what’s wrong with you-“

A glass shatters on the floor, now everyone is looking at Seokmin who is coughing and clutching his shirt as well.

Seungcheol jumps off his chair, taking the food out of everyone’s hands as fast as possible. “I told you, it was a bad idea!”

5 other boys start groaning. Dino, Joshua, Jun, Wonwoo and Vernon. The remaining boys are trying to assist them as best as possible. “What’s wrong with the food? Is it poisoned??”

“God, my stomach hurts!”

“The water’s fine I guess, drink!”

“Are we gonna die?”

“No Dino!”

Total chaos. You’re not sure what to do. If it’s really poison, how can you solve this problem? Maybe there has to be a riddle so you can get a reward which is helping them?

Suddenly the light goes off and it’s completely dark. You’re not able to see your own hand. It wouldn’t scare you as much if you could hear the group of boys with you but it’s silent. Did you fail? Is the game over?

“How do you feel? I really hoped they would have listened to.. who was it? Seungcheol? They must be very hungry that most of them don’t think twice. Not everything that seems good, is actually good. People. Things. Food. Just everything. It’s not bad to use your head from time to time.” The voice laughs out loud that you flinch at the volume. You recognize the voice. It’s the same from the beginning. The narrator.

“W-was it poison?” You dare to ask and his laughter dies down slowly until it’s quiet again. He inhales and exhales before answering your question.

“Yes.”

After hearing his reply, you instantly step forward, still scared in the darkness. “How can I help them??”

“The question is… do you want to help them or do you want to watch what happens? Sometimes you have to go through hell to learn and become stronger, don’t you think?”

“B-but…. isn’t my job to… stay alive? I thought this applies to everyone??”

The mans scoffs. “Too many questions. Let me tell you something. It’s up to you how this will end. Every decision, every move is connected to a different outcome of the story. They may die, they may survive. They may be unhappy, they may be happy. It depends on you - you alone. But don’t ever forget my words. Don’t start a deeper bond.”

You sigh. “I know. It’s a game, so don’t worry.” Everything felt real and you even experienced fear and worry despite the fact that you know that everything was just a game. Damn those VR glasses.

“Good. Well, there’s a dark grey box in the basement. 14 pills. If you decide to do something and make it in time…” Your ears perk up at his explanation, waiting for him to continue but he doesn’t end his sentence, leaving you puzzled.

“What then??” You turn around in the darkness, the silence that is surrounding you leaves a heavy feeling. “Will those pills help? Or is it another trap??”

“Hahaha… you really think I’m a bad person? I’m trying to help!” His voice is difficult to read in the darkness but you think that he’s just teasing you. His role is the narrator so he has to be neutral… or not?” “Believe me, they will help. That’s the only thing I am going to tell you. The exact location is your job. There isn’t much time left.”

Once his last word was spoken, the light is back on and you find yourself seated at the huge table again. Back in the middle of the chaos. Mingyu’s nose is still bleeding, Woozi was assisting Dino on the floor who was holding a napkin in front of his mouth. It was red as well.

Worried and pained words are mixed, obvious panic in their voices.

I have to get those pills! Getting up, you run to the door and open it, not looking back at the boys when you rush to the stairs. You have seen enough. And if you can’t find that box, they will… “die…” you whisper as your steps slow down. Swallowing, you turn around and back to the direction you come from. No. Even if it’s just a stupid game, you have to help!

You make your way down the stairs, through the dark hallways and more stairs until you arrive in the basement. Without a second thought, you snort. This wasn’t as dark as when that narrator talked to you. So of course you will find the pills! There are 6 rooms in total. The first has only a dusty rack for clothes. The next 3 are empty. You enter the fifth room. A little light hanging down the ceiling helps you to see better through the stuff. The bags are empty, the books old and dusty. Smelly linen neatly fold in a big cabinet.

You are closing a drawer when you hear a soft knock on the door. Looking back to the door you notice Hoshi. His grip around the door frame while his eyes look directly into yours as if he can see you in the little room. He clears his throat. “Uhm… hi. I.. I’m sure you are looking for something to.. help my friends, right? You know, I saw you rush through the door and when I followed you, I could see where you were going because the plants moved a bit and uhm you opened doors. I really wanna be of help. Can I be your assistant, mister ghost? You… you really have to help my friends. I’m very worried…”

You let your shoulders fall. For them it wasn’t a game. His friends are sick and no one knows the reason. Since at least two of them are bleeding, it has to be serious.

Hoshi makes his way to you, stopping in front of you and the cabinet. He pushed his hand into his pocket and gets his phone. While unlocking it, he talks again. “I figured, we can’t communicate and I don’t have that board with those letters and so on.. so… uhm, take my phone and answer? Well, if you can write….”

He hands you the phone, his eyes now roaming over the cabinet, through you and over to the other things in the room. No he can’t see you. Not sure if he can hear you, you wipe your hands clean on your jeans and carefully take the phone out of his hands, causing him to gasp. You study his face for a couple of seconds before starting to type. Moving his position, Hoshi stands beside you to get a better look at the screen.

“I’m taller than you.” You look up from the phone to see him smile down at the phone in your hands. Blinking, you quickly continue typing, ignoring the soft blush on your cheeks.

- I’m here to help. I need to find a grey box. It will help your friends.

The blonde boy reads your text and nods. But before he can say anything, you add a little bit more.

- I’m not a mister.

“Oh…. so is it missus ghost?”

You aren’t sure why you two are talking about this topic when there was a serious problem on the second floor but you needed to clarify this first. You don’t know why.

- Miss.

His mouth makes an ‘o’ shape and now it was his time to blush.

You remind yourself that there was a reason you ran down to the basement.

- Let’s look for the box. We have to hurry.

He nods again and starts opening the bags you went through already. There’s not much time left. He could go and see if it’s in the last room instead of going through the same things twice. You hold his phone in front of his face, making him stop.

- Go to the last room on the right. I’m nearly done with this room.

“Oh, okay! Will do, miss ghost!” With this said, he hurries out of the room but you haven’t turned around to the drawers again when he reappears in the door. You almost said ‘why’ out loud but he walks over to you and takes back his phone, giving you an apologetic smile. “There… is no light. I need my phone.”

Because there was a source of light in your room, you watch him leave with the device. “Will report asap if I find it!”

Normally you would have said something but now was not the time. There was no box in the other drawers and you groan in frustration. Only a bin in the corner of the room is left so you go there and take off the lid. Sadly the bin is attached to the wall and you aren’t able to look inside. Is it empty as well or is the dark grey box at the bottom? You don’t know when Hoshi is done with the other room. You don’t have his phone anymore to use it as a flashlight.

The time is ticking.

⋅𖥔⋅ ━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━ ⋅𖥔⋅

What are you going to do?

Insert your hand into the dark bin OR wait for Hoshi?

You can decide.

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warsofasoiaf · 5 years ago

Note

Not sure if there's enough information on this New Vegas character for an analysis, but you did ask for Honest Hearts stuff that touches on redemption, family, and growing up! Any chance you can do a character analysis of Randall Clark?-TBH

So this is actually going to be an analysis of Honest Hearts in general, touching on the themes of childhood and growing up, and Randall Clark is a great element of that, so here we go.

The primary theme of Honest Hearts is innocence, and the loss of it upon growing up, and the feeling of loss in general. All of the main characters of Honest Hearts exist in a state of innocence and must confront painful realities about themselves and the world in order to grow up. Each must contend with the illusions that they’ve placed before themselves and the painful feeling that comes with stripping them away. Zion itself is an idyllic place full of wide-eyed, innocent tribals, but it is untouched by the corruption of the wider struggle until those who intrude upon it. The Courier travels along with an innocent caravan expedition (it’s even called Happy Trails for Pete’s sake!) for a wholesome adventure and a decent paycheck, not an intense tribal struggle and a battle for Joshua Graham’s own soul.

