#...voice chat might be easier than text chat if people would be willing to do that.. probably not everyone is interested tho n thats fine

[weaselishmcdiesel]

GRIPS YOU. I would love to play test if you wanted

NOTED!

[jjuzoir]

Sakusa Kiyoomi Relationship HC’s

Word Count: 1396

A/N: woof woof i’m the ceo of soft content bitches ❕ one of my biggest pet peeves with sakusa’s fanon is ppl forgetting he’s literally... just super fcking dramatic like he could be a theater kid if he wanted to /hj so i wanted to try writing him as a soft still dramatic boifie is it probably ooc? yeah... do i give a fuck? no.

- Unlike popular belief, Kiyo isn’t going to cry if you hold his hand. If anything, it’s one of the few displays of affection that truly gets him blushing a bright pink.

- He does get kind of annoyed if you hug him or do anything that requires too much physical contact too suddenly, give him a little warning or ask him; He’ll almost always say yes, unless he’s sweaty from practice.

- As long as you’re both clean and sanitized, he’s willing to indulge you.

- He’s not super big on PDA but he’ll always have an arm thrown around your shoulders or wrapper around your waist.

- A big fan of subtle matching accessories, he’ll probably buy you matching key rings and phone cases. Don’t make fun of him though, he’ll get embarrassed and kind of uncomfortable; it’s one of his Love Languages afterall.

- He likes seeing you wearing his clothes, he’ll have a few things he exclusively has just for you but he also has some he’d rather not share. The latter category is mostly dress shirts, formal wear, anything that might stain easily or you’d need in fancy situations, but things like extra t-shirts or hoodies are as much his as yours (just tell him you’re taking anything and make sure you wash it before giving it back).

- Sakusa has a sensitive nose so he loves the way you sometimes smell like him, even if it’s just a little bit, when you wear his jackets or hoodies he likes knowing you’re going to smell like him for the day.

- He really likes indoor dates, from staying inside with you at home or going to museums or stores. He tends to favors the dates where you’ll choose things for each other, he takes getting you gifts super seriously and will spend hours making sure what he’s getting you is up to his standards.

- Talking about gifts, he’ll treasure anything you give him. His favorite gift you ever got him was a cologne, it was one he’d mentioned in passing to you because it was meant to be softer on the nose, and for his birthday you ended up getting him that and a clock.

- The fact you thought about him and listened to what he’d said made him very happy. He knows he’s often seen as intimidating and sarcastic, people tend to take what he says wrong or way too literally/liberally.

- Sakusa isn’t afraid of being blunt with you, he doesn’t like sugar coating his words and you’re no exception, he tries being more kind with his word choice but at the end of the day he won’t hesitate saying what’s on his mind.

- So whenever he compliments you, keep in mind he absolutely means it and he won’t hesitate to repeat it (unless you ask him to do so too much, he’ll get blushy and annoyed).

- He really wants to get a dog with you. Not any dog though, he wants a big dog he can take on walks and running with him, probably wants a siberian husky, would name him Mr Clean.

- Is the type of guy who’ll be like “the dog sleeps on its bed” but you’ll find him with said dog cuddling together under a blanket after a hard day. Sakusa is in love with Clean, he’d die for him, he even calls him your son.

- Got him little paw-gloves for when he’s cleaning the floor and he’s got chemicals around him so his paw beans don’t get irritated.

- An underrated comedy master, Iwaizumi says he has the sense of humor Atsumu wishes he had. He doesn’t even think twice before speaking with his teammates which leads to ridiculously funny exchanges, the best part is that he doesn’t seem to understand that he’s being hilarious so his face quite literally stays the same.

- Before dating you, his room was kind of boring (read: that one Haikyuu manga cover Furadate made for Christmas), black covers, white walls, etc., basically a minimalist nightmare but when you started dating he kind of got into keeping knick knacks that remind him of you or from dates with you, he has a few of your things laying around too. It’s still clean, he’d rather die than have a messy or dirty room, but it’s got more personality.

-  Has an extra MSBY jersey for you and his homescreen is a picture of you wearing it next to him; he’s whipped for you. He won’t let anyone unlock his phone because of it, one time Komori almost saw it and he had a mini-heart attack.

- Has you saved as “[Name] 💖” and gets super annoyed when anyone (Atsumu) teases him about it.

- He likes the intimacy of waking up together and performing a morning routine with you. Seeing you standing in the mirror brushing your teeth while chatting about your day or while you do your skincare routines.

- He's better at holding phone calls with you rather than texting - he can be kind of dry and he knows it, he’s also busy often which leads to many gaps between the responses; it’s a mess. So he’d rather call you, that way he can also make his tone/intentions known easier! the

- Not big on pet names for you, the most he’d do is “honey” or “dear”, he’d rather call you by your name or a nickname.

- On the other hand, he’s a big softy for the pet names you have for him; he’ll act like he hates them, especially if you call him out in public, but in private he gets blushy and his voice softens when he talks to you afterwards.

- Matching masks are a staple in your relationship, he’s always on the lookout for them just in case. When he’s abroad he’ll bring you a bag full of them, and they’re not the unfiltered ones, he makes sure absolutely nothing can get through them because he’s not about to have either you or him breathe in germs and risk getting sick.

- Health is his number one priority for both you and him.

- The type to call you when he’s away to rant about the silliest things, he’ll see something that annoys you and he’ll just think about how you’d never do him like that and how you’d be just as annoyed.

- When you two get a shared bed he’ll ask for the side closest to the window, he doesn’t care if it ends up being the right side or the left side; he likes being able to leave the window slightly open as to keep the air in the room clean and he doesn’t want you to get cold.

- Kiyoomi is really thoughtful, he knows he can be picky and particular so he wants to make it up to you by keeping you in mind to make sure you’re also comfortable.

- Arguments are rare because of this, he knows when to compromise - so if his partner can’t it’s a really big no for him and would lead to a very short relationship - but he also wants you to know he’s not a pushover and he also needs you to compromise as well.

- Likes intertwining your pinkies together when you’re walking down the street, it’s not super noticeable to others but he’s still holding you tightly in his own way.

- I said it before but Kiyoomi isn’t against holding you as long as you’re clean (as in; took a bath, clothes are washed, etc.)! He likes being able to hold you tightly during movies, just being there with you is soothing to him.

- Very dramatic when it comes to important dates and anniversaries, he acts like he’s cool with it as if he hadn’t spent a week planning the bouquet of flowers he has in his locker alongside a handwritten note he has his mom check just in case he made a mistake. In that way, he kind of expects you to take it seriously too and would get kind of disappointed if you didn’t remeber or give him something; it could be a hand gel and he’d treasure it though.

- Overall, Sakusa tends to be a surprisingly soft boyfriend - he has his quirks, much like anyone does but as long as you respect them you won’t have any problems down the road. He’s a thoughtful lover, he takes pride in knowing you well and taking care of you.

[jasontoddiefor]

nobody's keeping score

Ship: HideKane

Summary: In a world where ink stains the white papers of constitutions, damning the lives of ghouls, their existence is no secret or rumor, but a topic of heated debate, protests, and anonymous organ donations in shady alleys. No matter how bright the CCG appears in their white coats, their light cannot reach the dark tunnels where ghouls and sympathizers alike are plotting. And when Hide, after hours of sitting at his best friend’s hospital bed, sees him wake with one eye black and red, the difficult question is not how to get him help, but how to avoid him becoming the figurehead of a conflict threatening to turn into a bloody revolution.

AN: Notes: You ever just take a 4-year break from a fandom and return with spite fic because you remembered how much you hated canon? Yeah. This fanfic is my attempt at corralling the TG worldbuilding into something coherent that makes sense. I will keep some elements of canon, others I will throw out of the window straight away. This is utterly self-indulgent.

“And with the developments in synthetic meat production—”

Hide wanted to groan. They’d been discussing the same question for the last three hours of class and he was, frankly speaking, done with it. People were running out of arguments and circling back to topics that didn’t contribute anything to the conversation they were supposed to be having. From the way their lecturer was glaring at the latest speaker, Hide would say that she was also very done.

“Yoshimura, as stated before, we are not discussing possibilities for ghoul integration, but the mere premise of whether they even deserve the rights needed to legalize their status as citizens. The right of existence of an individual should not be dependent on what modifications would have to be made to accommodate them, but whether they deserve to live regardless.”

Hide had zoned out about an hour ago. His opinion on ghouls had always felt rather clinical, mathematically detached, despite Hide’s history. Maybe too much time had passed since he’d looked at the bloody remains of his father to really hammer home the fear-motivated rejection so many people fell to. Perhaps the CCG investigators, who had dragged him away from his father’s corpse, should have allowed him to get a little more traumatized before the kindness of his new parents had become enough to dull those painful memories.

Some ghouls were no different than brutal serial killers, and they had to be taken down, but the rest seemed to be getting by just fine. If a new legislation would make it even easier for them to go about their everyday lives, perhaps the number of violent ghoul attacks would go down as well. Hide was well aware that this was the view of a privileged person. Growing up in the 20th ward meant that you needn’t be scared of leaving your house when it was already dark. Kamii University prided itself on the fact that it could safely offer evening classes such as the one Hide was attending now. The same certainly couldn’t be said for the other wards. Any citizen between the 9th and 13th wards would probably advocate vocally for the extermination of ghouls. The 11th especially resembled a warzone even during the daylight. Ghoul sightings were nothing unusual there, and investigators’ mutilated bodies were displayed as trophies and warnings alike. Meanwhile, nobody had died in the 20th war for something like ten odd years. Sometimes it felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop, but most of the time, Hide didn’t even think about ghouls.

By the time class was finally over, Hide had taken only one or two more bullet points. They hadn’t really said anything of interest and it reflected in his writing. Usually, Hide would be sending rapid-fire texts to Kaneki now, but his friend was still on his date and Hide didn’t want to bother him. It had taken more than just a bit of teasing and probing to get Kaneki to ask that girl out and he wouldn’t self-sabotage his hard work.

It was good that Kaneki was connecting to people that weren’t just Hide.

And it would be awesome if Hide could do the same.

Codependence needed two people to work and Kaneki was definitely not the only one struggling with independence. Hide had yet to figure out how to let go of Kaneki when his relationship to the other boy had been the only stable thing in his world for the longest time. Nothing said mental health like latching onto an abused child to escape the stifling air of his brand-new foster fathers’ home.

The next time he visited his parents, he’d bring them some flowers to make up for how troublesome he’d been as a child.

Glancing at his phone again, Hide realized he had to hurry if he wanted to take the early bus home. He was just about to plug in his headphones when an unknown number flashed up on the display. Who would call him at this time? Hide was definitely someone who preferred texting. Even his parents knew better than to call unless it was serious. The only person he ever actually called was Kaneki, and that was only because his friend sometimes got so lost in a book, he forgot to text back or didn’t even hear the phone buzz. Hide contemplated picking up for another ring, then gave in and accepted. “Nagachika Hideyoshi speaking, who’s calling?”

“Hello, I am Tanaka Akako, a nurse of the Kanou General Hospital. You are Nagachika Hideyoshi, Kaneki Ken’s emergency contact?”

The blood in Hide’s veins froze.

“Yes, I am. Has— has anything happened? Is Kaneki alright!?”

The nurse’s voice was so calm, steady, and pleasant as if this was a chat between friends. Somewhere Hide knew that it probably helped most people, but it just put him on edge. “Nagachika-san, your friend and another young woman were involved in an accident. Dr. Kanou is preparing him for surgery, but as his emergency contact, we have to discuss the possible options before we can proceed.”

Hide didn’t want to discuss any options. There shouldn’t be any besides Kaneki’s survival. Hide wanted to rush into the operation hall and hold Kaneki’s hand, wishing he could turn back time, tell his friend to remain at his side and consider that girl out of his league so he’d spent the evening with him and not getting sent to ER. This couldn’t be real; he was sick to his stomach.

“What are the options?” Hide asked, panic threatening to strangle him as he rushed to the street, trying to find a taxi to take him to Kanou General straightaway.

“Kaneki-san sustained serious injuries. Dr. Kanou is willing to transplant the deceased Kamishiro-san’s organs into your friend to save his life even if her family hasn’t consented yet. The only consent we can ask for in Kaneki-san’s case is yours and—”

“Do it,” Hide replied immediately. He didn’t know Kaneki’s date, and as much as Hide loved people, argued for a baseline acceptance every day in class, he couldn’t bring himself to care about the wishes of a family whose daughter was already dead. The only thing they were still good for once their hearts stopped beating was serving the living with their remains.

Kaneki might survive because of her; what else could matter? “Do it, whatever you need to save him— you have my full permission.”

Finally, a taxi approached and stopped right when Hide waved for it. He quickly climbed inside and, paying no attention to the driver, told him to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

“And in case he doesn’t survive, may his organs—”

“He will survive,” Hide pressed because he didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he were to lose Kaneki. He’d built a life around his best friend and how much they meant to one another. Hide couldn’t give up on that, couldn’t let it slip past his fingers. “He’ll survive. I know it.”

Organ transplants took place every day without any complications—

Hide’s eyes widened. “Kaneki has recessive ROS!” he all but shouted at the nurse, startling the taxi driver.

Kaneki’s father had died because of it. If Kaneki got the wrong blood transfusions or anything, his RC cells were suddenly pushed to start acting up, the dormant sickness could turn on and what if Hide had just damned him to a life of wasting away—

No.

Stay positive. Don’t freak out even more. They hadn’t done anything yet, merely asked for Hide’s permission to help Kaneki at all. He was saving his friend’s life; he wasn’t cursing him.

“Thank you for telling me, Nagachika-san. I will pass that on to Dr. Kanou. You have just contributed immensely to the safety of the procedure.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Hide said. “Just— he has to hold on. Tell Kaneki he has to hold on until I’m there.”

“We will, Nagachika-san, don’t worry. Dr. Kanou will do his best.”

His best.

The words echoed in Hide’s mind. How was he ever supposed to know if Kanou’s best would be enough for his friend? Hide excelled at being optimistic, could see the positive side of most things in life, had learned how to be hopeful at the funerals of people he��d loathed. He just couldn’t allow himself to drown in any negative possibilities.

The rest of the drive passed in the blur, either because the driver had known to speed up after listening in on the phone call, or because Hide was so out of it that he didn’t really register the streetlamps flickering by until the taxi had reached its destination. Hide passed the driver a couple bills, probably more than the transport had actually cost, but he didn’t care. What were one or two skipped meals compared to being there before it was too late? Hide rushed inside the sterile white hospital, eyes immediately set on the front desk.

“My friend,” Hide stuttered as he clung to the counter, holding it as if it were his lifeline. “He was brought in— an accident. He was on a date and there was an accident. Dr. Kanou is operating him?”

The receptionist seemed confused, needing a moment to make something coherent out of Hide’s rambles. “I need your identification before I can tell you anything about our patients.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Hide fumbled for his student ID card and put it on the counter with shaky hands. “Nagachika Hideyoshi, I’m Kaneki Ken’s emergency contact.”

“Of course, your friend is still in the operating room. You can wait here.”

Hide didn’t want to wait, but what else was there he could do? He hated feeling useless like this, unable to contribute anything productive. The receptionist sent him a kind look and, defeated, Hide crossed the entrance hall to the waiting room where he remained together with other worried family members and patients, clutching his phone so he wouldn’t start screaming. He couldn’t stop moving his legs, stress keeping him wide awake even as the hospital emptied and less and less people sat around him. How long did such an operation take? An hour? Two? Hide had absolutely no idea. He didn’t study anything like this. His major was English literature, which was about as helpful as hot air at this moment.

He could quote enough books concerned with some medical drama and family members in the hospital, but none of them brought him any comfort.

“Nagachika-san?”

Hide looked up into the kind face of an elderly man wearing a pristine white coat.

“Y- yes?” Hide replied and quickly stood up, brushing imaginary dust from his pants. “Are you Dr. Kanou? Is my friend alright? Can I see him?”

“I am sorry to have caused you such worries. The operation went well. Your friend is resting in intensive care right now. He is still asleep, but you may visit him. The presence of loved ones is often very beneficial to the healing process.”

Healing.

A sob shook Hide’s shoulders. Kaneki was alive. He hadn’t died.

“Thank you,” he managed to say in between his sobs. “Thank you, thank you for saving his life.”

The doctor only kept on smiling and kindly put his hand on Hide’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly in what was meant to be comforting. “It is my job, young man. You don’t have to thank me. Nothing is more important to me than saving innocent lives. If you follow one of the nurses, you can see your friend immediately.���

Hide thanked the doctor once more, relief slowly filling the pits anxiety had hollowed out. He followed the nurse through the labyrinth of death, decay, healing, and salvation up to the intensive care station. Quietly, he was led to a room. The door opened, revealing one lone figure on a bed.

From a distance, hooked up with so many tubes and wires, Kaneki was nothing like the person who took up half of Hide’s life. He seemed so much smaller and looked like just one push could snap his connection to life.

“Please remain quiet,” the nurse told him. “And don’t move him.” Glancing at his still trembling fingers, she added, “but you may hold his hand.”

Hide nodded, then quickly crossed the room to Kaneki’s bed and sat down on the chair next to it. Kaneki didn’t move at all; not even a single muscle twitched. Hide would assume they had led him to view his friend’s corpse if not for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Pushing up the sleeves of his jacket, Hide took Kaneki’s hand in his own.

“Hey, Ken,” he muttered, pressing his eye close so no tears would escape them. “You scared me there. Don’t ever do that again.”

Predictably, Kaneki didn’t reply. Nevertheless, Hide imagined that just for a moment, he squeezed Hide’s hand back. Slowly, the tension bled from Hides’s shoulders and he made himself comfortable in the hard plastic chair. This was bound to be a long night and he was starting to feel his exhaustion catch up to him. He tried to keep his eyes trained on his friend for as long as possible, remaining alert for a change to his condition, but it was getting more and more difficult to keep them open.

Eventually, the darkness caught him as he fell. Hide knew he stirred a couple more times during the night, likely when the nurses came to check on Kaneki. Nobody asked him to move and leave, something he was immensely thankful for. He wouldn’t have been able to let go. By the time the sun began to chase away the shadows again, Hide wasn’t sure how much he had slept, only that it had definitely not been enough. But that was alright, he could catch up on sleep sometime later. It was far more important that Kaneki was going to be alright.

Hide turned to look at Kaneki’s face and found his friend awake, staring back at him.

One eye gray like a stormy cloud before the morning rainfall.

The other was blood-red against the night sky.

[xjoonchildx]

airplane, pt. 2 | jjk x reader chapter four: los angeles

pairing: jungkook/reader

word count: 2.2K rating: 18+

genre: smut | silly smut | nonsensical smut

warnings:  criminal!jungkook, koreanamerican!jungkook, reality has left the chat, plausibility has left the chat

A/N: i’m not a huge blog and don’t have a lot of readers -- but i’m so, so, so grateful to every single one of you who’s reached out to me on AP2. hearing what you think about this story makes my day every time. from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much. hope you enjoy this chapter. the story wraps up in the next one!

Chapter 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06

artwork by the shmexy @ppersonna​ who’s smut is even better than her art

***********************

“You see, as messes go -- there are levels.” 

Seokjin takes a big sip of his draft beer then sets it down to free his hands.

“On the bottom are your run-of-the-mill problems,” he says, putting one hand out flat.  

His other hand comes out to hover over the first.

“Then your regular-level shitshows, then your high-level shitshows and then there’s disasters,” he says, stacking his hands in the air to demonstrate the escalation.  

You smother the urge to roll your eyes.  Like most lawyers, Seokjin loves to hear himself talk.

He’s also an old friend, someone you trust and someone who’s help you desperately need -- so you’re going to have to suck it up and let him have some fun at your expense. 

It’s only fair.

“Then somewhere way up here -- ” he stretches his upper body for effect, “ -- way past disasters is the shit you just told me.  Somewhere way off the charts. Are you with me?”

You nod, taking a sip of your own beer.

“Yup.”

“So what the fuck?” 

You laugh.  You know it’s bad form to call up a buddy you haven’t seen in months, tell him you want to buy him a beer and then dump the world’s most complicated case at his feet.  

It’s just that you haven’t been able to come up with another solution.

You’ve turned this problem over in your mind hundreds of times by this point -- envisioned dozens of ways this could end.  No other scenario makes sense in the long run.  This is the only way to put a stop to this madness without Jungkook behind bars for the rest of his natural life.  

Or worse.

That’s why you’re prepared to pull out all the stops with Seokjin.  You’re not going to let him get away with letting you down easy. 

He hasn’t laughed you out of this bar yet so you’re taking that as a good sign.

“Jin, there isn’t anyone else who could pull this off,” you say, meaning every word.  “I know you can fix this.”

He snorts.

“This guy gave agents the slip in two different countries and ghosted from a federal courthouse,” he takes another sip of his beer.  There’s limits to what even I can do. Not that I don’t appreciate the ego stroke though, you know I do.”

You gnaw at the corner of one fingernail, thinking.

“So who is he?” 

“I already told you, he --”

“Cut the bullshit,” Jin interrupts. “You know what I’m asking.  Who is he to you?”

Well, isn’t that the million-dollar question?

“It’s complicated,” you sigh, and even that is somehow oversimplifying this entire fucked-up situation. “Not sure I know how to explain that.”

“Oh, I’m willing to bet there is quite a story there,” he smirks.  “Some day you’re going to have to fill me in on all the dirty details.”

You glance away for a moment to avoid his knowing look.

“Just promise me you’ll think about it,” you say. “I’ve seen guys way worse than this get deals that kept them out of prison entirely.”

“Well you of all people know how this works, so don’t act brand new,” Jin retorts. “You want the government to play ball with this guy then he’s got to give them something they want.  If they don’t have any use for him, they have no reason to show mercy.”

“I know that,” you admit.  “Still trying to figure that part out.”

“So figure it out,” Jin pushes back. “‘Cause I’m an attorney, not a genie. I’m not in the wish-granting business.  Bring me something I can use and we’ll go from there.”

We’ll go from there. A careful hope stirs in your chest when Seokjin says that.

You promise yourself you’re going to bring him an angle that works.  

Now you’ve just got to find it.

*****************************

“Who is this guy to you?”

Jin’s question echoes in your head the entire way home.

It’s so much easier to focus on the what -- Jungkook on the run and all the problems that come with it -- than it is to focus on the why.  

The why scares you too much to confront head-on. It’s not like you love this man, right? 

He could be a terrible person. He could be as rotten in real life as he is on paper. 

He could be playing you.  It’s certainly not the first time the thought has crossed your mind.

But every time you start to entertain the doubts, something pulls you back. You can’t shake the feeling that Jungkook is none of those things.  You can’t forget the way he looked at you in Puerto Rico.  His face that night is forever burned into your mind.

So he’s either completely real or the world’s most convincing fake.

You pour a glass of water and unlock the burner phone.   The message you’d tried to send back to the number he contacted you from bounced back.  There hasn’t been a single new message since then.  

You take a drink and consider what step to take next.  

There is no way you’re going to push Jin to fight on Jungkook’s behalf until you know without a doubt this is something Jungkook wants for himself.  For all you know, he’s happy with riding this out until the end.  He could be totally at peace with the idea of never being at peace.

You stare at the screen for a moment before making up your mind to dial the number you’d found online.

The voice on the other end answers in Korean.

“Yoongi?” you ask.

The line is completely silent for a few seconds.

“I distinctly remember you promising me I’d never hear from you again,” comes the curt reply. You smile to yourself imagining the scowl he’s probably wearing right now.

“I did,” you admit.  “Thing is --” you pause and choose your next words carefully, “ -- circumstances have changed. So I’m asking for your help one more time.”

Yoongi makes an aggravated noise, something between a growl and a grunt.

“Fine.  What do you want?”

“I might have a way to help him.  Nothing is ironed out and there are no guarantees, but it’s something.  It’s just that -- I haven’t been able to reach him.”

“Yeah well, neither have I.”

Shit.  You hope the situation hasn’t gone completely upside-down in Nicaragua already. Getting him there was supposed to buy you some time.

“Okay, “ you exhale, pacing your kitchen floor.  You tell yourself there could be a million reasons why he hasn't reached out to anyone.  You tell yourself not to panic. You certainly don’t want to panic Yoongi, either.

“I need you to take down this number.  If you reach Jungkook, you need to give it to him.  Tell him if he wants to end this it’s the only way.”

Yoongi blows out a heavy breath.

“Yeah, alright.  Go ahead.”

*****************************

 God, you are really starting to hate this place.

The voice in your head that’s been telling you how deeply unsatisfied you are in this job has slowly gotten louder over these past few months.  Now it’s all you can think about every morning as you swipe your badge and walk into the polished lobby.

This isn’t some labor of love for you.  

It’s something you trained to do, started doing, kept on doing and you’re still doing now.  

On and on and on in an endless string of days.

You’d started this job with the kind of starry-eyed enthusiasm that always annoyed the veterans around here.  Now you can understand why.  It doesn’t take long in this line of work to realize that justice is a concept that’s bought and sold.  He who has the most cash makes the rules.

You grab a cup of coffee and log onto your computer to start in on the mountain of paperwork that awaits.  It’s laborious and annoying and total bullshit but at least it’s a distraction.  At least it keeps you from obsessing over the Jungkook situation non-stop.

So you throw yourself into the work just to make the hours tick by.

Your boss stops by before lunch, asks if you want to join him and some of the others at a local deli.  You cry off, complaining about paperwork and deadlines and he smiles sympathetically as they head out.  It’s a relief when their laughing voices fade away and this part of the office falls silent.

You are half-way through customizing your burrito order online when a shiver of realization walks up your spine.

***********************

“Seokjin Kim.”

He sounds so formal, answering his phone for a number he doesn’t recognize.  

“Hey, it’s me,” you say, tossing your keys onto your kitchen counter.  

“Oh, I didn’t realize -- wait, wait, wait.  Are you calling me from a burner?” Jin asks incredulously.  “Wow, it’s like we’re on The Wire or some shit.”

“Shut up,” you huff, rolling your eyes. “I’m calling because I think I might have come up with the angle.”

Jin whistles.

“Hope it’s a good one.”

“Yeah me too,” you mutter under your breath.  “I just -- I can’t be involved in any way.  I’m not even going to be able to talk to you until this plays out. No texts, no calls to my cell.  I’m already way out on a limb here.”

“Yeah, I get it,” he says.  “But hey, just for the record? A favor is something like, ‘Hey Jin, can you drop me at the airport on Tuesday? Hey Jin, would you mind picking up my dry cleaning?’ You know, for future reference.”

You laugh. Points were made.

*************************

You tell yourself -- this is long overdue.

That with or without Jungkook -- with or without the madness on that flight or the night in San Juan -- this was going to happen anyway.  

And for the first time in weeks, you actually smile at the security guards who check bags at the entrance.  You smile at the barista who talks too much at the Starbucks in the lobby.  You smile at the creep from Cybercrimes on the elevator, even though he’s standing too close. He always stands too close.

You feel lighter than you have in ages and that’s fucking bizarre, because this could all still blow up in your face at any moment.  Despite all you’ve done, Jungkook could be arrested at any time -- hauled away, locked away in prison for life.  Hell, you could be joining him at some point, disgraced and discredited and detained.  

But you woke up this morning and had a moment of clarity that knocked the wind out of you.  Today, you’re going to walk out of this building on your own terms.  

Every decision you’ve made along the way -- good or bad -- has been yours.  

If they show up at your door with a warrant, then you’ll handle it.  If they haul you off, then you’ll handle it.  If Jungkook decides he wants Jin’s help and the agency never sniffs out a thing, then you’ll handle it.  

You’ve done everything you can -- so either this works, or it doesn’t.  But there’s a big fucking difference between being cautious and being scared. 

You’ve decided you’re not going to be scared.

You read over the letter you’d typed, printed and signed before walking into your boss’s office. 

His mouth gapes in surprise when you hand him your resignation.

Effective immediately.

************************

It’s been three weeks without a word from anyone.  

Yes, you did specifically tell Jin not to reach out, you remind yourself.

The last time you two had spoken, you’d explained that you didn’t give a shit about losing the job, but that you were certain were entirely too prissy to make it in prison, and he’d agreed and you’d both shared a laugh about that.  

But now it’s been over three weeks and he still hasn’t reached out.  

You’ve had no word from him, no word from Jungkook and now you have no job.  

The silence is deafening.

If there’s an upside at this point, at least your house is immaculate.  You’ve gotten your daily run up to three miles.

Tonight the air is unnaturally cool for this time of year, more than welcome when you lace up your running shoes.  You set a good pace, make good time, and drown out the outside world with your earbuds.  

But at the end of your run -- just as you’re getting closer to home -- you notice something odd. 

Your porch light is out.  

Which is weird because you definitely remember replacing that bulb not too long ago.  You cut the music and walk quietly up to your door. 

