#AM I JUST FUCKING STUPID? HAVE I LANDED IN THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE WHERE THIS IS FINE?

[aq2003]

you would not believe the way my opinion immediately flipped about this take on martha. "we need to stop romanticizing martha as a downtrodden normie who couldn't catch a break for reasons out of her control" yes! "she still goes after ten even though he rejects her from the start and i like her for this" Huh ????!!!

[the-library-of-forgotten-endings]

Ink-Stained Love is Not Ideal, Part 1: Love of the Ink-Stained Tyrant

Overblots x reader

Reader pronouns used: not applicable

Content warnings: kinda yandere OB Riddle, and reader almost gets hit by a rosebush, but no harm comes to reader, don’t worry.

“I’m not saying that I don’t want to date you, but also, I can’t date you.”

It’s absolutely not fair, in your opinion. Once an Overblot is defeated, it should stay dead, because they’re all pains in the ass that you should only have to deal with once in a lifetime.

But no, the universe decided that you hadn’t gone through nearly enough bullshit, and so through some sort of magic phenomena, brought all the Overblots back to life and chucked the lot of you into some alternate realm.

You hate it here.

But hey, at least most of the OBs (as you like to call them) are kind of pretty in a oh my god I’m terrified and shitting my pants way.

Except for OB Jamil. That beard is not it.

“What do you mean, you can’t ‘date’ me?” fumes OB Riddle. “I am the most righteous in the land! All must defer to me! Surely I am the most suitable one for you?!”

Oh, and did you mention that OB Riddle is in love with you, for some reason? God, this is really your day, isn’t it?

“No no no!” you reply nervously, feeling the ground start to shake. “It’s not like you’re not boyfriend material!”

“Then what is it?!”

You swiftly dodge a flying rosebush, and delicately touch OB Riddle’s face, trying not to cringe at the sticky ink running down your fingers.

“Look, babes,” you begin, and OB Riddle’s greyish cheeks flush a gentle pink at the nickname. What the fuck. Don’t tell me he likes that nickname. “Today is Valentine’s Day, yeah?”

“Valentine’s… Day?”

“Yep. And today, people who want to confess to their crush give their crush chocolate and flowers! It’s like, a rule!”

“Rule, you say?”

“But… I haven’t got you any chocolate! So, I need you to let me go so I can get you chocolate to confess my love to you, alright? I’ve got to follow the rules.”

“…Well… if it’s to follow the rules…”

OB Riddle waves a hand, and a portal opens into a savannah, completely drained of any life. You suppose that’s where OB Leona is, just your luck. Does this mean you’re gonna have to get through him, and OB Azul, etc, etc, etc in their respective dimensions or something, like a stupid video game?

You are not looking forward to this.

“Come back quickly, okay?” whispers OB Riddle, clasping your hands tenderly. “Or I’ll get worried…”

And yes, he does look so genuinely upset at you leaving, so much like Real Riddle, that you do actually feel a bit sorry for him. So, you give him a quick kiss on the cheek, the bitter taste of ink almost making you cough.

“Be back soon, babes!”

And thus, you leap through portal into the savannah, leaving behind the lovesick Overblot.

PART 2: COMING SOON

[unicorncornflakes]

Political Rivals - Modern AU! | Chapter 2

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Paring: Reader x Aemond Targaryen.

Summary: You always spend your afternoons playing and talking with yoour friend Aemond on Discord. Now that you father, Eldric Dayne, has to move to king´s Landing, you have the chance to meet Aemond. However, this is only the benning of a rivality between the two of you.

Tags: Alternate Universe/ Friends to Enemies to Lovers/ Emotional Hurt/Comfort Drama & Romance/ Eventual Smut.

Warnings: None, for now :D

Tag-List (If you wanna be tagged in thi series or all of my work, let me know): @thedamewithabook @bluevxnus @glame @tempt-ress

Author´s note: Pls, enjoy! Feedback, shares and comments are always welcome!

Word Count: 4.9K

Aegon woke lazily from his nap to find Aemond rummaging through his trouser pockets to get out. He almost jumped when he saw the tallest of all his brothers inside his room, without having knocked, without asking for permission... on top of him, he had that black turtleneck sweater that he wore when he had a date. His older brother laughed, how long was the last one? Black dress pants and perfectly coiffed hair, with that stupid mini ponytail in the back.

"Who's the silly one you fooled?" Aegon purred, turning back on his bed. He wasn't going to wake up again until it was time to party again at night and under the cover of the flea bottom.

"Where did you put the car keys?" said Aemond, losing patience with his brother, and Aegon laughed.

“Pufff, she has to be hot if you want to take her in the Lambo” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed “But, I'm sorry. I'm going out to wreck the city tonight, and I'm taking the car.” Aegon reached up and Aemond caught him by the shirt.

"The car belongs to both of us," he whispered under his breath, almost as if threatening, and Aegon laughed. It had been a gift when Aemond had come of age, but for whatever use or case, Aegon had kept it. "I'm asking you very politely" he threatened, as if things could get worse for the older brother.

“I am telling you that you are going to walk to that date. The best thing is that you don't show her the car. He's going to believe something you're not,” Aegon said, releasing his brother's grasp. Aemond turned, ready to leave his room, as if he had given up. But Aegon followed him. "What's she called? Do I know her?” he said, following his little brother, as if he wanted to continue laughing at the situation.

"No" was all Aemond said rudely. He took the bottle of expensive perfume from the bathroom and put on a little. If he wasn't going to drive the car, at least let it be known that he had money by the way he smelled. He intended to impress you, even though now he had to go on the date. He didn't want to continue arguing with Aegon and go on your first date in a bad mood. He thought about whether you would consider it a first date too.

Aegon smiled to himself and ran to his room, returning to the bathroom again with a mischievous smile and closing the door behind him. Aemond looked at him with a questioning raised eyebrow. The two brothers looked at each other in silence, and then Aegon tossed three unused, sealed condoms onto the sink. Aemond already lost his temper.

"But what the hell is wrong with you?" The younger of the brothers responded rudely and Aegon went to the mirror to lightly comb his hair.

“Withdrawal is not one of methods of contraception, or are you going to wait until the wedding to fuck her?” Aegon said with a smirk as he looked at the ever perennial dark circles under his eyes. ���You have to like her a lot if you want to take the car…”

Aemond didn't even answer. He just grunted and walked out of the bathroom, ignoring his brother, but Aegon picked them up from the sink and went back to follow his brother. He had to pick them up. If his mother saw them, she was going to give him something. It was clear that all of them were sexually active, but Alicent preferred to think that they would all wait for the wedding, just as she had done, based on the faith of the seven. Aemond went to his room again, looking for his wallet, cigarette pack, and Zippo. Just as he turned to walk out the door, he ran into Aegon again. Aemond simply put on his eyepatch, ready to go, when Aegon spoke again.

"At least, is she hot? Because if she's not, I can tell you, with the light off, it feels just as warm and wet as any other…” he laughed, as if he were a master of women, A true Casanova... Aemond didn't even bother to answer. He imagined you beautiful, and sweet as you were, surely you would be. He wasn't going to say anything about you, let alone Aegon. "At least take the condoms with you, you never know..." he whispered in his ear just as he walked past him.

"I don't have sex on the first date" he replied through his teeth, about to kill his brother. His violet eye fixed on the purple ones of his brother, who kept looking at him funny, as if he really enjoyed teasing him. "I have…values" he told him raising his chin, provoking him to continue. "And so did she," he replied. Yes, you must have had them, just like him. You were going to be the perfect couple. That was what he said. Aegon laughed as if his brother's very… chivalrous ways, as if by having them, he was missing out on a whole world of amusements, which Aegon enjoyed almost every night. In that sense, he was a good son of his mother, a good grandson of Otto Hightower.

"There goes the future president of Westeros, to meet his regal and frigid first lady," he joked loudly, as Aemond slammed the door shut, after donning his long black coat. On that occasion he would have to walk to meet you. He was past arguing with Aegon's airhead.

Your mother screwed up her face when she saw Rodrick in that half-buttoned shirt, smelling expensive cologne, and you in the shorts and fishnets you always wore under them. Torn and mangled, but you thought they made you look so ragged and sexy that you couldn't miss the chance to make a good impression on Aemond. You changed into a tight black turtleneck top and were ready to meet your brother at the door. Your father had lent him the car and your mother had asked you to come straight back after the movie. Rodrick replied that you would also go to dinner, and that they should not wait up for you. Allyra Dayne knew exactly where her children were going, as did Eldric, who was reading the newspaper at last calmly on that Sunday afternoon, the first real break he had had. But they didn't want to fence you off either. They both felt that they were not being true to what they had believed until you had left Sunspear. They preferred to deceive themselves and tell each other that it was for your good. Allyra sat down next to her husband and Eldrick just told her to calm down. They had brought you up well and besides, since they had you, it almost seemed that they did not remember that they, too, had been young. And the things you did were normal.

"Where do I leave you?" your brother asked as he got into the car and you followed him into the passenger seat. You smiled charmingly at him as you used the rearview mirror to paint your lips with a subtle lip gloss before he start the engine. “Puff, you got that cheap blackberry crap. You already have to like him” he said, opening the window before driving away. You laughed.

"He's just a friend" you said closing the gloss and putting it in your little backpack with summer island motifs. It was obvious that you were a rather casual girl, despite your shyness, and the pin you wore in your backpack in favor of women's sexual freedom was proof of that. Rodrick thought that the boy you had met for that game so old school was going to freak out as soon as he saw you. “He told me that we were meeting directly at the door of the museum. He told me that he would wear a black sweater, and I told him that I would then go with the black top too ”

"I love it, how original you both are" Rodrick laughed again, taking his wallet and opening it. He had never worried about anything you did, and yet, he was always there for you "Here, use them responsibly, and I hope you inflate many... balloons" he told you winking, as he handed you two condoms "Both first run of my own. The rest you already go to a pharmacy and you catch them”

"What an asshole you are!" You laughed, but Rodrick smiled even more as he watched you pick them up and put them in the pocket of your backpack. Your brother started the car engine and smiled. He liked seeing you so happy after the two shitty days you'd been through since you'd arrived in King's Landing. You thought about whether you were really going to use them… Well, you liked Aemond very much, even if you didn't know how he was like. He was so smart, so bright, so arrogant… you could imagine his sexy voice whispering to you what a good girl you were as you sat on his lap and his fingers darting in and out of you with cheeky, wet sounds… you had seen his hands, in those photos that he sometimes gave you of the last zippo he had bought, from when he would pass you a photo of Vhagar, his old cat... they were slender and strong... they would fit perfectly in your... you stopped thinking about it, because you told yourself that the best thing was that you only take that as a date between friends, maybe Aemond just wanted that, although you smiled. You knew you didn't want just that, and you didn't mind sleeping with him that night.

You sat on the steps of the Sept of Baelor, now a national museum. You sighed and stretched out your legs. There were hardly any people on that cool afternoon at the beginning of summer,  you almost regretted not having brought something more warm. But most of all, you started to think that your mother was right. Aemond hadn't made her appearance, maybe he just wanted to laugh at you... you bit your lip nervously. The rest of the people continued to gradually enter inside. There were not many people and most of them were much older than you. The truth is that you would not have chosen something like that for the first time you met either, but, Aemond seemed to like it, so you knew that he was only trying to show you the things that he loved. You sighed again. The hour began to pass to be able to enter and no one had gone to meet you there. You sighed and picked up your phone. You would play something until him appeared. But, at that moment, you heard a sound that you were more than used to. The sound of a zippo opening and turning on. Aemond always used a Zippo and when he smoked while talking to you, you heard that sound more than once. You raised your head from the phone and located the source of it.

A boy much taller than you just lit a cigarette. He looked like he was waiting too. The first thing you noticed was that he was wearing rather expensive clothes. A long black coat and some rather expensive, well-pressed dress pants. A belt that you knew would cost an arm and a leg, because Rodrick had insisted on buying himself another one just like it and a black turtleneck sweater. At that moment, you almost caught your breath, was that Aemond? But, if he had told you that he was twenty years old, it seemed that he was almost thirty. And besides, he had…a patch over his left eye. Ok, so the username Aemond_One_Eye made sense, as well as the fact that he never wanted to show you his face… ok. But, nevertheless, that attracted you even more to him. He looked super sexy… He was slim but well muscled. He was very pale and you loved his straight, well-groomed, long, silver hair. His face was defined by strong facial features, with high cheekbones, a sharp jawline. A perfect nose... you stayed for a moment contemplating it. You blushed when he leered at you, annoyed. His eye was violet… he really was like a being from the old days. He released the smoke, this time, his eye almost seemed to pierce you. And you blushed even more. He looked slightly annoyed, as if he didn't like being looked at the way you did, but you couldn't help it. You had been speechless, almost breathless... and your heart seemed to come out of your mouth. You were definitely going to sleep with him that night if he wanted to.

Aemond took another drag on his cigarette. That girl kept looking at him. Damn. He hated when someone stared at him so intently. Did he have something on his face? Well, he knew that yes, something was missing, but it was not necessary to look at it so often. He gave her a sidelong glance as he waited for you. With that he would scare her away. He didn't need you to see him with a girl staring at him so hard when you arrived, he almost seemed to analyze it. You were late. He didn't like that you kept him waiting, but he knew that girls take longer to get ready, and you would surely look spectacular on your first “date”. He looked at the girl sideways. She looked like a kid, but she also looked like a girl who knew her stuff. Ripped fishnets, short shorts…she was quite pretty and looked sexy. She wasn't the kind of girl he'd woo for, but obviously, he had an eye in her face that told him this was pretty daring. A black, high-necked top that clung to her body. Without a doubt, she was one of those girls who had once fucked at Aegon's parties. They were for what they were. He had other plans with you, but you were also another kind of girl. He looked straight ahead and took another puff, quite annoyed. If that girl kept looking at him, but finally, he froze when he heard her voice…

"Aemond?" you asked with your sweet voice and smile. You had never imagined him like this, but it was perfect. Gods. You won the lottery. It was just perfect. He turned, his eye locked on you, and you put your hands behind your back and smiled at him. Of course, it was him. With your little backpack on your back and your torn socks, you thought you couldn't be more different, but you always liked different. So you didn't care.

“(Y/N)?” he asked, incredulous. You…didn't look like what he had imagined. The sweet voice was there, of course. But, he had expected a girl more…more like him. Someone traditional, well dressed for the occasion... He mean, you looked spectacular, but, but... damn. He wanted to fuck you. That was all that crossed his mind, especially when he smelled your aroma of blackberries. But, but... you weren't that sweet and shy girl that he had imagined... he remained quite serious, while you would be blushing and with a beautiful and sweet smile... you jumped happily when he said your name. You sure were cute, and you actually looked rather shy, despite the way you were dressed, but… but, you were Aegon's kind of one-night-out girl, not the mother-to-be of his children. Aemond took another drag in silence as he gave you a complete up-and-down eye. Perhaps, he should go... but, at that moment, he thought that he would not be chivalrous on his part. "How was the move?" he asked politely, but he broke down just as you laughed sheepishly. Damn, you were beautiful when you laughed.

"Very good, but Raistlin doesn't come out from under my bed" you laughed, as you approached him and gave him two kisses by way of greeting, just as it was done in Dorne. You could see how he pursed his lips and looked the other way. Almost as embarrassed. Aemond's head was a sea of doubt. You were the same smart and cute girl from the internet, but you were also beautiful. However, what the hell was someone going to think if one saw him with you? He tried to remain a gentleman. He had dressed like that to impress you. You had done the same, but... surely, in your day to day you weren't so... explosive.

“Well, cats take time to get used to new environments” he commented as if he was speaking on Discord with you. You walked up the steps to the museum and he realized that he had put on the very expensive shoes while you were wearing battered sneakers that had definitely seen better days. You were smiling, while he was still stoic and thoughtful... but, also, that calmed him down in part. You couldn't be Eldric Dayne's daughter. That girl had to be as well dressed as he was. For that she was the daughter of such an important and prestigious politician. He relaxed. Well, he was going to have a good time with you. He was going to be a true gentleman. Was there something wrong with you not being what he had imagined? No, of course not, he tried to convince himself.

“Oh, I have to pay you the ticket from the museum” you commented as you entered the front door. And Aemond looked at you in surprise again. You were opening your pack when he spoke again.

"It's not necessary" he answered you with a smile that was charming, he already felt more relaxed. He wasn't going to care that you were like this today. He told himself that you would not always go like this, that you were (Y / N), a girl that he really liked, even if you were dressed as a one-night stand girl. That also inflated his pride a little. He had got a girl who could have picked up Aegon being himself. "I told you that today everything was on my side," he replied, chivalrous and gallant, as he had been taught to be.

"No, please" you laughed sweetly, biting your lower lip, beautiful and sweet. And Aemond felt the blush rise to his cheeks. He really liked you, even after he had seen you and with those pints, he liked you. You were irresistibly sweet… and even, you seemed innocent. "Well, then I'll invite you to dinner" you added and he laughed arrogantly.

“I have already booked at my favorite restaurant. I told you that I invited you” he replied, giving the tickets to the guard, who checked that everything was in order and let you pass. You followed closely behind him and he even dared to grab your hand. Why was he making such a bold gesture? Well, he really liked you... "Today... I want you to feel like a princess..." he whispered to you, setting a tone according to the place where you entered. And you smiled at him.

“Hey, I'm not a damsel in distress” you told him, but you didn't let go of his hand. Aemond thought it must have seemed comical to see two such different people together, but he couldn't have cared less. You weren't Eldric's daughter, you were just another girl your age... great... and, you were just going like that to impress him, fine, good...

"Yes of course. In the last game, you didn't need me to come and rescue you” he replied jokingly, but with an aura of arrogance. Sure that what he said was real. He was a better player than you, in his opinion, and he always came to your aid. You frowned but kept laughing. You smacked him affectionately, as you would any of your Dornish friends, and he just smiled, like a lovesick fool. He liked being with you. It was the same feeling he had while he was speaking over Discord. It was just perfect.

You watched the exhibition laughing. Aemond didn't ask you if you wanted to see any room other than the one in the Old Valyria, after all he must have been just as nervous as you and he was the one who directed you around the place. He even had a gesture that puzzled you. Terribly protective, as if he felt obliged to constantly take care of you because you didn't know where to go. He carried his hand that had released your grip on his lower back, but not once touching your ass. He guided you through the exhibition under his desires. To where he was interested. You were having a good time, but... you liked it, going more... free. You mean, it wasn't that the grab didn't turn you on. You liked the warm feeling it gave you, but at the same time it baffled you that such a young boy could establish such a...protective relationship, in just a couple of minutes. Yet you laughed. You liked Aemond. He was perfect, intelligent, sarcastic... you loved boys like that...

“I love this painting” you said to yourself, approaching one of the paintings that were at the exit of the exhibition, but which continued to receive preferential treatment. They were the jewels of the museum. Whatever you were going to see, you always had to see them. Aemond came up behind you, hands behind his back, smiling, as if you were the sweetest thing in the world. The painting was by one of Westeros' most famous Art Noveau artists. On it you could see two forms resembling a kissing couple. You were fascinated, looking at the shapes and colors. At last you would see a painting that you had only seen in textbooks.

"Yeah, not bad," Aemond commented while he wasn't looking at the painting. He was only looking at you. The author of that work was just another progressive who tried to paint without forms or structure. Did he like it? Yes, it was art. However... "I prefer the renaissance, the anatomy... the perfection of the forms..." he whispered to you almost seductively and you blushed. He lifted his chin in an arrogant and suggestive way and you thought you could undo yourself right there. "I like the authors where you can see the line of the drawing" he commented again looking at the painting and you looked at it fascinated. Aemond was the kind of guy you'd always dreamed of, but you weren't used to. You could talk to him about things like that. Most of your friends in Sunspear would have ignored even your comment.

"Here you can see the lines" you commented, looking back at him, and he gave that superior smile again, as if you didn't know what you were talking about or were a little girl. However, at that moment you did not realize his paternalistic attitude towards you.

"Yes, of course" he agreed with you. That was turning him on at times... you were incredible, you knew what you were talking about, but you were so innocent... damn, the looks of a daring girl and the innocence of such a young girl. He was going to have a good time. He liked that innocence for the mother of his children. He saw you again as a strong candidate. As cultured a girl as you proved to be, but still innocent and sweet. He kept looking at the painting next to you, keeping his hands behind his back, controlling what you did. Aemond felt whole at that moment.

You went to dinner at a rather small restaurant. You had thought that you would end up in a burger joint, but it was not the case. Aemond took you to a restaurant in the very center of King's Landing. It was quite intimate. Most tables had one or two couples at most. Dim lighting and mostly pasta in all their dishes. You didn't feel like you were well dressed for the occasion. No doubt Aemond was much more in tune with that restaurant than you were, but you didn't mind it. You tookhis hand and walked head high into the restaurant. He smiled when he felt your grip from him and inflated his chest, in his opinion you were going to need his protection from him in the end. You dined smiling. You laughed at all his jokes, and he drank wine at dinner. He loved that you asked for water. The right girls didn't drink alcohol…he was loving it…

Aemond led you to the museum gate again. Your brother seemed to have had a bad date and he was going to pick you up to come home. It was already midnight. You were holding Aemond's hand, and you had already assumed that you would not sleep with him on the first date. He hadn't groped you once and had been correct at all times. But you knew he was interested. Everything had been perfect enough for you to know. However, in a moment when there was a comfortable silence between the two of you as you waited, he grabbed your wrist and hip and pulled you close like that. You stood wide-eyed at his audacity as he gave you a passionate kiss, as if he were trying to win you over. You closed your eyes and let yourself be carried away by his lips from him that devoured in silence. He did not once use his tongue, but there was a clear enough desire in that contact that was making your skin crawl. You wrapped your arms around his neck and encircled him. There you continued in one of the corners of the stairs, kissing as if it were going on for an eternity. You were in the clouds. Aemond was everything you had sought. Meanwhile, he only thought about the perfection of the moment. In that movie kiss that he was giving you, like a true gentleman. He was surprised when at the end of the kiss you bit his bottom lip. He wasn't expecting it, but he was quickly convinced. What happened in the privacy of your sheets was only yours. You could be as daring as you wanted in bed, as long as you kept up appearances outside, he was even excited by the idea. He stayed for a while looking at you in silence, while he grabbed your face from him and caressed your lower lip. You smiled at him with a shade of blush on your cheeks. He pursed his lips in satisfaction.

"Did you have fun?" he asked you, charming, irresistible, gallant. He wanted you to see everything that protected you. How much you meant to him.

"It's been... amazing" you whispered. You've never had a date like this. You'd always ended up naked in the back of a car or in someone's bed, who'd fucked you and forgotten about you. You had given it almost for granted that love was that. That's why you didn't believe in romantic love, but Aemond had made you remember the fantasies that had reigned in your head years ago.

"I was nervous, you know?" He said smiling and pleased with your reaction.

"In case I didn't like the eyepatch?" you told him happy and he just laughed at your occurrence. All a clean laugh, without letting go of the grip of his face, as if he wanted that to last forever.

"No, no... you're going to laugh" Aemond was laughing at all the unfounded fears he had. He had been stupid. "I thought you were the daughter of that asshole Eldric Dayne..." he laughed arrogantly, as if until that moment he hadn't really relaxed when he confessed to you what had been on his mind. But then, you widened your eyes at his confession and your grip on his neck loosened…

"Well... I... I am the daughter of Eldric Dayne..." you confessed and saw Aemond's face change from a look of arrogance to one of disbelief.

“Don't be a joke, (Y/N)” he replied to you as if it were a joke, and rolled his eye in amusement. "The daughter of a politician would not dress like you do"

"Is it something wrong with how I dress?" You responded by letting go of his embrace.

“No, no, fuck no,” he replied, but he already knew that he had screwed up. You were so extraordinarily special and sweet that he felt stupid to think that you and he had a chance. He felt like he screwed up with you, but…

“Eldric Dayne is my father. That asshole, as you call him, is waiting for me at home” you said with a shrug, terribly angry. "What will it matter whose daughter I am?" you told him… Aemond just stood up straight in front of you. He put his hands behind his back in a gesture of arrogance. In his mind it just sounded: 'You're screwed, Targaryen. He swallowed before speaking.

"My name is Aemond, Aemond Targaryen" he told you with a serious and cold tone of voice. And you couldn't believe it, now you thought that he was joking… “I am the fourth son of Viserys Targaryen, leader of the conservatives. Current and future president of Westeros." Now you swallowed. In your head there was a voice that repeated: 'You're screwed, Dayne'.

[iam-emmet]

//What am I doing with my life??

//this is basically a 'the story thus far' except it's set up like a bad infomercial

Are you bored with your life? Wanting to try new things? See new places?

No?

Well, who cares. Arceus sure doesn't. Congratulations, you've won a great trip to the wonderful land of Ancient Sinnoh! Don't worry about the people you left behind, you won't even be able to remember them anyways!