The Sorrows and the Dead Horses are perhaps the most explicit use of this theme. Neither understood much about the ways of warfare until Joshua Graham came along to teach them, even the savage raiding White Legs weren’t much of a threat until Ulysses taught them how to use their “storm drums” which is clearly a Thompson M1A1. This is an altogether common trope of the “Noble Savage,” a frequently inaccurate and often patronizing device used in media depicting tribal peoples. That these tribes do not engage in the practices of warfare suggests an innocence, an ideal quality untouched and untainted. Similarly, their speech patterns and language are used to suggest a child-like quality, the incomplete words like “grenah” for grenades or calling the tribals who throw firebombs (Molotov cocktails) “light bringers.” Since the Sorrows were originally descended from orphaned children refugees, this sets them up for their very own coming of age novel. Despite their innocence, they are threatened by the outside world via the form of the White Legs. The White Legs themselves are children, albeit in a somewhat more negative fashion; these are people who lack even the most basic skills needed to care for themselves. Resolving the Sorrow’s quest means that they have to grow up in one fashion or another. Running away means coming to terms with the painful loss of Zion, a literal interpretation of that old saying: “you can’t go home again.” Staying and fighting means learning the ways of war that Daniel had been avoiding, becoming adults and losing the innocence of their previous existence. The Sorrows still can’t go home again; because the Sorrows themselves have changed. Like children, they learn from the adults in their lives, and so depending on the resolution, the Courier can shape the Sorrows the way a parent shapes a child. Showing cruelty leads to the children learning cruelty, the cycle of violence continuing onward. Not all parenting is positive, and including that lesson was critical for selling the theme of childhood growing into adulthood in the interactive format of video games.

The two tribal followers you have in the game both have quests that revolve around maturity and growing up. Follows-Chalk is the most basic of these, played completely straight. He begins the game as a junior scout, not trusted to scout on his own but to follow his seniors as he grows into his tribal role. His youthful curiosity leads him to want to see more of the world, just like any teenager hoping to explore the world and find adventure. Through the Courier, who provides guidance in the way of adults teaching children, Follows-Chalk will either embrace the wanderlust and see the world, or stay at home, get married, and settle into domestic life as a scout, husband, and father. Notably, Follows-Chalk is simply “never seen again” if he leaves, but that’s it as far as what you learn. Did he die five seconds after he left? Five days? Five years? Five decades? Did he see the casinos that he wanted to see? Did he find out about what deathclaws were? You don’t know, and that too is part of life. Children grow up and leave, and best friends forever might lose touch and never know what happened to their long childhood chum after the parting. That’s life though, sometimes you lose touch and never find out what happened to someone, even those you care about a great deal.

Waking Cloud is also a child, which should at first glance not work because far from being a child, she is a wife and mother of three. Yet even though she is an established adult, Waking Cloud deals with one of the biggest experiences that children must go through to become adults; the experience of losing someone you care about and confronting difficult, sad situations as they are. Difficult subjects are often masked over with comforting lies for the sake of children who either cannot comprehend a situation or if the parents wish to spare severe emotional wrangling. Waking Cloud’s husband dies before the game starts, and Daniel keeps the knowledge from Cloud because he believes it would be too painful, that the work evacuating Zion was too important. Like any father, Daniel takes it upon himself to control what his ‘child’ knows, parenting out of the belief that he knows what’s best. These lies do impair the development of the ‘child’ Waking Cloud to an adult, as if she learns that Daniel lied to her, she learns distrust and sows it against Daniel as retribution. Yet if the Courier treats Waking Cloud as an adult, Waking Cloud acts like one in return; she is angry with Daniel for what he did but ultimately forgives the transgression. She handles the situation with maturity and moves past it healthily.

Daniel is less about childhood than he is about being a parent. He’s unsure of what exactly to do with the Sorrows, he expresses metaphorically a lot of the uncertainty that new parents feel. He wants to do what is best for the Sorrows but doesn’t know what that is, yet he has to make a choice because they’re counting on him. The Sorrows go along with the plan because they trust Daniel and look to him as their father, but Daniel ultimately is making his plans out of his best interests, not that of the Sorrows. He wants to preserve the innocence that the Sorrows possess; in that sense he is the father that wishes his kids could stay young forever. He wants them to play in Zion as Neverland and when that can’t happen, he retreats to the Grand Staircase because the hardship is worth the innocence, in his mind. Notably, Daniel always loses something in the endings. If the Sorrows fight, he feels grief as he loses his ‘children’ to adulthood, and if they flee, Daniel loses Zion itself. Either way, something magical and special, something innocent is gone forever, and Daniel suffers for it.

Joshua Graham is not a child, but he has a child’s delusions, that he has made amends from his fiery descent into the Colorado and emerged as a new man whose sins were burned away with his skin. The forgiveness of the New Caananites taught him both right and wrong lessons about redemption. The human capacity for forgiveness can be truly transformational, this is undoubtedly true, but part of the transformation has to come from within. Joshua falls back into his old habits, the White Legs are the new Blackfoots (theme naming again, sometimes things aren’t subtle) and he embraces the savagery he indulged in as the Malpais Legate. The Courier is the real adult in the room when he forces Joshua to admit that Graham was always looking for excuses to justify his behavior to hide from the fact that it was always him that did those things and he is still that man. Joshua deluded himself into thinking that he was making progress when in truth, he was simply treading water until he had the strength to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. This too is a critical part of learning to be an adult, in taking responsibility for your own actions and realizing that if there is something that you don’t like about yourself, it’s you that has to change it and that it takes both recognition of the fault and serious effort to fix it. There’s a reason that 12-step programs frequently have admission as the first step, it’s an honest and painful thing to experience but it’s one that has to be done if there’s any hope of self-improvement.

Randall Dean Clark is a great journey that explores these themes, essentially, the Survivalist is Honest Hearts if everything was past tense. The Survivalist also acts as a synthesis of Joshua and Daniel, the two ‘adults’ of Honest Hearts before the Courier came around. Clark had a sort of innocence about him at start, always running out to Zion. A father himself, Clark lost his wife and children in the nuclear firestorm that killed so many, and was left without a purpose in life. He found it in shepherding others, looking out for them out of paternal instinct. First was the group of Mexican survivors, who he aided covertly in a traditional sense out of paternal regard and human decency. The Vault 22 survivors brought that dream to an end, however, when they killed and ate the Mexican survivors. Like the conflict the Courier finds, the idyllic splendor and peaceful living of Zion was shattered by an outside group manipulated by a corrupt, cruel entity, in this case Vault-Tec itself whose twisted social experiments form some of the most nightmarish things in the Fallout universe. Clark kills the Vault 22 survivors until they finally flee, echoing the journey of Joshua. His revulsion at his work, grim resignation that “they deserved every damn bit of it” is what Joshua believes his crusade against the White Legs is. Yet there are telling differences, Clark does not desecrate the corpses as a warning nor does he lead others into battle. He still remembers his humanity when he encounters Sylvie, despite her also coming from Vault 22. Sure enough, he bonds with her, and then tragedy strikes again, when Sylvie and her baby Michael die. He becomes depressed and suicidal, but can’t bring himself to kill himself. Yet later, he discovers more children with who would eventually become the Sorrows, and begins again like he did with the Mexican survivors so many years ago. Again like Joshua, he goes back to old habits, yet these are habits of compassion rather than cruelty. Like Daniel, Clark attempts to preserve the innocence of these children, guiding them but also ensuring that they never see him. Thus, Clark achieves a sort of divine apotheosis as “The Father in the Caves” again mirroring the Mexican survivors who attributed Clark’s helpful actions in secret to divine intervention. But like Daniel, Clark also refused to let the Sorrows grow up, and this stunted them. Their fear of caves and traps left them unprepared to defend themselves against the White Legs, even to use as defensive works against the encroaching enemy.

These are powerful themes, one that most if not all people end up having to deal with at some point in their life, which is why using these themes right can be quite powerful. Honest Hearts stumbles at times, but the concepts were sound.

Thanks for the question, TBH.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#fallout: new vegas #video game reviews

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wonwuism · 5 years ago

Text

Chapter 1.

Friday | Pledis Flowers | 4:00 pm

“Wonwoo, could you put these roses in the front, please? They’re selling like crazy today.”

Seungcheol walked in from the stock room with an enormous bucket of red roses in his hands, the muscles in his arms bulging out of his Pledis Flowers shirt. For a second it made Wonwoos brain short cirquit, before he shook his head and told himself for the millionth time that Seungcheol is his boss and it's wrong to thirst over his muscles during work hours.

"Sure hyung!"

Before he realized what he’d done, Wonwoo felt Seungcheols flat hand smack against the back of his head. What followed next was the usual scolding that happened after Wonwoo accidentally talked Korean to his boss again. For some reason the scolding always happened in said language, though.

"Jeon Wonwoo how many times to I have to tell you not to call me hyung during work hours! We talk English for a reason, which is to make sure our customers feel comfortable. You'll never be fluent if you keep this up, idiot."