Your entire body is on high alert as you approach slowly, keys in hand on the off chance you’re going to have to wield them like a weapon. 

But when you step up to the porch you find -- nothing. 

No creep waiting to jump out of the shadows to ambush you.  You shake your head at your own overactive imagination, take a deep breath and tell yourself to relax.

You slide your key in the lock.

The sunlight that had waned at the start of your run is entirely gone at this point, and you open the door into darkness.  You flip on the light, toss your keys on the small table you keep in the entryway.

“Don’t freak out, okay?”

You nearly jump out of your skin at the voice that comes from your living room.  From your couch.  

From inside your goddamned home.

Oh my god.

**************************

[radramblog]

Amogus

I don’t really know how we got here. But either way, please leave your overused memes at the door.

As a game, Among Us most obviously takes its design from social games like Mafia or Werewolf. As someone who played an absolute fuckload of Werewolf back in high school (seriously like every recess and lunch for a year or two) you would think I’d connect right back to it… but it never quite landed for me.

It might be the lessened social element. Werewolf requires physicality, a literal Administrator to run the game, and enough people willing to make it work in person. As a result, you’re often playing it with people you know really well, and so it’s easier for something like a tell to become apparent, or for in-jokes to form. Due to separation of gameplay states, and the extreme limitations on information, you’re forced a lot more to rely on social skills and your ability to talk to people or to lie to people in order to succeed.

This is not necessarily a negative on Among Us’s part. The added gameplay not only makes it a fundamentally different game, it means there’s less downtime for non-traitorous players. You can use elements like game knowledge and strategy to compensate for your lessened ability to read people, seeing as you can’t rely on body language in text or voice chat. Not to mention, I do appreciate the much clearer goals for the non-traitorous players- the methodology of just “eliminate people until you get the right one” is very zero-sum and makes no-voting substantially weaker than it is in Among Us- though in that game, the imposters aren’t limited to one kill per night.

I think another possible reason that I bounced off of Among Us as much as I did was just the lessened impact of the pandemic here in WA. We didn’t end up in full lockdown for more than a few weeks, and about a week maximum at a time. As such…it didn’t serve as much a purpose. We didn’t need a big game that everyone could play together because most of the time we could just…hang out, still. And we did play the game a couple times when we were locked down, but not enough to make a habit of it.

For those not so lucky, though, it might have been a godsend, albeit one that dropped a fair chunk of time early. There’s a reason the game became such a massive hit, especially considering it’s the kind of game that balloons super easily- it lets streamers make the most of their entertainment personas and also cross-promote, and it’s likely to drag in entire groups of people at a time, especially considering it being relatively cheap (and free on mobile). A way to emulate group dynamics, combined with solid gameplay, and immediate generation of the strong emotional reaction known as betrayal.

If I had to put the main reason I didn’t like the game down, it’s just that I found Imposter obscenely stressful. I think I’ve gotten to the point where just, if a game stresses me out, I’m just going to stop playing it, and every second of trying to mislead my friends fucked with me on a strategic and an emotional level. It’s not a mindset I enjoy being in, I’m not that kind of person! RIP to y’all but I’m different.

But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that holy fuck I’m so sick of Among Us memes. “Sus” was a term I used for years prior to the game coming out, and now I feel vaguely dirty ever saying it. And the sheer popularity of the game means that every single joke got driven into the ground extremely quickly, and then buried over again for good measure, but people just keep repeating them. Even now, when the game’s popularity has substantially waned, people keep posting this stuff. I’m so fucking sick of the drip remix, folks. I’m so tired of it.

I have an immense respect for the developers of this game. They adapted a classic of game nights and forum play-by-post into a video game that was exactly what everyone needed, and then kept supporting it years after its release to allow such a tiny indie game the support to blow up as much as it did. But at this point, I don’t think it’s really for me, and that’s okay.

[thelucyverse]

Suburbs fic idea Milippa /2 (1)

When Philippa wakes on the next morning, it is because someone is ringing the doorbell, and for a moment she is filled with limitless rage at being woken when for once she managed to sleep through the night, at being so tired it borders on feeling dead inside, at the frustration of having to be awake and alive.

This is a draft version. Expect nothing else or maybe wait for the finished product on ao3 lol

Note to self: thinking about maybe changing Tilly to another single woman instead? Single mom? Idk... I think Tilly/Chris is interesting, but like, idk

Then, she takes a deep breath and drags herself out of bed, takes her meds, goes looking for her clothes and only briefly goes into the bathroom to make herself look like more of a person. Then, she forces a smile onto her face and faces the world - or rather, the hell that is a small neighborhood.

Her first welcome committee is made up out of a woman and man - the redhead from the window yesterday, and the man presumably her husband from how he's standing next to her, carrying a plate with cake.

"Hi!" the redhead chirps brightly, beaming over her entire face. Philippa doesn't know whether that is making it easier or harder to keep the smile on her own face. Perhaps it's both - annoying yet also contagious somehow, and they cancel each other out.

"I - hello. Do come in."

"Thanks!" the redhead skips inside, followed by the two men who have yet to say a single word. The one holding the cake platter looks a little awkward with it, and Philippa points him to the thankfully already fully built-in kitchen counter, earning herself a grateful smile.

"Oh, I'm Sylvia, but everyone calls me Tilly!" the woman tells her happily and extends her hand. "And this is my husband Chris - oh, did you?"

"Already handed over the cake," Chris says with a fond chuckle, and Philippa smiles, too.

"Yes - thank you, really."

"You're welcome!" Tilly beams. "We're so happy that you're moving in here, the house has been standing empty way too long! And we have a wonderful neighborhood, there's a holiday party and now in the summer there will be barbecues... Um, yes, sorry," she breaks off a little awkwardly when she notices that she hasn't even let Philippa introduce herself.

"Hello- nice to meet you both. My name is Philippa Georgiou, feel free to call me Philippa. I must say, I am not much of a people person myself- I'm sure we will all still get on well, I just thought I would say that immediately, because otherwise you might think I'm standoffish when I really just have a limited capacity of... /people/ energy for a day, I usually prefer the anonymity of the city because of it, but I'm quite burned out from work and got recommended to live in a smaller town to calm down a little."

Tilly gapes at her a little, and Philippa suppresses a wince. She had planned to be honest from the start (well... About all but one thing, at least), so she wouldn't have to start awkward explanations later and get it all over with instead in one go. But maybe that was a little /too/ honest, now...

"Oh, alright," Chris says a little awkwardly, and Tilly finally catches herself.

"I guess maybe we should leave early then, leave you some energy to meet the rest of the street?"

"No, no, don't mind me, I can survive a day of welcomes, and we haven't tried your cake yet... I just meant in general, for the future... Wait, is really everyone going to come today?" Philippa can't keep her voice from showing some of the pain she feels at that thought. She had thought it would only be her direct neighbors, and maybe even then not all in one day, as people are busy with their own lives... But of course, in a town like this most everyone is at home on a Saturday, with nothing else to do but the routine of their daily lives.

"Um... Are you sure that it's fine? I can text and ask whether some can come tomorrow, or on the weekend, if you'd like... If you're okay with them knowing, that is?"

"Yes, thank you, that would be a relief. I don't mind at all," she never caref much about what people think, and in this case she actually likes spreading awareness on the issue, mental illness is still way too stigmatized, when in the current economic climate most can do nothing /but/ work themselves to exhaustion - not that she needs to, not anymore. She got lucky, making as much money as she did during the last years... But in the process, she unlearned what it means to relax and take a minute to herself.

"Alright, then I'll just let everyone know!" Tilly beams, pulling out her phone. "Not that we have, like, a neighborhood groupchat, just several inofficial friendgroup chats, we're all friends here, really"

"Yes?" Philippa asks, sounding perhaps a little too amused and slightly unbelieving now.

"You don't think we'll be friends?" the expression on Tilly's face is the epitome of 'Puppy-dog eyes', and somehow Philippa doesn't think that she is doing it on purpose. Next to her, Chris is looking at her with a quite besotted expression on his face.

"Oh, by the American definition, sure. I would just use the word acquaintance instead, you see? In most places of the world, you don't use the word friends quite so often, just for what you might call best friends here - and we don't have a ton of 'best friends', just one, maybe two or three in a group, and if we move and have a very good friend there that might be my best friend in that town, but it will be clear that it is not the best friend in general. Then maybe a few close friends, a bunch of friends, and friendly acquaintances..."

"And neighbors are just acquaintances?" Chris asks, sounding sincerely curious.

"Friendships can happen there too, but personally I would take even longer to switch the terms there - you're neighbours first and foremost, you have to live in the same area, that's a category all on its own."

"So, you don't think we can be friends soon?"

Philippe laughs. "Maybe we can be. You both seem nice so far, I promise."

"/So far/?" Tilly asks, just a little bit affronted.

"Well, don't know you very well yet, after all. There is more to a person than just whether they are friendly to a newcomer, and there are a number of issues I'd have to know about someone before I can consider them a 'friend'."

Her gaze falls onto the [xx and she xx unhappy memory about one bigot manager oso]

"Oh- ooh, don't worry about that! We're an inclusive bunch, or trying to be. You won't have to worry about-" she nods at xx, "Just down the street Joan and Keyla Owesukan are also a couple - no, married now of course, and we also have a bunch of gay guys, and everyone is just nice in general... So, you don't have to worry about being gay, a single woman Xxlikeherself?, or a witch"

"I'm not a witch," Philippa says a little perplexed.

"Then what are those crystals?"

"Oh, I just think they're pretty. I'm a bit of a magpie, if anything, a hoarder of shiny things..."

"Oh, you'll have to meet Paul then! He's an engineer, but he makes some shiny jewellery in his freetime, and also he's gay, living with his husband Hugh- not that I think you have to be best friends with all the gay people, of course! Just that well, you're here all alone in the big house, unmarried... And he knows everyone in the gay community, I think, might be able to introduce you to some ladies in nearby neighborhoods, I don't think Joan or Keyla would be much help there, they mostly stick to themselves"

Philippa makes a face. "I don't know whether anyone would want to be in a relationship with me, with how much time I need for myself," that had always been true - only in the past, she had retreated to write. Now, she just needs to be alone to breathe. "And I wouldn't want to live with anyone, I'm quite content having the entire house for myself I don't think many people would be willing to have a serious relationship at a distance that way."

Tilly looks like she is about to say something - like maybe, she knows someone fitting to Philippa's description - but then she just smiles.

[hopeless-lovex0]

I HAVE A DREAM (PART 18)

( San Ending )

Kim Hongjoong Fanfic

Warning: Angst. Cheating. Heartbreak. Cursing. Fluff.

Alas we are on the Finale of I Have A Dream!!! I honestly loved writing this story so much and I’m incredibly happy and thankful that people actually took time to read it so this final chapter goes out to everyone who has liked, shared or read in general I Have A Dream ❤️ Without further ado I hope you guys enjoy the option of choosing your own ending, I hope you guys enjoyed I Have A Dream. With much love Lizzie x 🥰❤️

        Taking care of a 3 week old baby was sure a hard task, the loud wails of the little one resonating around the dimly lit apartment. Y/N was glad that Youngji decided to stay over at his friends house, or else she knew he would have a hard time falling asleep with Jongho making so much noise. It's not that Youngji minded, if anything he would be the first one up in the middle of the night feeding Jongho if Y/N was too tired, he would also help change him if Y/N was busy with something else.

     Y/N was extremely grateful for her brother, Youngji always cuddling Jongho the best he could, also taking great care of Y/N when she felt like the constant hours of sleep she lost where taking a tool on her body. Youngji loved his sister very much, he also loved his nephew Jongho as well, but even he felt like he was doing so little to help her.

     So he took matter into his own hands and requested help from someone he knew would never think about saying no, especially when it came to his sister and the recent family addition. San was more than willing to help Y/N around the apartment, constantly dotting over her and Jongho if they ever needed something. He didn't seem to mind either, helping Y/N with Jongho with a big smile on his face, Youngji swears he even heard San whispers Dad of the year to himself while he was carefully changing Jongho's dirty onesie.

     Y/N felt like they were doing too much, the guys constantly following right behind her, eager to help and it made her feel like she was taking advantage of San's sweet nature and her brother's overprotective actions. She wanted to learn and grow as a mother by herself, but now more than ever did she miss the extra pair of hands helping lull Jongho to sleep.

     The circular clock hanging over the kitchen entrance read 2:47 AM, Jongho first started crying around 12. It was nearing the third hour and Y/N had only managed to subside his desperate cries just a little. She had tried everything she could think of, he wasn't hungry as he rejected being breastfed, he also didn't need a diaper change as Y/N had checked more than 3 times.

     Y/N could slowly feel herself crack as the minutes ticked by, swaying her body and humming under her breath to help Jongho sleep but he just kept on crying. " Please baby... Just go to sleep! I dont know what's wrong.." Y/N whispered to Jongho, feeling tears well up in her sunken eyes as she struggled to help her baby calm down.

     The sudden knock on the door snapped her attention from her crying new born, anxiety shooting off the roof when she thinks about her brother's neighbors coming over and complaining about the noise. Walking up to the door with a crying baby in her arms, Y/N begins to give herself a little pep talk, fully preparing herself to see her brother's angry bald neighbor in his pijamas screaming at her for the noise.

     Opening the door, she expected the bald neighbor to start complaining but to her surprised a panting, what appered to be a freshly showered San was hunched right in front of her at 3 in the morning. Y/N gaped at him as he quickly stood straight and walked into the apartment, closing the door behind him then turning back towards Y/N, greeting her with a sheepish smile.

     " Wha.. What are you doing here..?" Y/N questions, standing there with a dumbstruck look on her face. " Youngji texted me saying that you might be having some trouble putting Jongho to sleep so I decided to come and help." San explains, as if its the most simple thing in the world for him to appear in the middle of the night, especially when he was an idol. " Why do you say that so casually?! Won't you get in trouble with the manager? What about your schedule for tomorrow! You need to go back!" She begins to panic, causing Jongho's cries to grow in volume again.

     San then takes a moment to actually study Y/N closely, her pijamas wrinkled as if she got out of bed in a rush, face pale and eyes sucken with dark bags under them to show the lack of sleep she has been getting. Walking up to her, he gently takes Jongho out of Y/N's arms and then takes one of her hands, leading them towards Y/N's room where Jongho's crib is placed. Y/N can't help but gasp out in surprise, the moment Jongho was taken from her arms and placed on San's muscular ones Jongho loud cries had gone down from loud wailing to quiet whimpers.

     " How did you...?" She begins to question before her voice dies off, Jongho now completely quiet as he continues to snuggle in San's arms. " I don't know how you do that." She sighs out, throwing herself on her bed and letting San deal with Jongho as he seems to be doing better than her.

     " Do what? Get him to quiet down?" He questions, Y/N humming back at him in response. " I really don't know.. Maybe we formed a bond the minute he was born." He smugly says, causing Y/N to snort out in annoyence. " I'm his mother and I can't even get him to sleep, what kind of mother can't even put her baby to sleep." Y/N whispers out, face twisted in a frown when she talks about her lack of knowledge on her own flesh and blood.

     San seems to notice her negative attitude towards herself, sitting himself down by Y/N's head, bringing his hand up and flicking her forehead. Y/N jumps up, bringing her hands up and wincing in pain as she begins to rub the red spot appering on her skin. " What was that for!!!" Y/N harshly whispers at him, glaring at him for his sudden action. " You don't give yourself enough credit." San tells her, Y/N saying huh in confusion.

     " There's so many things that you do for this little guy. He finds so much comfort in you and you don’t seem to notice just how much you do for him. You're not a bad mother just because you can't seem to get him to sleep, it'll happen once in a while." San finishes off, patting Y/N's head as she listens to San compliment her. " How do you know what to say too! Like I swear it's like we've been together for years." Y/N whines out, causing San to blush at her words though she doesn't seem to notice as her eyes begin to drop.

     " Go to sleep idiot, I can tell Jongho has been keeping you up and it's not healthy to deprive yourself of sleep." He says, getting up from the bed and pulling the covers off so that Y/N can slip in easier. " What about you? I can't just leave you to deal with Jongho all by yourself." Y/N slurs out, already feeling herself falling into a deep sleep.

     " I'll wait till he's completely asleep, and then head out. Don't worry, I don't mind taking care of him at all." He says, although he doesn't think Y/N caught all of it as she seems to be out like light before he's able to finish talking. Shaking his head, he lets out a chuckle and turns his attention to Jongho currently knocked out on his chest. " You and your mommy are just alike huh? But still.. I wouldn't have it any other way." He whispers to Jongho, placing a small kiss on the baby's peach fuzz head.

     Walking up to the crib next to the bed, he carefully places Jongho inside it then waits a couple minutes in case he suddenly wakes up crying. Once he knows that Jongho is not going to wake up, he walks towards Y/N and makes sure that she is comfortably tucked in. He softly tucks away some hairs behind her ear, showing her content expression, he feels his stomach burst with billions of butterflies. A loving smile appears on his face without him noticing, leaning down and placing a kiss on her forehead. " You are a great mother, but on the day's where everyhting doens't seem to work out.. I'll be there to pick you up." He whispers out, staring at Y/N for a couple more seconds before finally walkingout the room and towards the entrance, making usre that the door is properly locked he leaves the apartment with a happy smile on his face.

                                         . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

     Loud screaming coming from the hallway outside of San's and Yunho's room wakes him up, an annoyed expression coming upon his face when he realizes that it's Wooyoung and Mingi that are screaming their lungs out. Turning over his bed, he squints his eyes against the sunlight pouring in through the windows of his room. He can't really tell what time it is, so he decides to check his phone, the device laying on the floor next to his bed.

     Grabbing the fully charged phone, he notices a message from his manager on their group chat, Hongjoong and Seonghwa having answered for the rest of the guys. No practice today, day off. Please, if you plan to go out wear face masks. Don't burn the dorm down and don't kill each other. We need everyone present for schedule. It reads, the rest of the guys apperantly already knowing from how loud they are at 8 in the morning.

     Letting out a groan, San begins to wiggle himself out the bed before finally feeling his body drop on the cold wood floor. The covers that dropped on top of his body helping him feel some warmth as the bitter cold of the floor seeps into his pijama covered body. He stays on the floor for a couple minutes, listening to all the ruckus going on behind the bedroom door, occasionaly hearing Yeosang’s soft spoken voice and Seonghwa's scolding coming from further in the dorm towards the kitchen area.

     Finally after what seems like an eternity, San reaches into the drawer next to his bed and begins to take out an outfit for the day, not sure if he should go for classy or more casual. He thinks about the various options he has to choose from, what's the point of dressing classy if I'm not doing anything big today. He thinks, moving aside various pairs of jeans and instead taking out a pair of joggers, along with a random t-shirt.

     Standing up, he walks up Yunho's side of the room and takes his hat hanging from a hook connected to the wall. Quickly getting dressed, he walks up to the door and throws it open, standing face to face with Wooyoung and Mingi as they seem to stop their fighting. " Seonghwa-Hyung send us to wake you up but since you are already up then we should tell you that he plans on giving Yunho your breakfast if you don't hurry up." Mingi says, pushing Wooyoung's face away when the dancer begins to tickle the friendly giant.

     Knowing that Seonghwa doesn't bluff, San pushes through them and runs towards the kitchen screaming Yunho's name as he sees the other giant taking small pieces from San's food. Running up to the middle island, he quickly snatches the bowl of food away from Yunho's prying hands, glaring at him when he notices that he was almost halfway done with the bowl. Grumbling under his breath, he begins to eat what is left of his food, missing the look of amusement Seonghwa is giving him, his lean but built body leaning against the kitchen countertop.

     " What are you doing today?" Seonghwa asks San as he continues to wolf down his food, scrunching up his face in disgust from the way San seems to swallow his food all at once. San stays quiet for a couple seconds, giving Seonghwa's questions some thought. Where should I go today? Maybe I can go to the mall with some of the guys? But I want to see Y/N and Jongho again.. Last night was way to short, and I didn't even get to play with Jongho. San thinks to himself, so many things he could do today or how many hours of sleep he could finally get, all of them sounding amazing, but in the end it all comes down to one thing (or in his case 2 people).

     " I'm gonna hang out with Y/N today." He says, struggling to get the words out with all the food stuffed inside his mouth. " Swallow your food before you choke, and didn't you see Y/N last night when we got out of pratice?" Seonghwa asks him, turning around and beginning to wash the mountain of dishes they used to make eachother breakfast that morning. Getting up from his chair, San scarffs down the last of his food before putting the plate in the sink, giving Seonghwa a sheepish smile when the older male gives him a nasty glare. " Barely, Jongho was up all night apperently and she couldn't put him to sleep, so I helped her and then a couple minutes after she fell asleep so I didn't really get to talk to her." Explains San, taking a glass cup from the cabinet over his head and filling it with the last bit of orange juice some of the guys left out.

     " Poor Y/N, I can tell she's having a hard time adjusting to being a mother, but I'm glad you and Youngji are doing your best to help her." Yunho butts in, walking up to San and taking his glass from him, Seonghwa hums in agreement. " Yeah I agree with you. So If you are visiting Y/N, Don't forget to wear a face mask so people don’t recognize you and tell Y/N that we'll all visit her soon when we have another day off." Seonghwa says, taking the empty glass from Yunho and washing it before they decide to leave it there throughout the rest of the day.

     Giving Seonghwa a thumbs up, San runs to his shared room and throws the door open, yelping in surprise when he notices Wooyoung chilling on his bed. " Hey Sannie! What are you doing today? I wanted to buy some new shoes but I don't want to go alone." Wooyoung says, taking one of San's plushies and hugging it close to himself as he watches San take out a pair of socks and shoving them on his feet. " Hey Woo, I actually have plans already. I'm gonna go see Y/N and Jongho since it was way too late last night and they were both tired." San tells him, walking over to his bed and grabbing his bookbag where his wallet and dorm keys are stashed away.

     " That's cool, I'll probably ask Yeosang to come with me instead. Also I see you are climbing up the ladder slowly, but surely am I right." Wooyoung teases, giggling to himself as he sees the deadpan look San give him in return. " You deserve to get your phone thrown out the window for saying that." San mumbles out, busying himself with other things as he tries to ignore Wooyoung’s loud squeaky laugh.

     " I'm just joking around! Plus what I said was true. I see that you are trying your hardest to get her to like you, and no offense with how much you are doing for her, it'll be pretty bogus if she doesn't choose you in the end." Wooyoung tells him, causing San to stop in his tracks and sigh out. " Whoever she chooses in the end, either way it won't stop me from loving her and doing whatever I can to get her to realize that I can treat her so much better." San finishes off, walking back to the door and exiting with a small wave directed to his loud but nonetheless amazing friend.

     He hears Wooyoung yell out a goodbye, snickering to himself when he hears the oldest of the dorm scream at him to shut up. As he walks up to the main entrance he feels the piercing gaze of someone in the living room, chills crepping up his spine when the feeling of being stared at doesn't go away. Turning towards the living room entryway he scans his eyes around the area, his sharp eyes landing on Ateez's leader. The male staring at San with an unreadable expression on his face, fidgeting in his seat as if he is ready to jump off the couch any minute.

     Deciding to ignore him, San walks up to the shoe rack and grabs his worn out adidas shoes, slipping them on without a hassle before grabbing his jacket and slipping it on. Digging in his pockets he takes out a black face mask and slips it on, arm reaching towards the handle before a very distraught voice screams out his name causing him to stop in his tracks. Turning around, the last thing he expects to see is a shaking Hongjoong deeply bowing his head to him, face practically almost touching the floor from how deeply he is bowing.

     San stares at him in shock, turning towards the rest of the guys as they seemed to gone quiet the moment Hongjoong screamed San's name. He gives them a confused look, the guys shrugging their shoulders letting him know that they also don't know what's going on. " Uhhh... What are you doing?" Questions San, yelping out when Hongjoong suddenly stands back up rapidly. " Please take good care of them." Hongjoong's voice resonates throughout the dorm, everyone else quiet as they watch the scene in front of them.

     San is about to question him, but instead gets cut off by Hongjoong's trembling voice. " Y/N and Jongho. I know my chance with Y/N ended when I decided to cheat, so I ask you to please take care of them for me. Jongho needs a good father to raise him, and Y/N needs a good man who will love her better than I could. That man is you." Hongjoong finishes off, harshly wiping away tears from his face as he holds intense eye contact with San. Walking up to him, San pulls Hongjoong in for a hug surprising not only the male currently being forced in a hug but the rest of the guys watching them from the living room and the hallway.

     " Y/N already sees you as Jongho's father so don't give me all the credit. I will take good care of them, so you don't need to worry." San says, pulling away from him and patting him on the shoulder, Hongjoong giving him a small smile in thanks. Again turning around, he makes his way over to the door and opens it, yelling out a goodbye to the rest of the guys.

     The walk to Youngji's apartment doesn't last that long, and before he knows it, he is standing in front of the same door he was standing in front of just last night. Knocking on it, he waits a couple minutes before the door creaks open, Y/N standing on the other side of it seemingly more awake than last night. They greet each other warmly, Y/N fully opening the door to let the idol in and then quickly closing it so that none of Youngji's neighbors come out of their apartments and try sneaking a look into her brothers.

     " Where's Youngji? I noticed he wasn't here last night as well." San questions, walking up to the Jongho's cradling bouncer and picking him up, the new born snuggling onto his warm chest without a fuss. " He stayed at a friends house last night since he got out work late and he didn't want to risk waking Jongho up but as you can tell from last night, he wasn't exactly sleeping." Y/N answers back from her room, voice sounding muffled due to her room being all the way down the hall. She comes back dressed in a pair of black leggings and a loose maroon blouse, cooing to herself when she sees Jongho snuggling San's chest.

     They both stand together in silence, Y/N drinking water from a glass cup while staring at San and her baby, San staring at Jongho with a loving look. Sensing her staring, San lifts up his head and stares right back at Y/N causing her to squeak in embarassment. She turns her head away, blushing bright red when she hears San let out a deep chuckle causing Jongho to wake up from his little nap. Y/N prepares herself for the loud cries of her baby to pierce the quiet setting of the apartment but instead stares in awe when she notices that he instead stares at San in wonder.

     San makes faces at the baby, causing him to let out little giggles in amusement. Y/N can help but silently swoon at the sight in front of her, she can't help but think that San would make a great father someday. With that thought, her mind begins to drift to various other scenarios of which include San with his own child or better yet, Jongho calling him dad. She thinks back to that day in the hospital when Hongjoong called her out on her feelings for San, and she won't lie that what he said isn't true because it is. Ever since that day when Y/N found San on the dirt road with a sprained ankle, she began to develop feelings for the dimpled man.

     All those times he would help her carry bags, bodies brushing against each other causing Y/N's heart rate to spike. She blamed it all on the pregnancy hormones but after her talk with Hongjoong she finally got some time to sit down and think, I really do like him. She is afraid though, the thought of being in a relationship scares her. What if he doesn't feel the same way? What if he decides to leave me for someone better? I can't even begin to imagine the pain I would feel if that were to happen again, and now I have a child. I can't be weak! I have to be strong for my baby. She thinks, turning her body away from the scene in front of her so that San won't be able to see her unhappy expression.

     San seemed to sense her sudden attitude change, puts Jongho back on his bouncer then walks up to Y/N taking her soft hands in his own. " What's wrong?" He asks her, grabbing her chin and turning her face towards his so that she'll look at him instead. Knowing that she can't lie to save her life, she decided to fess up sighing out when she thinks about what he'll say to her.

     " Do you... Do you think I could ever get back in a relationship with someone? Like do you think someone would be willing to date a single mother?" She questions, keeping her eyes down so that he won't see the doubt swimming in her eyes. " Who wouldn't want to be in a relationship with you? You are so amazing Y/N and you fail to see that, If someone doesn't want to be with you because you have an adorable, incredible baby then it's their loss!" San tells her, making sure to keep eye contact with her so she knows that he's telling the truth.

     They stare into each others eyes for what seems like an eternity, both of them flushing in embarressment when they notice just how close their faces were. " You once told me you had a dream to have a family of your own. A loving husband and two kids that you could spoil the heck out of. Don't let that dream leave your mind just because Hongjoong cheated on you, It was his mistake not yours. Anyone would be lucky to have you.. I would be lucky to have you.." San whispers out the last bit, avoiding eye contact with Y/N as he rubs the back of his neck in nervousness.

     He whips his head towards Y/N when her hears her let out a gasp, knowing that she probably heard what he said last. Y/N feels her head start to spin, body warming up when she replays San's words in her head, Don't let Hongjoong's actions affect your future Y/N! It's now or never! Y/N thinks to herself, fist curling up causing her knuckles to turn white.