Welcome to Hisui, the historical name of the beloved Sinnoh region. Here you will learn to fight pokemon thrice your size in hand to hand combat, solve ancient feuds, and cope with the fact that almost everyone here hates your guts!

Just remember to trust your instincts, and if they say don't take the cold medicine, there's probably a good reason for that.

Along the way you will get a phone and contact people from The Future! This includes the twin brother of your soon-to-be adoptive parent (more on that later), as well as the leader of an evil team, and a bunch of other random people.

But not everyone hates you! You have the Warden of Lady Sneasler and some random kid on your side! And let's not forget the blond fuck-face who lives in the walls.

Oh no, it seems you've been sent Back to The Future. Now you're out of time twice! Unfortunately you're also wearing a modified version of an evil organization's uniform so you have to dodge Officer Jennys until you make it to the subway station some rando you met on the internet works at. Luckily, he's actually not a creep and he's your adoptive uncle. Not that you realize that, it's not like him and your dad look basically identical. Not at all...

But that's boring, so now you're going to a private school you probably broke into until a Dragonite decides to carry you off to another region. Whatever, you don't care. You've been displaced so many times it'd be weird if it didn't happen.

[We interrupt this program to give you: Emmet gets to not have to deal with anything bad as his twin didn't go missing. Dumbass decides to eat a weed brownie and is paranoid the weed monster wants to eat his joltiks]

It's fine, you get to catch this cute pokemon. You're smart enough to not eat its 'wish granting mochi' so nothing bad happens-

Oh look, your uncle finally caught up with you. He also hasn't slept in a week and is stupider than usual. Oh no he ate the mochi. Oh wonderful, he's possessed. Now you have to deal with your guardian completely delirious and convinced his brother is back when he's clearly not. It's definitely not scary to watch someone interact with something you can't see.

[We interrupt this program to give you: Welcome to Wonderland, Emmet spends the entire time absolutely blasted out of his fucking mind]

Your time has been cut short as some other God got bored of your existence. Goodbye, fuck you, no one needed to remember you anyways. You're now living in the Who-knows-where Place and get to watch the boy version of you deal with your problems instead. Also your dad went AWOL but we're not entirely sure what he's up to at the moment.

[We interrupt this program to give you: Alternate Emmet got Winter Soldiered after trying to get Ingo back from (where he thought he was) in Team Plasma and Akari didn't get isakaied]

You've actually interacted with that guy before, but you had more problems to deal with than an alternate universe version of your uncle being brainwashed.

That's all we got so far, but aren't you so glad you were chosen for this shitshow?

[@thetraveleroftime]

[pinkandgreenarepurpleandyellow]

It Was A Blast Meeting You

Summary: I have so many stupid thoughts about how interactions between Prime!Rick and any Summer would go, so here we are with one of them. Summer isn't from C-137's universe, but a pretty similar one, and is aware enough of interdimensional shit that she knows the Rick in her timeline isn't her dimension's og Rick. For Prime, the timeline is just after the stinger of Solaricks. For Summer, it's around where late season 5 for C-137's dimension is.

------

Summer is falling through the space between portals. Just like before. She's given up figuring out how long she'll be in here, what with no portal gun with her to make an exit, but her best guess is that she's got a solid three days before the dehydration and lack of food will get her. She makes the same checklist in her head as she'd been making every time her disassociation is interrupted and she's stuck being aware of her current situation.

Time currently in portal: Idk, probably like 2 hours. I have to pee.

Additional notes: Still cramped, still falling or moving or whatever. Still no exit. I wanna go back to the football boy fantasy.

------

Time currently in portal: I still dk, probs like 4 hours.

Additional notes: I wonder what happens to my corpse when I die in here. Will I decompose? I'm basically in a vacuum that somehow lets me breathe, but there's no bacteria or stuff that I know of. Do I just stay a perfectly intact corpse?

------

Time currently in portal: Who gives a shit, I'm gonna die.

Additional notes: Football girl fantasy better than football boy fantasy. I miss Stacy.

------

Time currently in port-

Zap.

Summer lands, perhaps somewhat ungracefully, face-first on the floor of what looks like a very futuristic garage.

"Ow!"

Well, at least she's out. And now she even knows what's gonna kill her.

The Prime Rick is looking at her with confusion that's replaced by a smirk seconds later, a blaster in his hand aimed straight at her throat.

"Aww, hey alternate version of a hypothetical granddaughter!" He says, letting her scramble up at gun- ray- laser whatever point. "Ya missed your grandpa so much you fired up a portal, huh? Betcha thought it'd get you across universes to him, right?" The gun is cocked, a little charging up noise accompanying his tone turning menacing. "Betcha thought you'd get to come home to a nice happy reality, didn'tcha."

Summer's initial panic, tried and true instinct at the sight of a blaster pointed at her face, washes out. Exhaustion, followed by resignation, seeps in.

"Not really. I'm just glad I can crack my spine before I die." She twists her neck, letting the pop noise herald the feeling of relief. "Finally. Ok, you can shoot me now, I guess. I don't really care." She starts stretching her arms and shoulders, betting that he'll shoot before she can finish, but Prime's looking at her funny instead. The blaster hand isn't even his main focus anymore.

"Well that's new. W-what are you, some kinda spy or guilt ploy? Am I supposed to be sorry for you, is that the plan?"

She shrugs again.

------

He keeps staring as the teenager starts talking.

"Dunno. Rick might've implanted some shit in me, but not that I know of. I asked for laser boobs for months and he keeps saying no. But all Morty has to do to get a dragon is whine to Mom for a few weeks, and suddenly he gets to have fucking Balthromar or whatever as his pet, and Morty just keeps fucking things up! It's not like he had to go fight all of the ocean's creatures to get that stupid shell, it's not like he had to train the giant space baby, it's not like he built up an entire Go-gotron empire from the ground up, his whole job was just to stand around and block Rick's brainwaves! But nooooo, he's still Rick's favorite even though I'm the one that actually keeps everything running! WHATEVER! He wouldn't care enough about me to implant anything, that lousy jerk face-"

"Giant space baby?" He cuts her off.

The curiosity spikes at the way the girl glares at some empty space in the room.

"Yeah, and that's thanks to Morty too! If he hadn't fucked that stupid horse machine, I wouldn't be a fucking teenage mom to a fucking incest space baby that I had to train because the fucking US government wanted to use him as a fucking weapon! Fucking Morty!"

Further questions. He wants to laugh. He wants to make several jokes he would have made to Diane if she'd started ranting to him like that.

Diane.

He's mostly left any sentimentality of his behind along with that Diane and her Beth, decades ago in that little garage. But now he finally gets what those other Ricks had mentioned now and then, how their granddaughter takes after Diane more than anyone had thought possible. She'd be clenching her fists like that too right now, muttering those same insults under her breath, mixing and matching what she knows in Spanish and English with all of the alien language snipers she'd learned because of Rick.

It's not exactly pity of all things that courses though his head, but a strategic plan. Summer is young. She's angry, hurting, and capable of violence. She doesn't seem to plan on forgiving her family anytime soon. She wants revenge. Just like Diane would have.

He can use her. Send her back in as a mole, have her keep tabs, and then he can kill that stupid Rick and his whole family and then her. He'll even be nice and kill her painlessly while she's doing something that makes her happy. He'll let her kill Beth and shoot her while she's laughing at the corpse. Yeah. That sounds good.

"Alright, kid," he says, getting the teenager to finally shut up her rant, which has now moved to focus on her parents. "You've convinced me. I need an intern anyway." He turns the blaster off, deliberately playing it up just a bit as he sticks the weapon back in his belt. She stands up, her shock still splashed across her face even as her eyes show that she's already adjusting to the situation in her head, evaluating and reevaluating the idea.

It's adorable, really, that she thinks she can outwit him.

"Why?" Well, at least she's asking questions. That's a start.

"You're angry at your family. I have a score to settle with your Rick. You want revenge. I want revenge. You have a fascinating resumé and catch on quick. I like not having to micro-manage. Consider yourself hired for this particular part of my plan." He even tosses her a bottle of (not poisoned) water. See, he can be downright polite when necessary.

Summer finally looks calm, resigned again to whatever happens as she twists open the cap without taking a sip.

"You're gonna kill me at the end of this." She doesn't ask, saying it like she can see the future and isn't upset about it. "Fuck it, I always wanted to die young and hot," and then she's raising the water bottle in a fake toast before taking a deep sip and grinning at him. He can see Diane again, but also a little bit of that Rick blood in her too, with the wide grin of his dead wife and her eyebrow raised in half-mock the same way he would in her position.

Maybe she's a little smarter than he gave her credit for.

"Welcome to the dark side, kid," he says instead of anything else, watching as she pushes off the counter and walks over to him. "Grandpa's not gonna know what hit him."

------

Fin.

[cinnaminsvga]

Hug-o-gram | Yoongi

→ summary: 

“This is probably the dumbest idea you’ve ever had,” Yoongi hisses, but it’s kind of hard for Seokjin to take him seriously when he’s wearing a cardboard sign around his neck that says ‘Huggie Wuggie Machine!’ in bubble font. 

“Like, even worse than when we DIY’d your car into a convertible by sawing the top off?” Seokjin asks, genuinely curious. 

“Worse,” Yoongi admits, trying his best to stay out of your line of sight. His cheeks redden, matching the gaudy pink kitten ears he was forced into wearing.

{or alternatively: Seokjin is a terrible wingman. He also runs a profitable business by sending hugs to people’s crushes for a fee. Mix them together and you have a recipe for Min Yoongi’s worst nightmare.}

→ genre: college!au, hugging booth!au, fluff, humor → warnings: yoongi is so smitten that he’s a walking disaster, so much shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to scream, seokjin just tryna get his homie some y/n love coochie bro ;o; → words: 13.3K → a/n: another commission by the lovely @jincherie​ because she’s epic like that!! she literally just told me to write whatever the hell i wanted and well... yoobie got me Good... anyway here’s more yoongi fluff bc apparently i’m a fluff writer now and sometimes i just want my boy to be happy... appa yip yip

Kim Seokjin makes a lot of good decisions. He also makes plenty of bad ones, but he likes to think the score is lying heavily towards the positives. Min Yoongi will be the first one to quickly disagree, but Seokjin doesn’t let it get to him. He doesn’t make it his business to listen to opinions that don’t immediately align with his, anyway; he likes to call it “selective hearing.” Yoongi calls it stupidity. Either way, the point still stands: Seokjin knows a good idea when he sees one. Case in point:

“This automatic popcorn machine is absolutely divine,” Seokjin moans, his mouth agape as he waits for the Mister Popcorn Robot to bestow him with another morsel of goodness.

“Yeah,” is Yoongi’s verbose reply. He also has his mouth agape, his prone body lying side by side with his roommate of four years in their small living room. Their roomba (another one of Seokjin’s good ideas) cleans all around them, its steady whirring serving as their only source of background music. “Lowkey though, I think our position isn’t quite… as optimized as it could be.”

“What do you mean?” Seokjin asks, as he drapes his leg over Yoongi’s. His movement jostles the surrounding popcorn halo around them, as most of the food had missed their mouths by a couple of centimeters. At this point, the roomba has probably eaten more of the popcorn than the two of them combined.

“Nothing,” Yoongi shrugs, or whatever might be the lying down equivalent of a shrug. Some of the popcorn on his chest falls down, only to be quickly devoured by roomba-chi. Yoongi stares at the ceiling, tracing shapes out of the cracks that Seokjin had accidentally made when he tried using a pogo stick indoors. He points up, catching Seokjin’s attention. “Hey, hyung. Doesn’t that look a bit like Y/N?”

Seokjin squints. “You mean the mysterious brown stain near the lights? I think the toilet from the elderly couple upstairs might have leaked that.”

“No, you dipshit. The squiggly curve over there. It reminds me of her smile.” Yoongi says. There’s a stupid dopey grin on his face and Seokjin wants nothing more than to wipe it off.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Seokjin groans, turning over to envelop Yoongi in a sweaty half-armed hug. The buttery residue on his arms and stomach leaves something to be desired, but Yoongi doesn’t scoot away. He only continues to sigh dreamily, staring mindlessly at the image of you that only his lovelorn brain can imagine.

Seokjin slaps Yoongi in the face. “Dude, get a fucking grip,” he grouses, giving Yoongi a serious look. The younger doesn’t break out of his trance, further irritating him. “Will you stop pining in front of my popcorn? It’s seriously making roomba-chi lose her appetite!”

To his credit, roomba-chi did seem to be slowing down, though that could also be because it had overloaded with popcorn and was seconds away from exploding. Wouldn’t be the first time, but Seokjin always managed to find a way to save roomba-chi from imminent death. She was like a daughter to him.

“Hyung, you know I can’t. I just… God, I really like her, you know?”

“That’s the third time you said that within the last hour. Believe me, I know.” Seokjin groans, shoving Yoongi away. He sits up, reaching over to the popcorn machine and switching it off. He grabs a fistful of fallen popcorn from the ground and shoves it inside Yoongi’s mouth. “There. That should shut you up.”

“Aw weawwy wike hew, hwung.”

“And yet, you still haven’t done anything after four years,” Seokjin tuts, finally standing up. He stretches his limbs, his joints creaking youthfully. He grabs his phone from the coffee table, nearly dropping it from the butteriness of his fingers. The clock reads 4:32 PM, which means–

“Yoongi, it’s time for me to head to work. You want to come with me today?” Seokjin asks, though he knows what answer he’s going to get. You see, Seokjin’s new booming business is another one of his fantastic ideas, but it is a little... inventive. Sure, Yoongi had scoffed when he had originally suggested the idea, but Seokjin knew that it was going to be a money-maker. Sure, it had taken a few years for the business to really take off, but once it finally did…

Enter Kim Seokjin’s Hug-o-gram Service! Students from his university are able to send anonymous payments directly to him, with little notes attached for their crushes. Each love letter delivery comes with a hug from Seokjin himself, delivered straight to the person without them ever knowing who the hug came from. It was ingenious! It was lucrative! But most of all…

It allowed Seokjin to cause drama and have an excuse for it! Nothing could have been more perfect for a man like him.

“No thanks,” Yoongi snorts, rolling over to face him. He watches from the floor as Seokjin changes into a butter-less shirt, which also happens to have his own face printed on the front and back. His trusty cardboard sign that reads “I’m Gonna Glomp Ya!” also joins his attire for the afternoon, a long piece of string tied to its edges so that he can wear it around his neck. Throwing on a pair of white sneakers with the tags still attached, Seokjin is ready to tackle today’s list of would-be hug-ees.

“How do I look?” Seokjin asks, combing his hair with his fingers. It leaves an oily sheen, which he somehow makes it work.

“Ugly,” Yoongi says, like a liar.

“It’s okay, I understand. I can speak tsundere, so you don’t need to explain,” Seokjin snickers, nearly getting hit with a TV remote by Yoongi. He opens his phone again, swiping to his e-mail to see his list of hug deliveries for the day.

Seokjin gets around 10 requests a day, with around half of them coming from regular clients. He’s especially fond of this boy who has been sending hugs to his TA named Namjoon for almost a month now. He has no idea why this kid has so much disposable income, though seeing the blush on Namjoon’s face everyday makes Seokjin think that he would spend every last penny for him too. Namjoon had begged Seokjin for his secret admirer’s identity, but snitchin’ isn’t a part of his service, unfortunately.

As much as Seokjin wants to know who is crushing on who, his little business wouldn’t work as well as it did if anonymity wasn’t included in his package deal. It allows people to thirst in public without facing the repercussions, like getting a knee to the groin or a slap to the face. Not that Seokjin has ever been at the receiving end of that; everyone loves him! Like, have you seen him? He must have saved a civilization in the past with how devastatingly beautiful his forehead is.

“Why am I suddenly filled with the relentless urge to deck you right now?” Yoongi says, getting up to change into clean clothes as well. His black t-shirt unfortunately does not have Seokjin’s face on it, but that can quickly be amended if the elder of the two decides to follow his every intrusive whim.

Seokjin laughs, completely unaware of the murderous capabilities of his friend. Due to his smaller body size, his percentage of evil is unusually concentrated. “Maybe it’s because you know that I’m into pain pla–” but Seokjin’s retort suddenly grinds to a halt. He chokes mid-sentence, coughing wildly as he pounds his chest with a balled-up fist. When Yoongi looks up at him, he finds his hyung staring slack-jawed at his phone, seemingly flabbergasted by what he finds on his screen.

“What’s the matter? Accidentally sent a dick pic to your prof again?” Yoongi snorts.

“That was one time! And no, it’s…” Seokjin trails off, uncharacteristically hesitant. He shifts his gaze from his phone to Yoongi, a drop of sweat quickly forming on the back of his neck. Yoongi raises a brow, silently urging him to continue.

Instead of replying, Seokjin hands him his phone. Yoongi finds a copy of one of Seokjin’s newest hug requests, only having just received it five minutes ago. As he scrolls down, he finds that this secret admirer is a new client, but that isn’t what made Seokjin stop in his tracks. Instead, it’s the recipient of the hug that catches his attention–

“Y/N has a secret admirer?” Yoongi says, voice cracking at the end. He clears his throat, trying his best to school his face into something less… jealous. He swivels away from Seokjin, forcing himself to breathe slowly through his nose. He convinces himself that he is the very epitome of calmness.

“You okay there, Yoongi? You look like you’re about to vomit,” Seokjin says, immediately breaking his inner peace. Yoongi groans loudly, shucking the phone over his shoulder, uncaring of where it lands. Seokjin, with his superhuman and God-given reflexes… doesn’t catch it. But he did dive to the floor like a seasoned Olympian, and his ass cushioned his phone so he supposes that’s a win.

Back to the matter at hand––

“I am fine,” Yoongi says, as he continues to not be fine.

From the floor, Seokjin shoots him a disbelieving look. He lies down more comfortably, propping his head on his elbows. Screw his hug-o-gram appointments for now; nothing brings him more joy than seeing Yoongi absolutely losing it. “Really? So you wouldn’t mind if I marched up to Y/N right now and give her the warmest, coziest, most tender hug of her fucking life?”

“Y… Yes,” Yoongi squeaks, neck glowing a furious red. He has his fists clenched (adorably) by his sides, head bowed as he faces the wall of their apartment. Seokjin’s brain makes the unhelpful comparison of Yoongi with that cat meme who says “no talk me angy” in Impact font.

Seokjin grins, his wickedness from within coiling and yearning to burst from his seams. This is it! Maybe if he pushes a little more, then maybe Yoongi will stop pining like a pathetic loser! Also, it didn’t hurt that he got to push Yoongi’s buttons while he’s at it, but hey! Not all heroes go to heaven or whatever.

He grabs his phone from his ass, scrolling back to the e-mail. “So… You wouldn’t mind if I walk up to Y/N right now and tell her ‘Hey! I’ve had an embarrassingly long crush on you and when I heard about this hugging service… I couldn’t miss the chance to shoot my shot! If you’re single and ready to #mingle, then please meet me at the Corner Cafe at 2 PM tomorrow.’” Seokjin sing-songs, snickering loudly when he sees the absolute pain etched onto Yoongi’s face.

There is a pause, and Seokjin waits as Yoongi uses his tiny kitty brain to think of what to do. He can only imagine what’s going inside his head, but he has a guess. Yoongi could either: 1) finally admit his feelings for you and come clean before Seokjin has to deliver your hug, or 2) do something stupid and counterproductive.

It comes as no surprise when Yoongi goes with option number––

“Hyung, let me come with you to work today,” Yoongi decides, walking over Seokjin’s prone body to their shoe rack. He slides into a pair of sneakers, his harried movements unusual for his customary lethargicness. He grabs a coat from its hanger, stomping his feet to get Seokjin to move faster. “C’mon! We have hugs to deliver.”

“Woah woah woah! Slow down there, Simpimus Prime.” Seokjin gets back up to his feet, skipping over to him. An absolutely feral grin is stretched upon his face. “Am I hearing what you’re saying? Are you offering… to deliver hugs with yours truly? Are you finally going to take up my offer to be an employee at Kim Seokjin’s Hug-o-gram Service?”

“Of course not,” Yoongi scoffs, but his shifting eyes betray him. He fidgets in place, refusing to return Seokjin’s eager gaze. “I just… wanted to go out for once. Yeah.”

“Yoongi.”

“What?”

“You haven’t left this apartment other than to go to class in over a month. You never go out. You’re an indoor cat!”

“I’m not a fucking cat,” Yoongi hisses, like a cat. “And of course I go out! There was that one time I went outside to pick up our food delivery last week.”

Judging from Seokjin’s unimpressed stare, Yoongi’s excuse doesn’t cut it. Yoongi flaps his arms around, defeated. “Okay, fine! I rarely go out! Screw me and the bounteous crapload of assignments I have due! It’s not my fault I don’t have the time to socialize and have fun. What do you want from me?”

What Seokjin wants is to push a confession out of Yoongi, not because he needs the confirmation, but mostly because he just wants to annoy Yoongi and say “I told you so!” He’s also pretty cute when he’s all blushy and tsundere whenever he talks about you. Should he film him and sell the footage on eboys.bb? He’s certain that goth boy over here would make a pretty penny.

“You like krabby patties, don’t you Squidward?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Yoongi sniffs, nose upturned. He opens the door, not looking behind him to see Seokjin’s triumphant expression. “C’mon. Y/N’s last class of the day ends in a few minutes and we might catch her before she leaves the Science Building.”

Seokjin snorts. He is quick to slip his own coat on and he follows soon after. He locks their door shut, hopping over to Yoongi and matching his shorter-legged pace. “Yeah. Because you totally just know her schedule at the top of your head. You know, like a normal person.”

Yoongi ignores him. He trudges on, each step filled with determination as they make their way to Seokjin’s beat-up truck. Seokjin skips alongside him, observing the younger boy and placing bets inside his mind. The drive to campus isn’t that long as it only takes around 10 minutes to get there, but Seokjin guesses that Yoongi’s defenses will begin to chip away only 3 minutes into the drive.

He’ll start to realize the gravity of the situation, the cogs in his smooth and slushy excuse of a brain slowly comprehend what he’s about to witness. He’ll first think about how 1) he’s going to see you and that never helps his poor dainty grandpa heart and 2) he’s going to see you hugging Seokjin as he reads to you the short love confession from your anonymous Romeo. Seokjin bets that after 8 minutes, Yoongi will start to break out into a sweat, leaving gross perspiration marks on his good car seat leather.

After exactly 7 minutes and 34 seconds (Seokjin was keeping track of the time on his dashboard), Yoongi’s face turns an unflattering shade of green. “Dude. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Yoongi had originally offered to drive the two of them to campus, but Seokjin had the good foresight to refuse. Had Yoongi been the one on the wheel, he would’ve brought them back home in an instant due to nerves. So instead, Seokjin speeds up, ignoring Yoongi’s soft whimpers of defeat.

“Too bad, but there is no turning back now. I have six deliveries today and I am not putting my livelihood on the line just because your balls have magically shrunk in size,” Seokjin snickers. He glances at Yoongi from the corner of his eye and feels the slightest touch of pity for the pathetic fool beside him. “But if it really makes you want to shit yourself from anxiety, we could save Y/N for last. Though, on second thought… That could also prolong your misery, which I will always be up for.”

“God, shut up,” Yoongi groans, slamming his head on the dashboard. Seokjin continues undeterred as he pulls into the campus parking lot, waiting for his friend to make up his damn mind for once in his life. He supposes that he is being a little harsh on Yoongi, but there are only so many sad love songs he can listen to without going completely insane.

Aren’t you tired of being nice? The demon on his shoulder cajoles, shoving the corpse of his angel counterpart somewhere down a ditch. Don’t you just want to go apeshit?

And who is Seokjin to deny his impulsive needs anyway?

“No, let’s… just get this over with,” Yoongi decides, head still smushed against his dashboard. He doesn’t make any move to get out of the car, not even when Seokjin shuts off the engine and makes a show of “leaving” Yoongi behind.

“Okay, lover boy. You have ten seconds to get your butt into high gear before I’m leaving you behind. And you should know that I’m not above playing dirty and giving Y/N the sweetest fucking hug of her life that will make her forget anyone else exists in this world, so you better start moving before I–”

Like lightning, Yoongi scrambles out of the car faster than if it had caught on fire (and Seokjin’s car has exploded before and Yoongi certainly did not seem as bothered to escape than he does right now.) He nearly trips over himself in his haste, getting caught by the car door and nearly receiving a concrete facial to boot. He straightens up with as much dignity as he can muster (which he doesn’t have very much of, if at all.) Seokjin is kind enough not to mention anything, but the shit-eating grin on his face is enough to make Yoongi bristle.

They exit the parking lot, looking to the world like the sun and moon had turned human for the day. Min Yoongi, with his all-black attire and gaunt appearance, is heavily juxtaposed with the man who appears to have been vomited on by a rainbow. They walk side-by-side together, accustomed to the stares that often come their way when they go out in public.