"Jeez, Cheol, take it easy on the guy. All he did was be respectful." Joshua's amused face appeared from the top of the stairs that lead to the office part of the flower shop. As he walked down, he winked at Wonwoo and then clapped Seungcheol on the back. Wonwoo would never be able to get used to the comfortable way in which Joshua addressed his own boss, but he'd accepted a while ago that they both grew up in the US, and that things were just different here.

Seungcheol just sighed, as a way of saying he'd given up, and walked back into the stock room. Even though he'd just gotten scolded (or maybe because of it) Wonwoo couldn't help but let his eyes wander over the backside of Seungcheol's body and take a deep breath. It wasn't even a crush, he just couldn't help but feel insanely attracted to the man. Before he could get lost in his thoughts though, Joshua's lips were right next to his ear.

"Stop staring before you pop a boner, loverboy." Wonwoo let out an airy laugh through his nose and turned his head towards the voice. He raised his eyebrows, silently challenging Joshua to continue his everlasting torture about Wonwoo being a panicked gay around Seungcheol.

"I still don't really understand what is up with that anyway. You know he's straight as hell, from my more than embarrassing confessions when we were drunk, so why can't you just let it go? It's not like anything's ever going to happen between you guys. Also, he's your boss, so there's that."

"I know he's our boss, that's what he told you that night you were all over him. Remember that, Shua?" Joshua’s face fell at Wonwoo’s words. One night, after they’d closed the shop, the three of them had decided to go for drinks. No special occasion, just some bonding time between friends. For some reason, after a few drinks, Joshua decided he would teach Wonwoo how to flirt in English. Seungcheol would soon be the target of Joshua’s tactics, which lead to a hilarious case of Seungcheol turning Shua down again and again. Joshua’s ego had been ripped to pieces that night, but Wonwoo and Seungcheol did get a good laugh out of it.

"Oh, shut up, we both know that wouldn't have happened anyway, I don't bottom, you know that."

Wonwoo was about to defend himself and possibly disrespect his hyung a little in the process, but a ringing sound made them both snap their head towards the shop's door. As usual, Jun walked in with a smile that could light up any rainy day.

"Good afternoon, how are my favorite flower boys doing today?"

"Fantastic," Wonwoo mumbled. As he started gathering his stuff to leave, Jun and Joshua talked about their weekend plans. Wonwoo often thought about how strange it was that they ever became such good friends with him in the first place. Jun was just one of those people who came into his life and would probably never leave. The story of how they met was one that Jun loved to tell at parties to embarrass Wonwoo, as if he wasn't shy enough around people already.

One day Jun had just walked into Pledis to buy some flowers for his mother, but as soon as he saw Wonwoo he'd asked him out. Not a single moment of hesitation in his voice, which was the only reason Wonwoo had said yes. Well, that, and Joshua's slight pushing of course. He'd only moved there a few months prior and wasn't confident about his English at all. To make things worse Jun obviously didn't speak any Korean and that made Wonwoo feel incredibly insecure.

They went on a date anyway, that same night. They walked around the city a bit and talked a little. Well, Jun talked for the most part, but Wonwoo liked to listen better anyway. Jun spoke slowly and looked up the words on his phone whenever Wonwoo didn't understand them. Wonwoo just nodded and smiled every now and then. He was just starting to feel a little more comfortable, when Jun grabbed his hand, which made Wonwoo panic and say "No hands, no kiss, no date, please!" Jun still found it hilarious.

That was the start of a beautiful friendship. After Juns laughter had died down they'd decided that Jun would try to help him with his English, since Joshua had proven to be a terrible teacher and Seungcheol simply said he didn't have the patience to do it. Over the years Jun had proven to Wonwoo countless times that he was the kind of friend who stuck around and now they were, as Joshua called it, besties. Jun often stopped by Pledis. Mostly to pick up Wonwoo after work to go for coffee or food, but also because he had a crush on Seungcheol that was about tenfold the little thingWonwoo had for him.

Thinking about his boss made Wonwoo snap his head back to reality, right in time to see Jun laugh at something Seungcheol said as he came walking back into the store. The older man had a smile of his own and was looking at Jun in such an endearing way that it made Wonwoo question everything he thought he knew about Cheols sexuality. For some reason Jun had been the only one who was able to bring out Seungcheols soft side. Wonwoo thought it was a little strange. Joshua thought it was verystrange. Jun thought they were just seeing things.

"Okay, I have my stuff, let's go Jun." Wonwoo turned towards the door when it swung open and revealed what was possibly one of the most attractive men he'd ever seen. With wide eyes, Wonwoo dropped his bag to the floor and hurried to the side of the store to check on some daffodils for no reason. The man walked up to the counter and asked if he could get advice about some flowers he needed. Wonwoo heard Juns voice answer him.

"Well, I don't work here, but I'd recommend asking Wonwoo over there. He's the best when it comes to picking a pretty arrangement."

Wen Junhui, you're so full of shit and I will kill you with my bare hands as soon as this godlike creature has left the building.

"Hi, Wonwoo? I was wondering if you'd help me out with something?"

Wonwoo took a deep breath and turned around. Oh god, the man was close to him. Way too close. Somewhere in the corner of his eye he could see Joshua make some less than elegant gestures with his hand and mouth and Jun putting his arm around Seungcheol with a proud look on his face. They were all watching him intently. The anxiety was quickly taking over Wonwoos entire body and mind, making his mouth go dry and his brain run over with a million things he could do wrong in the next few seconds. He could just cry right then and there from how nervous he was, but then the stranger did something Wonwoo wasn’t used to.

He softly smiled and took a step back to give Wonwoo a little more breathing space. “It’s okay,” he slowly said. His voice was just loud enough for the two of them to hear, which Wonwoo was endlessly grateful for. “I’m Mingyu, what’s your name?”

Wonwoo swallowed thickly and closed his eyes for a brief second before answering. “My name is Wonwoo, how can I help you?” Mingyu smiled again and nodded. He almost seemed proud of Wonwoo, which made his heart do a little flip in a good way.

“I’m a photographer and I’m looking for the prettiest flowers you have. It’s for a photoshoot with a person.” Wonwoo nodded, ignoring for now that the fact that Mingyu being a photographer made him about three hundred times as attractive.

“Can I see the face?”

Weird sentence, get your shit together Wonwoo.

“Of course,” Mingyu said. He quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a picture of a gorgeous boy with white hair, looking into the camera with a small smile on his face.

“Wow.” Wonwoo was suddenly very aware of his breathing, but he didn’t know if it was caused by the boy on the screen or the fact that Mingyu was very close to him now, smelling amazing. Probably the combination.

“Yeah, he’s very pretty.” The way Mingyu was smiling at the picture made Wonwoo a little jealous, but he pushed his thoughts aside. Without another word he walked through the store, picking flowers with the expertise he’d gathered over the years. He decided on yellows and pastel colors that fit well with the boys hair and soft features. For a few minutes he could feel Mingyu’s stare on him, which made him feel nervous all over again. What if he picked the wrong colors? What if Mingyu thought he was weird?

Wonwoo was going through a batch of sunflowers, looking for the prettiest one, when he could feel Mingyu’s presence next to him again. He watched as Mingyu picked one out of the lot and admired it for a second. “Pretty,” he said in Korean. Wonwoos head snapped towards the taller man and he couldn’t help but smile brightly. “Very,” he replied. For a second they just looked at each other with a comfort between them that Wonwoo hadn’t felt in years, until Mingyu’s eyes lowered to the flowers in his hands.

“You have a good eye for color, are you an artist?”

I guess we’re back to English again, huh.

Wonwoo nodded. He felt like he needed to say more, but he’d never been the talkative type and Mingyu probably wasn’t that interested anyway. All of a sudden his nerves started to act up again and he cleared his throat before taking the sunflower Mingyu was still holding.

“Enough?” He lifted his head to look at Mingyu, who was still looking at him with a smile.

“Yes, that should be enough. Can I pay with my card?” Somehow his voice in Korean seemed a little insecure, as if he didn’t speak it a lot, but it made Wonwoo feel like Mingyu was trying to make him feel comfortable and he smiled at Mingyu in a silent thank you.

“Yes, follow me, please.” As Wonwoo made his way towards the counter, he could see the others in the back drinking coffee, having a casual conversation. He was glad they weren’t listening in to his interactions with Mingyu anymore. That would’ve made things even more awkward than they already were.