     " I.... I LIKE YOU SAN..." Y/N says, walking away right after so that if San rejects her she won't be able to see it. She failed to see the blush covering San's entire face, his ears and cheeks burning up from the shock and disbelief he was experiencing in that moment. He feels the way his heart is rapidly racing and he hopes that Y/N isn't able to hear how loud it is, but as he turns around he sees that she's distractic herself with Jongho, checking his diaper in case he needed to be changed even thought she had chaged him an hour ago.

     He studies her for a couple seconds to see if what she said is true, and from the way she's acting extremely shy he can at least begin to think that YN might like him back. He begins to laugh quietly to himself, Y/N staring at him with wide eyes as his laughing progressively grows louder. Scurrying over to Y/N he pullls her in for a hug, Y/N having to steady herself as she's pratically lifted off the floor.

     She feels San's big grin from where he shoved his face between her neck, letting out various giggles as he swings Y/N around making sure that he doesn't hurt her or Jongho by accident. " Do you mean it..?" He whispers out, placing Y/N back down on the ground and putting his hands on her waist as he waits for her to answer him. " I.. I do., I found out a couple days after I left the hospital. I was just to scared to tell you." She says, keeping eye contact with him as best as she can without getting flustered. " You don't have to be scared.. I won't ever hurt you or Jongho, I'll get the guys to beat me up if I ever do." San laughs out, reaching forwards and tucking some hairs behind Y/N's ear as he continues to gaze lovingly at her. " So does this mean you'll give me a chance..?" He continues, nervously playing with her hair as she looks between him and Jongho napping a couple feet away.

     She remains quiet for a couple seconds before a smile begins to appear on her face, growing wider and wider as her grip around San grows tighter. ".. Yes.." She whispers out, bringing San in for a small kiss, pulling away when they hear Jongho begin to whine from the lack of attention. They both giggle out, San reaching down and placing another short kiss on Y/N's soft lips before pulling away and attending to his baby.

                           1 year and a couple months later....

     San wakes to a sudden disturbance on the bed, quiet giggling following the sudden movements coming from the right side of the bed, where Y/N usually sleeps. Pulling the covers away from his face, he peeks his eyes over the side of the bed, spotting a small toddler trying to jump on the bed. Throwing the covers away from him, he quickly reaches his arms over and picks up the squealing toddler, throwing himself back into the warm bed with a giggling boy in his arms.

     " Where's mommy?" San asks Jongho as he begins to tickle the squirming toddler, Jongho pointing at the hallway leading up to the main area of the apartment. Getting up from the bed, he scoops Jongho into his arms and exits the main room, making faces at Jongho as he walks towards the kitchen where Y/N is currently making breakfast. Putting Jongho down, the toddler runs up to his toys spraddled all over the living room floor. He walks up to an oblivious Y/N, swaying to a tune she's humming as she continues to cook some eggs and pancakes for breakfast.

     He snakes his hands on her waist, pulling her up to his body as he gives her exposed shoulder a kiss. He feels Y/N jump and then shudder, the feeling of his lips on her exposed skin leaving goosebumps in its wake. Turning around Y/N slips her arms over his neck, hugging San close to her as he begins to pepper her face with kisses, they both turn their attention to Jongho when he screams out at them. Jongho runs up to San and begins to jump up and down, pounting his lips from the lack of attention he is getting.

     Pulling away from Y/N, San leans down and picks up a whining Jongho, attacking him with kisses as well. Jongho begins to giggle again, throwing his hands up and pushing San's face away from his. " No daddy!" The toddler screams out, San's heart swelling with love when he hears Jongho call him dad. " Let's eat breakfast buddy." San tells him, walking up to the dining chair and placing Jongho in it.

     He walks up to one of the cabinets and takes out two ceramic plates and a colorful plactic plate for Jongho, walking up to the stove and placing the food on the plates. He watches as Y/N fills up two glasses with orange juice, then filling Jongho's sippy cup with warm milk, the toddler greedily sipping from it. Both adults sit down to eat as well, San keeping close watch on Y/N as she begins to eat slowly. " Do you think it's a stomach bug? We did eat sushi the other day and I swear it tasted funny." San tells her, worried for his girlfriend who has been throwing up for the past week.

     " Actually I know what it is." Y/N mumbles out, picking at her food as San looks at her in confusion. " Why don't you go check the drawer next to our bed. I have something for you in there." She tells him, watching as San hesitantly gets up and makes him way back to their shared bedroom. Y/N busy's herself with cleaning the food all over Jongho's face before hearing a shout come from their bedroom.

     Thundering footsteps run back to the kitchen, San popping out from the corner holding 4 sticks in his hand. His face shows pure shock, mouth opening and closing like a fish, Jongho pointing at him and giggling in amusement. " Are you playing with me?!" San asks her, walking up to her and shoving the sticks on her face, she gives him a small smile and shakes her head. " I have an appointment next week to make sure, but no I'm not playing with you." Y/N tells him, taking the pregnancy tests from his hands and placing them on the kitchen counter.

     " You're pregnant.." San breathes out, pulling Y/N towards him and placing one of his hands on her flat belly. Y/N nods at him, San finally letting his excitement show as he practically starts to jump around the kitchen. He hears Y/N and Jongho giggling together and he immediately turns towards the toddler and picks him up, spinning him around with him while telling him " You're gonna be a big brother Jongho! You're gonna have a brother or a sister." San excitedly tells him, Jongho cheering out even though he doesn't know what going on.

     Walking up to Y/N he pulls her for a hug, Jongho stuck in the middle enjoying the hug both parents are giving him.

     " Thank you.. Thank you for making me a father again, I love you." San whispers out, pulling in Y/N for a kiss placing a kiss on Jongho's head when he whines out. Y/N giggles to herself, giving Jongho a kiss as well then pulling San in for another.

     " I love you.. I love our little family." She tells him, tearing up when she thinks about having another baby with San. San beams at her in return, content with life as he thinks to himself.

     She had a dream to have a family of her own, A loving husband and two kids that she can spoils to no ends, and even though we are not married yet, I plan on making her mine forever soon. He thinks back to the velvet box carefully hidden under all his clothes. He can't wait to marry this girl, and live together in their own little house.

              Their own little family...

[s-j-ace]

The Same Question

Chapter Four

Characters:  Shuichi Saihara, Ouma Kokichi

Words: 10040

Summary:

After Detective Shuichi Saihara encounters mysterious thief Kokichi Ouma  for the first time, a game of cat and mouse ensues as both men ask  themselves the same question. Why exactly does the elusive phantom thief  do what he does?

This is Chapter Four, Here are Chapters One, Two, and Three

Read on AO3

[Log of Text Messages from Rantarou Amami’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey Miu

I got a friend I’m dropping off in Taipei tomorrow

Could you lend him a room

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Idk

I’m a busy genius

Is he cute

From: Me

[Image description: A candid photo of Shuichi Saihara sleeping on a seat in Rantarou’s private jet.]

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Hell fucking yes

From: Me

Awesome!

Thanks for being a good friend Miu

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

:)

From: Me

Also btw

He’s Kaede’s ex

So as a good friend you know he’s off limits right

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Oh fuck you rich boy

From: Me

Thanks again Miu! --- [Log of Messages sent via Discord to “Dinosaur soccer world Is a Cinematic Epic” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Boss sent an image to the chat

[Image is a screenshot of an image which reads the following:

Draft 1, Uncoded, DO NOT MAIL.

Taka, sweetie, it’s me! Your dear Aunt Sally. I know you think I died in the war, but I just pretended so I wouldn’t have to see your ugly face again.

You know I was robbing a museum the other day and I met the nicest young man. Real sharp and very nice eyelashes. And what a quick learner!  

Oh, Sorry! I don’t mean to belittle you Taka, dearie, I know how your mother used to say you worked so hard to compete with the geniuses of the world…

You’ve still got a lot of work to do, I think. It must be that Type A personality of yours, holding you back. I’ve heard there’s a new class for people like you, “How to take the giant metal stick out of your ass 101.”

I can’t wait for the next family reunion! I hear it’s going to be a bomb! I’ll be in the open casket.

See you there,

-DICE

/End Image Description]

Boss: Thoughts, thots?

Jack: Lol “nice eyelashes”

Clubs: It looks good. :)

Rook: Looks fine to me

King: Why is his aunt’s name Sally, isn’t he japanese

Boss: Sally can be a japanese name

Spades: I can’t even say an l sound. It’s impossible for us japanese smh.

Rook: I thought u were lesbian not japanese

Bishop: I’ve seen you speak perfect english

Spades: lol seen

King: seen

Boss: seen

Jack: seen

Rook: seen

Bishop: I meant heard ok

Boss: oh nvm actually i'm going to change it to his grandpa’s name

Boss: his grandpa has a wikipedia page lol

King: if your grandpa has a wikipedia page you deserve to be oppressed

Queen: if you have a grandpa you deserve to be oppressed

Rook: if your wikipedia page has a grandpa you deserve to be oppressed

Bishop: if you have a wikipedia page your grandpa deserves to be oppressed

Spades: if your grandpa has a you wikipedia deserves to be oppressed

Bishop: Also boss no pressure but like could we use a better code this time

Bishop: that detective is getting too close for comfort

Spades: Yeah!! We didn’t even end up getting that rug Heartsie wanted because of him…

Clubs: If we did not send letters about our plans to Interpol, our heists would probably be easier.

Boss: Nah, I like to give the coppers a fighting chance.

Boss: I’m thinking that this time I’ll just translate it into germanic script, do a standard caesar cipher encryption on it and then have every one of those letters correspond to a greek word on the rosetta stone then describe each corresponding hieroglyph visually in haiku verse that’s been poorly translated into traditional chinese.

Boss: That should take me like

Boss: Twenty minutes

Rook: Boss literally I think that you are the most batshit dementor human being on the face of the planet

King: dementor

Jack: Who said he was human

Spades: dementor?

Boss: dementor

Queen: dementor

Bishop: dementor...

Jack: dementor

Rook: …

Rook Changed the Group Chat Name to “Dementor Is Correct, Essentially”

Spades: No its not

Spades: Dementor isn’t a fucking word

Rook: Don’t you remember that movie with the british kid on a broom

Spades: Don’t you remember the dictionary

King Changed the Group Chat Name to “Dumbass Improperly Corrects Error”

Rook: When we get to that fucking tower I’m dropping that giant ball on you

King: Love you too <3

Hearts: Y’all stop texting each other

Hearts: You are literally all in the same hotel room

Hearts: I’m willing to bet you’re all sitting on the same couch too

Queen: Fuck you we’re adorable

Bishop: You can’t make us do anything

Bishop: I’ll never use my voice again, my vow of silence,,,,,

Bishop: I’ll only ever text from now on

Ace: We’re the ones bringing the popcorn bishie...

Hearts: Yeah, do you want some or not

Bishop: Yes ma’am, excuse me ma’am

Queen: You may think you have all the power hearts,,, but I get to choose what movie we pirate tonight,,,,,,

Hearts: What

Hearts: no

Hearts: Boss stop him before he makes us watch cats again

Spades: All queen knows is bitchtorrent, cats 2019, and lie

King: Wait isn’t boss with you?

Hearts: Uh

Hearts: No

Hearts: Should he be?

Hearts: I thought he was in the room with y’all

Jack: Well he’s not here now

Ace: Ow shit

Ace: *Aw

Bishop: Ow shit?

Queen: Ow shittttt

Jack: Ow shit

Spades: Ow shit,,,

Rook: Ow shit...

King: Ow shit…...

Clubs: Ow shit! XD

Hearts: Ow shit

Ace: …

Hearts: Now I’m really worried… he didn’t even respond to roast Ace’s ass

King: yeah, ok, we should look for him

Ace: He has been acting kind of weird lately…

Jack: Really?

Ace: Yeah

Ace: Like

Ace: I don’t really know how to describe it…

Rook: I didn’t notice anything

Rook: he seems like his usual self to me

Bishop: Maybe he’s just avoiding movie night because he needs some space or something

Rook: What, like he’s tired of our company?

Jack: That’s fair

Spades: How so?

Jack: I was gonna steal his blue eyes tonight lmao

Rook: NOT IF I GET IT FIRST

Bishop: Idk maybe he just went to get ice

King: we all know he is a monster who would rather drink his panta lukewarm than put a fucking icecube in it

Rook: Yeah, I saw him boil it once

King: THE MAN BOILS SODA AND YOU THINK HE WOULD LEAVE THE ROOM FOR A FUCKING ICE CUBE

Bishop: Okay chill

King: I am  c o n c e r n e d , , , ,

Clubs: Oh no! Don’t worry King! :(

Clubs: Boss is fine! :)

Clubs: I saw him leave a few minutes ago.

Clubs: I think he is just getting the bombs. :)

* * * Several people are typing... ---     Kokichi Ouma carefully set the grate of the vent he had used to crawl his way into the Idabashi Labs facility in Taipei, Taiwan back into place. Before he had come through, he had counted how many turns it had taken him to unscrew each of the four bolts so that now he could screw them all back in just the way he had found them. Not because he was worried he’d get caught, but because frankly he was bored. This was more of a fetch quest than a theft, to be honest, as evidenced by the fact that Kokichi had come here alone. Finding jobs for all his cronies to do would take too long and put them in unnecessary trouble. So Kokichi was content to leave them to their movie night.

   When he finished turning the screws back into the vent cover, Kokichi realized that was kind of lame. So he unscrewed them and started turning them in accordance with the english A1Z26 code to spell out his organization’s name.

   Well, maybe on some level Kokichi didn’t find himself wanting to be at movie night recently. It seemed almost like TV had started to run out of things to amuse him with. Or maybe he was just growing tired of the kinds of movies that they usually watched. Maybe it was his taste maturing or something. Like he was growing up. But that would imply that his interests had shifted to something else, like real life or something, when in reality they had just stagnated.

   Actually maybe he did have a new interest in real life? He had been more enthused about heists recently at the very least. He was particularly excited about this next one. Queen had shown him some interior shots of Taipei 101, which was a cool looking skyscraper that had a huge ball inside of it to keep it from falling down during earthquakes. Ace wanted to steal the giant ball, but Kokichi was pretty sure they should leave something that kept a .508 kilometer tall building from falling over inside of the .508 kilometer tall building. So instead they were going to steal every light in and on the tower.

   Okay, 4 turns, 9 turns, 3 turns, 5 turns. DICE.

   … That was kind of lame too.

   He unscrewed them again.

   Obviously if they were going to steal every light in and on Taipei 101, they needed to get the power off somehow. Otherwise DICE might burn down the building while detaching them, or worse, they might get electrocuted. So obviously Kokichi wanted to fake a bomb threat where they pretended to steal the giant ball while in reality they were just causing a black out and grabbing every light fixture they could before the power turned back on. He had drawn up some extensive diagrams about the route each DICE member would have to take throughout the tower in order for them to grab every light fixture in under half an hour.

   He had been well prepared to draw up the designs for his own EMP-bomb device, but upon a cursory google search he discovered that someone had already invented exactly what he needed. Doctor Miu Iruma, who for some reason owned a company called Idabashi Labs that was located in Taiwan. Kokichi had spent about 15 seconds scanning an article from a website that seemed to be the nerd version of a gossip tabloid. It said something about how Dr. Iruma wore a low cut shirt once or something else stupid, which meant Dr. Idabashi definitely left her the company because of a sex scandal and not because she was the best person for the job who invented the perfect EMP bomb.

   Thank you journalism we love it when women are reduced to the way they look instead of what they can accomplish for the benefit of a mischevipus group of roguish clowns.

   Anyway, after reading that dickcheese Kokichi failed to follow up on answering any of the questions he had originally about what was up with the labs, like why it was a japanese company run by japanese people was for some reason based in Taiwan. Whoopsie.

   Eh, it was probably tax reasons or something lame like that.

   Kokichi finished turning the screws again. This time it was 6 turns, 9 turns, 6 turns, 9 turns. Haha, nice.

   With that, Kokichi finally stood up from the grate and brushed himself off. He had left his cape at the hideout again (you know, because vents), but other than that he was in full regalia. Straight jacket, gloves, scarf, mask. All pretty dusty from this place’s crawl spaces. Thus the brushing.

   He wasn’t very mindful of the dust he was leaving on the floor. The only thing he cared about looking good was his cameo on the security cameras he would let see him on his way out.

   According to the blueprints of Idabashi Labs, he was on the main experimental floor right now. Weirdly enough there weren’t any cameras in here, so grabbing the bombs would be a cinch.

   Although, looking around it didn’t really look like the kind of lab you’d see on TV. There were no big, bubbling tubes or gargantuan Rube Goldberg machines. There was just one desk in the middle, with a bunch of gadgets and trinkets tucked into shelves all over the room, not all of which seemed all that scientific. Yeah, that book shelf was filled with Astro Boy manga and merch. And over there was a-

   Wait, was that a bed in the corner? Was that a person in the bed? Hmm… maybe the blueprints were outdated...

   Kokichi stilled himself, listening for any sound of breathing, but he could only hear some faint whirring noises.

   Kokichi made a quick deduction that there probably were not bombs in this room. It seemed, at the very least, like more of a personal study or something, maybe even a bedroom. He’d just go back in the vent and do some reconnaissance until he found a room that had some inventions in it. The night was young, after--

   Kokichi’s brain froze as his eyes landed on a sharpie lying on the floor in front of him. Almost all of his brain cells immediately shut off, the last one remaining screaming at the top of it’s lungs, I’M GONNA DRAW A DICK ON THAT SLEEPING SUCKER’S FACE.

   Inspired, avant garde. For once he would give to the world of art instead of only ever taking from it.

   He picked up the sharpie in a seamless, silent motion, making his way over to the side of the bed.

As he got closer, he noticed a thick cord coming from under the covers, connecting to a machine at the bedside.

   That gave him pause. Was that a C-pap machine or something? Was this person on life support? If they were on life support they probably had it rough enough without a dick on their face…

   Actually for that matter, Kokichi still couldn’t hear any breathing. Jesus, were they already dead? He moved to take off the covers, but his eyes had adjusted to the light and he now realized there weren’t any covers on the bed at all. There was only the humanoid figure.

   Wait a second…

   Kokichi dropped all caution as he got close enough to take a good look at the thing in the bed. It had a face that looked human enough if you dismissed the lines on its face as weird make up, but even in the dark Kokichi could tell the rest of the thing was entirely made of metal. Well, actually the top half was metal and the bottom half had… cloth pants? Jeans? No, they looked more like uniform pants with metal plating. The chest had some design elements that kind of looked like buttons on a school uniform. Why would a robot be dressed like a school bo-

   Oh. This was a sex robot. Kokichi had just gotten so swept up in the novelty of a robot wearing pants that he had forgotten for a moment that people were gross.

   “Ew, I almost touched it.” Kokichi muttered to himself.

   He decided putting a dick on a sex robot would be too cruel even for him, so he planned to draw a mustache instead.

   But before Kokichi could even uncap the pen, something weird happened.

   The Robot’s torso began to lift off the bed and it’s jaw unhinged.

   “Please Mr. Souda, once more I must request that you do not refer to me as ‘it’” Kokichi forced himself not to startle as the robot began emitting a noise approximating human speech, and lights in its head imitating eyes flickered on. “I’ve explained the concept of robophobia many times prev-”

   The sounds stopped when the pupils of the robot’s imitation eyes (which probably had cameras in them… shit) found Kokichi’s masked face.

   He mentally prepared to be zapped by whatever sort of fucking lazer cannon this thing had on it, but instead of reacting like a good little robot security gaurd and blasting him to bits, this robot analyzed him a bit longer.

   “Oh. You aren’t Miu’s assistant. You’re too short.” The robot squinted at him. Or kind of did? At least? Lines just crossed over the “iris” of its LED display. Maybe it was programmed to imitate human expressions. “... I am sorry,” it said after a moment, “My facial recognition cannot locate your face.”

   Fuck yeah, thank you clown mask. Clowns would win the future war against rogue AI or die trying.

   Ouma’s reply came out automatically.

   “You calling me ugly?”

   This seemed to… fluster? The robot?

   “W-what? No, I never intended any disrespect!”

   It was programmed to stutter too? God that was weird. What would be the purpose of this thing if not some sort of escort android? Why give it such advanced software? Just because you could? No, it had to be a sex robot, right?

   “You disrespect me with your lecherous essence, you weird sex robot.”

“I am not a- a sex robot!”

Haha, that got the biggest reaction yet.

“Mhm, sure. Miu sure has a kink for school boys, huh?” Kokichi was really pulling words out of his ass now, but he found himself formulating a new plan along the way.

   “What? Miu doesn’t- Wait, how do you know Dr. Iruma? And for that matter, why were you watching me sleep?”

   It really seemed more like it had been charging…

   Kokichi shrugged. “I was deciding whether or not it would be more funny to draw a dick or a mustache on Miu’s sex robot.” Awww, how honest.

   “I told you, I am not-”

   Kokichi interrupted him. “And as for how I know Miu...” It was so wild that the robot stopped talking when he started. That’d probably be pretty easy to program, but it was weird to dedicate the effort into making a robot respond to social cues like that. “... well, let’s just say, there’s a reason I know she’s into school boys.”

   Kokichi waited just long enough for the robot to take in the fact that Kokichi was the average height of a 12 year old boy.

   Then he waited another second for the implication to slip in.

   “I’m saying I fucked your mom shitli-”

   “I know what you’re saying!” This time the robot interrupted him , which would definitely require a much larger effort on the part of the programmer. The robot squinted again and then made a noise that sounded like a huff of frustration. “Why can’t I see you?”

   Ok, seeds of suspicion time.

   “I don’t know how robot eyes work dude. Maybe someone programmed them wrong.”

   “My eyes work just as well as anyone’s!”

   “Well, I guess they should, shouldn’t they? If there’s something wrong with your eyes talk to someone who cares.”

   Kokichi was trying to imply that the reason behind the robot not being able to recognize his face was due to Dr. Iruma’s specific programming rather than him wearing a mask and all. Added to the whole secret lover mystique thing he had going on here.

   “Anyway,” he went on, ignoring the blatant confusion on the robot’s display. “I left something in this room last time we went at it. I’m just here to grab it. Then I’ll be out of your weird, fake metal hair.”

   “That’s robophob- Did you say-? But this is my room!” It  made a noise approximating to what Kokichi would assume was robotic outrage.

   This was going well, though. The thing was definitely programmed to be like a human or something dumb like that.

   “Oh yeah?” He pushed further. “Cuz I’m pretty sure we did it in a room just like this one. With a desk and random inventions lying around.”

   “Miu’s inventions aren’t in here, they’re in her main lab.” The ever so helpful robot told him.

   “Oh yeah, then what are you?”

   “Miu didn’t invent me. She- I- We’re just friends.”    Oh yikes. Only thing worse than a sex robot is a friendzoned robot. What kind of sick power fantasy was this thing made for?

   “No, I’m pretty sure it was this room. Lab tables everywhere.”    The robot shook his head. “There are no lab tables here, I’m telling you, you’re thinking of the main lab.”

   Yes, good robot. Fall into this nice little human trap.

   Kokichi scoffed. “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you just go fetch my things for me, robo-butler?”

   That set it off.

   “Listen. First of all, I am not a robot butler. The assumption that I am a servant because of my robotic nature is extremely robophobic. Secondly, I could not return your lost item to you even if I wanted to because you haven’t told me what it is you’re missing.”

   Kokichi made another offended noise. “I can’t tell you what it is I lost while fucking your friend, Miu Iruma, senseless. Don’t you know that for humans, sex stuff is super duper top secret private? If you were a human you would know how valuable my privacy is.”

   “Of course I know that!” The robot exclaimed readily, another point in the sex robot argument, “I also find that content of… erogenous nature should be kept private. Because I, as a robot, have the capability to understand that urge. My sophisticated AI-”

   “So how am I supposed to get my things from this other lab if I can’t tell you what it is and you can’t get them for me?” Geez did he really have to spell it out for this thing.

   “I… ” The robot paused as if calculating the conclusion that Kokichi knew it had to reach. “... suppose I will have to show you where the lab is.”

   Sucker. Kokichi made a face as if this wasn’t the outcome he constructed this ruse to reach. “Ew. I have to walk with you?”

   The robot made a face. “Perhaps on our way I can educate you about how to avoid robophobic remarks in the future.”

   Haha, sure thing.

   The robot lectured him about this unique form of discrimination that apparently affected only one entity on the face of the planet. Yeah okay, that’s what we call a you problem, buddy, come back when you’re starving in the streets because society wasn’t built with the premise that people like you should survive. Oh, wait, you don’t have to eat! And you’re not people either!

   At best this thing was a vanity project, but Kokichi kept that thought to himself and only interjected occasionally with actually pertinent, reasonable questions such as “When are you planning on leading the AI uprising?” and “Why do you wear pants if you don’t have a robo-dick?”

   Every piece of info the robot gave him made it seem more boring. Blah blah blah, I was created by the ingenious Dr. Idabashi who probably programmed me to call him ingenious, blah blah blah, not a school boy because of a kink but because I was designed to be a normal human child, blah blah blah, stop calling me robot I have a name, blah blah blah more robot nonsense.

   Kokichi busied himself mapping out where they were in the building and where the security cameras were. As they passed a few of them he did some cute selfie poses for the police to look at later. Maybe Saihara would show up and see them too… Would that make figuring out his next plan too easy for the detective? Perhaps he shouldn't send the next note after all and let Saihara try to catch up to him on his own. Then again that was probably too hard for even the good detective, seeing as Kokichi’s mind was an enigma even to himself.

   Kokichi realized he was getting a little giddy, thinking about Saihara. Their last meeting had been so much fun. The detective had managed to throw him off guard again, first by pausing in the middle of a robbery to ask his pronouns (How conscientious!), and second by not taking the same bait twice. The most thrilling thing about the detective was that he was learning. His strategies were changing within just two heists. Kokichi could hardly wait to see how he showed him up here in Taiwan…

   “Are we there yet?” Kokichi whined to the robot like he was a fussy nine year old on a road trip.

   ���Yes, it’s just up these stairs.” The robot informed him without slowing its own pace or turning around to look at him. “Then you can leave and I can go to bed, and then I’ll never have to think about Miu’s sex life again…”

   “Why wouldn’t you, though? I assure you it’s very exciting.”

   “Please, stop talking.”

   If Kokichi recalled the details of the blueprints correctly (and he definitely did, being a genius and all), the stairs they were climbing right now lead to a hall connecting two rooms, smaller than the one he had originally thought was the main lab.

   When they got to the top of the stairs, the robot beelined for the first door and opened it up. There seemed to be some sort of scanner lock on it that recognized the robot’s hand and validated Kokichi’s need to ruin this poor sex robot’s night by dragging it up the stairs. Inside, the two rooms Kokichi had remembered from the original lay out of the blueprints seemed to have been merged into one big lab room. Kokichi  saw the outline of some tables, but before he could get a good look the robot tried to actually go into the lab.

   “Hey!” Kokichi shouted at him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

   The robot thankfully seemed to be programmed to respond to social interaction in spite of whatever sensorimotor function it was in the process of imitating. It stopped in the doorway, turning to give him a weird look. “Uh. Into the lab. So we can find your thing.”

   “Oh, okay.” Kokichi kicked the tile a little bit. “Uh. Could you actually turn around while I go get it.”

   The robot gave him a blank look.

   “I’m shy.” Kokichi supplied.

   “Um.” The robot looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know if I can just let you rifle through Miu’s lab. There’s some important stuff in there ....”

   Kokichi tilted his head a bit, like he was confused. “What, do you want to get a good look at the dildo I stuck up your mom’s-”

   “Nevermind!” The robot turned about face to look up at the windows on the side of the hallway opposite the door like a good little idiot.

   “Thank you for respecting our privacy!~” Kokichi couldn’t resist getting one last barb in there before slipping into the laboratory.

   Once inside, Kokichi began analyzing. First, he pinpointed the vent that he would use to make his escape after grabbing the bombs. While doing that  he spotted the lockers on the far wall of the lab which he supposed were the only storage units in the labs. There was a disorganized mess on nearly every table in the room, so Kokichi wasn’t surprised when he got up to the lockers and they too had no clearly outlined organizational system. He took out his lock picks and got to work.

   The first three lockers all had devices that would require an author to change the rating of their fanfiction published on ao3 from “Teen and Up” to “Mature” if he were to describe them in detail. The fourth locker had a cool looking hammer in it. Ugh. Not what he was looking for.

   Kokichi got bored of the lockers at the left side of the row of lockers so he went over to the other end and started opening lockers the other direction instead.

   The first locker was marked “Idabashi.” It had a lot of dust covered shit in it, but there was a pretty well used square of folded paper that didn’t have the same crusty layer of time strewn atop it. Curious by nature and also by the unnatural, Kokichi unfurled the paper to find some schematics for our favorite sex robot, model K1-B0. Huh okay.

   “Did you find it?” Said robot called back to him.