“I just can’t believe we’re doing this,” Yoongi moans for the umpteenth time, his movements stilted like a robot. His footsteps look heavily disjointed like his knees were beginning to rust. His arms swing like a pendulum, adding to the unnaturalness of his motions. Basically, he looks like a fucking idiot.

“Who are you calling an idiot?” Yoongi snaps. Seokjin startles a bit, realizing belatedly that he’d said that out loud. Not that he cares. Yoongi continues, “I’m not the one wearing a fucking cardboard sign that looks like a toddler made it with macaroni and glitter!”

“Hey, Taehyung told me it looked good,” Seokjin sniffs, fingering the macaroni pieces dejectedly. “I don’t need to hear an opinion from a Music major.”

“Shut up, Business major. No one likes you fucking snakes,” Yoongi retorts, crossing his arms. “Your definition of fun is going on LinkedIn and using Excel sheets.”

Distracted by their own quarrel, neither of them notice the sound of the large clock in the middle of campus that chimes every hour, signaling that it was already 5 PM. A few minutes later, hoards of students begin to leave university for the day, the walkways beginning to fill with people as they head home. Amidst the chattering and bustling of everyone trying to get out of the crowd, it is hard to notice that you are also one of the hundreds of people finishing your last class of the day.

But Yoongi notices, as he always does. Call it Y/N intuition, or whatever. “There,” Yoongi points you out over dozens of heads. Seokjin can hardly spot you, but he trusts Yoongi’s weird Y/N-dar to find you without fail. People have begun to notice the two of them, most of whom were whispering excitedly when they notice that Seokjin is in his work attire.

“Oh my god, someone’s getting a hug-o-gram! I wonder who…”

“Have you ever ordered one? I got one for my current girlfriend last month and that’s how we got together.”

“I’ve always wanted to send one, but the prices are insane! Fuck them business students and their capitalist ways.”

“Screw sending a hug to someone else! I wanna order a hug for me. Kim Seokjin is a hot piece of ass.”

(Yoongi swears the last comment had sounded eerily like Seokjin himself, but the older boy’s mouth hadn’t moved in the last minute.)

“Alright, Yoongi. Here’s the plan,” Seokjin leans closer to Yoongi, stage whispering into his ear. Everyone within a six-foot radius is eagerly eavesdropping, not even bothering to pretend that they aren’t. It’s common knowledge that Seokjin basks in their attention, anyway. Yoongi rolls his eyes, urging him to get it over with.

“Y/N is over there, right? Well, I have to send a hug to this guy named Mark Lee too, who just so happens to be over there,” Seokjin points behind them, in the opposite direction of where Y/N was heading, “so here’s my proposition. You go over to Y/N and deliver the hug for me, while I go catch up to Mark so that we can kill one bird with two stones!”

“Excuse me?” Yoongi wheezes, pushing Seokjin away from him. His eyes bug out. “Are you insane? I am not doing that. And the phrase is ‘killing two birds with one stone,’ you fucking idiot.”

“Same shit, Shakespeare! Who cares about numbers!” Seokjin exclaims, exasperated. “Listen, would you rather you hug Mark and I hug Y/N?”

“I would much rather prefer that I stick my whole fist up your anus,” Yoongi seethes.

“Interesting proposition, but maybe for a later time,” Seokjin says, not missing a beat. “Listen, dude. The longer we prolong this little bitchfest you have going on, the farther away Y/N is gonna get. You know I will stop at nothing to deliver her hug anyway, so would you rather you miss your chance right now when I am so magnanimously offering you a shot at getting closer to your crush?”

Even though Yoongi feels like his insides were slowly turning into mashed potatoes, he knows that he had already made a decision long before they left the house. Seokjin is right; this is a good opportunity for him, whether he is willing to admit it out loud. Perhaps it is just because it is Seokjin of all people who is egging him on that preprogrammed him into thinking that this was a bad idea. In all seriousness, it was just a hug, nothing fancy. It isn’t like Yoongi was going to have to kiss you––

(His heart contracts and Yoongi wonders if he’s having a stroke. The thought of your soft lips connecting with his is enough to cause the wind to knock out of his chest. God, Yoongi is so screwed.)

“Why must I always feel as though I am a snail and God is personally salting me,” Yoongi groans, stepping away from Seokjin and heading your way. Behind him, Seokjin hollers in what he assumes is friendly support, but it only further antagonizes Yoongi. The absolute buffoon waves enthusiastically from behind him, a beaming grin almost ready to split his face in two. Yoongi flips him off without looking back.

God fucking dammit. The closer that Yoongi is to approaching you, the stronger the urge to just evaporate like ice cream on hot concrete becomes. He can feel himself perspiring from every corner of his body and he just hopes that his black attire will do well to mask the slimy creature that he is underneath his clothing.

This is all Seokjin’s fault, Yoongi reminds himself. If he hadn’t started this stupid hugging service in the first place, then no one would have ordered a hug for you in the first place. Then Yoongi wouldn’t have to be in this stupid predicament either!

But you could’ve ordered a hug for her if you wanted to, says the annoying part of his brain – the same part that’s always been a little bit too hopeful for Yoongi’s liking. The whispers continue, And she wouldn’t even know it would be you! But more importantly…

“Seokjin wouldn’t know either,” Yoongi huffs irritably because he knows it’s true. The biggest thing stopping him from ever making a move on you, other than his debilitating fear of rejection and heartbreak, is the fact that he’d rather explode into spores than for Seokjin to find out that he’d used his “genius” business idea to get the girl of his dreams.

He’s afraid that one day, Seokjin would magically develop telepathic powers (a fear that Yoongi feels that the majority of the human population should also share) and find out that Yoongi doesn’t actually think his hug-o-gram service is dumb. It’s actually really cute, and Yoongi hates to admit that the success rate of his service is nearly perfect in terms of getting couples together.

But Yoongi is a strong (read: stubborn) man; he’d rather drop dead than allow Seokjin the satisfaction of seeing his business work out for his seemingly hopeless case. Which brings him to the present–

You’re standing by the entrance of the Sciences building. You are dressed nicely as always; Yoongi doesn’t think he’s ever seen you in anything remotely slobby, not even a pair of sweats like any regular uni student. You always look a little bit business proper: the epitome of someone who should be on the student council.

You’re speaking to someone, a younger male student by the looks of it. The hairs on Yoongi’s neck stand at attention and, God forbid, did he just fucking growl? Did he make that sound? By the looks of the students carefully navigating their way around him, Yoongi surmises that he did make that sound. Geez, is he some sort of animal? Is he going to turn into those feral stan accounts on Twitter that salivate over their K-pop boys like it’s their job? He hopes not.

But what if that’s the kid who sent the hug–

Yoongi shuts up his brain before he can let it finish. No, he can’t let himself go down that path. It’ll only cause him to self-combust right then and there, and he isn’t exactly keen on letting you see his entrails anytime soon. That would be the least cool thing to do, he decides. And so, with his brain turned off, he walks over to you, arms swinging robotically by his sides as he forces himself closer.

“Oh thank you so much, Y/N! You’ve been a real help to our club, you know?” The boy (Yoongi can’t believe they’re letting toddlers into university these days!) says, his eyes glittering with an ambition that still hasn’t been killed by the all-consuming dread that comes with university.

You laugh lightly, the sound causing butterflies to flutter excitedly in Yoongi’s chest. “No worries, Soobin. I’m glad I could be of help. If the editorial board needs any more help, don’t be shy to shoot me a message, alright?”

Soobin nods enthusiastically, his head bobbing up and down so quickly that Yoongi was afraid his neck would snap. “No worries, Y/N! Have a good rest of your week!” He waves a cheery goodbye, springing away with his numerous anime keychains on his backpack jingling softly in his wake.

“What a cute kid,” you sigh. You look incredibly fond, and Yoongi hates the bitter coil swimming in the pit of his stomach. That feeling soon fizzles out when you finally turn to face Yoongi. Your eyebrows shoot up, but your expression quickly morphs into one of pleasant surprise. Yoongi’s heart stops for just a moment, feet turning cold. “Yoongi! Oh my goodness, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen you! How’s it going?”

Let’s play a game, shall we? How many of Yoongi’s nervous ticks can you spot within the next five minutes? Think of this as the easiest game of Where’s Waldo ever!

“Hnng,” Yoongi stammers, his hand immediately going to scratch the back of his neck. His cheeks pinken, pupils shaking in every different direction as they try to focus on anything but you. It always feels like he’s standing way too close to the sun when he’s around you, hardly able to keep his gaze focused on you. He chooses to stare resolutely at your chin, but even your fucking chin was impossibly cute.

Seriously? Yoongi is a walking shitshow! His inner voice comes back, but this time it sounds uncannily like his roommate. Come on, buddy. Just say hi… You know, like a normal person. “H… Hey, Y/N.”

Success count: 1 point for the Yogurt Machine!

Even though Yoongi felt like he was living his worst nightmare, you still looked every bit like his favorite daydream. You are all smiles, seemingly unperturbed by Yoongi’s slow, embarrassing demise. “It’s so good to see you! Midterms haven’t been too hard on you, I hope?”

“I’ve been better,” he says. Better now that you’re here, he leaves unsaid. God, can you imagine if he said that out loud?

Your mouth drops open, soft cherry blossoms blooming across your cheeks. “Um, what did you say?” you squeak, embarrassed. But certainly not as embarrassed as the boy in front of you.

Yoongi stops breathing. He did not say that aloud, had he? Judging by the awkward silence stretching between the two of you, the signs are pointing to: yes. Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygo–– “Er, what I mean to say is,” Yoongi stutters through his sentence, his entire body flushing fire engine red like it’s nobody’s business. He must look like Satan’s spanked ass right now. “I… I’m here to deliver a hug!”

Confusion quickly replaces the shock on your face. You tilt your head, brows scrunching up cutely. “A hug?” you ask.

“R-right,” Yoongi says, waving his arms around because he has nothing else better to do. He gestures vaguely in the opposite direction, where Seokjin had left to find his other clients. “I’m, uhh… Helping my roommate. Have you heard of Seokjin’s hug-o-gram service?”

“Oh, yeah!” You hop excitedly in place, looking to all the world like the cutest thing in the universe. Yoongi thinks you should be classified as a public hazard, what with how you’re somehow able to give him diabetes just from standing next to him. “I totally heard about that! I’ve always wanted to send a hug, but I’ve always been a little shy.”

That piques Yoongi’s interest immediately. You wanted to send a hug? But to who? He unconsciously clenches his jaw, and he can feel a vein pop up near his neck. He forces himself to smile, but he knows it probably looks more like a grimace. “Oh really? That’s… I didn’t know you had a crush on somebody.”

Yoongi is too busy wallowing in his own self-pity puddle that he misses the way you gaze shyly up at him through your eyelashes, your hands clasped behind your back. “Y-yea… I don’t really go around telling it to just anybody,” you shrug as nonchalantly as you can. You clear your throat. “So, are you here to deliver a hug or something?”

Nothing gets past you, huh? Yoongi swallows thickly as he twiddles his thumbs. He still can’t bear to look at you head-on, afraid that his emotions would be too obvious if he did. (Who is he kidding… He knows he’s fucking obvious, and yet you never seem to get the picture!) “Yea, I am. I’m here to deliver one to you, actually.”

He doesn’t get to see your reaction, but he does notice the way your entire body stiffens. His mind immediately starts to run a minute, trying to guess why you’d suddenly gone stock still.

Did you know who your secret admirer was already? Or perhaps, were you just thoroughly shocked to receive one at all? That can’t be it… You’re the campus sweetheart! Surely it’s much weirder that it has taken eons for you to get your first hug… Or perhaps, are you so disgusted by the thought of him delivering the hug? Oh my god, what if you didn’t want him to hug you? Shit, this entire thing is a terrible idea! How did Seokjin ever convince him to do this stupid shit and get his heartbroken in the process? He swears he’s going to shove ten firecrackers up his ass the next time he sees him––

“Um, Yoongi?” You’re staring worriedly at him, your hand semi-raised as if you were about to wave in front of him. Did you say something? He must look like a fucking prick to you! He shakes his head, trying desperately to get his mind back into his body. Why must he be cursed with inner monologue disease? What is he, some sort of shoujo manga male protagonist?

“Sorry about that. I’ve been a little spacey these days,” he laughs, but even he can hear the panic laced in his voice. He sounds just on the edge of being hysterical. “Ahaha… What were you saying?”

“I was just… shocked?” You giggle softly, making Yoongi cry internally. You smirk, mischief glittering in your eyes. “I just never imagined you’d be the type to… I don’t know…”

“Willingly hug people for the sake of capitalism? I feel you,” Yoongi snorts, forgetting for a moment who he’s talking to. “Believe me, I’d rather drop dead than allow Seokjin to use me for his stupid business venture.”

“Then why are you delivering a hug to me now?” you ask, still smiling.

“Hnng,” Yoongi’s tongue feels like it’s grown two sizes all of a sudden. He wheezes, choking on his own spit as he’s caught off guard by your question. “W-well, I––”

“Just being a good friend, I’m guessing?” You’re full-on giggling now, barely trying to hide your mirth behind your hands. Yoongi understands now; you’re teasing him. He hates how amused you are by his awkwardness, but he loves the way your entire expression lights up, like you’re enjoying yourself by being with him.

“Let’s go with that,” Yoongi mumbles, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. He has his head bowed, hoping that his unruly fringe can finally come in handy and hide the disastrous blush encompassing his face. “Right… I’ll just, umm…”

“Am I getting my hug today, or am I gonna have to take a rain check?” You laugh, slapping his shoulder in an attempt to help him shake off the awkward tension. It has the opposite intended effect, as Yoongi’s breath hitches imperceptibly at your proximity. You had taken a step closer, and Yoongi could smell the sweet perfume you always seemed to be wearing. Please don’t pop a boner right now. That would be super fucking creepy.

“You’re…” Yoongi hesitates, arms uselessly immobile by his sides. He doesn’t know if he can even get them to move at this point, as he has lost all motor skills the moment you had focused all your attention on him. It’s a miracle that his heart remembers to beat every so often. “I’m just… I’m just gonna go for it, okay?”

You nod, hands tucked neatly behind your back. “No need to be scared, Yoongi. I don’t bite,” you joke.

God, if you only knew about the dreams I’ve had of you. Yoongi hopes to all the deities from up above that he had not said that aloud, but you don’t seem to be disgusted, so he can only assume that his traitorous brain had disconnected with his mouth for the time being.

He shuffles closer to you, the warmth of your body closing in as he makes the grueling effort to lift his arms up to gently wrap themselves around you, but before he can even fully hug you––

You’re quick to reciprocate. With a small laugh, you wrap your own arms around his torso, nuzzling into his chest with more force than Yoongi was expecting. He lets out a soft wheeze, mouth dropping open when he is assaulted by the smell of your fruity shampoo. His hands hover awkwardly above you, still unsure of where it’s okay to touch you without weirding you out.

You tilt your face up, eyes crinkling cutely by the sheer force of your grin. Both of your faces are only centimeters away from each other, and Yoongi could probably count your eyelashes if he so desired. His breathing stills as he becomes positively mesmerized by the beautiful sight in front of him. He doesn’t even hear the sound of phone camera shutters around him, as he is much too deeply focused on nothing but you, you, you.

“Hey, don’t half-ass your hug! Gimme a good ol’ bear hug!” you whine, nudging his elbows gently to get them to move. Snapped out of his reverie, Yoongi mechanically does as you say, his head completely empty of thoughts. He wraps his arms tightly around your shoulders, his wrist knocking slightly against the back of your head until you’re back to snuggling deep into his chest.

“Your laundry detergent smells nice,” you say, slightly muffled by his shirt. Yoongi lets out a breathy laugh, mostly out of disbelief more than anything. He can’t even begin to process anything right now; he feels like he’s reverted back into a single-celled organism.

“Thanks?” Yoongi squeaks, but you don’t seem to mind his awkward attempts at being a Normal Person™️. You crane your neck upwards so that you’re looking him directly in the eye. There’s a twinkle of mischief there, like you’re enjoying Yoongi’s flushed face a little too much. He honestly feels like he’s seconds away from exploding into tiny bite-sized pieces, and he fears that if you snuggle deeper into his chest, he might just do exactly that.

“So… Are we just supposed to hug for another ten minutes, or am I allowed to let go?”

Yoongi doesn’t even realize how long it’s been. You could’ve been hugging him for ten hours and he wouldn’t have known. Yoongi jerks away from you, nearly vaulting himself across campus by how quickly he lets you go. Thankfully, you don’t appear offended––you were more amused than anything. Yoongi has no idea how red he is right now; he feels like he could be blowing steam out of his ears, astounding anatomists everywhere by his peculiar talent.

“I just have to–” Yoongi pats his back pockets for his phone, clumsily pulling it out and looking for his text messages, “–read this message from your, um, secret admirer and then we’ll be good to go.”

“Great.” You nod at him enthusiastically. “Whenever you’re ready, Yoonie.”

Yoongi’s breath hitches right then, caught off guard by the nickname. Only you ever called him that, and it never fails to make Yoongi’s insides feel like molten lava every time you say it. “I… Yeah, here goes,” Yoongi mutters, trying his best to remember how to speak.

He recites the message with as much enthusiasm as he can manage, which is to say, not very much. He could probably read the phonebook with more zeal, but it’s hard to give it his all when the words feel like acid in his throat. He’s unconsciously clenching his jaw as he speaks, looking like a constipated gorilla. “...so, if you’re single and ready to #mingle, then––” Yoongi stops mid-sentence, staring resolutely at his phone screen with a grimace.

You blink confusedly. “Then?”

“Then nothing,” Yoongi finishes, pocketing his phone without an inch of remorse. “I don’t know what was up with that message, but somehow the letter got cut short. Sorry about that.”

“Huh, strange.” You shrug your shoulders, not bothering to question him.

Yoongi fist bumps himself mentally, though other people might disagree and say that he doesn’t deserve any type of congratulations, to which Yoongi says a big “fuck you!” to those imaginary haters. In the wise words of Kim Seokjin himself, “not everyone is worthy to receive your fucks, so it’s time to stop giving them.” (Kim, 2020)

“Well, that was fun! Thanks for delivering the hug to me, Yoonie,” you pinch Yoongi’s cheek, giggling when they turn even redder. “I’ll see you around, I guess? Don’t let those midterms kill ya!” You wave cheerily at him, walking past him and heading towards the bus stops. Yoongi stands frozen in place, the events of the last few minutes finally catching up to him and frying his brain beyond repair.

Oh my god, he fucking hugged you! Like, a good and genuine hug! You felt so warm and so soft and you smelled really good and it was more than he could ever imagine and just––

Yoongi’s brain is trying (and failing) to desperately parse the delayed barrage of information as it comes, but it’s hard for the little hamster running circles in his head when it has never had to run a day in its life. Yoongi’s body feels like it’s overheating even though the weather is nearing the start of winter, but that’s all thanks to you and the devastating effect you have on him.

In short, Yoongi machine has broken, and any sort of maintenance is going to be hard to come by at the moment.

Yoongi could have been standing in front of the Science building for an entire year and he wouldn’t have budged until a tornado in the form of Kim Seokjin arrived to knock him out of his brain dead state. Whistling lowly, the elder stops in front of the rigid mass of meat, an eyebrow quirked in exasperation. “Dude, nice rigor mortis cosplay. Like, yes girl, give us nothing!” he exclaims, slapping Yoongi back to consciousness.

Yoongi blinks rapidly, dazed like he’s woken up from a dream. “What? What’s happening?” he replies dumbly.

Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Yoongi. Did you finish delivering Y/N’s hug or what? I finished all my deliveries in the same time you had with Y/N, so I better hope to God you aren’t planning on applying to be an employee of mine, because you certainly have a long way to go before––”

“I hugged her,” Yoongi interrupts, eyes going glassy once more. His mouth is agape, and Seokjin can see a pool of saliva forming, ready to runneth over. He could see the rusted gears turning inside his dongsaeng’s head. “Oh my god, hyung. I fucking hugged her.”

“Yeah, and I hugged Taehyung Kim and felt his gigantic dick press into my stomach. You aren’t special,” Seokjin snorts, clasping Yoongi by the bicep. He drags him away, leading them to their parked car. “C’mon, Dampé. I’m tired and I wanna eat popcorn again.”

As they walk back to the parking lot, the campus roads are a lot less populated now that most students have gone home. Yoongi only then realizes how late it truly is and he vaguely wonders how long he had been stuck standing there before Seokjin had come to drag him back home. The sun has begun its daily descent, filling the courtyard with a warm glow and causing their shadows to grow longer as they trudge quietly to their car.

The campus is quiet enough that both of them hear the quiet buzz of Seokjin’s phone, despite him putting it on silent mode before he had gone on his hugging deliveries. He stops mid-step, causing Yoongi to bump his nose into his wide back. He yelps, shoving Seokjin forward in irritation.

“Why’d you fucking stop, you asshole?” Yoongi whines, his normal annoying personality resurfacing now that he’s begun to recover from your hug. He peers over Seokjin’s behemoth shoulders, squinting at his phone screen. “What? Another hug delivery?”

“Yeah. I’ll do it tomorrow since I think she’s gone home for the day,” Seokjin says, his tone sounding slightly too delighted for comfort. “In fact, I know she’s gone home already.”

Yoongi stills, changing his focus onto the elder’s expression. He looks… too eager to receive a simple hug-o-gram request. A shiver shoots through Yoongi’s spine when he realizes how nefariously bastardous Seokjin’s smile has grown, the tips of his smirk curling upwards like a villain from a classic Disney animation.

“What?” Yoongi glares acidly at Seokjin, but the elder is unaffected. In fact, he seems to grow more pleased the more aggravated Yoongi becomes. “Spit it out! What’s got your prostate tickled?”

“Oh, nothing,” Seokjin singsongs, shoving his phone down the front of his pants, exactly where he knows Yoongi would never touch. “Just got an interesting new regular customer, is all.”

“A new regular?” Yoongi’s pitch heightens, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling in alarm (like a cat.) “Is it… Another request for… You know who?”

“I wasn’t aware Voldemort went to our university,” Seokjin teases, thoroughly enjoying Yoongi’s distress. “Though, if you’re talking about Y/N, then the answer is not not not no.”

“Two double negatives.” Anyone could hear the audible soft rattling of his two brain cells exerting themselves as Yoongi deciphers his answer. “That means…”

Yoongi stares pointedly at Seokjin’s crotch, where the outline of his phone is glaringly obvious. “Show me,” Yoongi growls, not making a move to actually touch Seokjin’s nether regions.

Seokjin shrugs his shoulders. “No one’s stopping you from taking my phone though?”

“Hyung!”

“Buy me bubble tea first, then we’ll talk.”

“Fine,” Yoongi acquiesces, folding his arms in annoyance. “Just tell me. Is it really the same guy who requested the hug for Y/N today as well?”

Seokjin fiddles around for his phone, digging deeper when it nearly drops down the leg of his pants. When he pulls it out and swipes to his e-mails, he confirms Yoongi’s fear. “Yep. And it seems like he saw you deliver the hug today. Says that he’d prefer that I deliver the hug next time,” Seokjin smirks, enjoying the deep-set frown on Yoongi’s face.

When Seokjin takes a closer look at the order, however, he notices something a little off. “Hold on a sec,” he scrolls to the receipt, scowling when he sees the incorrect amount. “Well, you might be in luck, Yoongi-chi. Looks like loverboy sent the wrong payment. He’s a few dollars short.”

“What?” Yoongi says, for what feels like the tenth time in this entire fic. He grabs Seokjin’s phone, no longer repulsed by where it had been only a few minutes prior. Like Seokjin said, the customer had given the wrong amount, much to both their confusion.

“That’s weird, considering he just ordered a hug today,” Seokjin murmurs, shaking his head. “Oh well. Happens to the best of us. Guess I’ll just have to refund the poor sap.”

“Wait,” Yoongi presses the phone to his chest, preventing Seokjin from taking it. His hyung raises a brow.

“What is it?”

“What if I just… pay you the remaining amount? Then I can also deliver the hug to her and, uhh...” Yoongi mumbles the remaining part, but Seokjin has trained his ears to catch every whisper and mutter for moments just like this. He wouldn’t be where he is today if he didn’t perfect his eavesdropping skills to a spy’s degree. That’s right––Seokjin is a sloppy and nosey bitch and he’s not afraid to admit it!

“Oh? Do my ears deceive me?” Seokjin guffaws, pinching Yoongi’s cheeks for good measure. He hisses in response, but Seokjin isn’t afraid of some little kitten. Seokjin is a bigger bitch with a meaner bite. “Is my little Yoongi Woongi seriously offering to deliver another hug to Miss Y/N? How magnanimous of you.”