As Wonwoo was wrapping the flowers up in a pretty bouquet, Mingyu took his wallet out of his jacket and continued their conversation in Korean. Wonwoo couldn’t help but notice he had an American accent that slipped through every once in a while. “Since you have a good eye for pretty things, do you know a good place to shoot pictures with these flowers? I’m looking for a place with a lot of light and not too much of a city vibe.”

Wonwoo took Mingyu’s card and swiped it across the machine. As Mingyu punched in his code, he gathered up some extra courage.

“Maybe you can shoot here, we have a really pretty indoor garden in the back that you can use. Would you like to see it?” Mingyu’s face lit up at his words and he happily nodded as he took his card back from Wonwoo’s hands.

Wonwoo ignored Jun’s eyebrow roll and Joshua’s wink as they walked towards the back of the shop. Thank god he let Mingyu walk first, so he wasn’t able to see the dumb gestures they were making. He did mouth an ‘oh my god,’ to them with wide eyes, before joining Mingyu in the little inside garden, where the taller man was already looking around with a look that told Wonwoo all he needed to know.

“This is beautiful,” Mingyu said, softly.

You are beautiful, Wonwoo thought. He sat down on the little park bench that was placed against one of the white walls and looked up through the glass ceiling that gave the little patio space an outside feeling. While Mingyu walked around, looking at the space from different angles Wonwoo felt himself relax at the silence. This complete stranger had somehow made him feel completely at ease within the short time he’d been inside the shop, which was something Wonwoo wasn’t used to at all. Even thinking about that almost made his anxiety resurface again, but then he locked eyes with Mingyu’s sparkling ones and he could feel himself smile again. Mingyu just made him want to smile and Wonwoo didn’t really know how to feel about that.

“Can I use it? Please? It’s perfect,” Mingyu said, doing a little spin in the middle of the room. Wonwoo stood up and nodded at him. “We mostly use it for this kind of stuff anyway, so it could be free for you tomorrow if you’d like.” Mingyu looked like he could just hug Wonwoo with the news, but fortunately decided to keep his happiness to himself for now.

“Jeonghan’s gonna love this, thank you so much! I’ll call him right away and arrange it. We’ll be here around noon tomorrow, is that okay? Thank you! You have no idea how perfect this is!” He looked like an overexcited puppy, which Wonwoo found both endearing and very overwhelming, but he liked Mingyu’s enthusiasm. It was contagious. After walking back into the shop and deciding on a time, Wonwoo kept the flowers Mingyu picked in a separate bucket to keep them for the next day. Mingyu thanked him about six more times and left the shop almost skipping from happiness.

After he was out of the shop and out of sight, Wonwoos legs gave in on him and he fell to the ground with a loud cry as he started losing control over his breathing. He heard footsteps rushing closer and felt Jun and Joshua lift him up to carry him towards the coffee corner. They put him in the big antique chair in the way back and Wonwoo pulled his legs up to his chest to make himself as small as possible. Trying to get his brain to function again, he took a sip from the glass of water that Seungcheol reached out to him. Wonwoo didn’t have the voice to tell them how grateful he was at this moment, having them take care of his panic attacks like they’d learned to. He didn’t know what he would have done without them, because right now it felt like he was dying. It always did.

A good five minutes later he was doing a lot better, although still a little shaken from his outburst. Jun had spent the entire time whispering encouraging words to him. “You did so well. You can do it Wonwoo, just breathe in and out. That’s it, you’re doing amazing. You did great. You made that guy smile a lot. I know you’re scared he had all sorts of thoughts about you, but your mind is lying to you. It’ll be okay Wonwoo, in and out, just like that.”

No one touched him while they were giving him comfort. They knew that would only make things worse, and Wonwoo thanked them for it as soon as he found his voice again.

“No problem, Wonwoo, you did really well with that customer. I’m proud of you.” Seungcheol spoke in Korean to make Wonwoo feel more grounded. “You should calm down a little more and then just go home, okay? You should have been off work half an hour ago.” With that he walked up the stairs to do some financial work for the day. Wonwoo wiped away the tears he didn’t realize he’d cried and gave his friends a small smile. “I’m sorry guys, it was all a little overwhelming, that’s all.”

“Never apologize Wonnie,” Joshua told him. “We don’t mind, you know that. You held up so well while he was still in the shop. I know he must have made you nervous.” Wonwoo nodded and then, to the other boys’ surprise, chuckled a little when he saw the bouquet of flowers. “Actually, he was really nice about it. He stayed at a distance almost the whole time, as if he could tell I was anxious.” As Wonwoo took another sip of his water he heard Jun apologize for sending Mingyu towards him in the first place. Wonwoo shook his head. “That’s okay. He’ll be back tomorrow, so this time I’ll be a little more prepared. Can we go now? I need fresh air.”

Friday | Wonwoo’s dorm room | 8:00 pm

Wonwoo knocked on the door of his dorm room twice and then opened it with his keys. Inside was Jihoon, working on his laptop as usual. His massive headphones were on his head, which explained why he hadn’t heard Wonwoo knock. When he saw movement, though, he moved his head towards Wonwoo and nodded. Wonwoo nodded back and shrugged his jacket off.

They didn’t talk much about unnecessary stuff, Wonwoo and Jihoon. They each just kind of went their own ways, but they liked it that way. From their first year on, they’d been roommates, which had always gone well. They never became really good friends, but as for roommates it was about as good as it gets. Jihoon closed his laptop with a sigh and took his headphones off. “Had dinner yet?”

“Yeah I went out to eat with Jun, you?” Wonwoo dropped himself on his bed and felt the weight of a long day pour into his bedsheets. He grabbed his phone and put some music on, that he listened to through one earphone. Jihoon put some water into the little heater they’d bought together and grabbed some instant ramen out of a cupboard. He shook the packet while he turned towards Wonwoo and gave him a sarcastic happy smile. “I’m about to. New song got me messed up, I need some kind of inspiration man. I’m empty.”

Wonwoo raised his eyebrows and shook his head a little in disbelief. This man had some terrible habits. “Maybe if you went outside every once in a while you’d feel more inspired, or do you want me to bring some flowers home from the shop?” He dodged the plushie that Jihoon threw his way as a way of answering and threw it back at him. “I’m serious man, get some fresh air.”

“What got you in such a good mood?” Jihoon asked with a playful tone. “Acting all tough, like you know it all.” Wonwoo shrugged and got up to grab a towel and some sweatpants. “Suit yourself, I’m going to take a shower. I want to sleep early tonight, I had a pretty long day.” Jihoon made a sound in the back of his throat that translated to ‘okay’ and Wonwoo walked out of their room to head for the shared dorm bathrooms down the hall. When he returned from his shower, he could see Jihoons empty bed, telling him his words did end up making an impact on his roommate after all. After texting Jun and Joshua a quick ‘thank you for today’ he soon drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Masterlist. | Next chapter.

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subasekabang · 4 years ago

Text

Past Nova - Chapter 02

Title: Past Nova - Chapter 02

Rating: T

Word Count: 12,665 [Ch 02: 3699]

Pairings/Characters: Neku Sakuraba. Beat. Shiki Misaki. Rhyme. Sota Honjo. Nao. Joshua Kiryu. Sota/Nao.

Warnings: Past Character Death mentions.

Summary: Neku and his new friends find that they’ve been brought back to life, time wound back as if the three weeks had never happened. It’s something that they don’t have time to adjust to though, as Neku realises that Sota and Nao are still alive, with no guarantee that the two won’t end up back in the UG. Even without a timer on his hand, time is ticking down - but Neku isn’t going to let Sota and Nao disappear without a fight. Not again.

Partner: @licobleps & HB Kit

Author’s Note: So, we’ve got our misson set and things are ready to kick off! Hope you enjoy this chapter too!

“Sota, I was wondering, like, how would you catch a star?”

Stars were pretty high up. Nao knew Sota wouldn’t actually be able to catch a real star. She totally wanted to hear what he would do, though. Like, he had to at least try.

He adjusted the white band around his elbow, something Nao knew he did when he was really trying to think hard.

“Maybe I’d shoot something at it. Fireworks or somethin’. Knock ‘em right outta the sky.” His mouth stretched into a boyish grin.

He looked younger when he did that.

“And then, what?”

“Hm, I dunno. You got any ideas?”

Nao thought about it for a moment.

“You could totes set up a net under it. To catch it when it falls!”

She knew it - they came up with the best things when they did so together.