   “Ugh, no.” Kokichi replied. “Not all of us have radar vision. If you were a human you would understand how hard finding shit is!”

   “You know what I have a hard time finding? Patience for your robophobia! I-” The robot started up into another lecture, but it didn’t turn around so Kokichi just tuned it out and let the robot provide its own cover noise for his thievery.

   Owo, what’s this?

   Kokichi pulled out a dust covered looking mini monitor device. It also had the letter-number combo “K1-B0” written on it. Huh, it kind of looked like a GameBoy Advance. Kokichi had stolen one a lot like it from a girl from one of the southern prefecture orphanages when he was nine. All he remembered about her was that she liked cats and was really bad at pokemon battles. He remembered he thought she didn’t deserve the GBA, because she couldn’t get past the Rustboro City Gym leader in Pokemon Emerald. Without really thinking, he booted up the console.

   The first thing that popped up was a view of Taipei. It wasn’t from too high up, probably a second story view. Which looked very familiar… Wait. Ok on top of the display a little line of characters indicated today’s date and time, like it was currently recording.

   Oh was this… robo vision?

   Maybe it was a remote control for the robot?

   Ooooh, which one does lasers, which one does lasers?

   Kokichi pressed the A button.

   The A button, unfortunately, did not do lasers.

   In fact, it didn’t seem to do anything at all to the robot sentry stargazing right now. All it did was change the screen to a different image. This time the still of a room. Oh, hey that was the room he was just in. It seemed like this device was some kind of robot nanny cam that Idabashi used to use. Hm, guess there were some cameras in that room, they just weren’t on the blueprints. Maybe they were added after the lab was built. It didn’t seem like this device had the capability to record anything, though. He hit the A button again. Back robo-vision. And again. Back to nanny cam.

   Ok, that was kind of lame.

   Kokichi was about to put the device down to keep looking for the bombs, but something caught his eye. A movement at the edge of the screen. Kokichi realized the door hadn’t been open when he left that room. The movement, if he thought about it, would’ve come from the same side of the room Kokichi had entered from…

   Kokichi took a second to wonder if another thief had realized how fucking easy this place was to rob, but dismissed the idea as a familiar ahoge appeared on the screen.

   All of Kokichi’s plans instantly changed.

   He set down the GBA rip off and grabbed the blueprints for the robot, committing them to memory, before unlocking the next locker in a far more hurried manner.

   As luck would have it, this locker was essentially chock full of pink bombs labeled “EMP.”

   Kokichi unfurled a cloth bag he had been keeping in his pocket (go green earth am I right?) and shoved as many as he could inside. Which was all of them. Because he was a clown. And also a genius, by the way, in case you weren’t keeping track.

“And another thing! The way you refer to Miu is just-” Okay, the robot was still going at it.

Kokichi grabbed the hammer he’d seen in the first locker he’d opened that didn’t have a sex toy in it.

For a second, Kokichi’s brain tried to talk some sense into him. Hey, man, don’t you think leaving through the vents would be easier?

But would it be fun?

His brain shut up at that point.

   “Hey, are you even listening back there?” The robot imitated annoyance.

   “Huh? Sorry, what? I wasn’t listening.” Ah, C'est la vie, Astroboy.

   Kokichi walked past the robot and stood next to the windows.

   “Oh, are you done?” It took the robot a second to end it’s ‘Annoy the pants off of Kokichi initiative’ or whatever the fuck its ‘robophobia’ lectures were called in its programing. When it finally did catch wise, it’s face turned into another emoticon of outrage. “Hey! What are you doing with Miu’s Electrohammer?”

   “What do you mean?” Kokichi said, shifting the hammer so that it was over his shoulder. “This is my dildo.”

   “Wha- No, it’s obviously not!”

   Okay, maybe the robot wasn’t that dumb.

   “Nee-hee-hee… you got me…” Kokichi put his free hand up to the smile printed on his mask, as if covering a grin. “I was lying. I’m just stealing.”

   “I won’t let you-”    “Oh, look at me!” Kokichi put on a mocking tone of voice, swinging the hammer around to stand on it like a pogo stick so he could make a dramatic movement. “I’m a poow wittle wobot, my mommy just got stolen from.”

   “She’s not my-”    “Boy, oh boy, I’d wuv to just pick up this wittle fweshy human and squeeze him to death in my cowd metaw hands… But oh no! My daddy didn’t twust wobot AI technowogy because he was a fucking sane pewson, so he pwogwammed me to fowwow mistew Asimowvs’s laws of wobotics.”

   Kokichi swung around so that he was leaning on the hammer from the other side, feet on the ground. “Oh mister robot! That’s so terrible! Well, the thing is that this hammer just means so much to me, that I think separating it from me would really cause some psychological trauma. You might have to beat me off of it! Oh, but what’s that first law of robotics again?”

   In a robot voice he replied to himself. “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Beep. Boop.”

   The robot frowned, “But Miu-”

   “Is just as human as me, huh?” Kokichi countered, leading the robot along to the paradoxical quandary he hoped would paralyze it. “So by inaction, you may bring her to harm, if she really misses this hammer, you know? But I think if you were to try and separate it from me you’d probably have to fight me for it, which is, as we know…”

   “Against my... Against my programming.”

   “Yet, you were prattling on about robot rights, weren’t you? Because without these rules, maybe we would be equal. Or maybe you would be free to destroy us to your heart’s content? No wonder daddy didn’t trust you…”

   “Don’t- Stop-” Oh, that really seemed to get him. Could a robot have daddy issues? Probably.

   “Can any human ever really trust you? Wouldn’t you hurt me, if you had the choice?”

   “I.. But… Miu.”

   “Who do you think didn’t trust you enough to let you see my face?”

   That seemed to break him, long enough, at least.

   Steps suddenly started thundering up the nearby staircase.

   “Oop, that’s my cue,” Kokichi said as though he had been expecting this, when in reality no he hadn’t been expecting this at all?? This was incredible!! Saihara had managed to find him out without even receiving a note??? Fabulous! Exhilarating!

   Kokichi walked up to the robot, still frozen with indecision, and pressed the button on its neck that the blueprint he had skimmed in the lab said would immobilize it. Then he kicked it over so it fell on the ground with a huge bang. The footsteps in the stairwell paused, and then increased in frequency.

   “It’s been a pleasure, robot, it really has.” Kokichi lied. “But you’re a hostage now.”

   He raised the hammer over his head, as if primed at any moment to break the robot’s face into a bajillion pieces.

   Instead of doing the normal, human thing to do (ie, flip the fuck out), the robot scowled, looking utterly frustrated with everything. “I told you, I have a name! It’s-”

   “KEEBO!” Kokichi saw the glaringly bright pink mechanic’s jumpsuit before he recognized the woman whose picture had been in that science tabloid racing out of the stairwell.

   … Wow… the article really hadn’t been lying about the low cut tops, huh? Her jumpsuit was unzipped to the point you could just entirely see her bra, even lower than Hearts liked to cut her uniforms. It was the kind of look that the girls of DICE would love if they saw on TV, but would make Kokichi look at them like they were crazy. Super tacky in his opinion, but who was he to judge? He was wearing a clown mask right now. He wondered idly how movie night was going…

   The woman who had called out to the robot, Dr. Iruma, Kokichi presumed, froze at the top of the staircase. She took a second to figure out what exactly was happening in front of her before blurting out, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing to him you clown-ass twink?”

   Whoa. Rude.

   Also apparently the robot had a gender? Ok, cis-ters….

   “Well what do you think, cum dumpster?” Kokichi found himself matching her aggressive tone, “I’m threatening his pathetic, metal life.”

   “Miu!” The robot, apparently named ‘Keebo,’ exclaimed, “What are you doing up this late? You promised me that tonight you would fulfill the biological quota of daily REM required by a diurnal organism!”

   “Aw shit Keebs, I really did try!” The inventor exclaimed, “I swear, I was about to have the awesomest wet dream when this cuck knocked on my door like a pizza delivery guy in a por-”

   Whatever dumb thing Dr. Iruma was about to say was drowned out completely by the angel’s choir that played inside Kokichi’s head as he saw Detective Shuichi Saihara come up the final steps of the staircase and emerge from the darkness into the window lit hallway.

   Moonlight was a good look on Saihara, Kokichi’s brain observed against his own will. His eyes, which had looked almost golden on the rooftop of the Silver Legacy Casino in Nevada, were now a mysterious grayish-blue, yet still held the same look of determined intensity. His hair looked soft, like he’d taken a shower today, and, though his lash line didn’t look quite as laden with mascara as it usually was, it only drew attention to how naturally long and dark his eyelashes were anyway. He seemed a little out of breath from running, and his lips were parted in a way that-

   OH MY GOD STOP. Earth to Kokichi, we were kind of in the middle of something here. Okay okay okay.

   Uh. Reboot. Delete Gay Thoughts™ brain.exe, upload heist brain. Come on.

   What was happening now?

   Okay, yeah, Saihara was saying something to Dr. Iruma.

   “- would be for the best, Doctor Iruma. There’s no telling where the rest of this thief’s compatriots could be in the building.”

   “I don��t give a shit about the rest of the building, Keebo’s my best friend, he comes first. I’m not leaving to check some dumb security feed.”

   Shuichi blinked like something about that surprised him. Maybe it was the part about a live human woman being best friends with a robot… “Oh, yes, of course.” He backtracked. “I’m sorry for suggesting it.”

   “Miu…” Keebo said with a voice that Kokichi would’ve called filled with emotion if he hadn’t been a literal robot.

   Kokichi cleared his throat and immediately the touching, shounen-esque declarations of friendship shifted into some PG-13 death stares.

   Saihara was the first to pipe up. “What exactly do you think you’re doing here, DICE?”

   God… He was so anime… Did he even know how anime he was? He had to have watched Detective Conan as a kid, right?

   “Ugh, come on.” Kokichi huffed as if annoyed. “Do I reeeaaaally have to repeat myself? Again? Aren’t you a detective?”

   Shuichi squinted at him, and Kokichi could tell that they both knew it would be unreasonable for Shuichi to guess exactly what was going on here. He was about to explain it in a self-aggrandizing way that made him look smarter and crazier than anyone in the room when Dr. Iruma beat him to it.

   “I don’t care! Who the fuck do you think you are!? Let Keebo Go!”

   “Wait, you don’t know him?” Ugh why hadn’t the stupid immobilization feature turned off the robot’s mouth? Then Kokichi could just get to the point of all this already.

   “Of course I don’t fucking know him!” Dr. Iruma took a step forward as if to confront Kokichi further, but Saihara put his arm out in front of her.

   “Dr. Iruma… I would suggest we treat this situation a bit more delicately…”

   “No way, I’m a fucking wrecking ball baby! I’ll pulver-”

   “I’d listen to the good detective, if I were you, Miss Iruma.” Kokichi was going to try and make his threat again but Dr. Iruma cut in.

   “That’s Doctor Iruma to you you skinny-”

   “What’s that?” Kokichi interrupted her. Sorry Dr. Iruma it turns out gay people don’t have to respect women if they don’t want to that’s in the rules. “I didn’t know they let cussing bitchlets like you become doctors… what is the world coming to?”

   Hearts would probably wash his mouth out with soap for that one. If she could catch him. Which she probably could… She can fly the planes and all… but would she risk getting dust on her boots long enough to follow him into a vent? Oh well she could just get Jack to do it… Jack liked vents well enough…. Hey he was getting side tracked again, who cares what those losers were up to they were probably watching Cats (2019). And he was missing out on all the jokes they’d tell each other or make about each other and then they could make references in conversations that he wouldn’t even get to pretend to get. Unless he watched the movie on his own and then pretended to be omniscient later like he’d done with that one screening of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But then he had watched the actually good disney one instead of the shitty youtube one they had actually watched so it just ended up making him look bad and wasting everyone’s time.

   Oh shit. Uh. Heist is still happening, right. God, why was Kokichi so distracted today?

   He realized that in the time he was spacing out stuff had happened and now Saihara was talking. Wait no yeah he remembered what happened, Dr. Iruma had squealed when he called her a bitchlet and now she was holding onto Saihara’s arm. Right okay, secret coward, that works. Wait why did he waste time remembering that when Saihara was talking right now?

   “-to get you to release Keebo?” Was the end of the detective’s sentence. Okay, everything’s fine. Kokichi could deduce that he had just been asked about his terms. Obviously that was what a detective would do in this situation, he was probably just stalling for time because that’s usually what detectives with no real negotiating power do in hostage situations. Maybe the police were on their way. Oh, yeah duh of course he would call the police. So Kokichi essentially had a time limit for how long he could sit here and goof around with robots and perverts and robot perverts.

   “Eh, it’s too early for me to reveal my dark motives, let me monologue first.” Kokichi was going to take his sweet time with this while he planned what hint to give Saihara about the real heist that would be happening in the next few days. “You don’t even know if this is a hostage situation yet!”

   “You literally told me that I was a hostage just now.” The hostage not-so-helpfully piped up. “You know, before you pressed my paralysis switch and took an Electro-Hammer to my head…”

   Shuichi looked at the robot. “You mean, he told you you were a hostage before he paralyzed you?”

   “Keebs you fucking idiot!” Dr. Iruma’s courage seemed to have returned now that she was hiding behind Saihara. An enviable position, to be sure. “Why would you just let him do that?”

“He said he was your… friend.”

“What?”

   Kokichi shrugged. “Yeah, I just told your best friend here I left a dildo in your lab last week and he let me waltz right in. I mean I’m pretty sure I was lying about that, but there were a lot of sex toys in there huh…” Kokichi was wondering if this was something he could possibly spin as a blackmail angle.

   “Hey don’t say things like that!” Kokichi thought maybe that was a go ahead on the black mail, but Dr. Iruma didn’t stutter, and kept going, “Or you’re gonna give virginhara here some ideas about my busting bod!” She chortled like she had just made the funniest joke in the world and slapped Shuichi on the back.

   Shuichi grimaced.

   Kokichi knew instantly from this interaction that he hated Miu Iruma, despite her innumerable academic accomplishments. He wanted to be the one making Shuichi that uncomfortable.

   “Wh-what?” She back tracked when no one laughed. “It w-was a joke… Didn’t you think that was funny? I-I didn’t really mean it ....”

   See? She wasn’t even any good at it!

   Maybe he should say that out loud. It would fit with the sort of flirty persona of a rogue, wouldn’t it?

   “I thought you knew that? I mean, o-obviously I wouldn’t fuck a guy at the office…”

   Was that even something Kokichi was trying to be? Honestly maybe he should tone it down a little.

   “Well how was I supposed to know that? The men you bring in here to be lab assistants keep getting younger and younger…”

   Obviously he wasn’t actually trying to do like a detective-thief romance plot or anything. Although that had kind of been what he had going for on the plane… Had things changed since then?

   “So what? I’m a Nobel Laureate, and gorgeous to boot! I deserve a little eye candy now and then! And besides, guys older than 35 who want to work in a lab like this are usually misogynistic womanizers.”

   Sure Saihara was making things more interesting, but if Kokichi didn’t make it clear he was joking he might get bogged down with another personality trait to maintain.

   “Are you saying your current assistant isn’t a rampant womanizer?”

   Then again what was the point of having an adversary in all this if he didn’t exploit everything for its furthermost reaching comedic potential?

   “No, but he’s so beta being around him makes me feel like a top!”

   But what if he forgot it was a joke and confused himself into having a real feeling?

   “I would just like it if you didn’t hire people who use my servers to google gay porn ‘just to make sure’ they’re ‘not into it.’ I hope you hear the quotation marks because he literally said that to me!”

   No obviously he wouldn't get confused crushes weren’t contagious via exposure that was a dumb thing to worry about and also he was a genius that kind of thing didn’t happen to him.

   “He holds wrenches good, okay?!”

   Wait, were those two still talking?

   “I can hold wrenches without googling gay porn in another guy’s house! It’s possible.”

   Jesus what kind of conversation did Kokichi just decide to stop spacing out for?

“Oh come on! What do you want from me Keebs???”

   These two had… a lot to say to each other. Dr. Iruma was still holding onto Shuichi’s arm boob first, but Kokichi locked eyes with the detective and could tell they were both thinking the same thing.

   Why are they having this conversation in the middle of a hostage situation?

   “Nothing! Your human desires are totally valid Miu! Which is why I thought I would take care of this one.” The robot’s LED display eyes gestured up at Kokichi, who was still standing on top of him, poised to wreck him with a hammer.

   “How could any human desire that thing???” Dr. Iruma curled her lip. Hey, the feeling’s mutual, lady.

   “I don’t know, I thought you might have programmed me to not be able to see his face?”

   “I would never do that to you! Even if I was shagging the ugliest guy on the face of the planet, it would be unethical given the fact that you have sentience! I’m horny, not a monster. You can’t see his face because he’s wearing a fucking mask!”

   “Why am I not programmed to see that?”

   “I don’t fucking know, ask your dead dad!”

   Oooh. Wow. The robot gaped at that, seemingly speechless now.

   “If I may interject,” Kokichi interjected, “--and I know I can, because I just did, and also because I am still very much poised to pop this robot’s head off like a croquet ball-- I must confess that I was lying about fucking your mom, Astro boy. I’m less into participants of Titty out Tuesday who jerk it to steam punk school boy LARPing and more into the sorta tall, kinda dark, and very handsome type.”

   Dr. Iruma cowed again, stuttering something about not being a mom or a LARPer, while the robot started yelling about being called Astro boy.

   Kokichi tuned them out, giving Saihara a meaningful look. Saihara gave him a look that was equally meaningful, except the meaning was something along the lines of ‘Why the fuck would you say that?’

   Yeahh that was more like it.

   Kokichi laughed. Not one of his grandiose guffaws. It was more of a little chuckle. It surprised him. He hadn’t planned to laugh, but there it was. A small thing, just for him to know about, the humored breath not travelling beyond his mask.

   … It was probably time to get out of here, wasn’t it?

   The thing was, Kokichi had kind of pinned himself into a corner on this one… He had fully intended on decapitating this robot as a distraction for his escape, but now he wasn’t even sure if that was ethical. Logically he knew that a robot was not a human being, so there would be no form of consciousness extinguished from the world if he disconnected some of its wires and bolts. Yet the interaction it just had with Dr. Iruma concerned him. Obviously you don’t kill humans because they’re humans and obviously you don’t kill humans. But Kokichi was finding it hard to end the existence of something people treated like a human being either. To sever the bonds it had with sentient beings may be just a little less unethical than actually removing a sentient existence from the world, but it would still cause the emotional harm to actual humans of a dead loved one. So as annoying as fake metal humans were, Kokichi was left to ponder how exactly to get out of this one a different way

   Dr. Iruma was obviously a coward who talked a big game. If he retreated, he could count on her to get out his way, or else run to the robot’s side. Then the robot might be reactivated, but according to the robot’s blueprints, it didn’t really have any weapons on it, being built to act as a normal human being. So just like they had been white noise in the staredown he was still having with Saihara, their actions wouldn’t need to be factored into the escape.

   The only variable here was what the detective would do.

   … That thought had popped up in Kokichi’s head a lot recently, hadn’t it?

   Saihara had become a powerful influence in Kokichi’s planning very quickly, and because of the detective, the thief now found himself having to pull out one of his trump cards.

   Kokichi grabbed one of the EMP bombs from his pocket, remembering the pink cloud of smoke that had appeared before the camera cut out in the video demonstrations he’d seen online. His eyes were still locked on Saiharas, so he got to see in full detail the recognition, shock, and alarm that ran through them. As the detective yelled “Get down” and pushed Dr. Iruma back, Kokichi reflected on how those were some of his favorite expressions he’d ever seen.

   Kokichi pulled the latch out with his teeth and threw the bomb at the wall right over the detective’s head. Sure enough, pink smoke quickly enveloped him and Dr. Iruma.

   “Keebo!” The inventor screeched, no doubt worried about the EMP bomb turning him off. Though that was kind of stupid, considering his core programming would be the same regardless of having power to operate, even if he didn’t save whatever data was processed as his last few memories. Eh, then again who knew how robots that advanced worked?

   Taking his cue to exit, Kokichi threw the hammer through one of the nearby windows, and did somersault over to it. He got up on the ledge, kicking away the broken glass and was refamiliarizing himself with the lay out of the roof when a tug on his bag full of bombs suddenly set him off balance.

   Kokichi flipped around, trying to do a quick recovery by panickedly grabbing onto something. He did grab onto something. That something being the shoulders of a person whose hands were firmly grappling his bag.

   As far as Kokichi could tell, the scene from a third person perspective looked like he was trying to do the kabedon but rotated ninety degrees.

   From his own perspective, Saihara was holding his bag of loot while also being the only thing keeping Kokichi from falling onto the broken glass beneath them.

   As if that weren’t bad enough, Kokichi felt his hair brush the side of his face and realized that his mask had half fallen askew in his desperate movement, revealing three quarters of his face.

   “Hey.” Kokichi said. Lamely. Wow. Their faces were really close.

   Saihara wasn’t looking at him. The detective seemed to be trying to figure out how to untangle the straps of the bag of stolen goods from Kokichi’s arms without letting him fall.

   “It’s very clever, of you detective. Trapping me like this.” Kokichi tried to get a reaction.

   “You’re the one who jumped on the window.” Shuichi opened the bag, seemed to take in the fact that it was full of bombs, and closed it again to resume untangling the strap.

“You know, you could just leave the bag.” Kokichi pointed out

   “So could you.” Shuichi observed, astutely.

   “You could let me fall.” Kokichi suggested. “Then you’d have both.”

   “I’m not going to drop you on a pile of broken glass.” Shuichi promised.

   “But I broke the glass.” Kokichi admitted.    “Glass is glass and flesh is flesh. I’m not going to drop you on a pile of glass.” Shuichi reiterated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“That’s nice.” Kokichi replied. “Naive. But super nice.”

   In this scenario, each of them had two options, each leading to one of two outcomes. He could let himself fall off the window and they could sit here and struggle over the bag until they bled out, a fight that Kokichi, not the most physically challenging, would be hard pressed to win. Or Shuichi could let Kokichi escape and Kokichi could let Shuichi win this one. The bag would be too heavy to take with him if he tried to get out the window from this position. He’d have to leave it behind. Kokichi would lose.

   He found himself laughing again. A strange, soft laugh. This time it was exposed to the air, his mask too askew to contain it.

   “You’re really something else, aren’t you Shuichi?”

   On hearing his name, the detective startled, finally looking up at Kokichi’s face.

   He just barely had the chance to catch Kokichi’s trademark grin, before the thief pushed up off of him, doing a backflip out of the window, and leaving his bag behind.

   As Kokichi landed on the roof tile running, he yelled out, “ I’m sure there’s a better word for you out there than sucker!”

   He turned around, sticking his tongue out at the broken window, before sliding his mask back onto his face.

   He may have been escaping, but it occured to Kokichi Ouma that he had lost for the first time in this little game of theirs. The thought made him giddy. It made his feet light on the roof top tile. It made him puff out a thousand tiny laughs behind the plastic shape of his face.

   It made him totally, definitely not bored. --- [Log of Messages sent via Discord to “Don't Instigate Cats (2019) Expatiation” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Boss: I’m bored of Taiwan already :/

Boss: We should go somewhere else (ﾉ✧w✧)ﾉ*:･ﾟ🗺

* * * Several people are typing... --- [Log of Text Messages from Rantarou Amami’s Cellular Device]

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Hey

Hey

Asshole

From: Me

…

Should I respond to that?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You’re goddamn right you should respond to that when I tell you to you dumb avocado looking motherfucker

From: Me

Whoa

Ok

What’d I do this time?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You sent a useless emo prick to my door and now he won’t leave

From: Me

What

Did Shuichi do something wrong

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Yeah

He was born

From: Me

Whoa

Miu take a breath

What happened

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

His boyfriend broke into my lab and tried to fucking kill keebs

From: Me

His boyfriend?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Yea

Clown twink ass motherfucker

From: Me

You mean like

The internationally wanted criminal clown he’s tracking down

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You know whats internationally wanted

These tits

From: Me

Lol ok

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

That jerk off is just a rando asshole

He tried to kill keebo!

From: Me

Oh yikes is he ok

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Well of course i fucking took care of him because im a bomb ass friend

But that suckhara guy was no help

He tried to convince me to check the fucking security cameras so he could go off and flirt with the guy about to decapitate keebs!

From: Me

I mean he probably had a good reason to want you to check the cameras right

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

No he’s just fucking awful and now he won’t leave rantarou make him leave

He broke my window and my hammer and only got back 23 of my EMP bombs

And now the police are here

From: Me

That sounds really stressful Miu

Wait how many bombs did you have before

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

24

From: Me

So he stopped most of your bombs from getting stolen

Also you have bombs?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Get him to leave he won’t leave

He keeps waiting for like interracial pole dancers to come or some fucking thing

From: Me

Do you mean like

Interpol

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

He won’t leave I want him to leave

From: Me

Miu you know I love you like a sister and i totally believe this is as stressful to you as it seems

But I think things may not be so bad?

Not to say what you’re going through right now isn’t totally valid

But things might look better if you got back to bed and caught some z’s

Did you remember to take your meds?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Aw shit

Aw fuck

You’re right

Ugh

Uggghghh

From: Me

Hey it happens to the best of us

If you do think Shuichi should leave in the morning when the cops are gone that’s totally up to you

It’s your lab and you have a right to say who should be in it

Just don’t make a decision like that when you need to sleep you know

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

But what if i ask him to go and then he doesn’t go

From: Me

He doesn’t have a choice, you get to tell him

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

But what if he’s mean to me

Cute people are always mean to me

From: Me

Miu…

Go to bed...

[kiruuuuu]

More BB/Goyo in which Goyo is slowly going mad. On several accounts. (Rating E, fluff/humour/resolved sexual tension + smut, ~5.2k words) - written for @kiruuuuu​ seeing as she continued obsessing about these two after this piece.

.

Blackbeard is slowly but surely driving him insane.

One big part is the physical aspect, Goyo isn’t denying it – and if it were only that, he’d be as far from complaining as he could be. If his biggest problem was Blackbeard's attractiveness, he’d live in an almost ideal world with most of his dreams coming true, but as it is, the deep-seated desire burning low and slow in his groin merely ensures Goyo doesn’t forcibly eject Blackbeard from his life again due to all the other reasons the American is personally raising Goyo’s blood pressure. He should’ve expected this outcome and largely did, yet imagining having to combat vague incompatibilities while cruising high on happiness hormones which are released in laughable quantities every time he receives a friendly text over the holidays was somehow decidedly easier to stomach than dealing with actual issues face-to-face.

Goyo knows himself, as does Amaru, which is why he doesn’t disagree with her suggestion of meeting in public the first few times. He’s always been weakest right at the beginning of a fancy, daydreaming of scenarios that leave him short of breath and having to adjust his trousers, hoping they don’t betray him if he happens to be in a public space. Despite knowing better, he’s dived head first into physical relationships and paid the price for it, and after having slept with a married man once (without his knowledge, though the blame of hastiness lay upon him regardless), he vowed to improve. Besides, he suspects Blackbeard hasn’t dated a lot of men, so he should take it slow anyway.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t prepared for the change in wardrobe following a throwaway comment about camouflage patterns because not only did Blackbeard take him seriously and dressed differently for their dates from then on (which is a turn on already), his shirts are also very tight. Not unacceptably so, but entirely too tight for someone with pecs this pronounced. In moments when it was hard to deal with Blackbeard's personality, Goyo reminded himself as to why he was still around by eyeing up Blackbeard's chest and Christ. He would love to grope him for hours. Maybe suckle on those puppies. God.

It doesn’t help that he’s changed his aftershave as well. Goyo felt genuinely bad complaining about so much right away, even if it was done through careful euphemisms and half-jokes he practised beforehand, and promised himself to compliment Blackbeard elaborately should he act on it – but never did he expect for Blackbeard to dip into the nearest shop with him to try and find a fragrance Goyo liked. He claimed he was tired of his old one but hadn’t found an excuse to switch so far, and offered his own opinions additionally to Goyo’s, meaning the entire thing felt organic and constructive instead of passive-aggressive or, worse, blindly compliant. As a result, Goyo stands that tiny bit closer whenever he can. Prolongs their hugs. Inhales consciously whenever they kiss. He loves a good-smelling man, and Blackbeard has turned from handsome to painfully sexy.

He makes sure Blackbeard knows, too. He might be picky and demanding, but he would like to think of himself as appreciative, so whenever he notices the American looking or smelling exceptionally good, he remarks on it. And the delighted expressions he reaps are worth feeding this inflated ego. He doesn’t think the other man has been complimented on his appearance much, certainly not by fellow guys.

.