Yoongi stares at him, stunned for a moment. A few seconds pass before he shakes his head, faux disdain coloring his expression. “That’s right,” Yoongi huffs, detaching himself from Seokjin’s meaty claws. He keeps his gaze averted, like the big stupid tsundere that he is. “I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart! I care about your profits, and I want to make your workload a little lighter! Isn’t that what you want?”

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Seokjin snickers, poking Yoongi in the tit. He swivels away, skipping merrily away to their parked car. “I’m expecting that cash in my Paypal by the time I get to the car, or else the deal is off. Make it snappy, loverboy!”

Yoongi had never transferred cash to someone so quickly in his life.

(Yes, not even when the food court on campus was doing a BOGO promo for churros. That’s the extent of how whipped his ass is, period.)

x x x x x

“This is probably the dumbest idea you’ve ever had,” Yoongi hisses, but it’s kind of hard for Seokjin to take him seriously when he’s wearing a cardboard sign around his neck that says ‘Huggie Wuggie Machine!’ in bubble font.

“Like, even worse than when we DIY’d your car into a convertible by sawing the top off?” Seokjin asks, genuinely curious.

“Worse,” Yoongi admits, trying his best to stay out of your line of sight. His cheeks redden, matching the gaudy pink kitten ears he was forced into wearing.

“Listen, I’m seriously not forcing you to do this,” Seokjin starts, even though he’s giving his utmost effort to further embarrass Yoongi by handing out flyers about Hug-o-gram’s newest employee. “Please, take one!” he cajoles, offering a flyer to a gaggle of giggling freshmen. “Make sure to reserve a hug within the week! Yoongi-chi over here is on his way to becoming employee of the month if he gets ten requests by Friday!” They all point and whisper at Yoongi, and he swears he hears one of them wolf whistle in admiration.

“That’s what makes this entire thing terrible. I’m doing this on my own volition, and I absolutely abhor myself for it,” Yoongi moans, grabbing Seokjin’s stack of flyers and smacking himself in the head with them. It probably would’ve hurt more when Seokjin still had a full-stack, but people had swarmed them the moment they entered the heart of the campus, everyone curious to see Yoongi in his interesting attire.

Seokjin might have been famous for creating the Hug-o-gram Service, but Yoongi was famous for hating the business idea, so it’s easy to understand why everyone was interested. (For good reason, he thinks darkly to himself.)

“Damn, Yoongi-chi. Looks like you’re trending on the campus Reddit page,” Seokjin laughs, wheezing even harder when Yoongi points him with a murderous glare. “What? Like you said, this was all your idea.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t ask to wear… whatever this is!” Yoongi whines, tugging on the string around his neck. The cardboard sign had been ready and prepared the moment they arrived home the other day, arousing Yoongi’s suspicions on Seokjin’s actual involvement in his current predicament. Those suspicions are put in the backburner for now, however, as Yoongi actually feels like he might die of embarrassment instead of the packets of MSG coursing through his veins from the ten ramen packs he ate this morning. Maybe both will kill him, if he’s lucky.

“Well, I would love to lend you my uniform, but I haven’t gotten a t-shirt printed with your face on it yet, so you’ll have to deal with the kitten ears and cardboard sign for now,” Seokjin says, patting him on the back. “Or, would you rather I have you wear a shirt with my face on it? I’m open to suggestions.”

“I’d rather swallow a Tide pod, thanks,” Yoongi says through gritted teeth. “C’mon, let’s move. We’ve been standing in the middle of campus like street clowns for long enough. We need to find Y/N because her class is about to end.”

“Street clowns, huh? I guess you are only missing the make-up to complete the look, especially since you seem adamant to keep honking your way through that sickening crush of yours.” Seokjin nearly catches a punch to the head, but his superior reaction time saves him from Yoongi’s sorely lacking physicality. He snatches Yoongi by the hand, dragging them towards your lecture hall. “C’mon, clown! Let’s honk this bread!”

As the two of them get closer to where you are, Yoongi’s heartbeat begins to accelerate. He wonders idly if he should see a doctor after all this, hoping that he hadn’t actually contracted heart disease due to all this stress. Lord forbid that he meet his end before he even gets to ask you out or something!

Even though he’s already hugged you once (and it was, by far, the most euphoric experience of his sad, miserable life), he still finds himself getting clammy hands at the thought of seeing you again. Nevermind the fact that he looked like a walking circus with his get-up… No, Yoongi refuses to think about it anymore, lest his last remaining brain wrinkle irreversibly smoothens.

The campus clock rings loudly, signaling the end of another block of classes. Students rush out of the buildings, with you being one of the first ones out for a change. When Yoongi spots your head of hair among the crowd, he doesn’t immediately notice what you’re wearing at first. In fact, it’s Seokjin who stops in his tracks for a moment, surprised by how you look.

“Woah, Y/N! Looking good,” Seokjin greets, rushing past Yoongi to envelop you in a hug. (A platonic hug, Yoongi reminds himself. Because unlike Yoongi, Seokjin is a normal human being who can give hugs to anyone he wants because he’s… fucking Seokjin! Lucky bastard that he is.)

“Woah!” You laugh, surprised by the sudden hug. You pat him on the back giddily, allowing him to swing you around a little. “What’s this all about? Am I getting a hug-o-gram again?”

“Yes, you are. But not from me,” Seokjin detaches himself from you, scooting away to point at Yoongi. When Seokjin moves away, Yoongi finally understands why his hyung had said you looked good. No, that was an understatement––you looked [redacted].

(For the sake of the author’s fragile ash-coated heart, she has chosen to redact Yoongi’s exact words to protect herself from slamming her head against a keyboard from how cheesy this fic is becoming. Let’s just say the word starts with a B and ends with an L. Make of that as you will.)

You must have come out of an interview or presentation of sorts because you were dressed more nicely than you usually do, which is a pretty big deal considering how put together you always looked. Your hair is styled nicely, obviously given much more care and effort than your regular appearance. You’re wearing a cute little black dress, long enough to be professional but short enough to give Yoongi breathing problems.

If Yoongi’s brain had a playlist, it would be nothing but the sound of him going HNNNNNNNNNG on repeat.

“Oh geez.” Yoongi curses lowly, smiling through the pain. This is fine, he thinks, even though it is clearly not fine. Yoongi has always been a terrible liar.

“Yoongi?” You sound incredulous, though that’s honestly a win in Yoongi’s book considering everything. You didn’t look disgusted, so that’s great. “You look…” You stop yourself, covering your mouth to hide your grin but your amusement is palpable. At least he made you laugh, he supposes.

“Like a fucking idiot? You said it,” Yoongi snorts, arms crossed defiantly. He’s trying to look intimidating, but with his cheeks puffed up and these abominable kitten ears on his head, he looks more like a grumpy cat throwing a tantrum. He juts a thumb at Seokjin, “Thank this himbo for the outfit. I definitely would have chosen something more… inconspicuous.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” You quip, still trying to mask your giggles. On the other hand, Seokjin was wheezing like a hyena, his phone pulled out and presumably filming Yoongi to add to his cringe compilation.

“Exactly what I said!” Seokjin says through his laughter, tears of mirth streaming down his face. He walks back to Yoongi, pushing him forward until he’s face to face with you. “Go on, then! We haven’t got all day!”

“I’m assuming you’re officially part of Seokjin’s hug-o-gram business now?” you ask, opening your arms wide to accept his hug. Like the beta male that he is, Yoongi has to be the one to follow in your footsteps, meekly coming closer to wrap you in an embrace.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Yoongi mutters, tucking his chin onto your shoulder. He feels you vibrate with laughter, bringing a small smile on his own face. He likes making you laugh, always has.

With the cardboard sign serving as a barrier between the two of you, he isn’t as fearful of you feeling the erratic beat of his heart, though it wouldn’t be hard to guess if you looked at him. He closes his eyes, allowing himself to enjoy your hug rather than just panic through the entire ordeal like yesterday.

Soon enough, you’re detaching yourself from him, still standing close. Your arm is just a hair’s breadth away, and if not for Seokjin enthusiastically videotaping this entire experience, Yoongi might have closed in for another hug if he could manage.

“It’s always nice to get a hug from someone you like, huh?” You say, cheeks tinted a rosy color. The true meaning of your words flies over Yoongi’s head, as his feeble mind chooses to focus on your comment a little differently.

“I––Of course I like you! We’re friends, aren’t we?” Yoongi laughs nervously, unaware that he’s slowly digging himself into a ditch. To the side, Seokjin audibly slaps a hand to his face, body shivering with secondhand embarrassment from being blasted by the full force of how idiotic his friend actually is.

Yoongi sees you deflate a little, further confusing him. “Yeah, you’re right I guess…” You sigh, taking a step backward dejectedly. Yoongi flounders a little, unsure how he managed to fuck up in just a few seconds when you had just hugged him like your life depended on it.

Choosing now to interfere before the going gets rough, Seokjin steps in between and slings an arm around both of you. Yoongi groans under the weight of his arm, glaring when he notices that Seokjin had done it on purpose, but only to him. You don’t look too bothered by his rude gesture, albeit you were more befuddled than before.

“Hey, Y/N! I don’t know if you’ve ever ordered a hug-o-gram before, but I’m doing a special this week! Now that Yoongi-chi has so kindly joined the team,” Seokjin gives him a pointed look, to which the black-haired music major sticks his tongue out petulantly, “we’re doing a little promotion for first-time customers! Would you be interested in ordering one?”

Your eyes widen, looking like a deer caught in headlights. “M-me? Ordering a hug-o-gram? Well, I…” you hesitate, sending a small glance at Yoongi before looking away in embarrassment. “I would like to, but I don’t know if it’ll be well received, you see…”

Seokjin grumbles, silently cursing the stupid shithead who caused his own demise in the first place. The worst part is that he had no idea that he totally just friendzoned you! YOU! Someone who was literally leagues ahead of him. He sincerely has no idea what you see in this bumbling idiot, but everyone with a brain knows that you have been crushing on him for as long as he’s been crushing on you, so perhaps you’re a little bit of an idiot yourself for liking him back.

Being friends with the two of you makes him feel like he’s constantly wearing a sloppy wet diaper, and he hates it. He wants to wipe his ass as soon as possible!

Seokjin shoves Yoongi away roughly, ignoring his indignant squawks as he pulls you aside. He takes you by the hand, taking you a few steps away from Yoongi, far enough that he can whisper into your ear without the other boy hearing.

Yoongi fumes from the sidelines, trying to keep his emotions in check even though he’s bursting at the seams with jealousy. Not for the first time, Yoongi irritably realizes that he does act like a cat, especially in moments like this. He might make fun of Seokjin for being an attention whore, but Yoongi is the same, if only at a smaller scale. He just wants you to look at him, as selfish as that sounds.

Can someone give him a break? He’s been holding in his crush for four years now… Imagine having to take a massive shit after drinking two gallons of milk while being lactose intolerant, except every time you line up for the washroom, the line gets increasingly long no matter how long you wait. That is the extent of his suffering, he tells himself. So please, excuse his dramatics for this one instance.

(Seokjin’s Note: This fucking jackass is SO stupid. If he only knew how easy it is to ask you out, he would know that his emotional constipation could be solved if he just fucking ASKED where the next washroom is. He could have relieved himself ages ago, but NO! And he calls me the idiot! Me! The utter betrayal! I’m never agreeing to become the second lead to a rom-com ever again!)

When Seokjin finishes whispering in your ears, you appear amused by what he had said. Yoongi sweats when you turn to face him, grinning slyly at him. “Is that so…” you wonder aloud. Yoongi feels like the world has shifted on its axis somewhat, though he still doesn’t know exactly how. He has a hunch that he’s going to find out soon enough.

“Would I ever lie to you?” Seokjin laughs that annoying laugh of his, slapping his thigh in the process. He straightens up almost immediately, his expression turning deadpan in an instant. “Send me the details by tonight, and I’ll make sure to deliver it, okay?”

“Promise?” You ask, holding a pinky up towards him. Yoongi might have let out a high pitched sob when he sees the gesture, wanting nothing more than to cup your hands in his. God, if he already nearly died from hugging you, who is to say Yoongi won’t immediately disintegrate if you were ever to hold his hand?

“Promise,” Seokjin replies, linking his pinky with yours. He doesn’t forget to point a shit-eating grin at Yoongi, for good measure.

You pull away, looking happier than you did moments prior. You were absolutely glowing, filling Yoongi with a warmth that only you ever knew how to provide. He wants to make you smile like that all the time, wants nothing more than for you to live beside him, filling his walls with the sound of your tinkling laughter. You wave cheerily at the both of them, stepping away to head home. “I guess I’ll see you, then? I’ll make sure to e-mail you my request, Seokjin!” you say, winking teasingly. “Bye to you too, Yoongi! Thanks for the hug!”

Yoongi watches as you walk further and further away as the usual melancholy that follows whenever you leave soon takes its place in his soul. It might be his imagination, but Yoongi thinks the cat ears on his head might have started to droop to match his mood.

The only way he knows how to replace the sadness, however, is by redirecting those emotions on an unsuspecting victim. Lucky for him, a willing volunteer is already within punching distance.

“Ow! Stop punching me, you gremlin!” Seokjin whines, blocking Yoongi’s series of punches like a pro. He might as well put ‘professional punching bag’ on his resume at this point. “I’m trying to help you, you useless beta male!”

“How is this helping! You made me wear cat ears and whispered blasphemies into Y/N’s ears! Now she’s going to order a hug-o-gram for her crush and it’ll be the end of my chances with her! How could you!”

“I was not whispering blasphemies, you twittering tit! I was giving her advice,” Seokjin sniffs, annoyed. “Don’t say I never help you, by the way. I’ve been trying to help you for years now.”

Yoongi hits him with a steely glare. “Really? So replacing all my clothes in my closet with clown attire is your version of help? I had to wear those stupid clown shoes for a week before you told me where you hid my clothes, jackass!”

“I was only trying to help you physically express yourself! You’re already a clown on paper, might as well help you achieve your final form!” Seokjin huffs, infuriatingly haughty. “Listen, believe me. I only told Y/N something that everyone already knows anyway, so just shut your trap and let Daddy handle the rest. You’re not going to lose her, I promise.”

“Please never refer to yourself as Daddy ever again,” Yoongi seethes, stalking off towards their car. “Don’t ever talk to me again.”

“No talk, Yoobie angy…” Seokjin snickers to himself, following Yoongi with a spring in his step. This bastard is going to grovel at his feet by tomorrow evening, he’s sure of it. If he doesn’t, then Seokjin will bite his own dick in half––that’s how sure he is of his plan! (Not that biting his dick in half will do anything to his length; he’d still be left with eight inches, let’s be real.) All in good time.

x x x x x

Seokjin gets an e-mail the next morning, much earlier than any sane person would choose to be awake at. He groans lowly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he tries to read the contents of the letter. When he’s satisfied by what he has read, he forwards the e-mail to Yoongi before allowing sleep to take him once more.

Sleep evades him, however, when the sound of Yoongi’s big feet pounds noisily outside his bedroom. He hits his knee loudly against the coffee table, causing their beloved popcorn machine to tumble to the floor, but that is of little consequence to Yoongi right now. No, he needs to get into Seokjin’s room right now and scream––

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Yoongi hollers, slamming Seokjin’s door open. The hinges creak, desperately hanging on despite the impact. Yoongi proceeds to slam a fist upon Seokjin’s ass, who barely flinches due to the fatness of his ass cushioning most of the damage. He blinks blearily at Yoongi, but the smirk on his face is clear as day.

“Came to claim your hug so early in the morning? Well, I usually don’t entertain clients until after I’ve taken a shower, but for you… I’ll make an exception,” he yawns, peeling back his blanket and patting the empty spot on his bed. “Come on in, Yoobie Boobie… Let’s hug like it’s the last day on earth.”

Seokjin fails to realize that once he removed his blanket, he had inadvertently left himself vulnerable. Yoongi slams the heel of his foot against Seokjin’s groin, causing him to shriek bloody murder at 7 AM. He wonders, amidst his pain, whether this might be the last straw and that their landlord will finally kick them out after years of their stupid shenanigans.

“WHAT DID THAT E-MAIL MEAN? IF IT’S WHAT I THINK IT IS…” Yoongi threatens, but it’s as empty as Seokjin’s butthole. They both know the implications of that e-mail, even a toddler can put two and two together and make sense out of it. Anonymous e-mail or not, Seokjin wouldn’t just forward any hug-o-gram request to Yoongi, unless…

What did the e-mail say? It goes something like:

Dear Mr. Kim,

Thank you for offering your special promotion for new time customers of your Hug-o-gram Service! I’ve always been a quiet fan of your business idea, but I’ve always been a little shy to submit a request of my own. Thank you so much for giving me the little push that I needed to send my first (and hopefully last) hug.

I’d like to send a hug to Mr. Min Yoongi from the Music Department. I understand that he has recently been appointed an employee at your business, but seeing as how it’d be difficult for him to hug himself (while not entirely impossible), I’d like to request that you be the one to send the hug to him.

I don’t really have a message for him, per se… I’m still a little shy, even though you already told me that there is no reason to be. I want to believe what you said was true, so I’m pushing my fear aside and putting my fate into your hands. So, to Mr. Min Yoongi… “When I told you it was nice to hug someone you like, I don’t think you understood what I meant. A hug, after all, is a two-way street. They’re often served the best when it is reciprocated, if you catch my drift. :)”

Peace! :3

Regards,

[Redacted] [Redacted]

“Have your brain synapses finished connecting? Because if even this flies over your head, I’m sorry to say buddy but… You might have smooth brain syndrome,” Seokjin pipes up. He observes Yoongi’s brow crumpling, the first signal of his impending mental breakdown. If Seokjin remembers correctly, the next signal should be when––

Yoongi drops down to his knees, his phone clattering to the floor as he stares absently at the ceiling. Seokjin cringes, worried for the state of his friend’s frail kneecaps. The poor sap has bad heart health already; surely, it isn’t too early to get him a life alert button?

Seokjin scooches over his bed, dangling half his body over the edge to appraise his friend. “So. What do you plan to do now?”

For a moment, Yoongi remains silent. Eventually, he shuffles closer to him, perching his hands around Seokjin. The business student raises a brow, confused, until Yoongi pushes Seokjin back onto the middle of the bed so that he can cram himself beside Seokjin on his small double bed. He huffs amusedly, allowing the smaller boy to snuggle into his chest, though he still refuses to wrap his arms around him. Close enough, Seokjin snorts.

“I need your help, hyung.” Yoongi’s voice is small, shy. It’s so uncharacteristic of him that Seokjin immediately softens. They might act like toddlers together the majority of the time, but Seokjin truly does care about Yoongi more than anything. During early mornings like this, when the sun’s soft rays are filtering through his sheer curtains and filling the room with a gentle warmth, it’s nice to cuddle up with one another and enjoy the silence. In fact, Seokjin would never admit it to Yoongi, but he got the idea for his Hug-o-gram service from Yoongi himself, back when the younger boy would be more prone to sneaking into his bed during his bouts of loneliness and homesickness.

Above all else, Yoongi is just a boy with a lot of love to give, so who is Seokjin to say no to his pleas for help?

“You know I always got your back, Yoongi-chi. Whenever you’re ready, we can do whatever you want. Ask and you’ll receive,” he replies, caressing his soft black tresses. Yoongi hums, smiling softly into his chest.

“Thanks, dude. For being… you know.”

Seokjin’s heart pangs a little, but he ignores it. Instead, he continues combing through his hair, humming gently. “I know.”

x x x x x

It’s been a few days since you sent the e-mail to Seokjin and you haven’t heard back from him. You aren’t sure if he sends confirmation e-mails to his clients as you’d never asked for a hug-o-gram before, nor did you know anyone who has. You are forced to continue on with your days like normal, trying to ignore the unsettling anxiety from creeping up your throat and spewing all over the sidewalk.

If Seokjin hadn’t been lying to you, then there shouldn’t be anything to worry about. You’ve been harboring this crush on Yoongi for years now, and you never thought in your life that it would ever be reciprocated. He always seemed a little bit detached, a little too cool for you. Never mind the fact that he always seemed so jittery around you, like it was hard to talk to you or something!

Your answer comes on the last day of the week, after an especially rough day at class. Your back is bent, having finished a grueling four hour lab period where you did nothing but stand and stare at your reaction vessel spinning without any signal of change. You are just a little bit hangry from all the stress piling up on your plate, especially since you hadn’t eaten a decent meal since breakfast at 8 AM.

In short, life isn’t going as smoothly as you’d hoped for your senior year, but you can’t let the blues get to you too soon. After all, there are leftover chicken wings in your fridge with your name on it, and nothing beats your meat more than greasy poultry to end a terrible week.

You’re only inches away from sliding your keycard to open your shared dorm room when the door opens without prompting. You flinch backward, yelping loudly when your roommate Park Jimin grins slyly from the doorway––never a good sign, if you knew anything.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Jimin says, leaning casually against the door like he hadn’t just scared the living shit out of you. He takes one glance at your disheveled hair and lightly sweaty clothes before grimacing in disgust. “Girl, I can’t let you meet the love your life while you’re looking like that. Come on, we have a few minutes before he arrives. Let’s get you freshened up.”

“I’m sorry?” You squeak, allowing your roommate to manhandle you into your own home. He pushes you into your room, depositing you roughly onto your unmade bed. You try to make eye contact with him, but he’s too busy raiding your closet to pay you much attention. “Excuse me? What did you say just now?”

“No time, princess! Your Prince Charming is on the way, and I’ve been ordered by Seokjin to prepare you for this life-changing moment, so get your ass into gear and change into this!” He shoves a clean pair of jeans and a nicer-looking blouse at you before proceeding to grab your hairbrush and comb your tresses with the gentleness of a mother tigress. You shriek when the brush gets tangled in an especially stubborn knot, but Jimin is relentless. He nearly tears your hair by the roots, ignoring your pained whines.

“Will you fucking stop! I have literally no idea why you’re acting like a psycho all of a sudden–” You shout when Jimin begins to undress you, having to kick him in the chest to get him away from completely eradicating your remaining traces of dignity. “Okay, fine! I’ll dress myself! Just get out of my room and fucking stay away!”

Jimin looks at you dubiously for a split second, before eventually acquiescing. “You have two minutes to get changed. You wouldn’t want to keep him waiting, do you?” he says, smirking knowingly. He better dread the day that you finally wipe that annoying twinkle in his eye; it’s been a long time coming.

Left alone to your own devices, you do as Jimin says even though you’re still wildly confused by everything. To think you had been so excited to feast on your chicken wings, and instead, you went through a decade’s worth of torture within the last few minutes. Patting your hands on the butt of your jeans, you meekly take a step out of your bedroom, where Jimin is already tapping his foot impatiently by the door.

He motions for you to hurry up. “Let’s go! Seokjin says they’re rounding up the corner. Hold on,” he steps closer to you, raising your arm up to take a shameless sniff of your pits. “Sorry, had to make a pit stop. You can never be too sure,” he shrugs, disregarding your squawks of indignation.

“I smell fine! Now what are we–” Your sentence is cut short as Jimin all but carries you to the elevator, your shrieks of terror causing one or two of your neighbors to peek their heads out of their doors. When they see it’s just the two of you, they simply shrug their shoulders, returning to their lives like it was normal to see Jimin carry you in a fireman’s hold.

He doesn’t put you down until you reach the lobby of your dorm complex, barely out of breath despite having held you the entire way down. Stupid buff baby, you groan internally to yourself, straightening down your clothes in a desperate attempt to look decent. “Okay, we’re here. Who am I supposed to be meeting?”

In lieu of an answer, Jimin points wordlessly outside your building. A black car is parked on the other side of the road, and you can barely see a familiar head of hair poking out from the driver’s seat. “Seokjin? What the…” you trail off, before your eyes finally land on their target.

Yoongi stands outside the glass doorway, not dressed in his usual all-black attire. He’s wearing an outrageously cute pink shirt today, matching the color of his natural flush. He always looks effortlessly good, with his hair a little windswept in that boyishly cute way. Your mouth goes a little dry when you realize he’s wearing his famous leather jacket, the one that always got the girls and boys swooning when he walked past in them. You hated how whipped for him you were, not wanting to be like the weird kids in his secret fan club, but who can blame you? He’s just so…

You rip open the door, nearly tripping and falling over the short steps leading to the entrance. You grind to a halt in front of him and you’re acutely aware of how rabid you must look. Your chest is pounding, like your heart is begging you to step closer, just like when you had hugged him all those days ago. God, you were going to kill Park Jimin for this.

“Yoongi? What are you…” You take one look at him before your gaze drops to his hands folded carefully behind his back. It doesn’t hide the fact that there is an obvious bouquet of flowers behind him, though. Your face lights on fire when you notice they were your favorite flowers too.