Chapter 02 - Nuclear Crossing

The sensation of waking up, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling was something that Neku should be familiar with. Instead, he found his hands clawing below, searching for concrete and meeting with softness instead. Those were three long, long weeks in the game and he suspected that it would take longer than another three for him to stop expecting to wake up in the middle of the scramble crossing.

It was odd, yesterday when they had parted ways. Neku had met up with his friends for the first time but it was also the first time that he had said goodbye to them. At least, goodbye with a certainty of seeing them again soon.

So soon, that it seemed like no time at all before he had breakfast and his parents left for work. Then here they were, at his doorstep. He was glad that it was a Monday; he didn’t know if he could muster up an explanation on how he suddenly had friends that could come over during the summer break. Up until now, he had always gone out, left the house as fast as he could.

He felt a knot tie up in his stomach, as he watched Shiki, Beat and Rhyme take off their shoes. Is my place clean enough? Did I buy enough snacks? Do they even want to be here?

Normally with a mission, he wouldn’t have to think about these things. This time, though, there was no physical timer on their hands. The day wasn’t going to go by without them noticing.

There was no Pact that meant that they had to stick around him.

That was the reason Neku kept thinking of what he would have thought to be really trivial things in the past. He couldn’t help it.

Can I keep the friends that I’ve made?

Even with the reassurance that they would help him with this (of course they would, they were good people, better than Neku had been), outside of a life and death situation, would they still want to be around him?

What the hell is with me?

Neku didn’t understand. He wasn’t worried about this yesterday. He didn’t think he could be worried about this.

“Do we get to see your room?” Shiki grabbed his attention back with that question.

No, not yet, he thought. “Sure,” is what he said instead.

The apartment he and his parents lived in was comfortable enough. Nothing too big, nothing too small. His room was similar in that sense. If Neku were to describe it in one word, he’d say it was ‘practical’. He supposed that something that might stand out was his -

“Check out all this CAT merch, yo!” Yeah, that.

Embarrassingly enough, he had convinced his parents to get him a bookstand that, while it did host a humble few textbooks, was mostly taken up by works by CAT. As CAT ventured into many of the creative arts, there was an assortment there from small posters, to keychains, to handcrafted statues. Posters designed by CAT were hung around his bedroom, too.

“Didn’t know you were this into CAT, Neku.” Shiki sounded surprised.

Neku had to remind herself that she had only been around him when he was missing his memories. “Yeah, I wasn’t kidding. I really admire CAT’s - Mr. Hanekoma’s work.”

She took one more look at the displayed items, then a quick look over at the rest of his room. “I like your room,” she said, decidedly. “It’s very ‘you’.”

“Yeah, your crib’s cool, Phones.”

“Home is where the heart is, after all.”

“…Thanks.”

He could feel his shoulders relax and his mouth curve upwards. It wasn’t really that he wanted their approval about his room specifically but…perhaps he was actually more concerned about being liked by them than he realised. Something that he just hadn’t clocked in, since he hadn’t cared about what others thought of him before.

“I’ll be right back.” He left, for five minutes, before returning with a plastic bag full of chips, chocolates and other sweets that he had bought from the convenience store yesterday. He plopped them on the floor. “I thought we could eat while coming up with a game-plan.” They sometimes mulled over the next steps of a mission over a food break, so there was no reason for this to be any different.

Beat didn’t need to be told twice, as the boy dove for the snack bag and snagged the norishio flavoured chips, chucking konsome ones at Rhyme. Neku rolled his eyes, before taking out some rice crackers and passing them along to Shiki. They ended up sitting in a circle with the snacks in the middle.

This was what Neku thought it would be like if he were to have a study session with friends; although they were all there for more serious matters.

“So, from Joshua’s message, we have until Sunday before…the deadline.” Before they die. “If we want to help save them, I think we need to try and find out how they died the first time around.”

This was something that Neku had been thinking about.

Since he had gotten home last evening, after they all agreed that they needed to come up with an actual plan, it had been all that was on his mind.

“We know exactly when they died. Aside from the ‘how’ we’re also pretty much clueless on the ‘where’. What we do know is that it’s within Shibuya. Luckily for us, we’re all pretty much experts on running around everywhere in this town.”

“You’ve got that right,” Shiki said, only just barely audible. “So, we know they were hanging around at the Scramble on Saturday? Do we just wanna try and find them then?”

Neku shook his head. “I think that would be leaving it a bit late. And I don’t think we could follow them all day until Sunday. Even if that was going to be our plan, that’s if we can find them on Saturday.”

“Ain’t it the same thing if we found them sooner? Wouldn’t we still be tryna’ follow them ‘till Sunday?”

“I was…maybe planning to well…” He lowered his voice. “Maybe try and make friends with them.”

There was a slight pause, as all three of them stared at him.

He scratched the back of his head. “You know. If we made friends with them, maybe we could just…ask them where they planned to be on Sunday.” Still quiet. “We could just exchange numbers and maybe hang with them until the time passes.”

Shiki was the first one to break the silence - with a laugh. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, however. “You really have changed, haven’t you, Neku?” If anything, the tone she had laughed in and had spoken in had a soft quality to it. He might even call it affectionate.

“I guess.” He knew that. She didn’t have to say it out loud, though.

Beat and Rhyme jumped in to agree with her enthusiastically, all three breaking into big smiles.

Well.

Maybe having it said wasn’t too bad.

“Anyway,” he cleared his throat, “they were the ones who approached me and Joshua, so I think that it’d probably be easy to make friends with them.”

The way Sota and Nao selflessly offered the two their help, even if it might cost them the win - it was something that Neku appreciated all the more after coming back to life.

“That still leaves us the problem of finding them,” Rhyme pointed out.

“Right, so I wanted to ask you guys. You did that…people-watching thing a lot, didn’t you? Back when we could scan.”

“You bet,” Beat laughed, “man, remembering some of the things people were thinking cracks me up.”

“Speak for yourself, Beat.” Shiki sighed. “I swear, I kept scanning people who were either complaining all the time or…well thinking things that probably should have been left unscanned.”

Neku was not going to ask Shiki to elaborate on that one. “Did you guys remember picking up on anything that first week? Anything that might be a clue? I think it’d be helpful if we scanned something related to them on the seventh day but obviously, we were all a little preoccupied.” As he said that, he gave a little apologetic nod to Rhyme, realising that she wasn’t really part of that, of course.

There was another lull, where each of them tried to remember something, anything that might be a clue. He wished he had paid more attention to people that first week. There was no guarantee that they would find anything concrete, but it sure as hell would useful.

“You know, actually.” Shiki scrunched up her face. “I think that I scanned some guy…I think he was a detective or something. He was looking for a blond ganguro girl. That would match the description of Nao.”

“Dunno ‘bout that, Shiki. There are a lotta blond ganguro girls in Shibuya.”

“That’s true,” said Shiki. “‘Sides, this guy was looking for a suspected criminal. Doubt it’s them since they were helping Neku out.”

“I can’t say I knew them well enough to say they’re not criminals but that’s definitely not the feeling I got from them.” No, he didn’t know them closely but what he did was enough. “I mean, we can’t be sure. Either way, it doesn’t really give us a clue on how to find them.”

Seemed like they would have to go with Plan B.

“In that case, the other thing that I wanted to ask you guys was - do you think you guys can ask around if anyone you know, knows anything about Sota and Nao? I’d do it myself, too, but I don’t really have…anyone to ask.”

At that, both Shiki and Beat stiffened up. Hm? That’s strange.

“Shiki, do we think you could ask Eri?”

“I - uh, I guess that would be okay.” Her eyes were suddenly indiscernible behind her glasses, as she shifted them.

Neku saw Shiki’s other hand curl up tightly.

“Hey.”

Shiki looked up at him.

“Don’t sweat it, we don’t have to.”

Her expression seemed to harden but Neku didn’t want to push. She told him to take his time yesterday if he needed it. He wanted her to feel the same.

“Sorry.”

He didn’t know what was bothering Shiki - he thought that she had resolved her troubles with Eri but it was beginning to seem like that wasn’t the case. He hadn’t asked. I should have asked. He could sense that now wasn’t the appropriate point to do so, though. She’d tell him when she was ready to.

Turning to Beat, he could see that his other friend was equally hesitant to say anything. Neku wondered if Beat had a reason too, why he didn’t want to ask anyone. Perhaps…he also didn’t have many friends? Neku just assumed that he did have some. When they first met, Beat seemed to want to get along fine. Until Neku showed off some of his old attitude, and Beat stormed off but that was Neku’s fault, he could admit to that. He didn’t want to push Beat either, but now they were kind of stuck.