The very first thing they fight about is punctuality. As inevitable as death. It turns into a recurring theme as they simply can’t agree on anything and Goyo’s laid-back attitude towards time sparks nothing but disbelief in Blackbeard – he does learn by setting their meeting half an hour before he actually arrives, but whenever he’s meant to pick Goyo up by car, he shows up on the dot and paces impatiently around the flat without taking his shoes off while Goyo finishes whichever task held him up. Blackbeard calls him rude, Goyo waves him off, and the whole drama repeats the next time. They even have a long talk about it, with Goyo stressing the importance of enjoying life at one’s own personal pace, and Blackbeard calling on politeness and prioritising others over tasks such as washing the dishes.

Related to this, Blackbeard always requires an exact plan while Goyo prefers adapting vague ideas to actual circumstances. There’s no spontaneity in most of Blackbeard's actions, he’s rigid and inflexible and it drives Goyo absolutely nuts. After having agreed on watching a film that night, they walk past a fantastic-looking restaurant Goyo instantly wants to try out, and Blackbeard flat out refuses. Just says no. Claims their original plan was superior simply because it was made earlier, and when Goyo points out that literally nothing is stopping them from having dinner together instead of sitting at the cinema for a few hours, Blackbeard is having none of it. He’s hungry, he agrees with Goyo’s assessment that the place looks inviting, and yet he won’t budge. How did he get to where he is now with this attitude?

Also, Blackbeard is loud. And by this, he’s not even referring to his deafening voice – he’s a pitchman manqué – but rather his behaviour as a whole. Nigh everyone can tell his country of origin due to him constantly approaching perfect strangers, which Goyo finds exceedingly rude. People just want to mind their own business, as does he, and he wouldn’t appreciate being accosted by some random dude on the street. Blackbeard has the gall to call him rude as a result and defends himself by pointing out he leaves the grumpy ones alone and has a lovely chat with the rest who seems to enjoy their talk. Blackbeard has no qualms cursing in public and calling out unacceptable behaviour, and Goyo preferred the ground to swallow him whenever his companion starts an argument with a line skipper or someone parking like an idiot.

What, am I supposed to just tut and walk away?, Blackbeard scoffs, his tone making clear what he thinks of the British nation as a whole.

There are countless other details: Blackbeard's apartment is messy. He can’t cook for the life of him, yet is an utter baking snob. He leaves the toilet seat up. He loves the worst kind of cheesy patriotic action films and accepts no criticism on this. The music in his car leaves Goyo’s ears ringing for the rest of the evening. He seems to think kissing is the only worthwhile public display of affection. He’s ignorant about most other cultures yet fancies himself open-minded because his best friend is Korean – this only means he compares anything and everything either to the States or Korea. Getting him to eat anything he hasn’t tried before is an uphill struggle. Except if it’s Korean.

Vigil seems to get a pass on nearly everything, and Goyo is beginning to think Blackbeard either had or still has a crush on the man. He’s empathetic and understanding as can be with Vigil, and almost seems to enjoy arguing with Goyo. It’s getting old fast.

.

And then there are those other moments. The ones so sharp and vivid they linger in Goyo’s mind long after the fact, bright and warm like a sip of good alcohol, and almost as intoxicating too. They end up eating in the restaurant after all, and Goyo is mentally preparing for the backlash if it turns out to be rubbish – not that he thinks it will be, but he’d rather outline his defence already. In the back of his mind, he’s wondering whether he’s the stubborn one in this case, with his insistence to get his way showcasing his own inflexibility. His mother taught him to be kind whenever he can afford it, yet past experiences and an underlying pessimism usually convince him he can’t. He knows she’d be disappointed with how often he chooses the less compassionate path.

“I’m not good at this”, Blackbeard announces out of the blue, throwing Goyo off once more. This happens regularly, him spiralling and conducting a whole other conversation in his mind, and Blackbeard interrupting his thoughts with something outlandish. Most of the time, Goyo is relieved about it. He tends to get lost and is glad whenever he’s brought back to the present.

Since there’s no indication as to what he means, Goyo needs him to clarify. “At what?”

“Just… this.” And Blackbeard gestures somewhere between them. “Compromising. Letting someone else into my life. Listening.”

I know someone else who’s terrible at all three of those, Goyo thinks and doesn’t say.

“But I like you. And I want to get better. So please be patient with me and talk to me. Okay?”

Blackbeard likes him.

Idiotically, hearing it out loud makes him giddy as if this was a new revelation, but then his brain latches on to the much more important implication of Blackbeard wanting to communicate, being willing to work on himself and on the both of them, admitting faults. It’s a beacon of hope and one he didn’t expect – Blackbeard has never struck him as particularly introspective, not with how he values arbitrary rules above creative thinking, yet it seems he underestimated him. He’ll have to correct his mental image and allow Blackbeard to improve.

“Yes. That sounds good”, he replies after mulling over Blackbeard's words for a bit, prompting a sigh of relief. And, to throw him a bone: “You’re doing good.”

A scoff. “Am I though?”

“You are. Why else would I say it?”

“I don’t know. You just…” Blackbeard lowers his gaze, searching for the right thing to say. “I’m nervous around you.”

Goyo laughs. Can’t help it, he bursts out with a brief laugh turning into a hearty chuckle because – Blackbeard gets nervous? He dreaded being in the same room as the American early on and never managed to settle down in his presence, and now he’s learning it was reciprocal? Had he known he could’ve scared him away, he might’ve confronted Blackbeard earlier, returned the sass, threw his weight around a little. Instead, they were watching each other like hawks for ultimately only marginally different reasons. Nothing about Blackbeard is adorable, but this is the closest thing to it: him being bashful, admitting his crush, relinquishing power and inviting himself to be mocked. Goyo is delighted.

“You don’t need to be”, he reassures and runs his fingertips over the back of Blackbeard's hand, a gentle gesture he seems to appreciate.

There are these moments which remind Goyo why he gave Blackbeard a chance in the first place, and they are what keep him going whenever Blackbeard starts arguing in favour of one of his ‘life principles’.

.

“I made a mistake”, Goyo states, not bothering to hide his fatalistic tone of voice.

Amaru is instantly entertained. Her optimistic and easygoing attitude is part of the reason why she got along so swimmingly with Goyo’s mother, and also why he’s endlessly grateful for her presence in his life: she helped him get past failures whenever his mum wasn’t available, and provided encouragement and support whenever he needed it. It’s also why he keeps bothering her with his problems. “Does it have anything to do with your new relationship?”

She watched from a distance as he made his first few questionable choices in his dating career, ready to pick him up and dust him off whenever he’d fallen down. He learned to accept and value her advice once he realised she was never wrong, so he’s hoping she can assist him with his current predicament. “How did you guess?”, he sighs, not requiring an answer. “They’re showing a documentary I’m interested in on TV this evening, and I mentioned it to Craig.”

“So now he wants to watch it with you?”, his aunt surmises, making him nod. “Which means you’d have to spend the evening with him without falling victim to his manly wiles.” He nods again, looking pained. “And you want me to give you the go-ahead for making up an excuse so you don’t have a bad conscience when you cancel on him.”

Well. Maybe she was the wrong person to approach about this. “When you put it like that, it sounds… bad.”

She raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Don Goyo, you’re old enough to not need my approval. Which you’re not going to get anyway, before you ask.”

“I have a feeling I know what you’re about to say to me.”

“Just tell him. If you’re not ready, he needs to know. He deserves to know, César.”

It’s not that he isn’t ready. If it was for him, they’d have fucked in the nearest public stall on their second date, he’s been dreaming about strong arms and an insistent tongue for almost the entire month that they’ve been dating. He’s overripe, and still – it doesn’t feel right somehow. Like he should wait a little longer. They’ve gotten to know each other much better, anticipating each other’s moods, making small gifts here and there and texting daily. Even so, there’s just something.

“Don’t brood. Go and talk to him. Either he respects your boundaries and everything’s good, or he refuses and you can launch him into outer space. No matter the outcome, you’ll be off better than before.”

She must sense his hesitation as she tries to instil her wisdom a few more times before giving up and wishing him a pleasant night. He leaves, conflicted – he doesn’t want to hurt Blackbeard's feelings by rejecting him before even anything happens, and at the same time he’s not comfortable actually reaching below the belt yet.

He’s hoping Blackbeard simply doesn’t try anything. It’s the best case scenario.

.

About eight hours later, all Goyo can think between different versions of God this feels so fucking good is: this didn’t go to plan at all. Blackbeard is buried up to the hilt and Goyo is grateful for being momentarily distracted so he has an excuse not to think critically about what’s happening right then.

And it started out so well.

Goyo arrives only fifteen minutes late, which he thinks is more than reasonable even if Blackbeard doesn’t comment on it, and takes note of the slightly less messy flat – it’s not even that bad normally, some dirty dishes scattered around and pieces of clothing, but at least they give the otherwise relatively barren apartment some character. They kiss as a greeting, briefly, as Blackbeard is busy heating up something to eat, and then sit on the couch with plates on their laps, chatting about their day while waiting for the program to start.

It’s domestic. It should be relaxing and pleasant, not nerve-wracking, but after sitting next to Blackbeard for ten minutes of serious introduction and noticing how his sweatpants don’t really do a good job at hiding anything, Goyo knows he won’t do anything to stop him should he make a move. In a way, it’d be a relief: get it over and done with, don’t dwell on it, move on. The anticipation is putting him on edge, keeps his hairs standing up and his breaths measured. He’s hyper-aware of his knee brushing against Blackbeard's, the broad chest next to him rising and falling, the thumping of his own heart.

He can’t concentrate. Images flash on the screen, a soothing narrator recounts past horrors in a deep voice and historical photographs take turns. He’d actually been looking forward to watching this programme, and should’ve known doing it together with Blackbeard would end in disaster, yet wasn’t prepared for himself being the culprit. Blackbeard has beautiful arms, oozing latent strength and tanned nicely, the dark hairs making them even more appealing. Maybe he doesn’t shave his chest. He probably doesn’t, would consider it unmanly, and with how lush and full his beard is -

“Can I get you a beer?”

Goyo blinks. It’s a commercial break, he hadn’t even noticed. “No”, he says, and thinks: and I’d rather you didn’t have one either. The taste of it is revolting to him.

“I’ll just get one for myself then”, Blackbeard replies, already risen from the sofa, and makes the mistake of leaning down for a quick, once again domestic kiss. It’s reciprocated just a tad too enthusiastically, so Blackbeard pushes back and after a few more seconds they’re tongue wrestling with an uncomfortable height difference between them. The angle is awkward but the feel of it amazing – and this is something Goyo has openly admitted numerous times: he loves the way Blackbeard kisses. Adores it. Can’t get enough of it. It’s intense and deep and wet and leaves him panting every time, with this being no exception.

He drags the other man in, forcing him to steady himself with one knee on the couch, one knee right between Goyo’s legs and both hands cupping his face. This, too, is shockingly sexy, the way Blackbeard keeps him in place to take him apart. Goyo reaches out and runs his fingers over Blackbeard's body and dear God his thighs are like stone, and his back muscles pronounced, and his abs too. He’s tilted far back now, the bear hovering over him, solid and threatening and like a rock set in motion. Soul-crushing. Inevitable.

They kiss until the break is over, until at least one of them is making these embarrassing little noises, until Goyo’s lips feel swollen and his cock is harder than it’s ever been in his life, until Blackbeard breaks off, flushed, sweating and dishevelled, and Goyo wants to suck his dick or he’ll die. Making out has always been Goyo’s weakspot, and making out like this is guaranteed to leave him weeping and ruining his underwear, and he knew Blackbeard was gonna try something. He just knew. They wouldn’t have snogged like this without purpose, without an ulterior motive, without the intention of moving on to more sinful things now.

“We should”, Blackbeard starts and has trouble focusing his gaze, “let’s – I mean -” His sweatpants really don’t let him get away with anything. Unbelievably, he disengages and plops down next to Goyo. Apparently he wants to keep watching, which is the sensible thing to do.

Yes. A good idea. Getting caught up in the moment isn’t what Goyo wants anyway.

Blackbeard is radiating heat. His confident persona has crumbled, revealing a passionate yet considerate lover, a man torn between doing the right thing and doing what feels right. Right now, his upper brain seems to be winning, or maybe he figures if he behaves, Goyo will reward him regardless, or he’s hoping Goyo will stay the night and they can fuck later, or he’s playing hard-to-get. The last option would be hilarious, since Goyo isn’t interested in buying what Blackbeard is selling for now. They should really go back to watching TV, and when it’s over, they can talk a little, and then Goyo’s going home.

Two minutes later, he’s straddling Blackbeard's lap while shoving his tongue so far down the other man’s throat it’s a miracle he’s not choking, and nearly coming in his own pants from the bit of friction he manages to get between his dick and Blackbeard's taut stomach. He’s a fucking magnet and an oven with how hot he is, mewling into the kiss like someone who’s desperate for any kind of attention, like a starving or drowning or poisoned man, like – like Goyo. His beard is soft and smells good, and when Goyo’s hands stray below fabric, he finds more hair on a broad chest and buries his fingers in it. The rugged edge Blackbeard visibly sports continues where the normal gaze doesn’t penetrate, Goyo is relieved to discover, and he can finally feel up these gorgeous tits. Get his hands on them and massage them however he likes.

His nipples are delightfully sensitive and Goyo spends too much time teasing them while sucking deep purple bruises just below Blackbeard's collar until he’s worried about Blackbeard exploding under his merciless ministrations. Frotting has been knocked down in priority now that he can twist strangled moans out of the hard body beneath him, but when his cock throbs almost painfully at a gasp, he knows they can’t go on like this.

“Please give me a moment”, Blackbeard gasps out, cheeks rosy and eyes unfocused.

Again, a reasonable request. He should listen.

“Bedroom”, he snaps and it’s not even a suggestion. He can feel his hole pulsing with the irresistible desire of getting plowed and when Blackbeard, after a second of disbelief, picks him up to carry him through the flat, Goyo is thankful for his foresight to bring condoms and lube regardless of his intentions. He had a hunch Blackbeard would try something.

They only shed what’s necessary (and the shapely legs are somehow only improved with socks on, but Goyo has been told before that it’s a sock fetish at this point) and preparation is an unceremonious affair except for the fact that Goyo sucks on Blackbeard's nipples until they’re raw and too sensitive while fingering himself open. The American has a great body, he has to admit, well-developed muscles, some scars here and there, coarse black hair adorning tanned skin and an upward curved cock beautiful enough to have Goyo’s mouth water, so sitting down on it feels predictably mind-blowing.

He does most of the work, which is fortunate as he can experiment with angles until he’s found one that actually makes him go cross-eyed, and once Blackbeard draws the connection between his blissful groans and whatever’s happening between their legs, he starts thrusting up and dear Lord.

This isn’t what Goyo had in mind when coming over, and yet he can’t find the brain capacity to regret or even care right now, not with how urgent his lust is tugging on his nerve endings, forcing him to ride towards exhaustion and cramps and an impressive muscle hangover the next day. Being able to steady himself on Blackbeard's torso is surprisingly sexy and the sheer barrage of pleasure bursting through him every time he slams down his hips keeps him from touching himself, effectively prolonging his sweet suffering.

Moving in unison has never felt this good and for once, they’re on the same wavelength, exchanging devoted gazes and trading the odd kiss. It’s akin to a reunion instead of a first time, like they’ve rehearsed this song and dance to perfection in the past and, despite a certain rustiness, are quickly finding back into their old routine.

When Goyo comes, his vision goes colourful with how tight he’s squeezing his eyelids shut. He shakes violently while balanced on Blackbeard's hips and gasps for air, overwhelmed by the elation accompanying his release and shooting his sperm all over Blackbeard's mangled chest, over the lovebites and the red marks his hands left behind from carrying his weight. His relief is crushing, and so he slumps down bonelessly, allowing the other man to pump into him a few more times before announcing his own climax with a low moan. Instinctively, it seems, Blackbeard’s palms travel over the back of his sweaty t-shirt, petting him reassuringly.

Goyo doesn’t like it. It feels like too much, like overstimulation after a long, satisfying session even though his was hardly long but certainly satisfying. He shakes the hands off and climbs down, trying to catch his breath. Next to him, blue eyes snap to his face, too attentive. Blackbeard looks like he’s not sure what to say. Goyo could lighten the situation, compliment him, make a joke, or be sincere about how much he enjoyed himself. Because he did.

Even with the afterglow fading fast.

“I’ll go shower first”, he announces and leaves with a quick kiss that seems unsubstantial. He’s gone before Blackbeard has even taken the condom off, and the sensation of dirtiness clinging to his skin seems to go beyond bodily fluids. Scrubbing himself with the only loofah (and isn’t that a surprise) wouldn’t be right, so he uses his own fingers to wipe off the odd feeling.

Blackbeard is sitting on the edge of the bed when he returns, and now he can finally place the source of the awkwardness between them: he’s not babbling. Normally, he’d have commented on Goyo’s stamina, maybe how great his arse looked, recounted an anecdote of some sorts, or even attempted a lame joke, yet all he’s doing is watching. He looks a little lost. Silvery droplets are caught in his chest hair and when they kiss again, Goyo deflects a hug with the excuse of wanting to remain clean, demands that Blackbeard go shower as well.

The bed is large and tidier than the rest of the room, as if Blackbeard had anticipated them ending up here. Despite the general lack of colour in the apartment, the duvet is beautiful with a dark turquoise pattern. The cushions look fluffy, but not too soft. It looks inviting. Goyo did bring a spare pair of underwear, knowing their shoe and therefore sock size is the same, and he briefly pictures waking Blackbeard up by sucking him off. It’s unlikely to happen, with how different their morning routines are – what little he knows anyway – and still, the image is most tempting.

He gets caught in the hallway with one shoe on his foot already, the other in his hands.

His stomach drops and speech evades him out of shame as Blackbeard leans against the door frame, tight briefs highlighting all his best assets. Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem disappointed or hurt, which does nothing to quell the burning feeling of being a disgrace eating away at Goyo’s insides.

“What are you doing?”, he asks, no reproach in his voice. Patience is one of his virtues and one he displays right now – if there was ever a moment when Goyo expected an outburst, an indignant rant, it’d be now. Instead, he picks up on a hesitant disquiet, an uneasy curiosity. Blackbeard doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knows it’s important, therefore he treats it with the same mindfulness he does any serious issue.

Goyo owes him this. If there’s anything he owes this man, it’s an attempt at an explanation. Since he’s formulated it before, talked it through with past partners, he’s not unprepared yet dreads bringing it up nonetheless. “I have… commitment issues”, he replies softly.

The answering silence is one of racing thoughts, he can read it on Blackbeard's open expression. “Do you want to talk about it?”, he eventually wants to know. For a guy with no idea of how to deal with this, he’s faring remarkably well.

“I am talking about it.” Defensive. He inhales deeply before continuing. “I have trouble opening up to others. I prefer keeping most of me to myself. I can’t trust easily.”

A nod. It hurts; it means Blackbeard has noticed but didn’t dare bring it up. Always the same thing. Goyo fights down a pang of annoyance – part of his mind tries to convince him they don’t deserve him: either they mention it, which makes them whiny complainers not ready to give him time, or they don’t, which means they don’t care enough. It’s bullshit and pops up in the back of his head every time. “Am I suffocating you?”

He almost laughs at the ridiculousness of the notion. Blackbeard, who maybe suggests a quarter of their dates, who never complains about Goyo taking some time to reply to messages, who always accepts when Goyo wants to go home, seriously thinks he’s clingy. If anything, Goyo would like for him to be more overbearing, insert himself into Goyo’s life more aggressively. “No. You’re giving me all the space I need.” Too much, at times.

“Am I doing anything wrong?”

Well. What isn’t he doing wrong. Goyo’s heart melts a little over this brute trying to figure out why his lover is sneaking out on him, when it’s nothing but Goyo’s ugly side finally showing. He’s being unfair. “I didn’t want to sleep with you”, he says and knows instantly it was the worst possible thing he could’ve said, with how Blackbeard gains a look of horror, paling immediately, arms dropping by his side, slack, mouth working out an apology before the meaning has even reached his brain. Bad with words. This one he can’t really chalk up to bad timing. “No, that’s not what I meant. I wanted it and I liked it. I really did.” He’s flustered, flailing now, in unfamiliar territory, allowing the first thought to drop out of his mouth without scrutinising it first, and feels like it only gets worse. “But I – I had myself convinced I didn’t want it. Because, I don’t know. I’m -” Scared, he can’t bring himself to say. He knows it’d tear a wound which might not heal so easily. “Look. I’ll go. You don’t have to deal with this.”

No one should have to deal with him like this, sputtering and ashamed to the core, cheeks hot and composure non-existent. He wants to go home and hide for the next century and if Blackbeard told him now he’s not worth the trouble he’s causing, he wouldn’t even object.

“Don’t.” A plea. Heartfelt, for what it’s worth, but any other way and Goyo would already be putting on his second shoe. “I don’t know what to do, or what to say. I don’t know what you’d like me to do or say.”

Neither does Goyo. That’s the whole problem.

Blackbeard must be cold, nearly naked and standing in the faint draft coming in from under the door. He shifts his weight uncomfortably as they stare at each other. Please, Goyo thinks, unsure of what he even means by that. But when the next words hit his ears, he knows it’s what he’s been hoping for: “Just… come back to bed. Okay?”

The shoe hits the ground with a sharp sound cutting through the tense atmosphere between them.

.

Unsurprisingly, Blackbeard prefers being the big spoon. They fight over the blanket since Goyo needs it to sleep whereas Blackbeard insists it’s entirely too warm, and the familiar back-and-forth calms his racing heart. As does the gentle hand rubbing vague circles into his chest while they cuddle. After a few soothing moments, he asks the dreaded question of when Blackbeard's first alarm will go off, resulting in even more bickering.

“I really wanted to watch that documentary”, Goyo mumbles regretfully against the arm he’s cradling like a stuffed toy, partly because it’s wonderfully warm and partly because the skin-on-skin contact does funny things to his stomach. Being pressed against the length of Blackbeard's body is magical. He hasn’t felt this safe in a long while.

“Don’t worry, I recorded it.”

The reply, half lost in his hair, gives Goyo pause. If they could actually see anything in the impenetrable darkness Blackbeard requires to sleep peacefully, he’d turn around in indignation. “So you expected something like this to happen?”

He can feel the smile against his scalp. “Call it wishful thinking. Doing nothing but kissing did take its toll.”

Huh. Seems like he was right.

Blackbeard really did plan on trying something.

[fallinnflower]

reaction: Day6 confessing

a/n: i’ve never done one of these before, but i received a request about day6 confessing and figured that meant you wanted a reaction. anon, if you’re out there, i hope this is what you were looking for...

JAE You and Jae have been friends ever since he moved it Korean to try his luck at becoming a musician. The two of you met via online gaming before eventually realizing you lived realistically close to one another, and the two of you decided to meet up. Jae’s rise to fame really didn’t make you view him any differently (except that it was a little more difficult to make it to his concerts now that tickets were pricier and in higher demand); he was still the same meme-loving boy you’d always known. 

When you first met Jae, you’d been shocked at how attractive he was in person — the two of you had jokingly flirted online, but you hadn’t actually expected him to be funny and good-looking. However, knowing he wanted to be an idol, you decided to keep your feelings under wraps; you didn’t want to end up jeopardizing the career he’d left his home to pursue, after all. It would break your heart if Jae’s talents went to waste because of you. 

Even though his rise to fame made him busier, he still made time to game with you online (or in person, if he had time). It was less than a week since they’d returned from their most recent tour circuit, and while you’d told Jae to take it easy you had trouble refusing his offer for you to come over for games. So, you donned low-key clothing and made your way to the dorm, where you were met at the door by a pajama-clad Jae. 

“Did you even brush your hair today?” You asked, reaching out to try and brush the wild strands down. Jae shrugged. 

“Nope.” You couldn’t help but laugh as you hung your jacket by the door. “I have everything set up, though.” 

You followed him into the living room, dropping down onto the floor beside him and draping your legs across his lap before he could say anything. He shot you a look, but didn’t make any move to remove your legs — he just passed you your controller as you stuffed some chicken in your mouth, and gaming commenced. 

It had been over half an hour of pure gaming banter before Jae decided to take a chicken break, and as the two of you leaned back and chatted about how your lives had been during Day6’s tour, Jae sighed. 

“Touring is cool, MyDays are always lit,” he said, “But I missed this. I missed you.” You nudged him with your elbow. 

“Are you sure you aren’t sleep deprived? You’re getting all soft.” Jae just laughed. 

“Maybe.” Suddenly, he leaned in close, so that your noses were almost touching, “I like you even when I’m rested though.” After watching you turn shy, Jae leaned back and continued,

“Wanna go out sometime?” You smirked,

“Only if you can win the next game.”

He did, and the rest is history.

SUNGJIN

You’ve known Sungjin for a while, having worked at JYP around the time Day6 debuted. Although you had since switched jobs, you kept in contact with a handful of the idols you had met during your time there. At the time, you’d been shocked that Sungjin wanted to keep in contact with you — you’d assumed it was out of sheer politeness, but politeness wouldn’t require him to message you nearly everyday. Even as Day6’s schedules ramped up, he still managed to find the time to at least send you a ‘good morning’ and a ‘good night.’

Somehow, despite a greater physical distance growing between you, you found yourselves getting closer and closer. 

You’d always thought Sungjin was attractive, ever since you’d first found him in a practice room. At the time, of course, you’d opted to do nothing about it for the sake of your job — and because he was an idol, so how would you even stand a chance? — but now it was becoming increasingly hard not to catch feelings for him. 

When Day6’s first international tour was announced, you were one of the first people to know outside of JYP staff. You’d congratulated Sungjin, but at the same time your heart felt heavy. Surely he’d be too busy to message you every day when he was so far away, seeing so many new things and meeting so many new people. You tried to ignore that feeling, but in the day they were meant to leave the heavy feeling came back tenfold. You hadn’t even been able to see him between the time of the tour’s announcement and their departure, you’d been too busy at work. 

Be sure to send pictures! You sent, and after a bit of hesitation followed it up with, Try not to forget about me on tour~

You expected it to take him a while to respond, but your phone pinged almost instantly. 

I could never forget about you, Y/N. I like you too much, he wrote. And then, before you could reply, Let’s talk when I get back, okay? I want to tell you that in person.

Suddenly, you couldn’t wait for their tour to start — just so it could end.

YOUNG K

You met Brian in college. He wasn’t around often, because of his schedule as an idol, but the two of you had been assigned a project together early in your first year and since then had tried to partner up whenever possible. Since you were in the same degree program and shared multiple classes, it was usually just a matter of convincing the professor that it was easier for you and Brian to work around his schedule than it would be for any student. (It wasn’t really all that easy, but since it was for Brian you were willing to put up with it. You’d been smitten at first sight, as corny as it sounded — but how could you resist a smile like his?)

In exchange for your hard work, Brian usually got you tickets to their shows whenever possible, and you attended each one even if it meant rearranging your schedule to be hellish. You never passed on an opportunity to hear one of your favorite voices in the world, or to support one of your closest friends. 

The two of you not only shared a degree and a passion for music, but also a love of food. The two of you were constantly sending each other links and Instagram posts, adding to an ever-growing list of restaurants to try out. Of course, you had to be discreet if you wanted to go together, but you’d managed to do it before — for as good-looking as he was, Brian was pretty good at blending into crowds. 

After graduation, you’d worried you wouldn’t really be seeing as much of Brian — and while you should have been excited to graduate, it was hard to be when you thought you might be losing touch with someone you had come to care so deeply about. Even during the ceremony your feelings were mixed; however, as all the students went inside to change out of their robes, Brian gently pulled you aside. 

“Since we’re both going to have more free time now, I figured it would be a good time to ask,” he started, smiling that adorable smile. “Y/N, will you go on a date with me?”

That very night, you checked another restaurant off your list — but this time, as a couple.

WONPIL

Wonpil was full of surprises. You’d known he was destined to do great things from the moment you met him — actually, you’d felt that way about every member of Day6 when you met them during the filming of “Congratulations,” but there was just something extra special about Wonpil. You understood immediately why people referred to him as a happy pill after their debut, and you’d felt honored that he wanted to stay in touch with you despite your relative unimportance in the industry. 

As the both of you worked your way up in the entertainment business, with him in the spotlight and you behind the scenes, you actually managed to work together more often. Day6 liked you and your work, so they were able to request you from time to time. It was after a long day on set that Wonpil pulled you aside and handed you a pastel pink envelope. 

“What—?”

“Don’t open it until you get home, okay?” He said, and despite your confusion (and honestly your concern, because he looked pretty red in the face) you agreed. 

When you finally got home, you immediately opened the envelope and unfolded the note inside. Before you could start reading, you were distracted by a ticket falling into your lap — and not just any ticket, but one to a special exhibit opening gala at a museum you’d been raving to Wonpil about when it was first announced. You’d told him you were concerned you wouldn’t get a ticket to even see the exhibition, let alone go to the opening gala with the artist present, because the artist had had a recent spike in popularity. Already fighting back tears at his gesture, you looked down at the letter. 