“I’m here to deliver a hug?” Yoongi says it like he’s unsure of himself, but there’s a little coyness laced in his tone. His cheeks are painted a soft pink, and not for the first time, they remind you of freshly baked bread pulled out from the oven. Soft enough to kiss, you wonder idly to yourself.

“I mean… I did order a hug a few days ago, but I do recall not ordering one for myself?” you laugh a little hysterically, your breath cutting short when Yoongi grins softly in response. “I… Who is this hug from?”

Yoongi takes a glance back towards Seokjin. “Hey, boss. Am I allowed to reveal who the secret admirers are, or will that get me fired?”

Seokjin, despite being a few meters away, laughs loud enough for the whole street to hear. “Well, Yoongi-chi. Something tells me your resignation letter was coming in the mail eventually. Who cares about the rules at this point?”

“He’s right,” you quip, pulling Yoongi’s attention back. You’re smiling wide now, your hopes and dreams skyrocketing in your chest and blooming a garden in your heart. “Who cares, right?”

“Right,” Yoongi agrees, taking the last two steps he needs to get closer to you. He drops the bouquet somewhere behind you before finally, finally, embracing you once more. He kisses you gently on the forehead, the contact short and sweet.

You feel like you’re dying, but it’s all good because Yoongi looks just as embarrassed as you. But none of it matters, not when both your happiness is palpable in the air.

“Y/N…”

“Yes?”

“This hug-o-gram is from me to you. Will you go out with me?”

You’ve always been a firm believer that actions speak louder than words. So when you lean in to plant your first kiss of many many more, he knows your answer well enough.

[halcyonstorm]

my contest submission for LH drabble week! @levihan-drabbles

Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Hange Zoë, Levi Ackerman & Hange Zoë Characters: Levi Ackerman, Hange Zoë, Kuchel Ackerman Additional Tags: Sick Levi Ackerman, Leukemia, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - College/University, Car Accidents, Doctor Hange Zoë, Angst, Slight OOC, sorry Series: Part 9 of Short Fics Summary:

Hange and Levi were separated for several years for reason they couldn't help. They finally found each other.

At just 18 years old, Levi received the worst news of his life. He was sick. Extremely sick. If someone even coughed or breathed on him, he could die. He had leukemia, a disease which attacks the body’s white blood cells. Our white blood cells are our guardians, protecting us from any infection that dares to enter. He had one friend he wanted to tell the most: his best friend Hange. She had been his friend since the beginning of high school. He didn’t like her at first, but she kept showing up, eager to be his friend. He eventually warmed up to her, allowing her to sit with him at lunch, hang out after class; soon, they were inseparable.

Levi’s heart was in his throat as he mentally prepared to present the life-changing news to his best friend. “Hange, I have to tell you something,” he said, his voice trembling. Hange looked at him funny. He never spoke in such a strange manner before. Hange hesitantly sat in front of him at the empty desk, turning around in the chair to face him.

“What is it?” She asked, concerned. She was starting to get nervous.

“I’m sick,” he began, almost inaudibly. “I have leukemia… I am gonna have to leave school to be in the hospital. I get so weak, and my immune system is absolute shit… I can’t even risk getting a cold, otherwise I can die.”

Hange’s heart sunk into her stomach. She took a deep breath and looked into her lap. She had to be strong for Levi, and she knew that. 

“I’ll be here with you. We can text, call, facetime…”

“Yeah, we can,” he replied.

“We will! I’m your friend,” Hange said, grabbing his hand. “There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you behind.”

-

At first, Levi thought he’d be strong enough to withstand the chemotherapy. That he’d be the rare case to have no side effects. Boy, was Levi wrong. After his first two weeks, his health was tanking. It tanked so bad, in fact, that no one was allowed in the room except the doctors and nurses. Hange was one of the only people to call him daily besides his mom. Hange would Facetime him after class, telling him all about her day. Levi never had much to share from his monotonous days of drug infusions and immobilizing fatigue, but he enjoyed listening to Hange’s voice. Over time, Hange began to notice her friend change: His skin became ghostly pale and his words were mumbled. She would show him the blooming flowers in the spring, the fallen leaves in the autumn, the snow in the winter. She would show him anything to distract him from the excruciating pain he suffered each day. 

After a year of chemotherapy treatments, the toxins started to take a toll on his body. He’d find clumps of black hair on his pillow every morning, until one night he insisted his mother shave it all off. Each clump of hair reminded him of the life he should’ve had. Going to class in-person instead of online for the rest of the semester, graduating through a computer screen. He fucking hated it. His physical and mental state began to worsen each week. He was like a walking corpse, sleeping about 16 hours each day. When he was awake, he was wishing he was asleep. Each day he withered away in the hospital bed. He would miss Hange’s calls frequently due to his concerningly deep slumbers. If he managed to pick up, he would fall asleep on the phone with her. Despite her busy school schedule, she found time to text him every day. That is what kept him going.

Every day turned into once a week, which turned into once a month, and soon not at all. He had officially lost touch with the only friend in his life. He felt it was his fault: he had no energy to ever respond to her texts. He couldn’t blame her. She did try. Alone in his hospital room staring at his old texts from her, his heart ached and tears spilled down his face.

Another year had passed when his doctor came into his shabby hospital room with a look of hope. Levi felt his heart begin to race. 

“Levi, we have some good news and some bad news,” He began, shutting the door behind him. He wore a bright yellow gown with a blue face mask and latex gloves. “The good news is, your white blood cell levels are elevated. This is an improvement compared to last month’s tests. Since they’re higher, you’re well enough to receive a bone marrow transfusion from your mother, who’s a perfect match. The bad news is, there are many risks to having this transfusion. Your body can reject the bone marrow, which may cause massive complications. However, I think it is best for you to get the transplant. It is your best hope for overcoming this disease.”

With no hesitation, Levi agreed. Let’s do this thing.

He tried to reach out to Hange to tell her the news, but after a week with no response, he was disheartened. A part of him hoped she would respond. He had his family, and for that he was forever grateful, but who would he have once he left the hospital? Who would he talk to? Who would he be? He completely lost the miniscule amount of social skills he had. He did make friends with some of the patients on his floor. Unfortunately, he outlived most of them. 

Fortunately for Levi, the transplant was a success. Within the next few months, he began to regain the color in his face, and hair started to sprout on his head again. He was sleeping less frequently, he was finally able to do a lap around the hospital floor without getting too tired. He was still on chemotherapy, but he was regaining his strength, and more importantly, he was getting his life back.

Levi was in (and rarely out of) the hospital almost four years. The day he was discharged for good was a beautiful spring day. The stale air became fresh as he exited the hospital in a wheelchair. He heard the bright green trees rustling and saw some beautiful pink flowers that reminded him of Hange. He took everything for granted until he was cooped up in a hospital room for years. He was grateful to Hange for being his eyes to the outside world. He felt a breeze run through his buzz cut. He took a deep breath, tears helplessly streaming down his face. He was finally free. 

It wasn’t long before Levi started searching for his long lost friend. He hated himself for forgetting how to spell her name. Was it Hanje, Hangi, or Hange? He couldn’t quite remember. He searched her name and was shocked to find out Hange was a medical student practicing at Shinganshina General Hospital. Shinganshina General wasn’t far, so she must still live in the area. He couldn’t, however, find any of her social media accounts. She was off-the-grid. Great… he thought. She was always difficult. He was one to talk, though. He hasn't used social media in years.

Throughout the summer, Levi was able to land a job as a mechanic and he worked endlessly. He had to repay the debt he placed his parents in. His mother especially hated the idea of him working just as he finished his treatments, but Levi was persistent. Eventually, he saved enough money to send monthly deposits to his mom and move out. He couldn’t have his mom taking care of him anymore after all she sacrificed for him. He had made enough money on his own to afford a cheap apartment two blocks away from her house. 

After getting settled, Levi told himself he couldn’t begin college without knowing about Hange’s whereabouts. He decided maybe if he drove to Shinganshina city, he would be able to find her somehow. Someone ought to know her… He got in his car one evening, punched in a diner’s address in Shinganshina, and started to drive. As he drove, he started to realize his plan was stupid. What, am I gonna stalk her at the hospital?

 After finishing a 10-hour shift at the shop, he impulsively drove past his block and hit the highway. The highways were ruthless that Friday night. He had never been to Shinganshina before on his own. He drove, hovering his head over the steering wheel with his elbows tightly tucked to his sides. The speed limit signs read “65 MPH''; however, everyone was quickly steering around him, going way over 75. He was very tempted to turn around in spite of his impetuous road trip; but he couldn’t find an opportunity to do so.

On the other side of the road, the two lines merged into one. One of the drivers did not recognize this, and suddenly swerved onto the other side of the road where Levi was driving. Perhaps if Levi didn’t work so hard that day, there was a slight chance it could’ve been avoidable. The last thing he saw were bright fluorescent headlights before he was knocked unconscious.

-

“We checked his driver’s license. His name is Levi Ackerman, age 22, victim of a head-on vehicle collision. He was wearing his seatbelt and had an airbag. He may have suffered a SCI and concussion. His heart and lung sounds are normal although his sternum and ribs may be broken,” A paramedic announced as they wheeled the unconscious man through the glass doors of the emergency room. 

“Get him up to imaging. We need to do a MRI, CAT scan, and x-ray STAT!” the doctor replied, taking her stethoscope to listen to his chest. She recognized the man right away but allowed her feelings to be suppressed for that crucial moment. Of course she recognized this man. He was her long lost friend, after all.

After finishing the tests, Levi was brought to a hospital room where he was changed into a hospital gown. Dr. Hange Zoe and Dr. Erwin Smith discussed the results: MRI showed signs of a concussion; CAT scan showed no signs of hemorrhaging; x-ray showed a cracked sternum and ribs 4 and 5 were broken. No signs of broken extremities, however he presented with ecchymosis on the bony prominences, such as his hips, knees, and collarbones.

As Levi awoke about two hours later, groaning loudly.

“My chest!” he complained, finding it hard to move. The two doctors turned around to find the patient had regained consciousness.

“Hello, Levi,” Dr. Smith began. “You were in a car accident. You’re at Shinganshina General Hospital. I am Dr. Erwin Smith, and this is my intern, Dr. Hange Zoe.” Levi’s eyes widened when he announced her name. 

“H-Hange…” he whispered, attempting to sit up but failing. Dr. Smith placed his hand gingerly on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to sit up. Just relax. How is your pain? We can give you some medication.”

“It’s fucking horrible. Please,” He whimpered, grimacing. Dr. Smith nodded, leaving the room. Hange immediately grabbed a chair, sitting next to her patient, but more importantly her friend.

“Levi, dammit what happened?” She said softly, looking at him. His face was not scratched, it was just the rest of his body that was injured.

“What happened to you?!” He retorted, looking her in the eyes. She could tell he was hurt, not just physically. “So much for not losing you...” 

“I was texting you as much as I could, Levi,” she explained, feeling guilty. “I had lost my phone and got a new one, but I couldn’t remember your number. I tried to find you online but I couldn’t… I am so sorry.” She hesitantly grabbed his hand. He didn’t flinch or pull away, but he squeezed her hand.

“I was too sick to reply,” he said. “I’m sorry too.”

“It’s not-” A knock rang on the door and Hange stood up almost on cue. 

“On a scale of 0-10, 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you’ve ever felt, how would you rate your pain?” She asked, switching the topic.

“A big fat 10,” he groaned. Dr. Smith wheeled in an electronic machine with a wire and handle attached.

“This is a patient-controlled analgesia pump. You can push it as many times as you’d like to help alleviate your pain. You will not overdose since it has a set amount of medication you can receive per hour. Also, we have some acetaminophen for you.” Levi downed the pills as soon as it was handed to him. Dr. Smith hooked the tubing up to his IV and handed him the button.

“Hange, gather your information on your patient and then meet with me in the conference room.” Dr. Smith left the room, Hange hesitantly looking at her friend again.

“Let me just do a quick physical assessment,” she muttered to herself, grabbing her pen light. As she did her assessment, he admired her. Being a doctor really did suit her. She was wearing a white lab coat with her name embroidered into it. As she would move his gown around to assess his heart and lung sounds, his breath hitched when he felt the tips of her fingers touch his bruised chest. He looked at her face as she worked. She simultaneously looked the same and different. Different in how she wore her hair, in the shape of her glasses, and she stood taller, more confidently. Same in her eyes never losing their sparkle, her focused pouty face, as well as her smile. That breathtaking smile never changed.

Once she finished, she cleaned off her materials and tucked them away.

“Levi, you’ll be kept at the hospital overnight to monitor your heart on the EKG. If you are able to walk in the morning, you will be discharged. Do you have anyone you can call?”

He thought of his mother. He thought of the burden he crushed her with. He decided to deal with this on his own.

“I live alone,” he replied, looking towards the foot of the bed.

“I can stay with you,” She offered instantly. Levi’s face flushed as he met her eyes. “I-I mean… if you want! You have a concussion. You can’t drive yourself or be left alone.”

“Isn’t that like… against the rules?”

“...I am not working tomorrow. I can pick you up and we’ll go from there. Since you won’t be in the hospital for long, I don’t think it’ll be an issue.” The corners of Levi’s mouth curled upwards.

“That is fine with me. Let’s do it.”

The next day, Levi was able to do a lap around the hospital floor. He walked around with one of the nurses to make sure he didn’t collapse. He was ready to go home. Correction: He was ready to go home with Hange.

Hange went to his hospital room in her normal clothes. Her style changed. She used to wear baggy t-shirts and jeans. She looked more mature in her white button-up top and black slacks. He had to prevent his mouth from opening when he saw her. She was beautiful, but of course he would never mention it. Hange walked down to the entrance of the hospital with the nurse and Levi. She went to get her car. A few minutes later, she arrived in her dark red Honda.

“Levi, you just have to direct me to your house…” She began, tapping at the car’s GPS. He gave the address and she punched it in.

“Hange? Why are you doing this for me?” He asked, almost by accident. She shifted the car into Drive.

“I… never stopped thinking about you, you know,” She began, driving away from the hospital. “Even though we lost touch, I still hoped to meet you again someday. You are the reason I wanted to be a doctor… and whenever I lost hope, I thought of you. Whether you know it or not, you pushed me to keep going.” He looked at her blushing face.

He was shocked by what she said. He felt the same. “Me too,” he confessed, looking in his lap. “Your calls saved my life. You were the only one who stuck around. I will never forget that.”

He was never one to say what he meant, but knowing he had the courage to speak those words to her, Hange felt a strong urge to kiss his lips. She always had feelings for him. Her feelings never changed, despite their time apart. In fact, it only confirmed her feelings for him even more.

“Even before I was hospitalized, I took everything for granted…” Levi said. “I have been wanting to tell you something ever since my diagnosis…” Hange felt her heart skip a beat as he spoke. 

“Thank you for being there for me.”

At the red light, Hange looked at him and squeezed his hand firmly. She noticed his cheeks were dusted with a red blush. 

“I’ll always be here for you.” 

He met her eyes, those radiant hazel eyes. He took advantage of the long stoplight to kiss the woman’s lips. He couldn’t contain his feelings anymore. He swore he’d tell her how much he meant to him one of these days. And God, her lips were soft and velvety and everything he’d imagined they’d be, but ten times better. She was shocked at first, but kissed him back. His lips were a little chapped from his rough night, but they were warm. She dreamt of this moment for years (as did he). It was better than how she thought it’d be too. She was intrigued by the quiet boy in school ever since she met him. Maybe she thought he’d lack passion, but it was the opposite. The kiss was full of passion and relief; after years of being in love with each other from a distance, they melted into each other. Suddenly, there was a beep behind her; the light had turned green. Hange chuckled, starting to drive again.

“You don’t even know how long I’ve been wanting to do that.”

[castieltheavengerr]

Wormhole - Part 2

Series Masterlist

Synopsis: Y/N wakes up in a place she doesn’t know of, with a man claiming to be a god by her side. Superheroes don’t exist, right? In time, she finds out things about herself that she never knew before, and even gets to live with a hot guy, who also happens to be a crime fighting superhero. Will Y/N ever be able to go back home, or has she found it already?

Warnings: Mentions of a panic attack, swearing, allusions to a car crash, a beer bottle mentioned

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: Oh my god i’m so sorry this took so long school has been super busy, i’m doing this with the little free time i have. anyway, here’s part 2 :)

You wait next to Thor in an open field. He mentioned something about some sort of guardians coming to pick him up, and he said that they’d likely bring you to America before they left. You’d asked who they are, where they’re from, but he wouldn’t tell you. It’s like he’s trying to surprise you.

Even though you still have almost no idea of what’s going on, you don’t want to leave Thor’s side. He was the first person you saw, he’s nice, and you trust him. Plus, he could easily protect you if it came to it. As you’re waiting, you hear a loud whooshing noise. Thor looks at you and smiles.

“Ah, that must be the morons. Up there,” he says, pointing to the sky. You expect a plane, but instead you’re met with a blue and orange craft that looks vaguely like it could have come from Star Wars. A large gust of wind hits you, and you fall on the ground. Thor laughs heartily, and starts to walk towards where the ship landed. You hop up, and apprehensively follow him. A ramp lowers to the ground from the ship, and the weirdest looking group of people and things walks out. Someone who you assume is human, dressed in a long red coat, a humanoid figure that is grey with red stripes, and the weirdest ones of all; a walking branch, who’s playing on a game console that looks similar to a Game Boy, another humanoid figure with antennae coming out of her head, and a fucking raccoon, who happens to be holding a gun.

They walk towards Thor, all smiling, except for the human, who looks a bit pissed off at the god. They then see you, sort of hiding behind Thor’s enormous body, and get confused. Then, the weirdest part of your day happens. The raccoon talks.

“Who the fuck is this, Thor? Did you find out you have a kid? That would be wonderful,” the raccoon says, looking you dead in the eye. You’re sure you look like an idiot, mouth open and eyes wide, but a fucking raccoon just talked to you. You think you have a right to be surprised. Thor laughs again.

“No, she isn’t my child. This is Y/N. We just have a bit of a problem, and I need to get her to America. I know some people who may be able to help her. Could you bring us there before we head out?” Thor asks, trying to be as vague as he can, which you are grateful for. Sure, they all look like freaks, but you sure as hell don’t want to be seen as one. The man in the red coat looks at you, seeming to consider it, before nodding his head.

“Yeah, sure, as long as it doesn’t take long. I don’t like this stupid planet, and want to get out of here as soon as possible.” You think, and consider the fact that given the looks of these people, and the weirdness of this new place, aliens are definitely real, so his words make sense. Thor smiles and claps his hands together.

“Great! Shall we be on our way then?” The group turns towards their ship and starts walking, and you and Thor follow suit. You walk inside the ship, and are disgusted by the nastiness of it. There’s garbage everywhere, and a T-shirt with some white subst- oh god. You just turn your head away, trying not to think about it. Thor turns to you and starts to introduce the Guardians. “That there is the captain, Peter Quill. He’s from Midgard, just like you,” he says, but then sees the look of confusion on your face. “Midgard is what we call Earth on Asgard, where I’m from.” You nod your head, just going along with it. “The rabbit there is Rocket,” Thor says, but then the raccoon pipes up.

“I’m not a rabbit asshole!” You just stare ahead, still not wanting to comprehend the fact that apparently raccoons can talk. Thor smiles and continues.

“Whatever you say rabbit. The tree over there is Groot.” The tree looks at you and waves, before it starts to talk. If you hadn’t already witnessed crazier things, you’d say you’d accidentally had some hallucinogenic drugs.

“I am Groot,” the tree says, and you nod slowly.

“I’m Y/N?” you apprehensively say, not sure how to respond. This time, it’s the raccoon that laughs.

“No, those are the only three words he can say. It takes a while to learn how to speak it.” You just give the raccoon, who you remember is Rocket, a small thumbs-up. Thor continues.

“The woman over there is Mantis,” he says, and she smiles sheepishly at you, her antennae bobbing up and down. You try to smile back, but you’re sure it comes out as a kind of grimace.

“And that over there is Drax.” The weird looking dude gives you a small wave, and turns back to whatever he was doing. You still have your arms crossed defensively over your chest, and as you take a look around, you get overwhelmed.

“Guess this is what I get for wishing for a more exciting life,” you think, regretting the thought even crossing your mind. Rocket walks over to you and pokes your leg.

“So what’s the deal here, huh Thor? Random chick that needs to get someplace? Seems fishy to me,” he says, giving you a side-eye. Thor looks over at you, as if asking for permission to tell them what he knows, and you give him a little nod.

“No, not at all. Y/N popped up in the middle of the street in New Asgard, not conscious, so I brought her to a bed. She woke up and freaked out, understandably so. She knows nothing about myself, the Avengers, or the Snap. She was afraid of me, and somehow sent a bottle at my head. I’ve called some old friends with SHIELD to help out,” Thor tells them, and they all eye you weirdly, especially at the whole ‘snap’ part.

The one named Peter shakes his head and waves his hands in front of himself. “Wait, you mean to tell me you don’t know about the Snap?” He gave you a look like you were the stupidest person in the world.

“Uh, well, if what you’re referring to is the fact that half of the fucking universe just turned to ash out of nowhere, then yeah, that never happened,” you defensively say, not wanting to deal with this douchebag’s shit. He raises his eyebrows at you.

“Aren’t you like, 10?” he says, mocking you. You give him the bird, and everyone else laughs.

“I’m 16, asshole,” you say, having heard that phrase one too many times. The Drax dude laughs loudly, and points at Peter.

“The small girl is feisty! I like her!” he loudly says, doubling over in laughter. You just scowl. Thor claps his hands, and tries to change the subject.

“Alright! Quill, how far away are we from the compound?” Thor asks in his booming voice. Peter walks over to the front of the ship to check something, at which point you realize that no one is flying the ship. You figure it must be on autopilot.

“We should be there in about 30 minutes,” Quill says, taking a seat. Thor smiles and claps your back a bit too hard, and you stumble forward. Before you can fall, he catches you by your shoulder, and pulls you back up. You turn to him, frowning. He smiles sheepishly.

“Sorry, I’m used to doing that with my friends. They’re quite built.” You let out a small smile, and move to sit on the floor. Thor moves to talk to the raccoon, and you’re left all alone. You put your head in your hands, wondering how this could have happened to you. Did you get teleported to an alternate universe, or did something else happen? A small sob escapes your mouth, and then when you feel a small hand on your back, you look up. The tree named Groot is standing next to you, giving you a small smile. You smile back, glad to have him care, even if he is just a branch.

“I am Groot,” he says, almost sympathetically. While you have no idea what he’s trying to say, you appreciate the gesture.

“Even though I have no idea what that means, thanks. I just don’t know what to do. Nothing makes sense, there’s gods now, and raccoons and trees can talk.” You put your head back in your hands, overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all. Then, you feel him poke your arm, you slowly look up, tears threatening to spill out of your eyes. Groot holds out his Game Boy to you. You reach out and gingerly take it, looking at the game he’s playing. It looks like a game your parents would have played when they were kids. It’s called Arcade Defender. You press a button, and the screen starts up. You smile and start shooting the fuck out of those aliens.

For the next thirty minutes, you and a talking tree sit next to each other, taking turns playing a game from the ‘80s, while riding in a spaceship with a literal god, a talking raccoon, two aliens, and an asshole human. You’re just actually starting to enjoy yourself when Thor walks over to you two, a smile on his face at seeing you having some form of fun.

“Sorry, Y/N, but we’re almost to the compound. It’s better to stand and hold something while landing,” he says, feeling bad to have to disrupt your enjoyment. You nod and stand up with Groot, and hand him the Game Boy. Just as you stand up, the ship moves considerably, and you nearly fall over, but Groot catches you.

“Thanks,” you say, smiling at the tree. You lean on the wall until the ship lands, trying your best not to fall. You notice Quill staring at you, a weird look on his face. He probably thinks you’re just an idiot for not knowing how to stand on a landing spaceship. Dick.

“Ok, everyone, we’re here,” Quill says. He looks over at you and Thor. “You guys can head on out, we’ll be here when you’re ready to leave, Thor.” All eyes turn to you, and you just want to shrivel up and die, but not before screaming, “I didn’t ask for this! I’m not some spectacle to look at! I’m a normal human being!” But you keep your mouth shut. You don’t want to draw any more attention to yourself that you already have.

Thor turns to you before walking towards the ramp, which has lowered itself to the ground. You follow him, wrapping your arms around your midsection. You slowly walk down the ramp, the sunlight blinding your eyes. You put your hand above them to be able to see, and are met with a sight to behold.

Before you stand two people, a man and a woman. The woman is normal enough looking, with her brown hair up in a bun. However, the man is the one that catches you off guard. He’s wearing a long black coat, almost like the one the Quill dude was wearing- actually, everything he’s wearing is black. He’s also wearing an eyepatch over his left eye.

“This the one Thor?” the man asks, with a voice deep and loud enough to make you jump. He eyes you quite aggressively, and you shrink into yourself.

“Yes, this is Y/N L/N. Thought it would be best to bring her to you since you have, ah, expertise in this area.”