“Neku, I think I have some friends I can ask,” Rhyme said.

Oh right, Rhyme.

“Thanks but…aren’t you a bit…young? I think Nao and Sota are a bit older than us so I don’t know if you’d know anyone who would hang around them.” He also doubted that with Beat as a brother, she would be hanging around with older kids a lot, if Beat wasn’t around others either.

“Yup but I’ve got a friend - he’s a classmate from school. He’s not afraid to talk to older people, though he could stand to, I think. He’s really into Tin Pin so he just challenges everyone he meets into the game,” she explained. “Even adults…including the nice grannies who live around our area.”

“Do the grannies play Tin Pin?” Shiki asked.

Neku shot her a look. Not the time.

She shot one right back at him that said ‘I know you were thinking the same thing’.

“Some of them do.”

Huh, you learn something new every day. “Hold up…Tin Pin.” Don’t tell me - “This guy’s name doesn’t happen to be Shooter, does it?”

xxxxx

“DO YOU GUYS PLAY TIN PIN?!” The boy’s voice sounded like someone had gotten hold of a tv remote, aimed it at him and turned the volume all the way up to maximum.

Neku debated whether to say yes or no.

“Didn’t you say you got pretty good at it, Neku?” Shiki had to open her big mouth

Right, maybe he shouldn’t have told her all about it on the way to meet Shooter. It was a bit of walk from his place to Tipsy Tose Hall and they were all asking about how he knew Shooter. He may have…embellished his skill in Tin Pin ever so slightly. Look, he did beat Shooter in their practice round, okay?

“Oh yeah?” There was a glint in his eyes that Neku wasn’t quite liking. Shooter moved to adjust the red bandanna around his head. Tugged at his jacket. Tightened the straps on his fingerless gloves. “Then I challenge you to a slam-off!”

Ah shit, Neku thought, here we go again.

…

Only a few minutes later, Neku had been completely humiliated in front of his friends.

“Oh, it’s okay, Neku.” Shiki patted his shoulder, reassuringly.

“Right on! You weren’t bad, but you need to put a little more POW into your attacks, if you know what I mean?”

“Uh yeah, ‘more pow’. Gotcha.” Was he disappointed? No! Of course, not.

…Fine, maybe a little bit.

“Hah, you suck!”

Neku glared at Beat. “I’m just a little out of practice!”

“Really? We can count it as a warm-up if you’d like, bro? Wanna go again?”

“No, I’m good,” Neku said, immediately.

Before Shooter could protest, Rhyme interrupted him. “Good job, Shooter! Nice play.” Rhyme and Shooter shared a very light fist-bump.

“Thanks, Rhyme. Gotta get some practise so I don’t lose again to you. Can’t keep letting my rivals get ahead of me all the time. Just you wait, the next one is gonna come in with a WHAM.”

There was so much that Neku wanted to ask after witnessing that exchange but they needed to keep focused on the task at hand.

“Shooter, all sorts of people come through the Stride, don’t they?”

“Yeah! I mean, everyone plays Tin Pin!” Shooter said this like it was obvious. “If there are people out there who don’t play Tin Pin they should play Tin Pin. I’ve been trying to get my gramps to play with me but he keeps saying he’s busy with his store!”

Looks like what Rhyme said about him challenging grannies must be true, then. Wonder if Tin Pin has specific categories for senior citizens…

Looking around the Stride right now, there were quite a few setups for several Tin Pin matches to go on at the same time. While the majority of players did seem to be around Rhyme and Shooter’s age-group, he did spot a lot of older kids and adults here too. Looked like anyone could get into Tin Pin.

“You know anyone named Sota Honjo? Or Nao Akahoshi? They’re usually together.”

Shooter thought for a moment and the longer he took, the more Neku started to believe they hit another dead end.

“Oh wait, is he the guy who wears shades on his head?”

Neku’s heart started to race. “Yeah, him!”

“Yeah I know him! He’s a bit of a rookie, started coming around here not long ago. He’s only a little worse than you though, bro.” Neku would not take offence to that. Nope. “Haha, though he totally wanted to take on the tournament next week. I dunno if it’s too early for him but you can’t gain experience without slamming! Oh hey, you wanna join the tourney?”

“No thanks, I’ve already done - uh, I mean - I’ve already got plans.”

That was close.

He avoided his friend’s eyes, knowing they were probably all going to hound him for it later.

“Do you know when he’s going to be here next?” Neku pushed through, determined to get the information he needed.

“Bro, I wish! I tried to challenge him when I saw him near Miyashita Park. He told me to go home, though. Saw him heading towards the Shibuya river side of the park. Think he hangs there a lot.”

It wasn’t anything concrete but it was a lead nevertheless.

“Guess that’s where we’re going then. Thanks Shooter. C’mon guys.”

Thinking it best to leave before Shooter could demand another slam-off, Neku tilted his head towards the exit and began walking towards it. Rhyme and Shiki started heading out, but Beat did not move.

That’s weird. He was usually first out the door.

His back was towards Neku and he couldn’t see Beat’s expression but he suspected that it was similar to the one he had on back at Neku’s place.

“Beat? You coming?”

“Yeah…les’ go.”

xxxxx

This really was strange.

Beat wasn’t saying a word as they made their way to the park. He wouldn’t stop talking when they were going to the Stride but now? Nothing. He was also lagging behind even Shiki.

If Neku noticed it and Shiki noticed it, judging by the way she kept looking behind her and then back to Neku, then Rhyme must have noticed it. She didn’t give any indication of it, though. Was that on purpose?

This was another thing that Neku had to ask about. Later, after they had found Sota and Nao.

They didn’t exactly run to the park but it hadn’t been a gentle walk either. Finding his breathing to be slightly laboured he gestured for them to stop by the entrance of the park. He looked around the area. It was one of Shibuya’s more run-down locations.

While it wasn’t such a large area, they still needed somewhere to begin. He asked if they should split up to cover more ground. He would need to give a bit more detail, he suspected. Since Shiki and Rhyme agreed to it fairly quickly he started to give them a bit more description of what they looked like.

“Like I said to Shooter, Sota had shades. I don’t know if he’d be wearing the same thing but he also had ripped jeans. Some kind of black vest. Think he had a watch and a few necklaces. White armband. Think he had some piercings too.” He actually surprised himself with how much detail he remembered. Briefly, he wondered if having memory loss once meant that your memory was better once you got them back. Another question to ask, someday.

“Alright, so should we split up into two groups?” Shiki nodded at him. “Neku and I one way and you two in another?”

“Wait, Shiki.”

Beat had finally spoken up.

“It ain’t…it ain’t a good idea to split up.”

“Hm? This place is a little shady but it isn’t that bad.” As far as Neku knew, at least. “Beat?”

“…I think I know where they’re at.”

“You what?”

This time, Beat did start sprinting off. It was all they could do to keep up with him. They were heading deeper into the park and past any area Neku had visited before, or heck even known about. They were heading towards the side, near the Shibuya river as Shooter had mentioned, but down a path leading to the junction to the housing areas.

“Who’s there?”

Oh no.

Beat had led them to the edge of the park, with stairs dipping down from the raised ground. Several people were sat on these steps and they did not look like the friendliest bunch. Or at least, most of them didn’t.

“Oh hey! Beat, that you, man?”

Two of them got up.

Shit.

He had been looking for them. He had wanted to find them.

But -

Sota, sorry… I can’t…

Nao! Stay with me! We’re finishing this thing together!

I’d…love to…but it…doesn’t look like I can. Sorry…Sota…

- he found himself staggering backwards.

He would have fallen over if Shiki hadn’t jumped to his side to steady him.

“Wow, is your friend, like, okay there?”

Neku wanted to answer on his own but couldn’t. He could open his mouth to speak.

They don’t know me.

He knew they wouldn’t.

They’re alive.

He was so relieved they were.

And they…know Beat?

“Well, well, well. Lookie who showed up here?”

This didn’t come from either Sota or Nao but from one of the other people sat on the stairs. He wasn’t standing up but somehow his gaze managed to seem as if he was looking down on them.

“Did ya change your mind?”

The man tapped at his white arm-band. All of them were wearing white arm-bands.

“Beat, what’s going on?” Neku was suddenly aware that Shiki’s grip on him had tightened.

“Yeah, c’mon. What’s going on that you had the balls to come back here, huh ‘Beat’?”

This time the man did stand up and he towered above them all.

“Or should I still be calling you -

Beat didn’t flinch and met this man’s gaze head-on.