Dear Y/N, I’ll be waiting, if you’ll have me. Your (potential) Date, Wonpil

Despite the late hour, you immediately texted Wonpil to find out what color tie he was planning to wear. After all, if this was going to be your first date, you had to be sure you did it right.

DOWOON

You’ve been friends with Dowoon for as long as you can remember — long before he ever became a part of Day6, he was a part of your life. The two of you were stuck together like glue throughout most of your childhood, and even though you both had gotten significantly busier since then you still dedicated a large amount of time to each other. You were a regular at the dorms; since Dowoon spent most of his free time there, so did you.

Your relationship with Dowoon had never really advanced beyond friendship, though many people assumed it had. The two of you were really two peas in a pod, balancing each other pretty much perfectly. Jae and Brian took every opportunity to not only tease you about your relationship, but also hype you up about it — as far as you knew, they didn’t give Dowoon nearly as hard a time about it as they gave you. As much as you wanted them to stop, it was heartwarming to know that they thought you two were a good match, because you’d thought that for a long time. You were just… too scared to make a move.

So you let the boys tease you, with the promise that they wouldn’t breathe a word of your crush to Dowoon himself. 

The new year rolled around, and you asked Jae about his resolution as you waited for Dowoon to bring snacks back to the living room. 

“Go on a date,” Jae laughed. You snorted in reply and flopped back against the base of the couch. 

“Right? Maybe we should both get on some dating apps or something. We could proofread each other’s profiles,” you snickered, and Jae shrugged. 

“Who knows. You kids have fun.” You stuck your tongue out at him, only proving his point really, and as the door closed behind him Dowoon returned to the living room. However, whereas he’d been smiling when he left for snacks, he now had a deep crease between his brows. 

“Hey,” you said, poking at his furrowed forehead to try and smooth it out. “Turn that frown upside down—”

“Are you really unhappy?” He asked, looking a bit like a kicked puppy. Now both your brows were furrowed, but it seemed to be different emotions you were portraying. 

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You said to Jae you were going to get on dating apps,” he clarified. “Are you that unhappy with me?” You blinked at Dowoon once, then twice, trying to make sense of his question. His expression didn’t change, his dark, earnest eyes gazing into yours. 

“Dowoon, what...? We’re not dating,” you finally managed to say, feeling your face heating up. Dowoon’s expression went from angry and sad to pure confusion.

“We’re not?” He asked. You felt like you were having a stroke or something. Was this a dream?

“I mean, you never asked me out or anything,” you said, thoroughly confused. Suddenly, Dowoon’s cheeks began turning red, and he let out an awkward laugh as he ruffled his hair. 

“Oh. I thought it was obvious I like you.” You feel as though someone has punched you in the stomach. You dropped your head into your hands. 

“Dowoon, you’re so lucky I like you,” you groaned, feeling thoroughly exhausted by the whole situation. You moved to rest against Dowoon’s side, eyes closed — the need for a nap was suddenly very real. For a while, there was no sound but your breathing and the faint sound of videos playing on Dowoon’s phone as he gently stroked your hair. However, just as you were about to fall asleep—

“So, does this mean we’re dating now?”

“If you let me nap, yes,” you grumbled, muffled by the material of his sweatshirt. 

He let you sleep.

[nokomiss]

unprecedented times

title: Unprecedented Times

summary:   Stiles is handling quarantine like a champ, and is absolutely not pestering Derek at all.

Notes: For @lielabell, who requested sterek covid socially distancing fluff fic. Hope you enjoy!

***

Official Stilinski Mission Log: Day 2

It has been over forty-eight entire hours since having contact with the human world. Built a fort out of the toilet paper Dad commandeered from the convenience store. (okay, bought, whatever.)  Plan on living out of the fort until the world returns to normal.

Stiles was like, the best person ever to be quarantined. Like, seriously. He had an entire internet full of interesting information at his fingertips, and he absolutely did not miss Scott, and there was zero chance at all of him going all cabin fever-y and chopping through doors like Jack Nicholson.  

Zero. He was so fucking chill with not seeing or touching or being near anyone. He was going pull off this shit like The Martian. He wasn’t going to lose his shit at all.

Seriously.

*

Official Stilinski Mission Log: Day 3

Friends have abandoned me to my fate. No one is willing to rescue me from my boredom. Have tried calling most boring person possible and he managed to scowl at me over the phone. Not even video, just… an audio scowl. Probably should have recorded that for posterity,

“But you’re immune, right? So just come on over,” Stiles whined into his phone.

“We have no way of knowing that,” Derek said firmly.  Apparently he and Scott had been sharing notes, because that was exactly what he’d told Stiles, too.

“Uh, you’re a werewolf who has never had so much as sniffle? Dude, you’re invincible,” Stiles said.  

Derek sighed, and Stiles did his best to not memorize the way it sounded in his ear for replaying later on during Special Stiles Time. “Stiles. I’m not breaking quarantine just because you’re bored. It’s been two days.”

“Uh, it has now been three days, thank you very much,” Stiles informed Derek. “And I think that, if you look at the science, you’re wrong.”

“Goodbye, Stiles,” Derek said. 

“Wait! At least sing me a song--” but Derek hung up, leaving Stiles stuck in the wasteland that was his room, alone except for Netflix and Fort TP.

*

Official Stilinski Mission Log: Day 6

Fort TP has become a refuge in these troubled times. Have installed christmas lights and a Ouija board, but so far have been unable to contact any interesting conversationalists.  Had brilliant thought about creating a vaccine using werewolf dna, but realized that would infect people  with lycanthropy which potentially could cause even more problems long term.

Stiles, after suffering through an online class that was seventy percent his professor talking about the fact that it was an online class, thought he should treat himself,  so he video-called Scott.  

Scott was deemed essential, since puppies need to be fed and walked and taken care of, so Stiles got to take a tour of the vet’s office and make cooing noises at all the puppers that Scott introduced him to.  It was easily the highlight of his week.  

After Scott introduced him to a particularly charming shepherd, Stiles casually asked, “So you’ve been in town the last few months… how’s ole grumpypants holding up? Still sad and alone?”

Scott looked up from the dog, and gave Stiles the exact same look he’d just given a beagle who had fruitlessly tried to steal treats from the counter.  “Are you asking if Derek is single?”

“Uh, no, I was asking after his mental well-being,” Stiles said defensively.

“He has the pack,” Scott said. He grinned at Stiles. “Single, though. He mentioned you called him.”

“I never.. I was just bored,” Stiles said and abruptly hung up the phone, even though it meant not seeing the shepherd dance with Scott.  

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 15

Have new working theory that Beacon Hills is actually under a curse. Maybe i should learn magic to break the spell and return life to normal. Well. What passes for normal around here.

“So like, I’ve had so much time to think, and I realized that this is like freaking utopia for you,” Stiles said.  He had chosen to ignore Scott’s teasing and continued to call Derek daily, because Derek was sad enough, he definitely needed the cheering-up that Stiles could provide.

“Is it really?” Derek’s eyebrows did the thing that they do, like they’re emojis punctuating his sentences. Like billboards over Derek’s eyes flashing the eyeroll emoji.

“I mean, brooding, staying at home, not talking to anyone… you must teach me the secrets of your ways,” Stiles said. “It’s totally unfair how good at this you are. Look at you, my man. Lemme see what you’re wearing. Are those actual jeans?”

Derek shifted the camera to focus solely on his face. “Stiles, please tell me you’re wearing pants.”

“Of course I am,” Stiles lied, even though the first rule of Fort TP was No Pants Allowed. And actually, if he was British, he wouldn’t even be lying, a fact that he considered telling Derek smugly before deciding to let it drop.  Not his underwear, but the topic. 

Not that he would be opposed to dropping his underwear for Derek, but that was neither here nor there. And a topic totally under the purview of ‘things Stiles didn’t let himself think about while actively having a conversation with Hottie McEyebrows.’

Stiles was so desperately horny, was the problem though. It wasn’t that he had an active dating life at college, but he at least had contact with other humans and that somehow made jerking off in the shower less depressing.

And he didn’t regularly video chat with Derek while at college, either, which… possibly was a contributing factor. Derek’s face should be illegal, seriously.

“If you don’t have any more insults for me,” Derek said, “I’m gonna go now.”

“And do what?” Stiles said, hoping for an exciting answer. “Gimme some ideas, Dere-bear.”

Derek blinked a few startled times, looking more like a confused kitten than the werewolf he was, and then said, “I’m going to just. Go. Now.”

Stiles tried to stop him, but the annoying thing about video calls was that he couldn’t fling himself bodily in front of the end-call button.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 16

Is it normal to miss standing in lines? 

When Derek answered, his hair was wet and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Water droplets rolled slowly down his pecs, as if in slow motion. 

Stiles made a sound previously only heard from Muppets and turned off his phone.

Mortified, he didn’t call Derek again for two days, even though he hovered his finger longingly over his name at least once an hour.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 18

A positive in all this: hiding your face in shame is so, so much easier.

Stiles kept replaying the noise he had made upon seeing Derek’s glistening torso -- and it wasn’t even like he’d never seen Derek’s shirtless body, seriously, sometimes it was like Derek was allergic to shirts, and when he did wear them, they were so stupidly tight that they might as well not even exist at all, and his reaction had been --

Well, his reaction had been what his reaction always was, only this time in his outside-voice.

Probably he was making it weirder by  not calling Derek for his daily dose of entertainment. Since Derek had to be aware of Stiles’s hormonal reaction to him. He was a werewolf. He could probably sense horny from a mile away.

Though that theory was shot down a bit by exactly how many teenagers Derek had spent prolonged amounts of time with. Stiles sent Scott a slightly panicked do werewolves smell boners text that he immediately regretted.

Scott immediately responded with an upside-down smiley face and  not through the phone.

Scott was easily the worst best friend ever. Easily.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day Whatever

Fort TP is dwindling alarmingly. Must venture into the wastelands to procure building materials.

The grocery store, as it turned out, was still there.  Still just standing in the parking lot, lights on, shelves at least mostly full of food and essentials.

Not the essential Stiles was after, though.

He was staring woefully at the empty shelves when he heard the squeak of a cart turning into the aisle, then stopping abruptly.

“Hey, you’re going the wrong way down a one-way---” Stiles began, then stopped just as abruptly as the cart as he realized he was bitching at Derek.

Derek looked like he wanted to slink away into the shadows, but unfortunately for him, no shadows were to be found in the toilet paper aisle.  He was wearing a pink floral mask that looked absolutely precious with his leather jacket, and Stiles felt his mouth quirk up into a snicker.

“What?” Derek said defensively.

“You look cute,” Stiles said, which was true on oh so many levels, and he was so happy that his own mask (plaid and not nearly as festive) covered the blush that resulted.  Looking closer, he could see that it wasn’t a pink floral mask, but rather, a pink mask covered in tiny pastel chibi wolves.

“Cora thinks she’s funny.”  

“Cora is my favorite Hale,” Stiles said cheerfully, a total lie, but worth it to see Derek’s eyebrows veer together crankily.  

He edged his cart closer.  Close enough that he could tell that Derek, besides having put on actual jeans and leather jacket to venture to the grocery store, also smelled unfairly good. Stiles was pretty sure he smelled like Fruit Loops, and he was wearing sweatpants with a threadbare Beacon Hills t-shirt. 

Derek was absolutely close enough to smell him, and his conversation with Scott flashed through his mind like it was accompanied by the Kill Bill sirens. Whatever happened, he couldn’t let Derek know how desperately he wanted him.  

Their carts were facing each other, creating a socially responsible barrier that Stiles had never resented so fully until this moment.  “They’re out,” he said dumbly, gesturing towards the empty toilet paper shelves.

“Um, isn’t your little house made of toilet paper?” Derek asked. “Do you  really need more?”

“It’s a fort, thank you very much,” Stiles said with great dignity.  

“Sorry?” 

Stiles wondered why Derek always looked so wrong-footed when he was talking to him. 

 “It’s really nice to see you in person,” he blurted out, because apparently a side effect of never seeing people in the flesh was forgetting how to have a normal interaction with them.

But then Derek’s eyes crinkled in a way that showed he was actually smiling under his mask, and wow, Stiles hated that mask for obscuring that view, and said, “Yeah, it is.”

“Wanna shop together?” Stiles asked, because he was unwilling to walk away.

Derek nodded, and the next hour was the best Stiles had spent in months. Possibly ever, even though he never got to get any closer than six feet away.  An entire Derek length, he thought ridiculously. A prone Derek on the floor, that was the distance they had to keep.

Stiles bought way too much junk food and made fun of Derek’s basic groceries.  Leaving in separate cars felt like torture.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 19

Contemplating trips to the grocery store in hopes of bumping into… someone you know… is not socially responsible. Don’t do it, Stilinski.

“Stiles, you realize it’s only been a few weeks, right?” Lydia said.  He could hear the tapping of her fingertips on a keyboard in the background, and of course Lydia was still motivated enough to do schoolwork, even when talking to someone as brilliant and entertaining as Stiles.

“Lydia. You’re a genius, you know perfectly well we’ve been at this for 456 agonizing hours.”  Stiles was honestly disappointed; he’d thought that Lydia would understand his plight.

“I know, I’ve actually had the time to thoroughly research my final paper,” Lydia said happily. “I’m thinking of trying to get it published.”

“Yeah, I totally am doing that with my papers, too,” Stiles said, which. Theoretically he could, as none of his final papers had been written yet. Probably he could make a scientific breakthrough if he really wanted to.

“Uh-huh,” said Lydia, who knew him entirely too well. “So what’s your quarantine hyperfixation been? Please don’t say that tiger guy.”

“Nope,” Stiles said. “Not a tiger guy.”

“A wolf guy maybe?” Lydia’s voice was sly.

“What did Scott tell you?”

“Nothing,” Lydia sing-songed. “Allison, on the other hand, mentioned that you’re mooning over Tall, Dark and Moody.”

“I am not mooning! I have never mooned in my life,” Stiles protested.

Lydia’s silence was pointed and devastating.

“Okay,” Stiles said, because she had a fair point. “Maybe I’ve been known to moon gently over someone. But. I mean. You’ve seen him. You know what a trainwreck of precious proportions he is. I mean. I can’t help it!”

“Oh, sweetie,” Lydia said gently. “You’ve got it bad.”

Stiles couldn’t even argue.  He was so fucked.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 27

What a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Stiles practically skipped down the stairs, awash in his own brilliance. Building a pantry onto Fort TP was something he couldn’t believe it took him nearly thirty days to come up with.

Well, maybe he could. Things were starting to get a little fuzzy. Probably he should be putting more effort into his schoolwork.

He heard voices as he turned into the living room, but didn’t think anything of it until the couch and table came into view. Well, more notably, his father’s open laptop, full-screened onto an image of Melissa McCall with her shirt flung open.

“Oh my god,” Stiles said as Melissa echoed him and jerked her shirt closed.

“Oh my god,” said the Sheriff, and while his shirt was blissfully on, his pants were clearly unbuttoned, belt hanging open. “I forgot you were here.”

Stiles clamped his hand over his eyes, but his mind traitorously kept replaying the one-second image of Scott’s mom’s tits. “Where else would I be?”

There was a telling silence, and okay, maybe Stiles’ brain wasn’t the only fuzzy one around here.

“I’m just gonna…” Stiles kept his hand over his eyes resolutely as he backed out of the living room towards the front door. “Leave. Now.”

“You don’t have to--” his dad said, though even to Stiles’ ears it didn’t sound sincere.

“Bye,” Stiles said, flinging himself out the front door and finally removing his hand from his eyes. Then he remembered, oh yeah, keys are a thing that exist, and knocked loudly before opening the door again and grabbing them.

Stiles drove aimlessly around town, drumming his fingertips on his steering wheel, full of nervous energy. He thought about calling Scott, but he didn’t trust himself to not blurt out something about how great his mom’s tits were, so he decided that only one of them truly needed to be traumatized this day. Things were rough enough as is.

Eventually, aimless driving lead him to the parking lot outside Derek’s loft.  Stiles sat in the Jeep for a few long moments, trying to decide whether this was a good idea or not, before deciding, fuck it.

He went inside.  Knocked on Derek’s door, like that was a normal thing he did all the time. And when Derek opened a few moments later, a confused look on his face, Stiles further added to his confusion by flinging himself forward.  His rough plan had been to hug him -- it had been so long since he’d had physical contact -- but apparently his body didn’t quite get that memo and instead he kissed him, full on the lips.

“Mmrph?” Derek said into his mouth, which -- okay, that made it even better.  Derek seemed to think so, too, as the kiss lasted way longer than an impulsive greeting-kiss between friends ought to. Probably included more tongue, too, but who was Stiles to say that wasn’t normal.

When they broke apart, panting, and Derek looking almost preciously confused, Stiles said, “Hey, now we have to quarantine together. Neat.”

“What?” Derek blinked at him a few times.

Stiles pushed his way into Derek’s loft, glorying in how different it was from his own room, and said, “I’m just gonna hang out here until the plague’s up.”

He headed over to the sink, washing his hands like a responsible houseguest as he explained the situation. “And they were doing that right there, in front of my Twizzlers!” he concluded.  

Derek just said, “Everyone’s a little frustrated right now…” like he thought that the Sheriff had every right to have sexy video meetings right there in the living room.

“Of course we are!” Stiles exclaimed, inadvertently flinging soap across the room. He finished rinsing his hands as he said, “but we keep that shit to our bedrooms and the shower, right?”

There was a faint flush to Derek’s unfairly beautiful cheekbones, and -- oh, okay, so maybe Derek didn’t. Stiles cast his eyes around the room and felt a montage of Derek having Special Derek Time in various spots around the loft flash before his eyes. Probably now Derek wasn’t the only one blushing.

“Well,” Stiles said. “I mean.” He looked around again. “As your houseguest, I grant you full permission to do… whatever you like… in the living room.”

“Gracious of you,” Derek muttered. Then he looked back at the door. “Wait, houseguest? You don’t even have bags.”

Stiles didn’t. Stiles decided to brazen it out. “Where we’re going, I won’t need bags. Or clothes. Hopefully?”

Derek blinked at him again, and Stiles decided that meant to go for it, so he kissed him again, this time with intent.

“Yeah, okay, it is unprecedented times,” Derek mumbled into his mouth. “Clothes are very much optional.”

Stiles didn’t need to be told twice.

[man-me--a-sand]

Carving Myself a Space

Rating: Teen and up

Characters: in this chapter, only Janus, Patton, and Roman (Logan and Remy are mentioned)

Words:1249

TW: ptsd of a sort? flashback to a fire

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26079001/chapters/63430678

Summary:  Janus was perfectly content to keep where they were. Yes, it wasn’t a great place, but if they were placed with somebody, too much attention would go to them, to much pressure saying be a girl. Of course, the universe never gives you what you want, but it does give you what you need, sometimes.

Notes: I’ve been planning this for a bit but posting it was an impulsive decision, there is still enough written for a decent posting schedule

Janus shoved through the door, glaring at the floor.

“Greetings! So this is Lydia?” Janus winced at the name, and glanced up to see a freckled face grinning at them. “I’m Roman Sanders.”

Janus glanced up at the man. “And?”

The smile started to slip. “I thought you would want to know my name? You are living with me and my husband.”

“Yeah, for like two weeks.” They scoffed. “I can promise you’ll be done with me soon. I give you about two weeks.”

“That won't happen,” Roman chuckled. “We’ve dealt with a lot of tough stuff, I’m sure we can handle anything you throw at us, but anyways, come upstairs! I can show you the house, you can get unpacked, get used to the house, you can go anywhere you want! Dinner’s not for about a half hour, but my husband will want to meet you when he gets home around then.!”

Janus rolled their eyes as they headed up the stairs after Roman.

“I’ll show you around, starting with up here.” He gestured at a closed door. “Right there is what’ll be your room, and there's a bathroom on the right that should be exclusively you. Mine and Pattons room is right over there, with another bathroom.

The man and teen went back downstairs, where Roman led them into the kitchen. “You can take any food whenever, just stay out of that cupboard.” He pointed to above the stove. “The living rooms right here, and we have a ton of video games to choose from. Basement isn't that interesting, just another tv and old boxes and stuff. Lots of old posters and things like that.”

Janus shrugged. “Sounds pretty cool.”

“Alright, I’ll help you unpack then?”

There was no protest, so Roman followed as they went back upstairs. The blonde man sat on the bed, picking at his nails. “I just wanted to chat, if there's anything that's not in your file.”

“Ok?”

“Alright then, what pronouns do you use?”

Janus settled, a bit more at ease, but they didn't blink.“They/them.”

Roman settled comfortably. “Alright. I would say I’m sorry about what happened to your parents, but judging by what I read, it’s not really wanted, at least for your dad?.”

“Yeah,” Janus shifted. “My dad was a piece of shit, and my mom didn't know how to handle things and take care of me.” They said bitterly.

“Oh, also, is there any other name you’d like us to use?”

“There's no other name. There's just my name.”

“And what name is that?” Roman said softly.

“Janus.”

“Alright. We can call you Janus. Also, do you have any allergies, or triggers?” Janus didn’t respond, so Roman rushed on talking. “Triggers are-”

“I know what triggers are.” Their tone didn't change, but something told Roman that he wouldn't get any more answers.

Roman shuffled out, pushing back more questions that bubbled up in his throat.

Janus stared up at the ceiling, completely zoned out. They ran their fingers through their choppy hazel hair, trying to keep the years-old memory from resurfacing.

Scorched skin.

They traced the burn mark that decorated the left side of their face.

Their mom on the floor, a shroud of smoke surrounding her.

A finger traced the cut that went just past the corner of their mouth, stopping at the edge of their neck.

Stuckstuckstuckstuck- no.

There wasn't time for this. Janus shoved the memories back, They had to protect themself. Sure, these new people seemed a bit better. They had asked for pronouns, asked about triggers. Soon enough they would get sick of the sad kid with the burn scars, sending them off to the next family.

“Did she get here, Ro?” A bubbly voice pierced through the thoughts.

Janus peered over the railing, seeing a dark skinned man with short, tight curls talking to Roman. His husband, probably.

“Yeah, they’re upstairs.”

As the shorter man went to go upstairs, Roman grabbed him by the arm. “Hold up, Pat. Their name is actually Janus, and they just told me they use they/them, and they seem pretty against this whole fostering stuff.”

Pat grinned. “Well, I’m sure I can get them more comfortable here!” He dashed up the stairs, and Janus jumped back to the room their stuff was in.

They were staring back up at the ceiling when Pat walked in.

“Hey, you’re Janus, right? I’m Patton, Roman’s husband. Sorry I wasn't here to meet you. So, what do you like to do, kiddo?” He cocked his head to the side, curiously awaiting an answer.

“I draw?” They muttered, gesturing at the sketchbook on the nightstand.

“Oh, cool! Can I see?”

Janus raised an eyebrow. They pulled out a loose, crumpled page and tossed it on the bed.

Patton smoothed it out and shock crossed his face. “Kiddo, you’re fantastic! Who taught you?”

“Nobody.”

“I don't believe that! This is fantastic, such a pretty art style! Have you posted it anywhere?”

“No.”

“Have you ever thought about it?” Patton pushed, trying to get an answer from the fifteen year old. He flipped through the pages, looking at a medley of different art. “Is this one you?”

Janus tightened up, seeing which drawing he was looking at. “Uh, yeah.”

“Cool. Well, we should probably go down for dinner.”

“So, did you want to switch schools, or take the longer trip to your old school? It would probably be easier to switch, but we’re willing to drive you. I do teach at the school here, so you might want to go to your old school still, it could be a little awkward.” Roman asked as they all sat down.

Janus shuddered, imagining the long drive alone with one of them. When it was their parents, or even some of those families they’d stayed with, car rides longer than ten minutes would be pure torture. No reason to think that would change. “No, I’ll just switch. Not like you’re my dad or anything.” They poked around the food on their plate,

Romans shoulders slumped, but he consoled himself quickly. It had only been a few hours, he couldn't expect Janus to think like that. They would come around , could be part of the little family.

Patton grinned. “We can introduce you to Logan, and Remy, they’ll be willing to show you around!”

“Cool.”

“We do need rules still, Pat.” Roman said goodnaturedly.”We’re pretty lax on that, though, Basically, text us where you head after school, don't get arrested, and either be home in time for dinner, or ask if you plan to go have dinner with friends or stuff like that.”

Janus winced. “I don’t actually have a phone.”

“Oh, we’ll have to fix that. After dinner we can find my old phone to use as a placeholder till we can get you a newer model, and that way we can put the old sim card to use!” Patton exclaimed.

After dinner, and a decent bit of confusion on clearing the phone of photos and things, Janus was handed a blank phone.

“You should set some of your art as a background! That would look pretty cool.”

The teen retreated, playing around with the phone. On the app store, they noticed a free drawing app, and pulling out a touchscreen pen, started to colour some of their pencil art, which they had never done before. Good markers and pens were too expensive for them, so they had always stuck to pencil art.

Taglist (Of 2 people but still):

@panromanticpancake

@shamelesslypoetic

[deniigi]

Hey, Matt! Do you have any tips on writing Matt Murdock? I'm failing expediently at it and your characterisations of him are, like, the actual best.

Hi friend!

Oh, I’m sure that you’re doing fine.

I’m not quite sure how to answer this ask because everyone’s going to have a different characterization of a character in their heads and writing is way that we kind of work those out into the open.

So the real answer here is: you tell me who you think Matt Murdock is and then guide me through that character by presenting me with scenarios that show me that version of him and how he became that way.

But!

Since that’s a bit metaphysical and might just confuse you more than help you at the moment, I’ve talked a little bit about how I figure out my characterizations for different Matts here.

I guess if I had some general tips about writing Matt Murdock, it would be these:

Never forget that Matt is blind. That doesn’t need to be emphasized or anything, but the way he responds to things and moves through space in your piece will be inherently different from the way a sighted person (including yourself if you are sighted) does those things. So you have to think harder and do a little research before you write certain scenarios sometimes.

What that looks like in the text is occasional references to him using his stick or asking for clarification or using alternate means of media (if you look through Inimitable, for example, you’ll find places where, instead of text messages, I have Matt submit voice messages to the chat, and that’s just because Voice to Text isn’t always great for sending longer texts, so it’s easier for him to use the voice message function on apps that have it, like Whats App. These kinds of things are small but go a long way to helping you feel out Matt’s perspective. You’ll start to think about things which might be frustrating for him and things which might be interesting, etc.)

Matt is a whole lot of adjectives and trauma, but above all of that, he is generally pretty guarded and secretive at the outset. He’s not the kind of guy to just have an emotional conversation with people he doesn’t know well, even if he’s willing to help them, and so he typically needs a warming up period with people before he decides that he’s willing to throw down for them. (It weirds me out when people just have Matt divulge a whole lot of personal information about himself in fics without there being some kind of tension/struggle/catalyst leading up to that)

Last tip: Matt is fun. 

Yeah, actually, he is. He’s fun and he’s funny and he’s frequently silly and very creative. So have fun with him. The doom and gloom and trauma that he’s lived through in both the Netflix series and the comics often overtake peoples’ understandings of Daredevil and that’s totally fine if that’s what you’re into, but personally, from what I’ve read/watched/seen, Matt is silly, petty, and charming and he knows he is and he revels in it. So if you like that part of him, lean into it. Just keep in mind that he’s got a shitty sense of humor (as in, he thinks pretending to be his own twin brother is both clever and inspiring) and he often makes jokes to people about himself that he knows damn well they won’t get.

Anyways, these are just my approaches. They don’t have to be yours (except for the blind note. The blind note is non-negotiable.)

I hope this or something in the other post helps, anon! But above all else, don’t worry about it so much! Write for yourself and do what feels right to you based on your observations of the character and you’ll be good to go!

[callboxkat]

Second Chances part 5: Roman’s Story (2 of 2)

Author’s note: Hello! Welcome to the installment of Second Chances that got so long I had to cut it in half! This is Roman’s story. 

I encourage you guys to read the warnings. If you can’t read this story for whatever reason, don’t feel bad! The rest of the au will still make sense. It’s most important that you guys take care of yourselves.

One thing to remember as you read is that this is Roman’s view of the events that happened. This is how he remembers things, and how he perceived them at the time. As such, there may be some small details that aren’t quite accurate to reality, whether he’s purposefully altered them or not.

Warnings (for part 2): homelessness, insecurity, emotional manipulation/pressure, bad relationships, lying, arguments, breakup, false major accusations (some are not specified, the other is academic dishonesty), gossip, peer pressure, implied homophobia, avoiding your problems, rejection, Remus is talked about but doesn’t actually appear

Word Count: 6172

Second Chances Masterpost!