The man side eyes you. “You could say that,” he says, looking you right in the eye. You shift your legs uncomfortably, not sure how to read this man. He clears his throat. “I’m Director Fury of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Logistics and Enforcement Division, more commonly known as SHIELD,” he says to you in greeting, but does not extend his hand. “This is Agent Hill,” he says, gesturing towards the woman besides him. She gives you a tight lipped smile. “Ms. L/N, if you would follow me please,” Fury asks, but you don’t really think you have a choice. He and Hill start to walk towards the building, and you follow suit, but you notice a lack of presence beside you. You turn around, and notice Thor just standing there, not walking with you.

You stop, and look at him quizzically. He gives you a small smile.

“Aren’t you coming?” you ask, your voice coming out small and scared. Fury and Hill stop walking behind you. Thor shakes his head sadly, looking at you with something you can’t pinpoint in his eyes. Even though you may have only met a few hours ago, he’s the one person you trust (besides Groot), and he seems to have grown quite fond of you as well.

“I must attend to my duties with the Guardians. I really am sorry that I can’t stay with you Y/N, but I trust Fury and Hill very much. I have no doubt they will help you with your problems.” You know Thor truly means what he says, but you’re scared. You start to feel your lungs constrict, and it’s getting hard to breathe. You hear Thor trying to talk to you, but you can’t tell what he’s saying. Then you hear Fury’s booming voice yelling at you.

“Ms. L/N, you need to calm down. Please come with us,” he says, an edge of wariness in his voice. You shake your head, the world still spinning around you, your lungs betraying you. Why is he leaving you? You have no one left from your life, and now the one person whom you trust is leaving too?

You have no sense of your surroundings until you feel someone grab your wrist. However gently they grabbed it, you still freak out, and feel a wave of energy move through you. The next thing you know, you see Fury flying across the lawn, and Hill is yelling into something in her hand. Everyone is yelling and you can’t handle it. You start screaming yourself, sobs wracking your body.

You hear loud footsteps running towards you, and a hand grabs your upper arm harshly. You wrench yourself out of the iron grip, screaming at the person.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking touch me!” you scream, and are vaguely aware of another large, muscled man flying through the air. Everyone is yelling, and you’re overwhelmed. You put your hands over your ears, wanting to block out the noise, but it does next to nothing. You continue to sob, your chest heaving from your hyperventilating and continued wails.

With everything going on around you, you fail to notice the bodies coming from behind you, grabbing your arms and shoulders stringently. You try to fight them off, but before the energy makes its way through you, you feel a blinding pain in the small of your back, concurrent with the loud sound of electricity crackling. You scream and fall to your knees, and the hands force you down. A sharp prick is felt on your neck, and even in seconds, you already feel yourself drifting away. The hands turn you over, and before you slip into unconsciousness, you hear Thor’s voice.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. You’ll be alright.”

————————————————————————————————

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@eridanuswave

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[sanstropfremir]

kingdom episode 3 baby!!!!

listen. i’m not gonna lie i was nervous as hell for this episode. i saw that preview like everyone else and unfortunately i have ears so i was convinced the ateez stage was going to be a trainwreck. i was absolutely banking on sf9 and skz to do something even mildy interesting to save me from the ear damage and having to talk to extensively about why that disaster happened. but somehow i woke up in an alternate universe and you know what? with the exception of that high note the ateez stage fucked. i know. i don’t believe it either. i think i’m still in shock.

i’ll do individual breakdowns in order of favourites within the episode and then at the end i’ll put my personal ranking of all six. thank god i don’t have to do a stage breakdown again; if they change it again for next week i will scream.

ateez

a miracle happened. i don’t have to fight any of the staff at kq. i don’t understand either. jongho is so fucking lucky that the rest of the group pulled all that energy out of their asses because if they had been even a single iota less serious about it that stage would have flopped worse than a dead fish. i can’t believe we got this level of camp b movie schlock in the first full stage, and they stuck the landing. incredible.

fine i’ll address the elephant in the room. personally, i don’t think jongho is that good of a vocalist. he’s not bad, and he does have the potential to be a good vocalist, he just doesn’t have the training, and this is the issue with all of ateez. hanya talked about this before and i’ll say it again: he can’t switch to his head voice and he’s destroying his vocal cords by attempting to hit notes in his mid range that he should just jump to head voice for. frankly i’m surprised he got anywhere close to that note in his mid, but his technique is just not there and he’s gonna do some real damage to his voice if he doesn’t take a break and also get a good vocal coach. you can already hear the degradation in sound from their debut stage to now, and that’s in less than three years. ok i’m done talking about vocals that’s hanya’s turf, i’m pretending that that high note doesn’t exist and we’re moving on. also im in love with btob’s reaction it was fucking priceless.

costume

look, i have a one track brain and that brain can only think about seonghwa corset. seonghwa corset? seonghwa corset.

i know it’s not a real corset nor is it properly laced and i know this would never happen in a million years but a kpop mr pearl trend? i would die. just fully expire. there’s no coming back from that for me

yes i have laced boys into proper corsets before and yes it is as hot as you think it is (when it’s not work related, obviously)

ok now that i’ve got that out of my system for the moment, the costumes are actually pretty good. i’m a little obsessed with hongjoong’s coat although I know it’s stupid. fur? always, I love it, you’ll never change my mind it makes everything better. i own a lot of it and i wear it all the time. this is also a pretty good example of how to do a more modern styling within a very specific and recognizable genre.

i don’t hate the backup dancers’ costumes either, even though they would look a lot better in a not-pirate themed hiphop stage. because there is already a modern tint with the boys’ costumes, it’s not that much of a leap to the dancers, and they actually use the dancers and the camera really strategically to not put much focus on them.

the only real standout issue is the blacklight/contortionist moment, which is too gimmicky for me and doesn’t fit the rest of the theme. i do understand the purpose of them: you need a transition point from the upper deck to the more fantastical inner ship area, and blacklight paint is a really easy, cheap, and fast way to get four new costumes instantly. do i think they could have done something better though? yes.

set

this was actually a smart reuse of that pirate ship set. i know i clowned on them in the first stage that they could move on from the pirate gimmick but honestly? i’m glad they didn’t. this was fun as fuck. but also two stages was enough you can move on now.

i love how they actually used the weird double stage function that the false prosc creates for an actual architectural and narrative effect, instead of just sort of operating as though it’s just another place to travel just because you can. we are on the deck of the ship, and then we go inside the ship. it’s simple and effective. you don’t need to do a crazy amount of crossover to establish a dynamic sense of place.

i hate the ateez kingdom logo. i hate the ateez logo in general. get it out of there, at least you could have made something more fun and pirate themed.

would have loved to have seen them return to the hourglass at the end, especially if they got one that was specifically set for 4 minutes. would have been a nice bit of symmetry but i suspect it was struck before the kraken bit.

the kraken bit??? i was not at all expecting that and honestly? dope as hell. that big tentacle is just a custom inflatable santa claus that you see around christmastime and what a brilliant use of such a simple mechanic, especially to have it come through that weird little triangle arch they have upstage. smart way to use the existing architecture.

yes it is a gimmick but here’s why it works rather than just looks tacky like every other gimmick we’ve seen so far: it had a function within the narrative. this is so important. show us there’s a reason it’s there!

lighting

i didn’t love it but they did actually make some smart choices. the outer deck is warmer toned and has some good atmospheric effects, and the inner deck is cold tone and specifically lit with pin lights to imitate the light coming through portholes in an actual ship, which is so smart thank you lighting designer

also a very clear arc with the lighting, blue -> orange -> blue/red -> orange/multiple -> blue

sound

i actually kinda liked this remix? it fit theme and had a very clear dramatic arc. also i like wonderland, so sue me.

staging

WE DID IT, WE FINALLY GOT A CLEAR NARRATIVE FROM AT LEAST ONE GROUP! wonderland was actually a great choice for them because it’s a really good indicator of exactly how hungry they are. i was a bit worried that it would fall flat because it kinda rides on mingi but they actually pulled it off. i have literally no idea where they pulled all that energy from but holy shit you can practically lick the attitude off the screen. i’m also very impressed by the amount of information they managed to fit into that four minute narrative. we had a full conflict/climax/resolution, as well as a really clear understanding of the tenacity and drive of the group, as well as the desire to support one another in achieving their goals. bravo.

ok so like i said in the set section, they used that pirate ship bridge really effectively to create two different but connected spaces. this is a really smart way to make it seem like you have two spaces while having to only build one set. it was also one of the best ways to utilize this dumbass stage so it doesn’t just look like you’re running arbitrarily from area to area because you can.

also levels! levels are so important for staging but also hard to do in this context because you have to be able to move really quickly in and out of full group formation, but I think they did a really good job here.

continued point: the kraken arm worked because it was the conflict they needed to overcome in the narrative, so it had a function within the performance. also related: all the tricking and jumping also served a purpose within the narrative too. it was either used for fighting (yeosang kicking all those dancers on beat) or a demonstration of teamwork (jongho flinging yunho around on the floor). also frankly excellent use of choreographic formation with the backup dancers, each formation had a specific function and was meant to highlight ateez without being overbearing.

not a whole lot of camera choreo, but a fairly good long take at the beginning and the editing wasn’t too obnoxious which I think was more chance than intent, but i’m not gonna look a gift kraken in the beak.

sf9

i actually really liked this stage, and i really like that sf9 has established their colour as effortlessly elegant, which does set them apart from the rest of the groups. this stage was really choreographically complex and they made it seem so easy, so real props to them. however, like with ikon’s stage, there were a lot of good ideas that just weren’t followed through enough for me.

like ateez, song choice and theme were very well intertwined with this one, there was a lot of thought put into this stage. the pun with ‘jealous’ and ‘jilleosseo’ and having a fairytale/magic mirror narrative? fuckin GALAXY BRAINED. incredible. the implication that not only taeyang but the entire group is the evil queen from snow white? chef’s kiss. should have committed harder and put one of them in massive cloak à la king taemin mama 2020. instead it was subtle enough to not try to step on ateez’s schlocky camp toes but still just as serious and i love that. do i wish they pushed it farther though? also yes.

costume

not gonna lie, i had my reservations on the costumes when we saw the previews of them in the waiting room, but the thing about stage costumes is that they always look bad when not on stage. if they look good in the waiting room you’ve done something wrong. and i loved them on stage. big fan of that quilted vest/pseudo stomacher. please can we have a corset trend? y’all already adopted bondage harnesses, c’mon a little corset won’t hurt. also a good example of a modern spin on a recognizable genre.

i wish the backup dancers weren’t in all black but i am fighting single person battle against the entire entertainment industry on that one.

set

extremely simple with a few smart utilizations. had a feeling this might have been a budget thing, as it had a similar kind of vibe with ikon’s stage, but the use of the mirrors was smart and a fun device that served the purpose of the narrative.

working with mirrors on stage is really fucking hard, so kudos to them for giving it a go. for the most part it was pretty effective. especially with the combo of moving mirrors and moving lights AND moving camera, you’re kind of asking to either blind your audience or at least give them a headache. i once saw a production of the magic flute that had a rotating mirror setpiece and i swear i nearly went blind due to the constantly flashing reflections. you have to really be careful with directionality and reflection, especially with the added element of a camera. also you never use real glass mirrors on stage, it is unbelievably bad luck and theatre people are the most superstitious demographic on the fucking planet.

i kinda loved the draped gold dais. i have nothing else to say about it other than fun!

lighting

a lot of this was very weirdly lit and i’m not sure why. the quality on youtube is terrible and cameras already have trouble picking up detail in low light, and throwing a whole bunch of primary red over that (the colour with the longest wavelength and therefore disappears the easiest in the dark. also human eyes are not very good at distinguishing variations in the red spectrum) and the red costumes made it extremely difficult to tell what was happening.

i will give them props for dramatic lighting usage, especially for the two way mirror trick and for using the floor as a primary lighting source at the end, which i think groups should be using more of. how often do you have a lighting source in your floor!!! almost never!! use that opportunity!!

sound

i actually enjoyed this remix too. it was well suited to the dramatic nature of the stage. i think the sound byte at the beginning is ‘mirror mirror on the wall who’s the worthiest of them all’ but it also could be ‘who’s the worst of them all’ and that would be also fitting and kinda funny.

staging

again, not a lot of consideration for camera choreo in a meaningful way, and like the tbz stage I think the clarity in the actual choreo got hampered by the editing. because there was a lot of choreographic precision that went into making this work and it wasn’t totally obvious from the way mnet edited it.

a lot of them are actors so it works that they’re leaning more towards dramatic stages rather than the sort of performance type stages we’ve seen so far. i like this choice for them as it gives them a very obvious colour but they’re almost on the verge of making it look too easy, which does them some injustice.

next to ateez, using that long uninterrupted traverse was my favourite use of this stage. doubles as an easy way to build the atmosphere of a palace corridor/throne room with the rug, and to feed the drama of the piece.

skz

ok i have some…..things to say about this stage. so far i have not been kind to skz which makes me look like i hate them and i don’t, i promise. there were a lot of really interesting things happening in this stage and there some really successful ones, and i liked this a whole lot better than their intro stage, but their overall choreo and thematic dedication is really killing me. i’ll explain.

costume

I don’t hate them but also…….why? I got the good self vs evil self/internal struggle theme but the costumes don’t really have anything interesting to say about that. as far as modern style costuming goes i think they’re on the more interesting end, but they don’t push it far enough. there’s a few western art history visual motifs and honestly? they should have gone whole hog and whited out their faces/hair and made them look like classical sculptures. that would have been hella fun, especially with that little statue and marionette sequence, plus the shadow/leash manipulation.

this time it was actually intentional that the backup dancers were in blacks and i appreciate that.

why on EARTH did they have that ridiculous makeup that didn’t read on stage? theatre makeup and tv makeup are different, you can’t just do a light purple eyeshadow and expect to read under blue and red light. someone needs to bring an actual theatre makeup artist in and get these boys in some real crazy looks. see previous point about full-face white pancake. more extreme makeup please and thank you!

set

i liked the use of internal architecture within this massive weird stage space and they used the corridors quite well. i didn’t really like the mix of baroque scrolling and also graffiti, it wasn’t quite connected for me. this has been a common theme among this round and i think it comes from budget/props pulls rather than anything else.

also there was a distinct feeling of trying to fill the main stage space with bodies as opposed to atmosphere. this can work in some specific cases but the intent wasn’t strong enough for me. it just felt like a lot of people on stage, especially in the end choreo.

lighting

the general lighting was fine but not particularly inspired. the low light in the beginning was actually quite well done, especially combined with the fog, but in my opinion was not dramatic enough. you have a pseudo art history theme happening, pump that contrast and push the chiaroscuro!

ok stay with me, i’m gonna say something extremely controversial that might actually get me cancelled. s*per j*unior’s burn the floor did everything this stage was trying to do on a smaller scale and better. look i know ok, this is a like, a double atom bomb hot take. just forget everything you know about them and watch the performance video. tell me that’s not some of the most interesting choreo you’ve seen in kpop. if you’re going to work with practical light you need to COMMIT. not just steal the solar lanterns out of my mom’s back garden.

i have a lot of opinions on using practical light and alternate light sources in performance because it’s a huge part of my practice and this just....wasn’t interesting enough for me. push it further!

(I will wait for the subs on the full episode because there has to be a reason they chose that specific shape of lamp. if not i gotta ask jyp why he’s raiding my mom’s garden)

sound

god’s menu has such specific imagery associated within the lyrics and choreography that this stage was a bit dissonant for me. especially when seen in conjunction with two stages where the narrative was tied explicitly to the lyrics of the songs. i think maybe if it hadn’t been grouped with these other two stages i would have felt differently. the other groups chose to do songs were a little more abstract and allowed for more visual experimentation, but to go so blatantly against the food metaphor didn’t really work for me and i had a tough time divorcing the association. I found the arrangement to be a little lacking in energy for me towards the end but otherwise it was pretty interesting.

staging

Definitely a better performance overall that the intro stage. almost all of the gimmicks this time had relevance to the theme which i appreciated. the marionette bit and the shadow/mirror were probably the most interesting but i wish they were better lit.

 there was a lot of back and forth in the blocking that made the stage feel repetitive and also aimless? like there wasn’t a very clearly established directionality within the internal space, so it felt like treading over the same ground for no purposeful reason. and again, not a lot of intentional camerawork.

i really liked having the dancers under the big sheet, it fit well enough within the ‘war between internal selves’ theme, but also had a loose tie to the art imagery. again, i really wish they had stuck to a clearer visual theme. it makes them stick out especially in this grouping of stages, but also across all the groups as whole because almost everyone had a clear(ish) visual idea.

holy shit that’s a lot of backup dancers. i don’t really feel like that many were necessary and the sheer number of them took away from the emphasis of the group. with all of the other stages (except for tbz) it was very clear who the centre of attention and emphasis was, and with both skz and tbz they got swallowed by the sheer scale they were trying to operate at. bigger is not always better.

---

this is a tough round to rank because none of these stages are bad, there’s just some that are, in my opinion, more successful than others. all of these stages do very well in specific elements but fall short in others which also makes this ranking difficult. i’m evaluating these based on whether they were successful to me, as i’m pretty sure this ranking will probably not all be popular opinion, but whatever i like to live on the edge.

btob – visuals, vocals, narrative, swords? what more do you want me to say? also i watched the full episode and minhyuk did rehearsal with a real bokken and i think i am in love with him now.

ateez – honestly not sure if i would have ranked this first if that high note hadn’t been a mess. i love camp nonsense and i genuinely think this was a well designed stage. i can’t believe i keep saying that but it’s true.

sf9 – this stage was really solid, just could have been pushed farther. i think it has a really good sense of drama and it’s a pity that sf9’s colour is more subdued, because i think they’re going to be stuck around the 3rd/4th position for the rest of the show.

ikon – ikon is only ranking this high because although i am disappointed in the wasted potential of this stage, they NAILED the camerawork and actually brought in someone to block the steadicam into the choreo. also they’re incredible performers. i say this every time, but their stage presence, although maybe lower energy that they normally would be, is still not to be fucked with.

skz – i think this one is the most ‘meh’ for me. while i liked a lot of the elements here they just didn’t push it far enough and the lack of narrative and general aimless choreo led to me not having any strong feelings yea or nay.

tbz – to be quite honest the lack of costume unity is a big hit for me. all elements of design are equally as important but because of my personal practice and experience i tend to put a lot of weight on good costume and spatial design. i don’t actually like game of thrones also, so I feel mildly offended on behalf of michele clapton, who had did a fucking incredible job and doesn’t deserve to be slandered like this. also the lack of cohesive choreography and the overblown lighting made this difficult to watch, no matter how good i thought the rear projection/stretch fabric dance was.

 any questions or opinions you wanna share hit me up! see you next week!

[elsylynneverbright]

Mirror Season Part 4: The Eternal Self

The writing prompts for this series of posts are by @velerodra-valesinger and can be found here! 

When Elsie emerged from the portal once again, she found herself greeted by yet another unfamiliar environment. She looked around herself, realizing she was behind some sort of stable. As the realization set in that she still wasn't back in Duskwatch, she immediately slammed her fists against the wall. She started to let out a frustrated scream, but she instantly paused as she heard familiar voices.

Elsie slowly crept around the stable until she got to a location where she could hear things a bit better and peak around the corner. She had little intention of interacting with her alternate self this time. She refused to play this game anymore.

She was greeted with the sight of both Kanalesha and herself, dressed and scarred in the exact same way.. Kana looked like she was on the verge of tears while this alternate self seemed to be filled with both anger and remorse.

"I told you, Kanalesha. Get the fuck away from me!" The clearly unstable version of herself yelled at Kana.

"But I thought-" Kana started to respond but was immediately cut off by the wreck.

"I don't care what you thought!" The wreck seemed like she was on the verge of tears as well at this point. She shook her head and lowered it, not meeting Kana's gaze in an attempt to hide this fact. "I'm done. We're-... I can't Kana. You deserve so much more than me."

Kana shook her head and wiped away her tears, replacing them with a determined look. "We can get through this, Else. Together."

"No, we fucking can't!" The wreck raised her voice once again. "You can't save me Kana, so leave me the fuck alone!"

Kana started to respond, but before she could, the wreck quickly pushed her backwards. "Just fucking go! Fucking go," she repeated slightly softer as she pushed her again. 

Kana remained silent for a moment, staring at the wreck with a look of both surprise and sadness. Elsie couldn't tell if she felt more anger or pity at this point. It didn't matter though. Kana finally turned around and walked off, leaving the wreck to herself.

Elsie shifted back behind the stable and covered her mouth with her hand as she slowly slid down the wall. She began to break down in tears, having to hold her mouth tight to keep herself from screaming. Just as she couldn't take it anymore, a portal manifested itself behind her, once again sucking her through.

Elsie fell back into reality, not bothering to try and catch herself this time. She landed on a hardwood floor and merely laid there for a moment crying. Eventually, she looked around and was greeted by surprisingly familiar surroundings. She was in her own home again. She took a moment to sniffle and wipe her eyes before standing up.

“Kana?” Elsie called as she began to walk around the room. All she wanted now was to just melt in her lover’s arms and know that she was still there. “Kana? Kanalesha?” Elsie continued to call out but received no answer. “Vadel? Vadel? Kana?” Elsie kept calling names as she began searching about the house more frantically. “Kana?!?” She began to yell this time. 

“They aren’t here.” Elsie whipped her head around to see herself once again. Oddly enough, this person had not been there a moment before as she was searching around frantically. She looked exactly as Elsie did now with the same clothes and scars, yet somehow she looked different. It was as if some sort of aura was surrounding her, but Elsie couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Nevertheless, Elsie clenched her fists and walked forward. She let out a scream of frustration as she picked up a nearby vase and threw it against the wall. “Just let me fucking go home!” 

“I’m sorry. I’m not quite done with you yet.” The eternal sat down on a chair in front of Elsie before motioning to the nearby couch. “I promise I’ll send you home soon.”

“No! This is fucking bullshit! I’m done with this shit! I just want to go home!” Elsie placed her hands on her temples as she began hyperventilating. “I can’t take this shit anymore! Who the fuck are you? What different version of me is it this time?”

“I’m not a different version of you; I am you. I am every you. I am what ties every single version of you together.” The eternal responded as she crossed her legs. 

“So it's your fault that I’ve been stuck here! Why I can’t go home! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Elsie stepped toward the eternal aggressively.

“Because, I needed you to see.” The eternal responded plainly before motioning toward the couch. “Take a deep breath. You’re almost done.”

Elsie fumed at the eternal. The two stared each other down for what felt like ages before Elsie finally just crossed her arms and walked over to the couch. She sat down silently and continued to stare at the eternal, still filled with anger but at least giving her the chance to speak.

“I apologize for the scenery as well. I didn’t mean to deceive you, I just felt you might be slightly more comfortable in your own home rather than some endless void.” The eternal chuckled as she sat back, letting out a calm breath.

“Tell me why I’m here,” Elsie demanded.”Why are you torturing me like this? Making me see all this shit?”

“Because, like I said, I need you to see. To learn. Every single alternate reality you have visited has been important for your own personal development.” The eternal held up a finger the second Elsie started to speak. “And, before you ask, I know it is important because, to reiterate, I am you. This mirror season… it is an astonishing phenomenon that I saw as an opportunity. So tell me, Elsylynn. Tell me of your interdimensional travels. Tell me everything that you were able to deduce yourself.”

“Fine.” Elsie huffed angrily. She paused for a moment to think on the subject before shrugging. “The first one was me if I never went to war forty years ago. Instead of going to war, she chased her dreams. And she achieved them. She is everything I could have been. Or even could be, I guess.”

“And was her life better? Were you envious of her,” the eternal asked curiously.

“Honestly? Yeah, at first.” Elsie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, letting all the rage she had built up dissipate at least somewhat. “But then I found out she never met Kana. Vadel was never born. She never met any of my friends at Dead Sun. She achieved everything that she… I... ever wanted. But she was alone.”

The eternal merely smiled at Elsie and nodded. “And the second?”

“That was me in some completely alternate universe. I didn’t recognize jack shit there. She was young but still similar to me. Everything in her life had happened pretty much the same but in a different context if that makes sense. Well, she was more like me than the one before her. I definitely envied her more but then… I am her. I don’t know. I have to admit, it was nice seeing the things that transcended universes.”

“And the third one?” 

“I don’t fucking know what the deal with that one is. You tell me? She was nothing like me. She was a selfish, sadistic bitch. I’m nothing like her. I don’t even understand how she could be me.” Elsie’s anger was beginning to flare up once again as she remembered the assassin.

“Are you sure about that,” the eternal asked Elsie plainly. She stared at Elsie unflinchingly, awaiting her answer.

“Well, yeah I am! I mean, she’s evil. And I’m not!” Elsie paused for a moment as she looked down. She looked back up into the eyes of the eternal which were continuing to stare into her. “Right? I’m not evil, right?”