“ - ‘Mad Boar’?”

#TWEWY #The World Ends With You #TWEWY Bang 2020 #Subarashiki Kono Sekai #thestormfall #submission

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gamerwoo · 4 years ago

Text

[Tales from the Pack] Chan: Homewrecker (Epilogue)

Characters: Chan x female reader

Genre/warnings: werewolf au, fantasy, im sorry but it’s mostly angst, still a little fluffy!!! but their part ends with angst im sorry, also mentions of killing people and also reader gets her arm cut open!!! there’s some fluff at the end tho!! (im really sorry this is how chan’s part ends but it has to lead up into what i have planned for hansol’s part)

Word count: 725

Summary: Chan caught your attention as soon as your eyes met across the market. Something about him drew you to him, and you knew you were meant to be. However, you were already taken and arranged to be married on your next birthday, so you could never be together.

Previous | Homewrecker Masterlist | TftP Masterlist

A few more people had managed to show up. Jooyeon was the next, but she was alone. Thankfully, she’d gone to the house before and remembered how to get there. She said the only reason she got out was because Minghao managed to snap the neck of the guy who had her by her neck and was about to strangle her to death.

Next, thankfully, was Joshua and Yeji. He seemed tired, still panting in his human form as he staggered into the house after changing. Both of them looked beat up, but it was mostly just cuts and scrapes that didn’t need too much tending to. Joshua said he wanted to stick around to help, but he was ordered to take Yeji and make a run for it. He was told he’d be more useful alive than dead, and he couldn’t really argue with that logic.

The members of Seungcheol’s pack that had arrived first had a happy reunion with their brother and sisters, but the sweet moment was ruined when Chan spoke up, reminding everybody of the tracker. You saw Joshua’s head whip around to look at you and your mate, his eyes moving down to the small bump in your arm.

“Does anybody have a knife?” he asked, and you immediately tensed, clinging to Chan’s arm.

Jooyeon offered up her pocket knife, and Seongmi – one of the mates from the other pack – gestured for Joshua to follow her upstairs. Chan picked you up in his arms because your legs felt like jelly and you didn’t think you could bring yourself to follow the werewolf who was about to cut you open with a pocket knife, and brought you along behind them.

The room stayed in a tense silence, waiting for anything. The werewolves could smell the alcohol that Joshua cleaned the knife off with, and they waited for the scream. Mingyu was already placing his hands over his daughter’s ears, and Danbi did the same for him.

Your shriek of pain cut through the silence. It was a white hot pain that was at least on par with the one you felt having it put in you. Joshua said apologies through clenched teeth as he made the cut as clean as he could, but he knew the really bad part would be digging the chip out.

After the screams turned into cries, and then died down into whimpers, a blur that the pack assumed was Chan ran down the hallway and out the door.

“He’s probably taking the tracker somewhere else to throw them off,” Jooyeon guessed.

Chan promised he’d be back by the time Joshua made your arm stop hurting, maybe even sooner. But he had to get the tracker gone as soon as possible -- they’d already waited long enough. So he left you with Joshua, Jimin, and Seongmi while Joshua began healing your arm.

Your eyes were still closed as you whimpered, so you didn’t see just how Josh’s power worked. But you felt your arm slowly become warmer, a comforting sensation you couldn’t quite describe. And then you didn’t feel anything.

“It’s all done,” Josh reported.

You peeled your eyes open and looked down at your arm, expecting to still see a harsh scar. Instead, there was just a faded pink line from when the tracker was put in, and just the blood from what Joshua had done to get it out still surrounding the line.

“Wow,” you breathed, amazed that he did that.

Chan appeared back in the room, not even the slightest bit winded. His hands caught your shoulders, looking into your eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you replied simply, holding your arm up for him to see as Jimin reached over with a damp cloth to clean your skin.

“See,” Chan grinned, happy that the tracker was taken care of and you were okay. There wasn’t any way Donghae and his men could track you down now, “I told you it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“So the tracker’s gone?” Joshua checked.

The youngest gave a solid nod, “It’s far from here.”

You looked at your mate, giving his hand a squeeze, “So...are we gonna be okay?”

He looked down at where you sat, squeezing your hand back and leaning down to press his lips to your forehead, “We’re gonna be okay.”

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wavesmp3 · 5 years ago

Text

our corner of the world

pairing: yoon jeonghan x fem!reader genre/theme: apocalyptic au wc. 2k

you come across him on the abandoned strawberry patch in the spring. when you first see him it’s through the barrel of your gun. you wait for him to beg or plead for you not to kill him or for him to make some indication that he’s no longer human.

but he does neither.

and you hesitate.

you’re not one to show mercy, but something about his clean clothes and tousled blond hair stops you from pulling the trigger.

“are you Gone?” you try asking, praying for some sign that he’s human and for another that he’s worth your mercy.

he doesn’t look scared, laying on the brown dirt between the strawberry bushes. he looks free. he looks alive.

but then he laughs, and you think he looks kinda high.

he whispers, “i’m not Gone yet. put the gun down and lay with me.” for some reason you do. and as you settle down next to him, your dirty and mud-stained clothes centimeters away from his crisp, clean dress shirt, you assume that the divide between you two is much greater than the few centimeters keeping you apart. “and don’t worry, i’m as human as they get.”

you turn your head so that you can watch his face. and when his lips turn up in a dazed smile, you think he must be more human than you.

“i’m jeonghan,” he says to you, meeting your eyes, “thank you for laying down with me.”

you break the eye-contact and look up towards the sky. you don’t remember the sky ever looking this blue before.

he’s still looking at you. you hope he’s waiting for you to say your own name back. you don’t. instead you say: “jeonghan’s a nice name.” then, as an afterthought you add, “let’s watch the clouds together.”

he complies all too happily. “you’re cute,” he mutters.

and you swear the sun shines a little brighter in that moment.

>>><<<

you remember the day it all began. the Gone roamed the streets and worries roamed your mind. you tried to forget that day. but it appears it's harder than it seems to erase the image of a bloodstained joshua sitting lifeless on the kitchen floor of the place the two of you called home.

you push the memory away as soon as it had surfaced.

>>><<<

jeonghan took you in that night. he stayed in the large barn at the edge of the farm, and after that day in the dirt, you did too.

the Gone that appeared near the farm were slow and uninterested. for the first time since it all began, you felt safe.

you spent the days in the strawberry patch or underneath the shade of the peach trees. other days, you spent roaming the vegetable gardens, walking along the orchard paths, and taking leisurely dips in the lake.

the blond boy was good, easy company. he never asked you to share your life before the day you met him.

so you never did.

>>><<<

“it was quiet for a few days before anything happened here,” jeonghan tells you one night. the night you spent in front of the fire in the living room. “by the time the Gone had reached our corner of the world, the chaos had already begun.”

“our?” you ask carefully.

“me and my mom.” he says with a sad smile. a smile that says all you need to know. “this was her farm. i was only supposed to stay with her for the summer.”

with the glassy look in his eyes, you already know that you’ve gone too far. but you figure it can’t hurt to go further.

“is she Gone?”

he doesn’t say anything for so long that you begin to wonder if he even heard you.

“that’s enough for today,” he whispers as if talking any louder would physically hurt him. the next part he says with a chuckle. “especially coming from someone who’s name i still don’t know.”

you decide it’s time to go to sleep.

he decides to call you peach.

>>><<<

the days turn longer and hotter. but you swear, time hasn’t moved since the day you laid down in the strawberry patch and watched the clouds with him.

the day you spent under the apricot tree was the first time you had the will to ask.

you sit with your back against the tree and his head in your lap. you twist and twirl twigs and flowers into his hair. you create a crown for the boy who took you in. the sun was bright and hot, but underneath the apricot tree, the sun was welcoming and warm.

as you twist one last purple flower into the peaking brown roots of his hair, he says, “Gone. at the pig sty.”

you watch the Gone unsheathe itself from the outline of the trees next to the empty pig sty. it’s slow and limping. but quiet and small. you almost don’t shoot out of pity.

the ring of the gunshot and smell of the bullet echo in your ears.

after the Gone drops to the ground, jeonghan’s head flops back onto your lap. a couple twigs fall out of his hair when he does.

“jeonghan”

he hums.

“how come the Gone don’t come here very often?”

a cloud ghosts over the sun and for a small second the world is shady and cold.

“my mother used to say it was because of the strawberries. something about the scent or the patch repel the normal ones.”