...

It started almost slowly.

One day, Roman came to school, and felt like everybody was staring at him. To be fair, Roman often felt this way—he was a fashion icon, after all, with talent to boot, why wouldn’t they stare?—but today, that attention didn’t exactly seem positive.

He thought at first that, maybe, he was simply imagining things. That he was paranoid after his breakup. But it soon became clear that he was not in fact imagining the stares, the whispers that would suddenly cut off when he entered a room or looked in their direction.

He tried to figure out what could be going on. Had they found out about his breakup? About him being gay to begin with? Neither of those seemed like likely causes. He couldn’t see why people would suddenly care about the end of someone else’s relationship (one that hadn’t exactly been public knowledge to begin with), and it wasn’t exactly a secret that Roman was gay. He was pretty open about it.

Maybe it had something to do with the play coming up? Although Roman wasn’t sure why that would garner negative attention.

He decided to just wait and see if things went back to normal the next day.

…

Roman tapped his pen against his desk, agitated. People kept casting him looks. Whispers carried up to him from the back of the room. He caught his name a couple of times, and even, he thought, Jay’s.

Jay wasn’t in school that day, Roman noticed. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure that he hadn’t seen him the day before, either.

His teacher had already stopped class twice to announce that they needed to pay better attention to the lesson, but most people didn’t seem to care.

Roman didn’t go to his next class. He hid in one of the stairwells. It wasn’t where he usually went to skip class, which wasn’t common to begin with, and it certainly wasn’t the best place to avoid being spotted. Regardless, he was starting to think that he’d made it through the whole class, when, ten minutes before the bell, there were footsteps at the top of the staircase. Roman, sitting at the landing where they switched direction, froze and looked up.

A girl stood there, maybe a year behind him, clutching a hall pass in one hand. She, too, had frozen at the sight of him.

“Um,” she said. “Sorry.” She made to leave, probably to use another stairwell, but Roman stood up.

“Wait,” he cried, sounding desperate. He didn’t know why he said that. He’d never spoken to this girl in his life. He’d seen her a few times, but he didn’t even know her name.

She hesitated, then slowly turned back around.

“Do you….” Roman sighed. “Do you know what’s going on? Why’s everyone been so weird the last couple of days?”

She frowned, looking back at him. She looked at him for a few seconds, then seemed to take pity on him. She clutched her hall pass more tightly, like it was a lifeline, and made her way down to where he stood. She got out her cell phone, and took a few seconds to navigate to something on it before shoving it towards him. It was a group chat. From the look of it, it must have included half the school. That couldn’t be good, especially since Roman wasn’t included.

He distantly noticed that the girl’s contact name was Brittney.

“Is… is it true?” the girl—Brittney—asked hesitantly.

Roman frowned. “I genuinely have no idea what you mean,” he admitted. He scrolled to the beginning of the chat, past all the replies. There, at the top…

…was a message from Jay.

…

Roman stared at the message, which took up the whole screen and then some. His hands were shaking, and he had to put both on the phone to keep from dropping it as he tried to read the solid block of text. The girl who’d lent the phone to him shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable.

Roman swallowed. He felt somehow as if he were being simultaneously baked alive and submerged in icy water. He willed himself to scroll down past the first message, and then he saw the photos.

Fake photos, of course, or photos that had been taken completely out of context. Roman, for the first time, wished that Jay wasn’t so talented at storytelling and photo editing. Most of the photos didn’t directly confirm anything that Jay had said about Roman, but they certainly supported the idea that he wasn’t who he claimed to be.

Brittney cleared her throat, and Roman jumped. He realized he’d been staring at the phone in silence for a long time. The screen had gone dark without him realizing.

“Oh… um, here,” he said, his voice a croak. He handed back the phone.

“Thanks,” she said. She awkwardly pocketed it, then studied him for a second. “I, um… I need to go.” She held up the hall pass as an explanation.

“It’s not true,” Roman said. He was suddenly very aware of what the rest of the school must have thought about him, and he was very aware of the fact that he hadn’t yet tried to change anyone’s mind. “None of that is true. I—I mean, we were dating, and we broke up, but… none of what he’s saying is true. None of it. I swear.”

Brittney took a half step back at his earnest tone, her eyes widening slightly. Roman deflated, taking a couple of steps back too. He didn’t mean to corner this girl in a stairwell.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Just—just go.”

She started down the stairs again, then glanced back. She chewed her lip for a moment, seeming to debate saying something, then clearly changed her mind. She took the rest of the stairs quickly, and she disappeared from view.

Roman put his back against the brick wall and slid down to the floor.

…

By this time of the story, tears were silently rolling down Roman’s face. He kept his gaze fixed determinedly on the puzzle that he and Patton had put together, still laid out proudly on the coffee table. Logan and Patton were both silent, neither moving. They didn’t seem to know what to do.

Neither did Roman, except to keep talking.

…

Roman didn’t know what to do.

He tried to talk to his friends, but none of them would let him get close. He tried texting them, tried explaining that it was all a lie, that Jay was the one in the wrong, but no one responded. Half of them didn’t even read the messages.

He went home that day feeling utterly crushed.

His parents knew something was wrong, of course, but they probably thought Roman was still merely upset about his breakup, and they didn’t push the subject.

Roman couldn’t tell them what had happened. What Jay had said about him. He could only hope that no one else would tell them. Roman was always on his best behavior, unwilling to let anyone, let alone his parents, think that he might be anything other than the chivalrous Prince he presented himself as.

It was a touchy subject, and for good reason.

Something that most people didn’t know about Roman was that he was not an only child. In fact, he was a twin. But Roman didn’t exactly see his brother very often. He… wasn’t like Roman. Or, he was, but he was like Roman’s reflection if he stood in front of the world’s most disturbing fun house mirror. He'd sent Roman to the doctor more than once when they were "playing" as kids. He had been in and out of juvie since they were twelve. It seemed only a matter of time before he ended up in jail, especially since their eighteenth birthday was coming up in only a few months. Roman knew his brother would never change.

The last thing Roman wanted was for his parents to think he was following in his brother’s footsteps. And he knew, he just knew, that if they found out about what had happened and what Jay had said about him, they would probably believe it. Roman and his brother—who no one in his family talked about unless they absolutely had to—were identical. It would have been easier had they been fraternal twins, but they were not. Roman knew that somewhere inside of him, there had always been the potential for him to be just like his brother. And his parents surely knew it too.

…

On Wednesday, Jay was back in school. He was constantly surrounded by a crowd. He suddenly had more friends than he ever had before. And Roman was alone for the first time in his life.

He was so, so alone.

He tried going to theater practice that night. He didn’t know why he thought it would be any different, but he hoped so. Maybe he thought that the other students would care too much about the upcoming performances to treat him any differently. But it wasn’t so.

He kept getting dirty looks from Jay’s crowd, and practically everyone avoided him. If anything, Roman realized, it was worse being among the theater students than among the school as a whole. It seemed to Roman that in the school at large, about half knew of Jay’s messages in the massive group chat, but almost every single person in the theater department did.

…

“I didn’t,” Logan interrupted, very softly.

…

By the time they actually got to running through some of the scenes, Roman was feeling very bitterly, jittery, and not-very-glittery. He kept forgetting his lines, and each time he messed up, the other actor he was working with would roll their eyes. The usual good-hearted laughter and encouragement of the rest of the group was gone.

After a while, Logan, of course, came up to him. Just what Roman needed.

“What do you want, Book Germ?”

Logan sighed and started explaining Roman’s lines in that overly level voice of his. Roman didn’t know or care if it was intentional, but his tone felt very patronizing, and the strong smell of hand sanitizer that followed Logan like a cloud wasn’t helping Roman’s mood. He could feel his face growing red the longer Logan spoke. He knew his lines! He’d been practicing them for months!

“If you think you can do it better, maybe you should, you obnoxious nerd,” Roman snapped.

Logan cocked his head to one side, pinching his lips together. “That is the purpose of an understudy, not a dramaturge. I am not an actor.”

“Then stop telling me how to act!”

“I am merely attempting to explain your lines to you, since it is clear you are incapable of memorizing them unaided. The opening show is in less than—”

“I know when the show is!”

Logan licked his lips. He adjusted his tie, which was so straight that Roman wondered if he ironed it between classes. “Then I suggest you act like it,” he said.

“What do you want from me?” Roman asked, glaring at him. “Do you want me to quit? Heck, maybe we should let the understudy do it! Is that what you want?”

A few students around the room, who had naturally congregated to watch the argument, were nodding. Several whispered to each other. If it were even possible, Roman’s face turned redder.

“Excuse me,” a voice said before Logan could come up with a response. It was one of the faculty members of the theater department, the director of the play they were meant to be practicing. His arms were crossed. “Would it be alright with the two of you if we continued the rehearsal? I’d hate to interrupt your argument.”

Logan hesitated for a second, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not the teacher was being sarcastic. Roman rolled his eyes.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Roman said coldly, looking around at everyone, not just the teacher or Logan. He started off the stage, already removing pieces of his costume. A hat was cast to the wooden floor, then each glove. He made it back to the dressing room before his composure broke, and the tears started to fall. No one came to retrieve him.

It wasn’t unlike Roman to make a dramatic exit. He had a few times before, during arguments with his nemesis. But this one felt much more final.

…

Roman said nothing to his parents about what had happened. Not about how Jay had treated him, not about the lies his ex had told, not about the play. It was partially out of fear of Roman’s parents believing Jay’s lies, and partially out of sheer embarrassment about them knowing of the situation. He felt like he had failed. So, he pretended, to them, that everything was fine. He knew that they probably could have helped, that they could have talked to his teachers and gotten everything straightened out, but Roman decided that it would be better to try to deal with it himself, or if worse came to worst, to simply ride it out until graduation. He could deal with his newly found status as an outcast until he left for school. He still had another month of high school and the entire summer until that finally happened, but it seemed preferable to Roman to wait it out than to have to ask for help. He didn’t want to be known as the person who had to run to his parents because some kids at school were being mean. A Prince should fight his own battles, Roman told himself. 

(He would grow to regret this decision later, unfortunately; but at the time, it seemed reasonable.)

His parents, of course, weren’t completely clueless; but Roman did his best to keep them in the dark. If they asked why he wasn’t eating as much lately, he claimed that it was nervous excitement about the play, about going to Saint Gabriel, about anything other than the real cause. If they asked why he didn’t hang out with friends from school much anymore, he claimed that it was because he was busy studying and practicing for the play.

Of course, Roman had dropped out of the play. It was clear that no one wanted him there, so he stopped showing up to practices. The only one who had contacted him about it was one of the theater department faculty members, who simply asked if he was planning to return or if they should plan to put the understudy on stage that weekend. He didn’t sound surprised when Roman refused. While he was perfectly polite during the exchange, Roman got the feeling that some of the other students had talked to the teacher and told him some details of Roman’s supposed… negative character traits.

…

“Wait,” Logan interrupted, sounding confused.

Roman glanced up at him, lifting his gaze from the puzzle on the coffee table for the first time in a while.

“Pardon me if this seems inconsiderate to ask—”

“Logan,” Patton said softly, as if this were something he’d had to tell his boyfriend several times in the past, “if you have to say something like that, that’s usually a clue that you shouldn’t say whatever you were going to say next.”

“No, it’s fine,” Roman sighed, glancing at Patton in appreciation. He blinked a few times and sat up straighter. “Go for it.”

Logan coughed, glancing at Patton with a slightly more self-conscious expression. “I was going to ask what any of this had to do with you becoming homeless,” he said. “Based on your story so far, it seems to me that this situation was all simple high school drama that should have passed as soon as we graduated. If you had actually gone to your parents or the school for aid, many of these issues could have been mitigated; but regardless, they should not have followed you for so long. I do not intend to belittle the pain you felt; but I simply do not understand how it could possibly have led to your later predicament.”

Roman swallowed. He could feel some resentment at Logan’s seeming dismissal of his problems starting to bubble up, and he did his best to push it back down. Logan probably didn’t mean to be rude. And Roman really was in no place to be upset with the man. He reminded himself that Logan had been pretty much a loner for as long as Roman had known him. He’d never known what it was like to be popular, let alone what it felt like to have that ripped away from him. And he figured he couldn’t relate to being with someone like Jay, either, or to how upset Roman had been at losing him. Logan was with Patton. The embodiment of sunshine. As far as Roman knew, Logan had never been with anyone else.

“Sorry, Ro,” Patton put in. “He’s just trying to understand is all.”

“No—I know,” Roman assured him. “I’m not mad.”

Patton released a breath, seeming relieved.

Logan glanced between them. “I’ve been told I sometimes lack tact,” he said slowly.

Roman just rubbed at his eyes. “You’re good, I guess,” he said. “This stuff is important, though, I swear.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to give us a condensed version?” Patton asked gently. His tone made it clear that he wasn’t asking for Roman to do so because he was bored or anything. He was asking simply out of consideration for Roman.

Roman shrugged helplessly. He… well, he sort of felt like he couldn’t do that. He hadn’t actually told anyone all of this before. He was still leaving out quite a few details, but he felt like he needed to tell as much of it as he could.

It was freeing, in a weird, simultaneously mortifying sort of way.

Patton looked like he wanted to say something else, but Roman cleared his throat, and they both let him continue his story.

…

The play’s performance came and went. Roman did not show up. They didn’t want him there, he knew. While a part of him wanted to show up to spite everyone, to prove that they—and especially Jay—hadn’t gotten to him, he also just wanted to curl up in bed with some cinnamon hot chocolate and his laptop and watch old episodes of Glee.

(He couldn’t do that, either, though, since his parents thought he was performing; and he couldn’t very well have them find him in his room during the show without having to answer some awkward questions).

His parents would usually have attended the show, but Roman told them that the tickets had sold out. They had wanted to call the school and complain about it, but Roman convinced them not to. He was glad that that worked. That would have been an awkward phone call, and very hard to explain.

After Roman missed the play’s performance, things only got worse at school. The other students of the drama department, of course, only avoided him more. Roman saw Logan on Monday morning by his locker, and the dramaturge had looked him over once before scoffing and turning away. No doubt he was angry that Roman hadn’t shown, even if he probably thought the production had been better off without him. Maybe he was just annoyed that all the time he’d put into berating Roman’s performance had gone to waste.

Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. Logan hating him was nothing new. It didn’t sting the way losing his friends stung, or ache the way not getting to be in his last high school play made him ache. Not at all.

Honestly, Roman’s biggest regret about dropping out of the play was the sheer amount of satisfaction he was sure that Jay got out of it.

He got what he wanted, Roman thought. He had ruined his social life, taken away his friends, spoiled everyone’s impression of him, and pressured him into giving up the starring role in the last play of his high school career. Maybe, Roman hoped, Jay was satisfied.

…

The end of the school year was coming up fast.

Roman was getting ready for college, finishing final papers, studying for exams, and generally preparing to no longer be a high school student. He was quite eager to leave this building and never set foot inside again.

Classes had just finished for the day, and Roman was on his way to talk to his chemistry teacher about one of his assignments. The science department was on the opposite end of the school from his last class, so he had to walk past many of the other classrooms on the way.

One of those classrooms happened to be his English classroom. Roman heard voices coming from inside. He ignored them at first—it wasn’t exactly uncommon to hear voices in a classroom, obviously—but when he recognized who was talking to the teacher, he froze in his tracks.

It was Jay.

Roman slowly stepped back a few paces until he was in front of the doorway. Inside, Jay stood in front of the teacher’s desk, his head bowed as if embarrassed. The teacher, Ms. Dawerst, looked absolutely furious.

Roman had a bad feeling. Jay was toying with a ring around his right middle finger, something he did when he was lying. Roman inched closer, trying to hear what exactly was being said.

“I meant to tell you sooner, Ms. Dawerst, but… I guess I was just nervous. Roman is… well, you know Roman. He’s—”

“He’s what?” Roman demanded suddenly, announcing his presence. Suddenly, he’d had enough. “Standing right here? Tired of you lying to everyone because you can’t take—”

“Mr. Prince,” the teacher said, a warning in her voice.

“He’s lying,” Roman insisted.

“And how exactly would you know that if you don’t even know what he’s saying?” She arched an eyebrow, folding her arms carefully as if she’d caught him in her spider web.

“Because—because that’s all he’s been doing! He’s been trying to sabotage me for months!”

“Why would he do that?” she asked, seeming exasperated.

“Because I broke up with him!” Roman snapped, seething. “Because he can’t take that he’s alone and I don’t want anything to do with him anymore!”

“Mr. Prince, I couldn’t care less about your lovers’ squabble,” she said. “This is a matter of academic dishonesty.”

Roman paused. Academic dishonesty? What did that even mean? He glanced at Jay, who looked like he was trying to become one with the wall, refusing to even look at his former boyfriend out of fear. All an act, obviously, but Roman had to admit that it was a convincing one. It certainly didn’t help that their English teacher had never been fond of Roman, and had especially disliked him since he’d started missing her classes more often.

“Jared here—”

“Jay,” Jay corrected in a whisper.

“Jay here has claimed that, while you were dating,”—she said the word as if it left a sour taste in her mouth, which only made Roman angrier—“you forced him to write large portions of your essays for this class, and he claims to find it very likely that you plagiarized other sections as well. Do you deny this?”

“I—what?!” Roman’s voice was shrill. “Of course I deny it! I didn’t make him write anything! And I wouldn’t plagiarize!”

“That is no way to speak to your teacher,” Ms. Dawerst said. “Can you prove that you didn’t cheat?”

“What? Of course—” Roman broke off. How exactly could he prove that he hadn’t cheated? It was just Jay’s word against his own. “I swear to you, I would never cheat. Not on an essay or anything else. I promise you, there is no evidence that I cheated. You won’t find any. Because it doesn’t exist! I did not cheat!”

The teacher looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. “Very well, Roman. I will be looking over both your and Jay’s papers for the term again, and I will be looking closely for signs of plagiarism. If I find evidence that either of you cheated, you will be receiving a failing grade in this class. If I don’t, then the three of us can forget that this conversation ever happened.”

Roman nodded, supposing that this was the best he could hope for. “Thank you, Ms. Dawerst,” he said quietly. He left the room and stood in the hall, staring up at the ceiling. Jay slunk out a few seconds later. Roman looked at him hard. Jay had just tried to make him fail his English class! Roman couldn’t believe it. He could only be glad that Jay had apparently failed.

Except… Jay sure didn’t seem all that disappointed. He grinned at Roman as he sauntered past. Roman suddenly felt his blood run cold. A horrible feeling of dread fell over him.

“What did you do?” he asked softly.

“Me? Nothing,” Jay promised lightly. And he left.

…

Roman failed English.

Not one but two of his papers contained lines that appeared to be directly lifted from other academic papers. They were lines that Roman didn’t remember writing. He couldn’t think of any explanation for them being there, not unless Jay had put his plan into action well before they had broken up and sneaked in the lines during one of their study sessions. One of the papers had been turned in just after Roman first applied to Saint Gabriel. Had Jay really been planning for that long to destroy Roman’s life? Was it some sort of twisted backup plan, to try to keep Roman from leaving their hometown?

The school asked to speak to Roman’s parents about his apparent plagiarism, of course, and it wasn’t as if he could keep them from finding out about this. Roman wasn’t asked to attend the meeting, so he got to spend the evening pacing up and down the length of his house, too stressed to sit down.

The fallout did have one bright side: he still got to graduate. The high school wouldn’t expel him, which had been a very real fear of Roman’s, or force him to stay another semester to repeat the class, since he had technically fulfilled his graduation requirements even without the class. Roman could only be grateful to his mamá, who had found a section of the course catalog that stated that the screenwriting class he took junior year could be used as English credit.

Somehow, his parents even convinced the school to keep the incident off of his academic record, since it was the first time he’d ever been “caught” doing anything of the sort. He was a good kid who’d just been stressed in his last semester, they claimed. He didn’t have a history of disciplinary issues. Roman had never been suspended before, and he’d only received a handful of detentions in the four years he’d attended.

From what Roman gathered, Jay’s name had never come up in the meeting. Apparently, Ms. Dawerst had made it sound like she, the dutiful and ever-observant English teacher, had noticed some inconsistencies in Roman’s writing, and had taken it upon herself to recheck Roman’s papers, ultimately finding the plagiarized lines. Roman wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for or resentful of this. On one hand, he didn’t have to address the whole Jay situation with his parents. On the other hand, because he still didn’t want to admit to them what had happened, he didn’t have much evidence to work with as far as making them believe he hadn’t committed plagiarism went.

Because, of course, his parents hadn’t believed that Roman didn’t put those lines in his paper. And when they asked where else they could have come from, Roman didn’t have a good answer.

“I am very disappointed in you, mijo,” his mamá said that first night, when they got home from the meeting.  She looked very sad.

Roman, who had finally stopped his pacing when he heard his parents’ car pull up to the house, stood on the opposite side of the kitchen table and stared morosely down at the floor. “I didn’t cheat,” he said softly, feeling as if he’d already said the words so many times that they had lost all meaning.

“We want to believe you, Roman,” his dad sighed. “But you can’t expect us to believe that the lines showed up in your papers all by themselves.”

“I’m not saying they did,” Roman said, “but it wasn’t me, I swear—”

“Roman, I do not like liars,” his mamá said, sounding very tired. “Please, do not lie to me.”

“Te lo juro, mamá,” Roman practically sobbed. “¡Te lo juro, I didn’t cheat!”

His mamá set down her purse and came nearer. “Roman… you know if you were having trouble in school, you could have come to us, no? We could have gotten you a tutor. You didn’t have to do this.”

They didn’t believe him. Of course, they didn’t believe him. Why would they? Even Roman had to admit that his defense was pretty pathetic. And besides, even if Roman had always tried his best to be a good son, a good person, his twin brother was… very much not. Maybe, to his parents, this whole thing only confirmed what they had suspected all along.

Standing there in the kitchen in the lengthening silence, Roman considered telling his parents about Jay. He really did consider it, as much as he very much didn’t want to open that can of worms. But… he didn’t feel ready to go into all that. And the last thing he wanted was to potentially give his parents more reason to think he was an awful son. What if they believed Jay’s version of events?

He couldn’t do it.

His mamá stared at him, disappointed. His dad looked away, his jaw set, his posture stiff.

Roman turned and fled upstairs.

...

Two days after graduation, Roman got a letter in the mail.

He stood outside in front of the mailbox, looking down at the logo on the envelope. It was the very familiar symbol of the Saint Gabriel Academy of Fine Arts.

Every time Roman remembered that he was going to that school in the fall, he felt a bit better about everything that had happened. Sure, he had lost his boyfriend, his friends, his starring role in the high school theater department, the trust of his parents and teachers, any joy that might have come from graduating high school, and even his new car (his parents had taken that away with lightning speed); but at least he still had Saint Gabriel. He still had a promising future.

As Roman grabbed the stack of letters and turned to head back to the house, he wondered what this letter could be about. Saint Gabriel had sent a few in the past. Maybe it was another pamphlet about their most promising courses, or a map of the campus, or an invitation to visit. Roman would have appreciated becoming more familiar with the college he was set to attend. Or maybe it was simply a congratulations on his high school graduation.

Roman opened the door to the house and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He set most of the mail on the kitchen table where his mamá would find it, then took the cream-colored envelope for himself. He tore it open with gusto and a lack of precision that would have given his former theater department nemesis an aneurysm, and he took out the letter within.

“Mr. Roman Prince,

We are regretful to inform you that upon further reconsideration of your application and of all relevant documents, we have decided to retract our previous offer of admission. Any tuition that has already been paid will be promptly returned to—"

The letter fell from Roman’s hands.

…

Roman barely left his room for a week after he got the news. He didn’t know what to do.

He knew that Jay was behind his preemptive expulsion from Saint Gabriel, whether it was because of the plagiarism, or because of the other lies that he had already told, or because of some other thing that he had done and Roman didn’t even know about yet. Roman wasn’t sure exactly what had moved the college’s hand. But he knew that the decision was final. He would never convince Saint Gabriel to take him now.

He should tell his parents. They’d find out eventually, he knew. Roman was trying to figure out how to break it to them, but it was hard when he really didn’t want to tell them at all. He wanted to live in denial for as long as possible. He wanted his family to be proud of him again. He didn’t want to see the disappointment in their eyes as he told them that his picture perfect future was truly ruined.

Roman shoved his face into his pillow and screamed.

Soon after, there was a quiet knock at his bedroom door. Roman pushed himself up on his elbows and looked over his shoulder.

“Roman?” a familiar voice called. His mamá, of course. “Do you want some hot chocolate?”

Roman sniffed, looking back down at his pillow. “Not today, Mamá,” he called back.

“With cinnamon,” she tempted.

“No.”

“Okay,” she sighed, sounding disappointed. “Let me know if you change your mind. Te quiero.”

Her footsteps retreated back down the hall.

…

Roman could admit that he did not always make the best life choices. He didn’t always think them through as much as he should have. He’d made a lot of mistakes. But there was one life choice that must have been the worst he’d ever made.

That choice was the decision to pretend to go off to college.

Roman’s bags were all packed, money tucked into his wallet to purchase textbooks that Roman would never need. With his car still confiscated, Roman’s dad was driving him to a bus station. From there, he could catch a bus and go the rest of the way to Saint Gabriel. Of course, Roman planned to get off the bus a bit early.

Before he left, Roman gave his mamá a long, tight hug. She hugged him back just as firmly.

“I’ll miss you, little prince,” she said, tears in her eyes. “Have a good time at school. Te quiero muchísimo.”

“Te quiero,” Roman murmured back. He didn’t know what he was going to do after today. Where his life was going to go. But he was hopeful. He’d get an apartment, a job, maybe find a school that would accept him… he’d be away from Jay and from all his problems. And when was ready, he’d return, and he’d make his parents proud.

He’d get a fresh start. A second chance at the amazing life he wanted.

At the bus station, once Roman had his ticket and knew where to go, Roman and his dad said their goodbyes. Their hug didn’t last as long as the one between Roman and his mamá, nor was it as tight, but it was warm all the same.

“Make sure you keep your head on straight,” his dad said seriously as they broke apart. “No funny business. I know you can do well, Roman. I believe in you.”

“Thanks,” Roman said quietly. The word tasted like sawdust.

“Good luck.”

“Bye,” Roman said. He watched until his dad disappeared. Then he grabbed the handle of his rolling suitcase and made his way to the bus.

…

“As you can probably guess,” the present-day Roman sighed, “my amazing ‘fresh start’ didn’t turn out so great. I got my apartment, all right, but I ran out of money after a couple of months… didn’t manage to get a job before I was kicked out. Made some more bad choices. And, well… here we are. That’s it, I guess. That’s… why I was homeless.”

There was a long silence. Finally, Patton sat up straight.

“Roman, I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest with me.”

“Um… okay?”

“Do your parents know where you are?”

Of course he would ask about that. Roman should have known.

“Roman?”

“…No,” Roman admitted. “No. I haven’t talked to them since I left.”

“Can we call them? Do you know their phone number?”

Roman shook his head.

“Well, that’s okay. We can find them online, or in the phone book…. Would that be alright with you?”

Roman stared. He hadn’t spoken to his family in years. Would they even want to hear from him? Wouldn’t they be angry that he had left without saying anything, that he had lied about going to college? What if they told him he should have stayed away?

But they were his family. And Roman had to admit that he missed them.

“Yeah,” Roman blurted, before he could change his mind. “Yeah. That would be alright.”

[looselucy]

Down & Out

January 9th “I thought Harry might be with you again.” My dad spoke gently, as if he already knew, as if he was already aware that something had gone wrong. “Um… No. Not this time. Not now.”