“There is no such thing as good or evil people.” The eternal shook her head as she leaned back. “Every single person is equal parts good and evil. The difference between them are the decisions people make. Which side they decide to give the light of day.”

“So… that bitch… is actually inside me then? She is me?” Elsie slowly looked down at her hands, remembering the feeling of the blade in them as she held it to the assassin’s throat.

“While I can’t really answer the philosophical aspect of that question, I can say in whole honesty that every you that you have encountered is equally you. The only differences are, as you said, context.” The eternal smiled as she twisted Elsie’s own words around. But then, Elsie supposed those were her words too.

“Ok, whatever.” Elsie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms again. “And what about the fourth one? Hm? The fuck was the point of that one? Me except I’m stupid enough to break up with the love of my life? To push her away?” That was the first time Elsie had referred to Kana as the love of her life, and she could feel the weight of the words hanging in the air as the eternal stared at her.

The eternal shook her head slowly. “That wasn’t an alternate reality. That was your future.”

Elsie stood up suddenly, immediately filling with anger once again. “What the fuck are you talking about? My fucking future? I would never do that! That's bullshit! That can’t be true!”

“It doesn’t have to be.” The eternal responded calmly. “Elsylynn, something is coming. Someone is coming. If you are going to stand any chance, you have to learn.”

“Fucking learn what? Tell me what the fuck I have to learn! Tell me how to stop this!” 

“It doesn’t work like that.” The eternal’s response was a bit less calm than it had been. “And even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. The things you need to learn aren’t things that can just be taught to you. They’re things that you have to figure out for yourself.”     “What kind of cryptic fucking bullshit? That’s fucking stupid and you know it! If you can’t help me, why bring me here?” Elsie was very clearly yelling at this point. 

“The mirror season phenomenon was an opportunity for me to give you the opportunity to learn.” The eternal, while not yelling, was starting to reach the level of frustration that Elsie was at. She clearly at least shared Elsie’s stubbornness.

“That’s so fucking stupid. And who the fuck is coming that’s so light-damned important?” Elsie scoffed at the eternal and turned on her heel, directing her attention to anything other than the eternal’s face. It was rare Elsie got so mad at someone she had to turn away, and of course the fact that it was her own face made it far worse and far easier to vent her frustrations.

The eternal stood up and spoke plainly once again. “You already know.”

For a moment, it was as if time froze for Elsie. The realization of who the eternal was speaking of slapped her like a ton of bricks. She slowly turned back around to the eternal before speaking, no longer yelling but still just as frantic. “So, what? What do you want me to do? How am I supposed to stop her?”

“I can’t answer that question, Elsylynn.” The eternal merely shook her head.

Elsie shrugged and began shaking her head as well. Now her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. She struggled to choke back a sob as she began to speak to her again. “I don’t get it. I don’t know what you want from me.” She motioned around her in exasperation as she looked at the eternal pleadingly. “This? This has been torture. All I’ve seen is versions of myself that are what I could be, but I’m not. I’m not good enough to chase my dreams, I’m not good enough to just be happy. Light, I had to fight the personification of everything I hate about myself! And then you’re telling me that the one that was worse than all of the others… the one that finally broke me… that one isn’t even a different universe? That’s my fucking fate? Can you not just see for one light-damned second how much this is torturing me.” Elsie finally relented, allowing her sob to come forth. She put her head in her hands for a moment, letting herself cry. She then suddenly kicked the nearest chair as hard as she could, turning back to the eternal and yelling through her tears. “Just let me go home! I don’t fucking care anymore! I didn’t learn shit! You failed!”

The eternal merely stared at Elsie in silence. She wore a face of pity, but Elsie could not tell who for. Finally, one last portal manifested behind Elsie. “No, Elsylynn. If you haven’t learned anything, then we’ve both failed.”

[vincent-frankenstein]

40. “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?” with Analogical?

this was going to be a canonverse au until i started listening to The Amazing Devil so now you’re getting some faNTASY ANALOGICAL BOOYAH

Summary: Of all the punishments the universe had sent Virgil’s way, Logan was the worst. His life hadn’t exactly been a piece of cake since he’d found the stupid magical sword that the kingdom had been searching for for decades, since he’d been thrown into an epic quest of destiny he never asked for, but all that, at least, he understood.

He didn’t understand Logan.

And then one night, he did.

Warnings: uhhhh just general fantasy stuff? a dark king, evil shit, feelings of inadequacy, but this is legit alllll fluff

Virgil really wasn't built for questing.

Look, if he had his way, he wouldn't have even been sent on the stupid quest in the first place. He didn't ask to be chosen. He didn't ask to have the fate of the world placed on his shoulders. He didn't ask to be a fucking savior.

He wasn't a hero. He wasn't a savior. He was just... Virgil. He was tired, he was sore, he was angsty and snappy and, quite frankly, not very nice. Just because he'd happened to stumble across the ancient sword that the entire kingdom had been searching for for decades didn't mean he was meant to save the stupid place! He could barely even wield the damned thing.

And he couldn't even quest in peace. No, he had to have companions — A.K.A., other human disasters who only stayed by his side because they wanted a slice of his glory.

Well, no. Patton seemed to genuinely care — but then again, he seemed to care about everyone. It was in his nature as a healer; he didn't have a hateful bone in his body. Roman was there for the glory, though, and the glory alone; Virgil knew that, if there was any way to un-weave his soul from the sword, Roman would have taken the quest for himself. And Logan...

Virgil didn't understand Logan at all.

Like, why the hell was he even there? He had no interest in glory, Virgil could tell, and he didn't seem to give a shit about any of them, either. Sure, his magic had come in handy several times, and he'd saved their lives more times than Virgil could count, but...

He didn't talk to them otherwise. He kept to himself, always reading, always thinking, always silent. Virgil didn't think he'd said a word beyond his foreign incantations since he'd first introduced himself.

Normally, Virgil wouldn't have cared. So long as the dude stayed out of his way, he could do what he wanted. But there was no staying out of each other's ways when the four of them were lumped together on a quest, relying on each other and only each other for survival. They were around each other constantly, and, well. Virgil couldn't help but wonder what the guy's deal was.

He was just... quiet. He existed with a sort of solemn grace, an ethereal energy all his own; his sparkling blue eyes seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe, and his voice, whenever he decided to grace them with it, rumbled like the deepest, darkest thunderstorms. He carried a set of books the same shade of deep blue as his robes, enchanted to float at his sides at all times, and when he read from them his eyes grew bright, radiant.

Virgil found he couldn't drive Logan from his mind. What was it about them, that kept Logan in their group? That drove him to risk his own safety to save them, again and again and again? He didn't hail from their land. He had no stock in their war, and no stock in their souls; what difference did it make to him if they failed, if they died? Why did he risk himself, time and time again?

It was infuriating, in that awful, burning way where Virgil knew his frustration wasn't even justified. Logan didn't owe him shit. Just because Virgil was the "chosen one" or some shit like that didn't mean Logan was obligated to talk to him. Hell, none of them were! The war was his to fight; his quest was his to face. None of them had to fight for him.

None of them had to die for him.

And thus was the cycle of his thoughts. Through guilt and frustration and desperation, beneath waves of ash, his brain returned time and time again to Logan. Why was he so intriguing? Why was he so ethereal?

Why did he stay?

When his thoughts became too much to bear, he polished his sword. He hated the damn thing, hated the way it glowed at his touch, deepest purple to match his eyes, but the rhythmic motion, the back-and-forth of polishing served as a decent way to get his mind to give it a rest. Roman had taught him how to, back when they'd first met, in that snappy, bossy sort of way that made Virgil feel like a little kid who'd disappointed his teacher.

He did it in lieu of sleep, sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. It was the one constant through the quest, as they trudged through forests and across mountain ranges and through villages full of lives he was meant to save. As they approached the capital — and the corrupt king waiting inside — the forests grew darker and the mountains grew taller, and the townspeople, once so full of hope, grew more haggard, and clutched at the hem of his cloak as he passed, begging, begging, begging—

He bit back a pained noise and polished harder, his threadbare rag running back-and-forth, back-and-forth along the shining obsidian of his sword. Another night of polishing in another forest full of shadows, trees looming on all sides, as though they were waiting to strike. Roman and Patton slept before him, curled together through their blankets, arms thrown haphazardly over each other as they snored.

And Logan sat at the other side of the clearing, leaned back against a tree, looking down through his half-moon spectacles at one of his many tomes. The pages turned themselves with a tiny flicker of blue, and his eyes glowed. Stars danced across his skin.

Back-and-forth. Back-and-forth. He lowered his gaze to his sword, following his hand as it slid back-and-forth, trying to get lost in the movement — but before he knew it, he was looking up again, looking at Logan.

He cleared his throat. "D'you ever sleep?" he asked, quietly enough that he half-hoped Logan hadn't even heard him. But Logan did hear him; he shifted, his book snapping shut in a cloud of dust, and suddenly his glowing eyes were locked onto Virgil's, and — holy shit, was this how it felt to die?

Logan lifted a brow, silent.

"Yeah, okay," Virgil said, silently thanking whatever faceless entity resided in the heavens above for granting him the mercy of an even, nonchalant voice. "I guess I'm a hypocrite."

Logan held his gaze for a moment longer, his eyebrow quirked, his lips pressing into a thin line. Then he returned to his book, and silence fell over the clearing again. Virgil pursed his lips, foot tapping against the ground as he polished, faster, faster.

When he lifted his head again, Logan was looking at him. His brilliant eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly, searching, scanning Virgil as though he was a puzzle Logan couldn't solve. Probably wondering how he was going to manage to save the world, probably comparing him to all the other heroes they'd encountered on their quest, probably —

He dipped his head in a small nod, and then lifted his hand. Virgil blinked. "What?"

Logan waved at him again, gesturing towards himself. Hesitantly, Virgil stood, sliding his sword back into the holder at his belt. Logan didn't watch him as he approached; he turned back to his book, sliding a gloved finger along one of the scribbled lines inside, mouth moving silently as he studied whatever incantation he'd scrawled inside.

Virgil reached his side and stood, hands fluttering awkwardly by his sides. "So..."

"Look," Logan said, his voice so soft and so deep that Virgil almost thought it was a distant storm. He lifted his hands, drawing blue energy from the worn pages of his book, galaxies painted across his skin, his eyes the brightest stars of all. Energy gathered around his fingers; he lifted them to the sky, to the canopy of thick, dark leaves above them, and whispered something in a language Virgil didn't know. Then —

The magic shot from his fingertips, arching meteorites of brightest blue, and danced through the air in a dazzling twirl. They reached the canopy above and drew the leaves back, pushing through, pushing beyond — and suddenly there were more stars above than Virgil could have ever imagined, twinkling with the same ethereal grace as Logan's eyes.

"Woah," he whispered, and Logan nodded, his book dropping down into his lap. "That's... woah. How —"

"That is how the sky looks where I come from." Virgil's breath hitched in his throat, and he realized how wrong he'd been. Logan's voice wasn't a crackle of thunder; it wasn't the aftermath. It was the interlude, the between — the moment just before the thunder, when the air still felt charged with lightning's touch, life and destruction, energy. His accent twisted around his words, weaving through, light and melodious. "There is less... light, there."

Virgil glanced through the trees behind them, where the capital's light shone across the horizon. The Glass City was the brightest part of an already burning kingdom; its light could be seen even at the farthest borders.

He tilted his head back towards the sky, and felt his breath knocked from his body again. "It's beautiful," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Logan hummed softly. "Why are you showing me this?"

Logan didn't respond at first. He shifted to the side and patted the ground next to him, nodding at Virgil. Virgil blinked. "You — oh. Uh. Okay."

With all the grace he could muster — that is to say, none whatsoever — Virgil dropped to the ground at Logan's side, folding his hands in his lap, his foot tapping against the ground. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the sky above. He had never seen so many stars.

"I am never able to sleep without the stars," Logan said finally. His words were slow, careful; every sentence was weighed down with hesitance. He paused, his gaze caught in the stars, and his next words came with the hushed reverence of someone regaining hope they'd almost lost. "They are... home."

"I..." Virgil cleared his throat. "I didn't even know there were so many stars."

Logan blinked, his eyebrows furrowing. He shifted his gaze to Virgil, catching his eyes and holding them unabashedly, and Virgil found that, though his heart pounded, he couldn't look away. "What a tragic existence," he said, his voice ever-so-soft, and Virgil felt the genuine injustice in his voice with a pang in his heart. "Here. I will teach."

He leaned closer, shoulder pressing into Virgil's as he lifted his hand. "Aean," he said, his voice lifting and lilting along the name. Twisting a finger through the air, he wove a constellation through the sky, blue dust floating from star to star. "The god of Creation to those who first found my land."

"He looks like a snake," Virgil said, raising an eyebrow. The constellation Logan painted twisted through the sky in a series of coils and loops. Logan nodded.

"His wife, Oscia," he continued, and with a wave of his hands, the stardust shifted, revealing the vague form of a woman in armor, standing above the twisted snake. "The legends say that she stole his power of Creation from him, and used it to create humanity. Aean was full of pride. She used it to deceive him into the form of a snake."

"...Huh," Virgil said. "Pretty messed up relationship, there."

"Indeed," Logan said, with a quiet hum of agreement.

Virgil drew his knees up to his chest. "Which one's your favorite?"

Logan lifted his hand without hesitation, tracing it among the stars. Far, far above Aean and Oscia, so high that Virgil had to crane his neck to see, a winged creature came to life, outlined in blue stardust. "Logos," he said. "He is from one of the most ancient religions. He brought the first books down to humanity."

Logan's eyes glowed, though Virgil suspected it was more from wonder than magic. His heart skipped a few fluttery beats. "Nerd," he said, his mouth quirking up into a smirk. "His name sounds like yours."

Logan nodded, and — and suddenly he was smiling, beaming, a galaxy of freckles shining across his cheeks, a nebula of pride shining in his eyes, and suddenly Virgil forgot how to breathe. "It is for him that I am named," Logan said, his accent thickening in his excitement. Virgil faltered, heat building in his cheeks.

"Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?" he said, breathless. Logan blinked, and though his smile shrank, it didn't fade entirely. His eyes still sparkled.

"Apologies," he said, glancing over at Virgil. "The stars — they get me rather... excited."

Virgil smiled, knocking his shoulder into Logan's. "Not a problem, teach," he said. "Tell me more?"

Logan smiled. "Gladly."

[end-of-pizza]

WEIRD ANIME NIGHT

guys, I’m going to level with you. I am running out of weird anime’s I have watched. I want to do these guys every week I really do....and I have a stack of VHS tapes and DVD’s downstairs to dig through that MIGHT have some more gold in them, but it would be SUPER COOL of you if you would DM me some ideas or suggestions to look into in the coming weeks and months now I said I am RUNNING OUT, that doesnt mean I’m empty. Tonight I am going to go on a tangent, and talk about one anime you dudes have LIKELY seen already MOBILE FIGHTER G GUNDAM

You might say to yourself, hey Brian, that show isn’t THAT weird, gundam is a big big robot show, and that is just another cookie cutter big big robo show

BUT YOU ARE WRONG

DEAD WRONG

Mobile fighter g gundam was only the 9th gundam series ever made, and the series it follows Victory gundam is considered one of the darkest in gundams canon, where kill them all Tomino really showed that he earned that name, it wasn’t gifted to him. I mean the shows about a 12 year old who, in its final act fights a giant, moon sized ring full of psychics that try to reduce humanity to animal like stupidity so that they can rule the earth, and also like…..all of his friends die. All of them, most of them children. Victory gundam is dark as shit

G Gundam though? Naw, this show is like two clicks away from being a gundam skin over top of a king of braves show. I mean let me break it down like this. G gundam is about a buncha people, hired by their countries to represent them in a martial arts tournament , with giant robots that used to be used for war, but that war destroyed earth real bad, so instead they still destroy earth real bad with giant robots, but instead of war, its just a boxing match and they make it clear that this ish is bad for the earth like EVERY city is fucked, and whoever wins the tournament, their government gets to be dictators of the world and space for 4 years.

  and its played for laughs

I also want to mention for people who are passingly familiar with Gundam through things like wing or seed etc, and know that gundam has different time lines, THIS is the first alternate timeline, this is the first non UC timeline in the whole of gundam. Imagine if the last few shows were, a war drama about a 14 year old being drafted and getting ptsd, then a sequal where a child psychic also gets drafted then his parents die, then the girl he loves tries to kill him and dies, then a sequal to that where again, a ton of main characters die, then a sequal movie where two of the main characters of the entire show both die, then a show about a boy making a new friend, who turns out to be a soldier, and introducing them to his next door neighbor who turns out to be a soldier, then while trying to help his new friend, his neighbor murders him, ON CHRISTMAS, then he has to just go back to normal life because he kept all of this a secret to everyone.

AFTER THAT ALL WE GET THIS

I mean it took a show that for 20 years had been a dead ass serious war drama, and turned it into well......MMA with robots and dudes (and a few ladies) in latex cat suits using magic to destroy famous land marks

THE WIKI SAYS Unlike previous series in the Gundam franchise which are set in the "Universal Century" timeline, Mobile Fighter G Gundam takes place in an alternate "Future Century" universe.[1][2] Within this timeline, much of mankind has abandoned a ruined Earth to live in space colonies. The countries on Earth have corresponding colonies just outside the planet's atmosphere. Rather than fight wars for political and social dominance, the colonies agree to hold a "Gundam Fight" tournament every four years. Each country sends to Earth a representative piloting a highly-advanced, humanoid mobile fighter called a Gundam. The Gundams compete with one another in one-on-one battles, under a strict set of rules, until only one fighter remains; the nation represented by the winner earns the right to rule all of space for that period.[2] Each Gundam is controlled directly by the user within the cockpit using the "Mobile Trace System", a gesture recognition and feedback mechanism whereby the Gundam mimics the pilot's own body motion, combat skills, and weapon-wielding capabilities.[1]G Gundam opens at the start of the 13th Gundam Fight in Future Century year 60 and follows Neo Japan's Domon Kasshu, fighter of his nation's Shining Gundam and bearer of the coveted "King of Hearts" martial arts crest.[1] Aside from winning the tournament, Domon's mission is to track down his fugitive, older brother Kyoji, who allegedly stole the experimental Dark Gundam from Neo Japan's government, leaving their mother dead and their father (Dr. Raizo Kasshu) to be arrested and placed in a cryogenic state.[3]

Under orders from Major Ullube Ishikawa, Domon and his childhood friend and mechanic Rain Mikamura travel from country to country, challenging each one's Gundam while searching for clues to the whereabouts of Kyoji and the Dark Gundam.[3] Domon's initial matches with Neo America's Chibodee Crocket, Neo France's George DeSand, Neo China's Sai Sai Ci, and Neo Russia's Argo Gulskii end in draws, gaining mutual respect among the fighters.[1][2] As they encounter Gundam pilots who had come in contact with the Dark Gundam, Domon and Rain learn of its unique cellular properties to regenerate, multiply, and evolve by infecting organic matter and causing violent behavior in living things.[3] The duo then journey to Neo Tokyo, a city decimated by the Dark Gundam's army of mobile weapons. Domon reunites with his esteemed martial arts instructor Master Asia, who is also the champion of the last Gundam Fight, the former King of Hearts, and one-time leader of an elite group of Gundam fighters called the Shuffle Alliance. After Domon and Rain help the city's survivors defend their last outpost in Shinjuku, Master Asia reveals himself as a servant of the Dark Gundam, having also gained control over Chibodee, George, Sai Sai Ci, and Argo using Dark Gundam (DG) cells.[2][3] The four remaining members of the Shuffle Alliance intervene and vow to destroy their previous leader for his crimes. Ultimately, the Alliance members offer their lives in purging the DG cells from Domon's four comrades and bestow each of them with a Shuffle Alliance crest as their successors. Kyoji and the enormous Dark Gundam eventually appear from beneath the ground of Shinjuku, but shortly thereafter vanish alongside Master Asia. As the Shuffle Alliance trains in the Guiana Highlands for the Gundam Fight finals, Master Asia and the Dark Gundam reappear.[3] With the help of his friends and a new ally in Neo Germany's masked warrior Schwarz Bruder, Domon defeats the Dark Gundam. When the Shining Gundam becomes incapacitated during the battle, Domon desperately manages to activate a newly acquired God Gundam(AKA Burning Gundam outside Japan), escape Master Asia, and make his way to the finals set in Neo Hong Kong.[2][4]

The Gundam Fight finals are presided over by Wong Yunfat, Neo Hong Kong's prime minister and the current ruler of the space colonies and Earth. Wong chooses to have the qualifying nations battle in one-on-one and tag team preliminary matches to reach a battle royale on Lantau Island, where the tournament is to end with the winner facing the defending champion Master Asia.[2][4] Having gained possession of the Dark Gundam, Wong secretly plots to revive and control it as his trump card to inevitably maintain his own power over space. Domon and his companions make their way to the battle royale while several truths concerning the Dark Gundam are unveiled. Rain's father, Dr. Mikamura, eventually explains that the Dark Gundam (originally called the Ultimate Gundam) was constructed by Dr. Kasshu to rejuvenate the dying Earth. Jealous of his genius colleague, Dr. Mikamura had Neo Japan's officials attempt to confiscate Kasshu's creation. To prevent the military from using his father's invention for its own agenda, Kyoji fled with and crash landed the Gundam on Earth, where its computer malfunctioned, triggering its malevolent activity. Ullube subsequently had Dr. Kasshu arrested, framed Kyoji as a criminal, and used Domon and Rain as pawns in recovering the Gundam.[4] In a separate confession, Master Asia discloses to Domon that, having been distressed by the utter destruction wrought by the Gundam Fights, he planned to use the Dark Gundam to wipe out humanity and allow Earth to heal naturally.[2] The battle on Lantau Island culminates with Domon fatally besting Master Asia in a final confrontation, while Kyoji and Schwarz sacrifice themselves so that Domon can attack the Dark Gundam's cockpit and disable it once again.[4] Though the schemes of both Wong and Master Asia are foiled, Ullube quietly claims the Dark Gundam and transports it to Neo Japan's space colony for his own purpose. Having been corrupted by DG cells with ambitions of supreme power, Ullube kidnaps Rain and places her into the Dark Gundam's core to act as its energy source. The hulking monstrosity then merges with the colony and begins absorbing Earth itself.[2] As the entire world's Gundams unite to assault the Dark Gundam from the outside, the Shuffle Alliance breaks inside the colony and destroys Ullube. Finally, Domon professes his love for Rain and releases her from the core. Invoking the power of the King of Hearts, the couple vanquishes the Dark Gundam once and for all

I just rewatched it like a month ago, its real good, def go watch it

if you are the kind of person who was maybe put off by OG gundams TONE or wing gundams edgy-ness, give g gundam a watch its honestly a good anime, its about as shonen as a shonen can legally get. Also its spiritual successor, the Build series is really good too, really liked Build Fighters Try A LOT, and I guess like.....it might be canon to this reality? its weird. Gundams weird when it comes to canonisity, its sort of all canon kinda.

∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀

Also the model kits for this show, and you knew I was going to bring up Gunpla at some point, well they come in two qualities

 AWESOME and brand new

 or shit and 20 years old

So if you collect these things like I do…..get both kinds of their kits

They’re good.

 Have a good one

~Hoover

[glamrayvision]

A WIP oneshot

This was intended as horror but immediately turned into crack, what can I say?

I will post the whole thing when I'm done, along with some art.

Warning for cursing and menton of covid.

Summary: A young adult Miraculous Ladybug fanartist gets a suprise when her drawing of Chat Blanc comes to life! But as a student of Zoom university in the middle of 2020, nothing scares her anymore. So she thought.....

FANART

'Hmmm' I think to myself.

14 year old me would be proud. College girl me is absolutely disappointed in the way I drew his hands (ya know, the blob with sad excuses of tentacles) , but hey. The only artists who can draw hands probably have divine powers anyway. However, the other eye looks pretty rad.

Chat Blanc is the first thing I drew in this sketchbook. I got it for a quarter at a thrift store. Yes I'm bragging. Everything I own cost me less than $10, and that is a peak accomplishment, even more so than drawing two cat eyes correctly on an angry human face. But I digress.

Am I too old for this fandom? If you say yes I dare you to pry it from my cold dead hands.

I put away my art supplies, neatly for once in my life, and scrub the oil pastel and charcoal residue from my fingers. Chat Blanc looks at me, sprawled across the kitchen table, aiming his cataclysm at me.

"Meow!" I drop finger guns at him, laughing at myself.

My phone buzzes. It's my student portal. "Glad to see I'm still failing calculus " I say with all intended sarcasm. "Perks of Zoom university!"

I set my alarm clock for my 8 AM class and plop on my pillow.

My insomnia haunts me

And I am out like a light!

------

"Fuck you!"