“what about in the off season?” you ask, retwisting the twig that fell out.

“i don’t know if that’s the truth. it’s just something my mom used to say.”

you nod, in understanding even though he can’t see.

a new question teeters on your tongue. one that fills you with equal parts of fear and curiosity. one that spills out from the corner of your mouth before you can even begin to repress the thought.

“how long since she…”

he stops breathing for a second. so you stop speaking.

for a moment, it’s like the two of you disappear. and the only thing left on earth are the birds and the trees.

“she was sick before anything had started,” he says in a low voice as if it’s only meant for himself to hear. “it’s the reason why I came to stay with her. she died in the winter.”

he turns his head, and you follow his eyes to a small, crooked cross hidden behind the greenhouse. you didn’t take jeonghan to be a religious guy, but you suppose the cross was put up as a plea for normalcy.

you feel a tear drop onto the leg of your jeans.

for a moment, it’s like the only thing left on earth are the birds, the trees, jeonghan, and you.

>>><<<

things are different after that day. jeonghan doesn’t smile as much. and there’s a pain behind his eyes. yet somehow, he manages to look even more alive.

after that day, it’s like a piece of jeonghan was ripped from him. it’s like you broke him, and you aren’t sure you know how to put him back together.

the day he starts coming back is the day of the first summer storm. the windows slam against the barn, and lightning illuminates the sky. the rain beats against the roof with an intensity that shakes the walls a little. as if they’re trying to get rid of the spring. as if they are cleaning themselves for the summer.

jeonghan disappeared that morning. you hadn’t seen him all day.

you sit in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch. the rain brushes against the dark wood of the porch and sprays itself onto your extended toes. you flinch every time thunder sounds across the sky.

you wait for him to return. you wait until the seconds and minutes and hours bleed into each other like water colors. you wait until you can’t any more.

you find him behind the greenhouse. he doesn’t hear you come up behind him, sloshing your boots through the mud. for the first time since you met him, he’s dirty. his clothes are mud-stained and drenched with rain.

his head is bowed. he kneels in the mud by the crooked cross. the cries of his heart are silenced by the storm raging above, but the strife of his loss spreads to you like wildfire. and it burns all the way through you. it makes you ache. you didn’t know his mother yet in this moment you’re grieving with him. or maybe it’s just that you’re grieving for him. you want to gather his cries in your arms and throw them in the pig sty. you want to hold him and hug him and tell him everything is fine. but you’ve lost yourself in the muddy puddles beneath your feet and you aren’t sure if it would be any help anyway.

he catches you standing behind him. the ends of your white dress dyed with mud. your boots are filled with rainwater. and water pours from your eyes with the same intensity that it pours off the side of your umbrella.

he sees you for the first time. he sees you before you’re certain you’ve really seen him.

you fall to your knees in the mud beside him. and you cry and let your heart ache for the first time since everything began. you grieve for joshua. jeonghan grieves for his mother. you grieve for each other. and when the next thunder claps across the grey sky, you both grieve for this world.

things change again after the first summer storm.

it was during the first summer storm that you realized your denial ran deeper than you had known. deeper than you had thought possible.

it was during the first summer storm that you realized the beautiful boy who cried by your side was in denial too.

it was during the first summer storm that you realized jeonghan was just as human as you.

>>><<<

it’s two days after he makes strawberry jam for the first time that you tell him your name. it also happens to be the day you tell him everything.

you tell him about your life before the chaos. you tell him about joshua. you tell him about the day it all began. you tell him how you ended up at the strawberry patch that day.

when you finish, he wipes the tears you didn’t know were falling. he holds you in his arms. and calls you peach until you fall asleep. the last thing you remember from that night is the smell of strawberry jam off his shirt.

the next morning he brings you jam and toast in bed. you eat with a smile.

>>><<<

you think that the days after the first summer storm must’ve been some of the best days of your life.

nothing about the world had changed, but something about you and jeonghan had. something about the way you felt when he smiled at you. something about the way he laughed so hard that you could see his gums. something about the way he stopped bothering to dye his hair blond. something about the way he brings you food when you sit by the lake. something about the way he sits with you after he does. something about the way your chest clenches and your heart contracts. something had changed. and every single day after the first summer storm, you prayed it’d never change back.

you loved his corner of the world. you wanted to grow old between the strawberry bushes and listen to him tell you that strawberries don’t grow on bushes. you wanted to fight with him in the midst of the orchard. you wanted to thumb wrestle under the apple trees. you wanted to make jam at the end of each season with him. you wanted forever in the barn at the edge of the farm.

the night he kisses you for the first time is the night that his corner of the world becomes your corner of the world too.

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fletchermarple · 5 years ago

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The Mysterious Death of Ellen Greenberg

In this blog I’ve covered several cases of suspicious deaths ruled as suicides, such as Nara Pech’s stabbing in Laos, Michelle O’Connell’s possible cover up or Marcelo Pesseghini’s alleged rampage. In all these cases there seems to be overwhelming evidence that the victims were actually murdered, but Ellen Greenberg’s case is a lot more nuanced and, therefore, confusing.

Ellen was a 27 year old pre-school teacher from Philadelphia who in January 26, 2011, was found stabbed to death inside her locked apartment in the neighborhood of Manayunk. She lived there with her fiancé Samuel Goldberg, who told police that around 4:45 pm of that afternoon he’d gone to use the gym inside their building, leaving Ellen alone in the sixth floor apartment. When he went back upstairs half an hour later, he found the front door was locked and despite him knocking and texting Ellen, she wouldn’t open it for him. It wasn’t just a matter of using a key: the door had a swing bar lock so it could only be opened from the inside. Eventually, Goldberg says he forced the door open and found Ellen dead. He called 911 at 6:33 pm.

When police arrived to the scene, Ellen was in the kitchen, lying on the floor but with her head and shoulders propped up against a cabinet. She had a white towel in one of her hands and a serrated knife buried in her chest. An autopsy later revealed she had 20 stab wounds, 10 of them in the neck and 8 in the chest area. She also had a wound in her stomach and a gash in her scalp. The medical examiner also found several bruises in different parts of her body in “various stages of resolution”, meaning that they’d been sustained in different times and not just on that day.

The ME concluded Ellen Greenberg’s death was an homicide, but investigators firmly believed they were dealing with a suicide and eventually, less than two months after his initial report, the ME changed the manner of death to suicide too.

As you can probably imagine, suicide by stabbing yourself is not exactly a common method although it happens. There are several details that explain why the police reached this conclusion after conducting their investigation. First of all, the apartment had been locked with a bolt and there was no sign of an intruder going in; even the snow in the balcony was undisturbed. The neighbors hadn’t heard any commotion and Ellen had no defensive wounds. Most of the stabs she sustained were shallow cuts, as if she had been practicing or hesitating before dealing the proper blow. Also, friends and family said that in the two months leading to her death, Ellen had showed a marked change in her usually bubbly personality, and a therapist that saw her at the time concluding she was suffering from severe anxiety and prescribed her Klonopin and Ambien. Both drugs were found in her system when she died.

But what about those bruises found on her body? Could she have been a victim of domestic or other form of abuse? Some people seem to think so, especially because shortly before her death, Ellen had asked her parents to move back home with them, although she denied it had anything to do with her fiancé. To her therapist she also denied there were any problems in the couple and police weren’t able to find anyone who would say different.

Still, Ellen’s parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, weren’t satisfied with the suicide theory and hired their own experts to investigate. One of them was forensic pathologist Cyril Wetch, who in a 2012 report said that her manner of death was “strongly suspicious of homicide”. Among his reasoning, he said that suicidal stab wounds can rarely be multiple and they are usually found in the stomach and the sides, not on the neck. He also noted that no suicide note or message of any form had been left behind.

They also contacted Tom Brennan, a retired police detective that also agreed Ellen’s death couldn’t be a suicide. What baffled him the most was that when Ellen was found, she had an horizontal stream of blood on her cheek, who seemed to deny the police’s theory that Ellen had stabbed herself in the chest while standing and then slid to the floor. The stream suggested that Ellen had been lying on her back at some point, and then had been propped against the kitchen counter.

An although eight years have passed, the Greenbergs haven’t given up on their quest to find the truth about what happened to their daughter. In October 2019, they sued Dr. Marlon Osbourne, the medical examiner who’d initially ruled her death as an homicide only to later change it suicide, in an effort to make him reexamine the evidence and change the manner of death.

#true crime #murder or suicide #unsolved #ellen greenberg

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