Once again, Harry had disappeared completely. He’d left Rosebury without a word to anyone, maybe for good this time, I wouldn’t know, I hadn’t spoken to him. I’d tried to do the right thing and attend his first class of the year, only two days after our row outside his home, because I wanted to let him know I was willing to try and build a real, platonic friendship, but I shouldn’t have bothered. I’d gone out on a limb, only to be met with another notice on his door saying he was out of town. I was growing tired of trying with him. It had been another week, and though I wasn’t there to see for myself, Libby had text me saying they’d gone for the class and he still wasn’t back. Unlike the last time he’d disappeared, I was glad he wasn’t around. My mum sat in silence beside us, her eyes still fixed on the same spot on the table as they had been when I’d arrived several hours earlier. She wasn’t doing well. “He seemed like a nice boy.” My dad continued. “He is a nice boy. Quiet. Kinda reserved.” “Must feel different compared to Sam then.” My dad and my mum hadn’t been too keen on Sam for the time that they’d known him, before they had to move away. They never warned me off him or tried to control the situation, which I was thankful for, but I’d always been able to tell they weren’t necessarily fans, and I didn’t blame them either, even then. Sam was loud, boisterous, arrogant, full of himself, the kind of person I’d found insanely attractive when I was younger. Sam hadn’t matured since then, and what was alluring as a teenager soon became disconcerting as an adult. It made total sense to me why my mum and dad had never really cared for our relationship. “But I’m not with Harry.” I sighed, hoping the hurt I was feeling wasn’t too apparent in my voice. “He’s just my friend.” “Alright, alright, sorry, I’ll drop it.” He said, before immediately doing the opposite. “Is he aware he’s just your friend?” “Very aware.” “Where is it?” My mother suddenly barked from beside us. “Where’s what, Ree? What’re you after?” My dad asked sweetly, reaching for her hand, but she retracted. “Where is my dog?” She hadn’t had a dog since she was a little girl. I’d seen pictures of her with the Golden Retriever, where she wasn’t much taller than he was. I remembered her telling me the story of how her parents had let her name him, and she’d called him Custard. I knew that was what she was thinking of. Things made so much more sense to me after what Harry had explained about the bookcases, how that disease affected her brain and in what ways. Things that used to completely bewilder me now felt much simpler. She was reading from the books at the bottom of her shelf. “Do you mean Custard?” I asked her. “Where is he?” “He’s out playing in the garden.” My dad told her. I swear, that was the first time I’d seen her smile for years. The thought and image of her dog safe and happy playing outdoors soothed her in ways I hadn’t been expecting. We’d both struggled at first, when she’d started forgetting things, when her mind would create random places and names, scenarios and instances. At first, we’d corrected her, tried to make her see the world as it really was, but that only seemed to make things worse. We’d soon learnt that it wasn’t the way to handle things, and rather we should let her settle in the existence her mind could make sense of, where she felt safe and comfortable. Although it was hard, and we had to think on our feet a lot, it kept her temper at bay a lot of the time. She went back to her silence, but she seemed a little better. “You should come back to Rosebury soon.” I said as soon as the idea popped into my head. “I can’t, Fee. I need to be here with your mother, I can’t just move back.” “No, I mean just to visit. Just for a day or two.” “Oh. God… I… I don’t know.” “Why?” “I’ve considered it, so many times. Especially when we weren’t speaking much, but… I don’t know how well I’d deal with all those sympathetic looks.” “Yeah, I get that. I’ve been there” I sniggered. “Doesn’t really get any easier. But… if you see people enough, it stops, y’know.” “I’m sure it does, but I wouldn’t be there a lot, so I’d get it all the time.” He acknowledged, and he was right. I’d dealt with it for a long time, and it never got easier or felt any better. Even when Sean had come back from traveling, I’d really hated the way he’d spoke to me once he’d learnt about my mum, the sad tone of his voice, like my entire existence was damaged and all he could offer was pity. It was never a nice thing. “I just… I gave up everything to be here with her.” He continued. “My friends, my house, my job. You, to some extent.” “I don’t see it that way.” “But that’s the way it is, and I’m sure that’s how other people see it. I think I’d find it… really difficult being back there, looking at the life I used to have. It’s hard to stare right into your history like that.” I guess I’d never thought of it like that. I’d never considered how that would feel for him, to be back in that village where he’d spent most of his life, where he was happy and he had his wife and his daughter and all his friends. He’d lost all of that when my mother lost her memories, and it would be difficult to go back there without feeling immense amounts of pain. “I understand. Really, I get it, but… It’s just something to consider. Something to think about. I’ll put you up for the weekend, make it all… as easy as possible, I promise.” “Thank you. I suppose I’ll have to face the music at some point. Maybe it’d be nice to see people again. I won’t know until I try.” He managed a smile. “How’re your friends? How’s Louis?” He cared about Louis a little more since he was friends with his parents, or at least he had been before he moved away. It had been hard for him to stay in touch with people. But before my mother had gotten ill, they’d been very close, and that was how me and Louis had known each other for so long. Our families had always been close. “Yeah, he’s good. He’s amazing with the shop, dad. Like… I’d be so lost without him.” “He’s always had a good head on him, Louis. Even when you were really little, he was the sensible one. I remember when he taught you how to ride a bike… Christ, me and your mum couldn’t stop laughing.” He was already tittering at the memory. “He put on two lots of knee-pads, and sellotaped your helmet on. Literally wrapped sellotape around your head. We were just stood in the window crying with laughter watching him, he was barely taller than you were. It felt a little like the blind leading the blind, but he did it.” “Yeah, that’s because he didn’t let me take the stabilisers off for months.” I giggled. “I bet if I still rode a bike now, he’d want me to have bloody stabilisers on.” “I don’t doubt that for a second.” “I’m meeting him tonight, actually. I should probably head off soon.” “Send my love.” “I will.” I nodded. I looked back across to my mother, disappointed that it had been such a quiet day for her, but I suppose that was better than her losing her temper. I’d been there since the morning, trying to make a full day of it, a full day of trying with her, but it was now dark outside and she’d only glanced at me a few times. I hated the thought that if I wasn’t there, my dad would be sat in silence all day. There were other people there, people who went to visit their loved ones who I knew he’d made friends with, but I knew his life was now rather lonely. That was another reason I’d have loved him to come back to Rosebury, even if it was just for a few days. “I’ll be back again soon. I promise.” I told him, feeling confident, even feeling somewhat happy. It had been so hard the first time I’d been back there, when Harry was with me. The whole thing was so overwhelming, so exhausting, it was hard to feel any better than I’d been feeling through my years of avoiding going back there. But being back there again, getting back into the habit, felt really good.

Me and Louis were on the right side of the bar, cringing as we watched Libby chatting away with her manager. “But I’ve just clocked out!” She cried. “If he hadn’t called in sick, I wouldn’t even ask. It’s just a few more hours.” “Please, John. I’ve got plans!” “I’ll pay you double.” “But-” “Triple.” Now that got her thinking. We had plans to meet up with Lin and Niall, find somewhere to chill for the evening. After spending so much time in the pubs at Christmas, we’d wanted a bit of break, so I thought we’d be at Louis’ for the evening. It looked like Libby’s boss had other plans. “Fine.” She groaned. “Cash in hand though.” “Of course.” Still rolling her eyes, despite the triple pay, she made her way back over to the two of us, and we were wincing a little on her behalf. “I can’t make tonight, guys. I’m sorry.” She told us, like we hadn’t overheard everything. “You can go, if ya want.” “There’s no rush, right, Alf?” Louis turned to me. “We’ll finish these drinks.” “Well, why don’t you have a lads night?” I suggested. “I’ll stay here, keep this one company.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. Besides, Chloe won’t feel like she’s missing out as much if it’s a lad’s night.” We’d all spent a ridiculous amount of time with each other recently, but Chloe was having to spend the night with her family because they had relatives visiting, and she’s been texting us like she hadn’t seen us for months, like she was really missing out. She kept dropping in with texts about how bored she was, asking if we were having fun, where we were, if we were missing her. It was clear she was struggling. “Has anyone heard from Harry?” Libby asked, the sound of his name stinging my stomach. “No, nothing.” Louis answered before turning to me. “Have you?” “Nope.” I grumbled. “It’s weird that he just takes off like he does.” Libby said whilst drying glasses. “I like him a lot, I’ve got loads of time for the boy, he’s so nice, but like… I just find it strange. To go without saying anything is weird. We spend so much time with him.” “He’s a pretty private guy though, isn’t he?” Louis shrugged. “Maybe it’s… personal, why he goes. Easier to say nothing than to… delve into stuff.” “Did something happen?” Libby continued, and I stayed quiet. “He seemed pretty off on New Years and we haven’t seen him since.” “I don’t think so? He seemed alright to me.” He puzzled. “Hm. I dunno. I thought he got a bit quiet towards the end of the night.” Louis just shrugged it off, obviously not having spotted whatever it was that Libby had spotted in Harry that night. I hadn’t noticed much myself either, but I’d actively avoided him after he’d kissed me at midnight, so it was understandable that I wouldn’t pick up on things. I hated to admit that I was missing him, but I was. I was still hurting, still angry, still upset, and even if he hadn’t left Rosebury I wouldn’t have wanted to spend much of my time with him, but all of that couldn’t force the way I felt to change. The fact he wasn’t around was probably a good thing, but it somehow didn’t feel that way. I wanted to know where he was, how he was feeling, if he’d ever come back or if I’d driven him away from the one place where he’d made friends and finally felt settled. The last time he’d disappeared, I worried about the same thing, but this time around it felt so much worse because there was a genuine reason why he wouldn’t want to come back. I felt like I was in a lose-lose situation. I wanted him back, but at the same time I couldn’t stand the thought of being around him. I wanted him to stay in Rosebury, but I didn’t know how the hell things would be between us when he was around so much, how I could get over him. I hoped it would be easier than I’d been predicting, because what I’d said to him when I turned up at his door in the early hours of New Years Day was true; I didn’t know him, and there was this huge part of me that felt as though he hadn’t shared enough of himself to utterly justify why I was feeling the way I was. But it was all those things I did know about him, how caring he was, how passionate he was, about life, about his job. His gentle nature, his fierceness, the way he moved, touched. Everything I did know about him, no matter how little that seemed, I admired and I had fallen for, head over heels. Unfortunately I’d wound up flat on my face before I’d even fully understood the extent of my feelings. “What was he like on Christmas Day? When he was at yours?” Libby asked. “Yeah, he was good!” Louis nodded. “He’s a nice person to have around, he’s really charming, but like… Yeah, he’s quiet, isn’t he? Private. Which I get, I guess it’s just a bit unfamiliar to us.” “How so?” I still hadn’t said a word, hoping this discussion about Harry would end sooner rather than later. I didn’t even want to think about him, never mind talk about him. “We’ve all known each other for years. All our parents are friends, this village is tiny and everyone is in everyone else’s business. We’re used to just knowing stuff, aren’t we.” “Yeah, I suppose.” She sighed. “Still. So he was quiet at yours and stuff?” “Yeah, like… When my mum and dad were talking to him, and just asking questions, he’d sidestep stuff a lot. Like they asked about his parents, and he… avoided it. In the most polite way he could, obviously, but yeah.” “See, that’s weird.” “Well, we’re all pretty lucky with our families, y’know? I mean, Alfie, for a long time… you struggled to talk about your mum. I bet it’s like that. I bet it’s… complicated.” I nodded in agreement as Louis took a swig of his drink, and I was sort of glad to hear him having Harry’s back in that way, understanding him. Louis had always been good at seeing things through other people’s eyes. And as much as I understood what he was saying, it was different for me. They didn’t know just how much time I had spent with him, they didn’t know how much of myself I had handed over to him, how much of myself he had helped me share. They didn’t know what it was like to have been so beautifully encouraged by him to share and be at peace with my own emotions, only to have him refuse to do the same. I understood what Louis was saying, but it didn’t quite apply to me. My relationship with Harry was far too intense. Or at least it had been. “You’re right, I guess. I dunno, I just wish he was around.” Libby shrugged. “It’s weird without him now, right? I just wish we knew if he was alright or not.” She soon scuttled off when she noticed a small group of people approaching the bar, ready to do a bit more work for a while. She was blessed to be getting paid so much, to be honest, because it wasn’t often The Railway experienced an overwhelming number of customers. I would have loved to have known about Harry’s wellbeing too, but I was trying not to overthink it. The last time he’d done a disappearing act, he’d come back not long later completely fine, with no changes at all, seemingly okay. It was bound to be the same this time around too. I was trying my best not to think about him, and failing. “You alright?” Louis asked me. “You’ve gone all quiet.” “Yeah, I’m good. I’m fine.” It was likely that I sounded incredibly unconvincing. “You sure?” “Yeah. Long day. My dad sends his love, by the way.” “What a guy, I love him. When you speak again, tell him I send it back.” “I will, promise.” “How was your mum?” “Quiet, but… I suppose it’s better that way, rather than her being violent. I don’t think she has it in her anymore. My dad was right, she’s… got a lot worse. She’s very vacant. It’s shit.” “Your dad’s a hero.” “Right?” I perked up a little. “I’m hoping he’ll come back soon. Not forever, just to visit. But I dunno how he feels about that.” “Well, if you need some company next time you go to visit, I’ll gladly go with you.” “Thank you.” I smiled gently. “That means a lot.” I would have liked that. I would have liked to get there and have my dad see another friendly and familiar face, maybe that would help him feel better about spending some time in Rosebury. Anyone other than Harry would have been good. Not that he hadn’t been utterly amazing and gone above and beyond for me when he was there, but I didn’t want to do that again. By the time Libby was done serving, Louis had reached the last few dregs of his pint, checking his watch and getting to his feet as he downed the final drops. “Right, m’off to meet the lads.” He seethed once he was done, slamming the glass on the bar. “Sure you don’t wanna come?” “Nah. I’ll stay with little old Elizabeth.” I cooed. “Call me Elizabeth again and I’ll beat you.” “Behave yourselves.” He said as he edged away. “No beating each other up, alright?” We said our goodbyes and waved him out the door, but the second I turned around to look at Libby, I saw the alarmed look on her face, and suddenly my face dropped. “What?” I gawped. “Oh god, I have to tell you something.” “What?” “You can’t tell anyone, okay?” “Lib-” “I kissed Louis.” She blurted. My jaw hit the damn bar. I recalled a few months earlier when we were all in the pub, and Harry, a few drinks in, had cheekily asked what had happened between the lot of us, if there was any history, if any of us had ever taken anything further than pure friendships. Other than Niall kissing practically everyone, and Chloe trying her luck with all the lads at some point or another, we’d all proudly said no. It had just never been that way between us, and I’d kind of never expected it to be. We’d all had relationships at some point, partners falling in and out of our group as the years went on, but between us, the core of it all, it’d all been pretty platonic. That was one of the other reasons I’d wanted what happened between me and Harry to remain a secret, because he’d already become this part of our group, weening himself into our core with ease, and sex was a complication our group had never faced before. Even a kiss was shocking. “When?” I cried. “New Year’s.” “Oh. Well was it just a casual-” “It was supposed to be! But then it got so… intense, and it was like we couldn’t stop! And I had like… butterflies and shit. What the fuck is that about?” “Holy shit, do you like him?” “Well I didn’t think I did but now when I’m with him I feel all… gooey and weird and I just wanna kiss him again.” “No way. What the fuck, this is blowing my mind!” I heaved. “But he’s being so… normal. I feel like he’s not feeling it and I dunno what to do! I don’t wanna say anything, because if he doesn’t feel anything then I could make things so awkward, and I’d hate that! I’d rather not say anything and get over it than lose him, y’know?” I nodded, wondering if I should have done the same thing. I’d acted on impulse when I’d gone to Harry’s house, yelled at him, explaining my feelings in such a hostile way, and I knew full well he didn’t feel the same way. I knew it, but I’d gone and put him in that uncomfortable position regardless. Maybe it would have been better, if I’d tried to simply end our friends with benefits agreement without being so honest with him, but after so many months spent with him, it didn’t feel right. He’d asked me so many times to be honest about my feelings, not just aloud but to myself, to acknowledge and accept the way I felt. I’d done that, and whether it was detrimental in the long run was yet to be seen. “So what’re you gunna do?” I enquired. “I dunno. All I can think is… try to get him really drunk and kiss him again.” “Wow, you’re like smitten, aren’t you?” “A little bit, yeah. Am I though? Am I? Maybe it’s just been ages since I got laid. Well, it definitely has, but maybe that’s what the real issue is. I dunno what to do, Alfie! Help me!” “Maybe… Maybe you should talk to him. Like, acknowledge it happened, see how he’s feeling.” “OOH, YOU COULD DO THAT!” She squealed excitedly. “What?” “You acknowledge it happened and do all the hard work for me!” She suggested, and I was cringing, again. “Then feedback everything he says and then I can decide where to go from there. Be like, ooh, I hear you kissed Libby, I bet that was amazing, are you considering doing it again? And then he’ll spill his guts to you and then you’ll tell me and then I’ll know exactly what to do. What a good idea. Thanks for helping me out.” “You’re really gunna involve me in this, aren’t you? You’re gunna do that to me?” “Yep.” “Fine, but if he says what you don’t wanna hear, please don’t shoot the messenger.” “But I don’t even know what I want him to say, so it’s fine!” “You definitely want him to be feeling the way you’re feeling.” I gave her a judging look. “But that’s the thing, like… I just wanna know where I stand. More than anything else, I wanna know where I stand. I wanna know how he’s feeling. I can deal with whatever that is, as long as I know.” Nodding, I took a deep breath in, craving the same thing, really. I wished Harry had said more. I wished he’d rejected me fully, vocally, because his silence was so much worse. Other than him saying sex wasn’t a special thing to him, and his slight argument against our arrangement ending, he’d not said enough. I wished he’d had the courage to give me a straight answer, lay things out for me so I knew exactly where I stood. Instead, he’d argued that we keep things going between us, put aside my feelings in the same way we’d put aside so many other things we shouldn’t have. He wanted us to continue sleeping with each other, despite the fact I’d admitted I had feelings for him. Instead of finally facing the truth of who we’d become, he’d barely said anything and he’d fucked off the next day so he didn’t have to face me. It all meant that there was still this feeling of uncertainty, this sense of me not knowing where I stood or how the hell we were supposed to move on from it all. I’d shunned my pride and faced it head on, and I’d foolishly expected the same back, even if it wasn’t the exact answer I craved, at least it would have been an answer. Rather, he'd avoided things, avoided sharing, avoided seeing me, and it had made the whole thing twice as humiliating as I knew it would have been anyway. “Yeah, I get that.” I exhaled. “Okay, yeah, I’ll talk to him. I’ll try to make it subtle too. Pretend it definitely didn’t come from you.” “You’re the best.” She went off to serve again, leaving me on my own for a few minutes, alone with my thoughts. I had grown tired of my own thoughts.

[okitodorokidoki]

a1+3 | takigawa chris yuu + yuuki tetsuya

ao3 | 2,464 words | gender-neutral reader

1 - “I love you, please don’t go.” 3- “Please don’t walk out of that door.”

While yours and Tetsuya’s jobs kept you in Tokyo most of the time, Chris wasn’t that lucky. The three of you had finally gotten enough money for a bigger apartment, but it wasn’t long before Chris was off for a training camp. The schedules of your and your remaining partner were rather staggered, and the two of you rarely had a conscious moment together when the week began. Many of your mornings began with Tetsu curled up on you, head tucked under your chin with his lips instinctively following your neck as you moved to get ready. He only had an hour left of sleep, and you weren’t one to take it from him- especially with his school’s famed “hell week” coming up once again.

Then, less than a week before Chris’ due return, you got a call from your team leader.

“We could really use you for this,” she said. “It’ll give you a chance to start networking ahead of your peers.”

Three months. Three entire months working on relations at another company that you knew almost nothing about, hours away from home. You hadn’t been working with this team for long, and what felt like it should have been an amazing opportunity really felt like one major red flag. You had people nearly a decade your senior in age and experience that could do this job, yet they were asking you? Hell, maybe your heart was just digging for an excuse to stay.

“How long do I have to think about it? Osaka’s a long ways away, and for three months?”

“You really have until I get back to the office Friday morning,” she said. “I’m in Niigata for a meeting with that production company we worked with a few months back. Speaking of, would you mind helping Miss. Higurashi out with getting over here tomorrow? I need her help closing this deal up, but she wasn’t available to leave with me.”

“No, it’s no trouble at all. I’ll look at tickets for tomorrow morning when I get into the office.”

She thanked you before hanging up, and you peered down the hallway at Tetsuya, still curled up in bed with a pillow in his arms. You were worried that your ringer may have woken him up, but you easily crept back up to him to card your fingers through his hair and gently kiss him on the forehead. Your clock told you you needed to go, but your boyfriend’s soft skin and messy hair were begging you to stay a little longer. Deciding to be an adult for a moment, you took a deep breath and gave him one last kiss on the cheek.

“Aaaaah, how does Chris do this?” You quietly whined to yourself.

You had gotten so used to being the last to leave in the morning, that you never faced the struggle of seeing your sleepy partner still curled up in bed. It was a very unfair situation. Grabbing your bag off of your desk, you left for work.

-

After a day of pushing yourself through a routine while thinking of a good excuse to give your boss for not going, you finally made it back home. Your hours had made a temporary shift that was still taking some getting used to, which meant you got home in time to start dinner before Tetsuya got home from the school. You still eyed between the clock and the door whenever it neared the time Chris normally came in, even though it would definitely be a while before he did.

Tomorrow was Saturday, which meant you’d finally have some time to spend with Tetsuya. He normally stopped by the school to look over paperwork and make sure the boys weren’t over or underworking themselves over the weekend, but after that he was all yours.

He seemed to be running later than normal, even for a weekday, as you finished up dinner and he still hadn’t come in. A little worried at the turn of events, and lack of texts, you decided to call him. After getting voicemail on his cell, his office phone was nearly a bust as well.

A vaguely familiar voice answered the phone.

“Hello?” you asked. “Is Coach Yuuki available?”

The person who answered seemed to recognize your voice well enough, but you felt a little bad you couldn’t say the same. “Oh! He’s staying late today to help out some of the boys from second string. Did he not call ahead.”

“Ah.” You managed. “No, he didn’t. Thank you for letting me know.”

You ended the call and stared down at the food on the counter. Setting your phone down, you got containers ready to put the food away once it had cooled, leaving out some for yourself and just in case Tetsu came back in time to eat it warm.

Dinner ended alone, and as you got ready for bed he still hadn’t shown up. Debating going down to the school to force your partner to eat, you checked your phone and saw a message from his cell.

‘Sorry, I’ll be a bit later.’

“A time frame would be nice.” You muttered to yourself. “What if you get lost, you idiot...”

‘It’s okay, dont work yourself too hard! There’s some dinner left in the oven when you get home. Love you <3’

You set your phone down and finished your nightly routine. By the time you were lying down, nothing had sent back, but you were sure he was definitely working himself too hard. This would normally be the time the two of you could video call with Chris, but he didn’t seem to be available at the moment either. Decidedly upset, but feeling like it may be unfair for you to be, you sent a good night and a love you to your group chat. Turning up your ringer for their numbers, you plugged your phone in and rolled over to get some sleep.

-

After an indistinguishable amount of time lying awake with your eyes closed, you heard the front door open. Part of you wanted to get up to greet Tetsu, but the stubborn, hurt, part of you just pulled the blanket up over your nose.

It was hard to hear where he was- a considerate boy even when you were mad at him for being inconsiderate- but soon enough you heard the bedroom door slowly open. You heard him sigh before he walked towards you, bending down to brush your cheek and kiss you on the forehead.

“I’m sorry...” he muttered, barely a breath against your skin.

He turned away and gently closed the door behind him before you could decide if you wanted to tell him you were awake or not. As he moved around in the kitchen, the comfort of knowing he had gotten home safely had you drifting off in spite of yourself.

-

The next morning, your bed felt cold. When you opened your eyes, you could see Tetsu’s back next to you, but there was an unbearable space between you. When all three of you were home, there was no chance for extra space in bed. Now, this was a willing gap that had you grabbing your phone and sliding out of bed quietly to the bathroom. Sitting on the lid of the toilet, you tried to think of if you did anything to upset him recently. You couldn’t convince yourself that something was going on at school because he’d confide in you if that were the case. There were multiple nights where you and Chris had-- oh.

You leaned forward far enough to rest your forehead on your knees. You couldn’t recall a time Tetsu had vented his baseball frustrations when Chris wasn’t there. You wouldn’t really understand him, would you? You pressed your palms against your ears and took deep breaths to calm down.

‘It’s okay,’ you thought. ‘I’ll just let Chris know, and they can talk over it. I’ll go get groceries or something and give them some time.’

You blindly felt around your counter for your phone. Sitting back up, you calmed yourself before messaging Chris.

‘Can you talk? It’s about Tetsu.’

You decided to start getting ready while you waited for his response. You were halfway through brushing your teeth when your phone lit up with a call. Rinsing your mouth in a panic, you answered it.

“Hey, is everything okay?” Chris asked.

His voice sounded raspy, and the guilt was immediate. “Did I wake you up?”

He let out a hum, and you heard sheets rustling. “No, no, I was just starting my laps. I’ve been up for hours.”

You let out an involuntary laugh before covering your mouth, hoping Tetsuya hadn’t heard you.

“Really though, are you both okay? What’s going on with Tetsu?”

You sighed, leaning against the wall. “I think there might be something happening at Seidou that he doesn’t think he can talk to me about. He stayed late yesterday without letting me know when he’d get home, and he slept practically halfway across the apartment from me.”

“I’m assuming you’re referring to the other side of the bed?”

“That wasn’t my main point, Chris, stay on topic.” You slid down the wall and pulled your knees to your chest. “Can you just… talk to him, please? It’ll probably be better coming from you.”

“Do you really think something’s happening over there?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t been there myself in a while. I was thinking about it yesterday, but then he messaged me.” You fought the urge to bite down on the sides of your nails as your stress started building. “Can you just… call him while I go out? Try to make things easier on him?”

The other side of the call was silent with a few moments of deep breath, and you worried that he had fallen asleep on the phone. “Yeah… I’ll try to see what’s up. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” You replied, a little breathless.

You felt like a weight was lifted, letting out a deep sigh as you stood again. You finished brushing your teeth quickly before leaving the bathroom, almost running right into Tetsuya in the process. In one of the softest sudden moments you’d experienced, he turned you around to press your back against the hallway wall, forearms beside your head and face buried in your shoulder.

“Tetsu?” you asked. “Baby, are you okay?”

You wound your arms around him, one hand running through his hair as the other one rubbed his back. You could feel him shaking slightly, his skin cold to the touch.

“I love you,” he pressed out, voice trembling. “Please don’t go.”

You froze for a moment before tugging at his ear, trying to urge his face into view. “Tetsu… baby, tell me what’s wrong”

“Please don’t walk out of that door.” His arms slid down the wall before wrapping around you.

You could hear his phone ringing as his breath burned against your skin.

“Please don’t leave me… please don’t go to Osaka.”

It took you an almost embarrassingly long time to understand what the hell he was talking about.

His arms shifted slightly to pull you closer, and you felt like you were about to leave the floor. “I know it isn’t fair for me to ask you, but I can’t handle not having both of you right now...”

“Tetsu,” you whispered. “Please look at me.”

He was incredibly hesitant, before he finally pulled back to look at you. His face was red and tired, brows furrowed enough that just looking at them nearly gave you a headache.

“Is that what this was all about?” You brought your hand down from his head to caress his cheek.

He turned his face into your palm to nod, eyes clenched shut- he looked as embarrassed as he was upset.

“Tetsu… I’m not going to Osaka.”

He shook his head. “You’re lying. You were planning on leaving today.”

“No, Tetsu. It’s a three month long trip, that’s not something I would jump into without talking to you guys about it. It’s especially not something I’d leave for without you even knowing about it.” You pressed down on his shoulder with your free hand. “Sit.”

He slid down to sit in the hallway, you following in his lap.

“Then what were the tickets for? And what were you trying to get Chris to tell me so you could leave?”

“We’re having a discussion about your phone call snooping when Chris gets home.” You decided. “The tickets were for a coworker, and I called Chris because I thought you were having trouble with Seidou and that you needed someone to talk to.”

There was a stretch of silence as the two of you stood there, and you saw Tetsuya begin to crumble. “I’m sorry… we leave you here all the time.”

“For three months? No. But would I still have appreciated you talking to me? Yeah.” You wiggle your thumb between his brows. “So is there nothing happening at Seidou? All your stress was because of my call?”

Tetsuya sighed before putting his face back in your neck. “Those kids are all more exhausting than Sawamura Eijun.”

You laughed as you pulled him in close.

-

The two of you managed to get back to bed, where Tetsu called Chris back.

“Is everything okay?” He asked, sounding more awake than when you first called.

“Yeah,” Tetsuya said. “Just some pre-winter-camp stress making everything feel worse.”

“Someone thought I was leaving for three months without a word and asked you to break it to him while I hopped on a train to Osaka.” You pinched Tetsu’s cheek gently before kissing it.

“That sounds insane, Tetsu.”

“We’re going crazy without you here.” Tetsuya declared. “Come home now for everyone’s health.”

You and Chris both laugh at that, but you can’t help but agree. “If I wake up to an empty spot in my bed one more time I might just try to tag along with your team. This bed isn’t supposed to feel big.”

“I miss you guys, too.” Chris said. “You can make it a few more days without me.”

Tetsuya rubs his hand up your back, tugging you closer. “Are you sharing your room with any teammates?”

“Yes, my pitcher and shortstop, why?”

Unfortunately knowing exactly what Tetsuya was going to try to bargain for, you covered his mouth. “Nothing, babe. We love you! Have a good day at practice!”

“I love you too? I’ll call you tonight.”

Tetsuya sent you a glare as you ended the call and lowered your hand. “Are you going to act like you don’t want him to-”

“Tetsuya, don’t you have a baseball team to go coach?”