It does nothing, its screams only get louder.

And louder.

And louder.

After fumbling for the off button on my alarm clock for ten minutes I decide to just rip the plug from the socket. It's not a problem anymore!!!

Another ten minutes to get me out of bed.

Then I crawl to the kitchen, with nothing but a tank top and underwear. Thank God I live alone off campus.

I grab a yogurt from the refrigerator. It takes another five minutes to realize that my sketchbook from last night is completely empty.

Another two to notice the cat boy on the ceiling light fixture.

Another five seconds to drop my yogurt and scream.

"What the- what the fuck!!!"

"Hi there! "He says with a goofy, toothy grin.

What does a completely rational person do in this situation?

No, she doesn't call the police or anything.

She gets dressed and logs onto her Zoom meeting.

Because if public school taught me anything, its that being late is more anxiety inducing than your supervillain fanart coming to life and invading your house.

As I go to my desk to turn on my computer, Chat Blanc sits behind me.

"Ain't you got shit to do?" I say with the fury of a zombie teenager. I log into the meeting.

"Not really " he shruggs. "What class is this?"

"Engineering "

Uh oh. He has an idea. "Can we turn on the camera?"

"Why?"

"I'm lonely " Chat whines.

It's way too early in the morning for this shit. "Look, we can go to the grocery store and get ice cream later. But now I have to go to class and pretend to be awake enough to care"

"Fine" For some reason he crawls on the couch and sits like an actual cat, ready to pounce. "You're no fun. I'm probably gonna accidentally destroy this world too, ya know. " Chat begins yo sniffle. "I miss Ladybug!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Fuck it I'm never gonna focus like this. Besides, I'm the reason he's here. And I don't want to bear any resemblance to his father. I put down by pen and grab some tissues. "It's ok, kitty. You'll see her again. I'm sure of it"

"You're not" he growled. "Everything from my world is... gone "

"I won't pretend to understand, but-"

"No you don't understand! " he pushes me off. The Akuma is controlling him now, I'm sure. As much as Adrien keeps trying to fight back, he must be exhausted, poor thing!

Chat Blanc stands up, his feet grounded in attack and a cataclysm glowing at his fingertips.

"Cataclysm this stupid pandemic, will ya? " I grumble as I dodge the blast, letting my wall take it instead. My land lord is gonna be a frickn disaster once he sees this. Oh well.

The dust settles as my worst nightmare comes to life!

My Zoom camera and and microphone have somehow turned on!!!

My tears begin to fall as he corners me with another cataclysm ready. A supervillain I can handle. Online video social interaction is a horror movie. Now everyone can see me crying like the 2 year old I am. Great.

"Shhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttt!!!!!!" I make a dash for my computer. Chat leaps in front of me. I screech to a halt.

"Where's Ladybug!!!!"

"In Paris in an alternate timeline, you dumbass cat! Why don't you chill so I can help you!!!" I sob.

My class stares in complete horrified silence.

I grab a broom.

"LET "

Smack!

"ME"

Smack!

"SHOWER"

Smack!

"YOU"

Smack!

"WITH"

Smack!

"LOVE!!!!"

"Never!" He snaps the broom in half.

In desperation I grab my car keys on the counter. There's a lazer light attached. "Please God let this work! "

I turn it on and point it twards the hole in the wall.

His ear perks up and he attacks the red dot! Yes!

As he discracts himself I apologize to my class for "my insane cat" and turn off the video and sound.

I release the button on the lazer pointer.

Sinister blue eyes point twards me. I wonder if I should call animal control. His claws are sharp, all fours digging into the wooden floor.

He smirks at me.

Pounce!

His arms wrap around me tightly when he lands "A friend! A friend! I miss having friends!"

I hug him back. Despite what just went down, I still want to help this kid. Chat is baby!

[cinnaminsvga]

Hug-o-gram Preview | Yoongi

→ summary:

“This is probably the dumbest idea you’ve ever had,” Yoongi hisses, but it’s kind of hard for Seokjin to take him seriously when he’s wearing a cardboard sign around his neck that says ‘Huggie Wuggie Machine!’ in bubble font. 

“Like, even worse than when we DIY’d your car into a convertible by sawing the top off?” Seokjin asks, genuinely curious. 

“Worse,” Yoongi admits, trying his best to stay out of your line of sight. His cheeks redden, matching the gaudy pink kitten ears he was forced into wearing.

{or alternatively: Seokjin is a terrible wingman. He also runs a profitable business by sending “hugs” to people’s crushes for a fee. Mix them together and you have a recipe for Min Yoongi’s worst nightmare.}

→ genre: college!au, hugging booth!au, fluff, humor → warnings: yoongi is so smitten that he’s a walking disaster, so much shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to *o*e him, seokjin just tryna get his homie some y/n love coochie bro ;o; → words: anticipated 10-12K  → a/n: who the fuck am i... why am i writing so much??? let’s all thank miss kwaranteen for that, my friends. but what’s with the fluff, you ask? thank miss @jincherie​ for that because her weak heart can’t handle angst so i have to use my limited fluff muscles to write this for her... anyway idk when this is coming out but its probs soon,, enjoy this lil snippet i guess LMAO 

“Yoongi, it’s time for me to head to work. You want to come with me today?” Seokjin asks, though he knows what answer he’s going to get. You see, Seokjin’s new booming business is another one of his fantastic ideas, but it is a little... inventive. Sure, Yoongi had scoffed when he had originally suggested the idea, but Seokjin knew that it was going to be a money-maker. Sure, it had taken a few years for the business to really take off, but once it finally did…

Enter Kim Seokjin’s Hug-o-gram Service! Students from his university are able to send anonymous payments directly to him, with little notes attached for their crushes. Each love letter delivery comes with a hug from Seokjin himself, delivered straight to the person without them ever knowing who the hug came from. It was ingenious! It was lucrative! But most of all…

It allowed Seokjin to cause drama and have an excuse for it! Nothing could have been more perfect for a man like him.

“No thanks,” Yoongi snorts, rolling over to face him. He watches from the floor as Seokjin changes into a butter-less shirt, which also happens to have his own face printed on the front and back. His trusty cardboard sign that reads “I’m Gonna Glomp Ya!” also joins his attire for the afternoon, a long piece of string tied to its edges so that he can wear it around his neck. Throwing on a pair of white sneakers with the tags still attached, Seokjin is ready to tackle today’s list of would-be hug-ees.

“How do I look?” Seokjin asks, combing his hair with his fingers. It leaves an oily sheen, which he somehow makes it work.

“Ugly,” Yoongi says, like a liar.

“It’s okay, I understand. I can speak tsundere, so you don’t need to explain,” Seokjin snickers, nearly getting hit with a TV remote by Yoongi. He opens his phone again, swiping to his e-mail to see his list of hug deliveries for the day.

Seokjin gets around 10 requests a day, with around half of them coming from regular clients. He’s especially fond of this boy who has been sending hugs to his TA named Namjoon for almost a month now. He has no idea why this kid has so much disposable income, though seeing the blush on Namjoon’s face everyday makes Seokjin think that he would spend every last penny for him too. Namjoon had begged Seokjin for his secret admirer’s identity, but snitchin’ isn’t a part of his service, unfortunately.

As much as Seokjin wants to know who is crushing on who, his little business wouldn’t work as well as it did if anonymity wasn’t included in his package deal. It allows people to thirst in public without facing the repercussions, like getting a knee to the groin or a slap to the face. Not that Seokjin has ever been at the receiving end of that; everyone loves him! Like, have you seen him? He must have saved a civilization in the past with how devastatingly beautiful his forehead is.

“Why am I suddenly filled with the relentless urge to deck you right now?” Yoongi says, getting up to change into clean clothes as well. His black t-shirt unfortunately does not have Seokjin’s face on it, but that can quickly be amended if the elder of the two decides to follow his every intrusive whim.

Seokjin laughs, completely unaware of the murderous capabilities of his friend. Due to his smaller body size, his percentage of evil is unusually concentrated. “Maybe it’s because you know that I’m into pain pla–” but Seokjin’s retort suddenly grinds to a halt. He chokes mid-sentence, coughing wildly as he pounds his chest with a balled-up fist. When Yoongi looks up at him, he finds his hyung staring slack-jawed at his phone, seemingly flabbergasted by what he finds on his screen.

“What’s the matter? Accidentally sent a dick pic to your prof again?” Yoongi snorts.

“That was one time! And no, it’s…” Seokjin trails off, uncharacteristically hesitant. He shifts his gaze from his phone to Yoongi, a drop of sweat quickly forming on the back of his neck. Yoongi raises a brow, silently urging him to continue.

Instead of replying, Seokjin hands him his phone. Yoongi finds a copy of one of Seokjin’s newest hug requests, only having just received it five minutes ago. As he scrolls down, he finds that this secret admirer is a new client, but that isn’t what made Seokjin stop in his tracks. Instead, it’s the recipient of the hug that catches his attention–

“Y/N has a secret admirer?” Yoongi says, voice cracking at the end. He clears his throat, trying his best to school his face into something less… jealous. He swivels away from Seokjin, forcing himself to breathe slowly through his nose. He convinces himself that he is the very epitome of calmness.

“You okay there, Yoongi? You look like you’re about to vomit,” Seokjin says, immediately breaking his inner peace. Yoongi groans loudly, shucking the phone over his shoulder, uncaring of where it lands. Seokjin, with his superhuman and God-given reflexes… doesn’t catch it. But he did dive to the floor like a seasoned Olympian, and his ass cushioned his phone so he supposes that’s a win.

Back to the matter at hand––

“I am fine,” Yoongi says, as he continues to not be fine.

From the floor, Seokjin shoots him a disbelieving look. He lies down more comfortably, propping his head on his elbow. Screw his hug-o-gram appointments for now; nothing brings him more joy than seeing Yoongi absolutely losing it. “Really? So you wouldn’t mind if I marched up to Y/N right now and give her the warmest, coziest, most tender hug of her fucking life?”

“Y… Yes,” Yoongi squeaks, neck glowing a furious red. He has his fists clenched (adorably) by his sides, head bowed as he faces the wall of their apartment. Seokjin’s brain makes the unhelpful comparison of Yoongi with that cat meme who says “no talk me angy” in Impact font.

Seokjin grins, his wickedness from within coiling and yearning to burst from his seams. This is it! Maybe if he pushes a little more, then maybe Yoongi will stop pining like a pathetic loser! Also, it didn’t hurt that he got to push Yoongi’s buttons while he’s at it, but hey! Not all heroes go to heaven or whatever.

He grabs his phone from his ass, scrolling back to the e-mail. “So… You wouldn’t mind if I walk up to Y/N right now and tell her ‘Hey! I’ve had an embarrassingly long crush on you and when I heard about this hugging service… I couldn’t miss the chance to shoot my shot! If you’re single and ready to #mingle, then please meet me at the Corner Cafe at 2 PM tomorrow.’” Seokjin sing-songs, snickering loudly when he sees the absolute pain etched onto Yoongi’s face.

There is a pause, and Seokjin waits as Yoongi uses his tiny kitty brain to think of what to do. He can only imagine what’s going inside his head, but he has a guess. Yoongi could either: 1) finally admit his feelings for you and come clean before Seokjin has to deliver your hug, or 2) do something stupid and counterproductive.

It comes as no surprise when Yoongi goes with option number––

[thestarsaroundyourscars]

If you're taking Grizzam fic prompts (I loved the fic I read!!!) I would kill for something where Grizz is protective of Sam over the subject of Campbell!!!! Especially if the relationship between the brothers is complicated, I feel like people don't explore that enough.

My first Grizzam prompt! Sorry it took a while, hopefully the length of the fic will make up for it. You can read it below or click on the title to read on AO3. 

Thank you to the people who sent the prompts!

Between Love And Hope

Grizz watched as Clarke and Jason dragged Will and Allie away, still trying to understand what was going on. 

It felt like he had walked into an alternate universe all over again. His group was gone only for one week, but still everything seemed to have gone wrong in that time. Two of his friends had been arrested. The guard, his teammates and closest friends, were the ones who arrested them. And Harry and Lexie were now in charge. And the weirdest part was that everyone seemed okay with it.

His eyes had scanned the crowd that had gathered in front of the church and he was surprised to see that, for some reason, they agreed with Lexie, they wanted her and Harry to lead them, and they wanted Will and Allie in handcuffs.  

Just a few hours ago, Grizz had been excited to return. He couldn't wait to share the good news with everyone⎯ that they found land, animals and water, and that things might be looking up for them. Now, he couldn't help but think maybe it would have been better if they had stayed in the woods a little longer, instead of coming back to this. 

But bringing the news to New Ham wasn't the only reason Grizz wanted to return. He searched the dissipating crowd for a familiar freckled face, but he couldn't see Sam anywhere. His stomach twisted with worry. Sam was close with Allie and Will, so what if he was also arrested? What if he was hurt?

He saw Luke walking towards him, but as much as he wanted to confront him and get an explanation, he knew it would have to wait. He needed to make sure Sam was okay first. 

He asked several people if they knew where Sam was, but no one did. Then someone told him that they heard Becca had gone into labor and Grizz rushed to the hospital.

In that moment, he didn't care that this probably meant that Sam was now a father or that he should still be angry at him for not telling him about the baby. He just needed to see him.

He made it to the hospital and saw Gordie and Kelly sitting outside. They looked up as he came to a stop in front of them, their eyes widening in surprise.

"Grizz!" Kelly said with a grin. He waved at her, trying to catch his breath. "You're back!" 

"Is everyone okay? Did you guys find anything?" Gordie asked with a hopeful expression.

Grizz nodded. "Everyone is fine. And yeah, we found land. Good land, and turkeys."

Kelly clapped her hands together happily and Gordie sighed in relief. 

"That's great news."

"Yeah, but that is as far as the good news go. I just came from the church. Will and Allie⎯"

They shared a troubled look. "We know," Gordie said. "A lot happened after you left."

Grizz wanted him to explain, but when he opened his mouth what came out was, "Sam?"

"He's inside." Kelly told him and Grizz released a breath he didn't know he was holding. Sam was here, he was okay. "He's with Becca and the baby." 

Of course, the baby. Becca had the baby. Sam was a father. 

Grizz suddenly felt lightheaded. 

Luckily, Kelly didn't seem to notice. "The baby is probably sleeping but you can go inside and meet her. It's a girl, they named her Eden."

"Eden." Grizz repeated distractedly, still trying to wrap his head around everything. "That's⎯ It's a good name. Very biblical." He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "I'd love to meet her. And see how Becca is doing." And see Sam.

"Go ahead." Gordie said, stepping aside so Grizz could go through the door. Before it swung shut behind him though, Gordie was calling his name. "Sam and Becca⎯ they don't know yet. About Allie and Will and everything else. We didn't want them to worry about that when⎯ you know."

When they had a baby to take care of.

"That's probably a good idea. I won't bring it up." Grizz said, turning back around. 

The hospital was quiet. He walked by empty beds, listening for voices or baby sounds. Then he heard the sound of light snoring coming from behind one of the curtains. Grizz peeked around it and was instantly flooded with relief. Sam was sleeping soundly on a chair, his head resting on his arms which were propped up on the hospital bed. His hair was mussed, his mouth was slightly parted and he was drooling a little on the sheets. He looked even more adorable than Grizz remembered, and he had been gone only for a week. 

The bed shifted slightly and his eyes darted to Becca, sleeping on her side. She seemed okay and Grizz was glad. The whole situation with Sam was complicated, but none of it was Becca's fault. Or Eden's. It took Grizz a moment to notice her where she was wrapped up in a tight bundle of blankets and tucked against the crook of Becca's elbow, only half of her tiny face visible. 

She was a cute baby, but that was to be expected. Her father was the cutest boy Grizz had ever met. Seeing the three of them together made his heart ache. They were a family. They were Sam's family, and Grizz wasn't part of it. 

Whatever. Grizz didn't come here to feel bad for himself, he just wanted to make sure Sam was okay. And he was. Becca and him could probably use the sleep, he doubted they were getting much with Eden’s arrival. He could catch up with him later. 

Grizz was about to leave when Sam stirred, his eyes opening slowly. When they landed on Grizz, they widened and he sat up straight. Then he was jumping from the chair, so fast that it nearly toppled over. Grizz sent a quick look to Becca and Eden to make sure that the sudden noise didn't wake them up, but they were still sleeping.

His eyes returned to Sam just as the other boy closed the distance between them. He threw his arms around Grizz's shoulders and pulled him down for a hug. 

"You're back." Sam whispered into his ear. Grizz nodded, bringing his arms up to wrap them around Sam's waist, hugging him back. 

They stayed like that for what felt like a long time, but it was probably only a few seconds. Then Grizz pulled back so he could talk to Sam. 

"I'm happy to see you." He said, using his hands to sign along with his words. "How are you?"

"Good. I'm happy to see you too." Sam said, causing Grizz's heart to flutter happily. "How was the trip?"

"It was great. We found exactly what we were looking for." 

"Land?" Grizz nodded and Sam smirked at him. "Now you can make a bigger garden."

Grizz chuckled, nodding in agreement. "I will need your help planting the carrots." 

Sam beamed. Grizz had missed seeing that smile so much. "Anything you need." 

Eden made a little noise in her sleep, attracting Grizz's attention. A crease appeared between Sam's eyebrows as he waited for Grizz to react to the baby, his eyes darting between him and Eden. 

Grizz ignored the knot still lodged in his stomach and gave Sam what he hoped was an honest smile. "She's perfect. You must be very happy."

"I am happy." Sam said, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. "I am also very tired."

Grizz let out a snort. "Said every single parent ever."

Sam giggled, the sound making Grizz's heart melt. He wanted nothing more than to kiss Sam, but it didn't feel right with Becca and Eden there. He wondered if it would ever feel right again, if he would ever be okay with the idea of lying and sneaking around. When he was on his trip he convinced himself that he could. That nothing else mattered except being with Sam. But that was before Eden, before Sam met his daughter. Things were even more complicated now.

Sam stared at him, his lower lip caught between his teeth. He was probably going over the same things as Grizz in his own head. He opened and closed his mouth, but it wasn't until he did it a third time that he actually said something. 

"Look Grizz, I talked to Becca and she said⎯" He began nervously.

But he was interrupted by the door of the hospital abruptly swinging open. 

Grizz turned around just as Campbell barged in. Before the door closed behind him, he saw Kelly arguing with Jason who was blocking her path, and Gordie held back by Clark while struggling uselessly. 

His eyes returned to Campbell. He looked angry and Grizz tensed up, instinctively stepping between him and Sam. 

"You moron!" Campbell spit out, his hands moving in sharp, angry movements. "I told you not to fucking say anything." 

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked, Grizz looked at him over his shoulder and saw that his face was scrunched up in confusion. 

"Don't play dumb with me. You know what I'm talking about. You told Allie and Will and who knows who the fuck else about what you found in Dad's office." 

Sam's face fell but he didn't back down, his jaw set defiantly. "Yeah, so? We are trying to figure out what happened to us. They needed to know what was in those letters."

Rage flashed across Campbell's face. "How can you be so stupid?" He snapped, taking a step towards Sam with his hands balled into fists. 

"Hey, back off." Grizz growled, the harsh words directed at Sam made something inside him snap, pushing him into action. His hand shot up to stop Campbell from getting any closer to him. "You can't talk to people like that. Especially not your brother."

Campbell glared at him, but Grizz didn't budge. He knew Campbell was dangerous, he was there when Sam told them that story about the bird. But he wasn't afraid of him. He towered over him, he knew he could take him, but even if that wasn't the case he couldn't just watch Campbell treat Sam like that and do nothing. 

"This is between me and my brother. Stay out of it."

"No."

"I know you've been gone for a while, but things have changed." Campbell said coldly. "I could have one of your friends arrest you right now." 

He didn't know exactly how Campbell fit in with New Ham's recent change in leadership, but it made sense that he had something to do with everything falling apart. 

Grizz felt a hand on his shoulder. The touch made Grizz relax slightly, but he didn't move from his spot between them.

"Well shit." Campbell inhaled sharply. His eyes darted between from Sam to Grizz to Sam's hand on his shoulder, a spark of recognition in them. "I was wondering why you two were here together. I have to say I didn't expect you to be a fag like my brother, Visser." 

"Don't call him that." Sam snapped, dropping his hand from Grizz’s shoulder and taking a step forward, so now it was him standing between Grizz and his brother. 

"I wonder who else knows." Campbell said, ignoring him. "I wonder what your friends will think if they knew you were screwing my little brother."

Grizz swallowed hard, feeling his stomach twist into knots at the threat in Campbell's words. Sam took another step towards his brother. "Leave him alone, Campbell."

He stared at Sam, his cold blue eyes shining with hatred. With one quick movement Campbell balled up Sam's shirt in his fist and tugged. "I don't take orders from faggots." He hissed, raising his other first. But before it could connect with Sam's face, Grizz pushed him with as much strength as he could muster. 

Campbell released Sam and stumbled back a couple of steps, knocking over some medical trays before regaining his footing. Then he was lunging at Grizz, landing a punch to his jaw that left him seeing stars. His own hands balled up into fists, ready to throw the next punch, but in that moment Luke appeared and he jumped between them, his arms stretched out. 

"Hey guys, knock it off." He said, looking between Grizz and Campbell. "What the fuck is going on?"

Grizz's jaw was throbbing and he was angry. He glowered at his friend. "Yeah. What the fuck is going on, Luke?"

Luke gave him a pleading look. "Grizz, come on, man. You need to understand⎯"

"This is the way things are now." Campbell cut in. "And you're going to pay. Both of you." He said, signing the words to make sure Sam also got the message. 

Then he turned around and stalked off.

When he was out of sight, Luke turned to Grizz. "Listen man⎯"

"Fuck off, Luke." Grizz snapped. He saw hurt flash across his face but he didn't care. "Just go, okay?" 

Luke opened his mouth to say something else, but something in Grizz's expression must have changed his mind because he closed it and, with one final troubled look at him, he left. 

He felt Sam grab his arm and he turned around. He was staring at Grizz, clearly worried. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Grizz said. His jaw ached but the pain wasn't that bad, and he didn't want Sam to worry. 

"I'm sorry. He came here for me and you were the one who got hurt."

"It's not your fault." 

Sam's lips were pressed into a thin line, he looked like he wanted to protest. He probably would have if the curtain next to them wasn't drawn back in that moment, to reveal Becca standing there.

With everything going on with Campbell, Grizz forgot about her and Eden. He checked the bed and was surprised to see that the baby had managed to sleep through all the noise, though the same couldn't be said about her mother. 

"Are you two okay?" She asked, her hands moving as she signed. They nodded and she sighed. "I'm glad you're back, Grizz. That could have gone a lot worse if you hadn't been here."

Grizz hung a hand from his neck. "I'm sorry for all the noise." 

Becca shook her head. "You don't have to apologize. Thank you for standing up for Sam."

"Even if you didn't have to." Sam added, his eyebrows knitted in a frown.

"I couldn't let him treat you like that or hurt you." Despite himself, Sam smiled softly at him. He could feel Becca staring at them and Sam's words from before came back to him⎯ I talked to Becca, he’d said before Campbell interrupted him. Did Sam mean that he told Becca about them? "None of you." He added, pointing at Becca and Eden. Even if he had momentarily forgotten that they were there, Grizz knew that he would have done everything to protect them from Campbell too. "She's⎯ Eden is beautiful, Becca. Congratulations. Both of you." 

Becca gave him a tired, but genuine smile. "Thank you." She said, picking her up. "I'm going to go see Gordie and Kelly. It seems like we missed out on some things while we were in here." She struggled to sign while holding Eden, but she managed to do it. 

"Do you want me to go with you?" Sam asked her, offering to take the baby from her as well.  

But Becca shook her head. "Stay here with Grizz. I'll fill you in later." She said, and then they exchanged a meaningful look that Grizz had no idea what it meant. "Good to have you back, Grizz." She told him, and then she was slowly walking towards the door. 

Without a word, Sam sat down on the bed and patted the spot next to him for Grizz to sit in it. They sat there in silence for a while before Sam spoke up.

"Before Campbell came, I was going to tell you something." He said, turning sideways so they could both see each other. Grizz nodded, prompting him to continue. Taking a deep breath he said, "Eden is not mine." 

Grizz's eyes widened but before he could ask what he meant, Sam was talking again. "Becca and I were never together. I don't know who the father is, she doesn't want anyone to know."

“I don’t understand.” Grizz said, voice small and confused. 

"I told her that we should lie and say it was mine so they wouldn't ask. I told her I would help her raise the baby. I wanted to be there for her and because I didn't think I would find anyone in this town, it seemed like a good choice." He paused, looking up just to make sure Grizz was paying attention before averting his eyes. "That was before you came along. You took me by surprise. I should have told you about the baby, but I didn't want to ruin it. And then you found out and I wanted to explain, but it would mean sharing Becca's secret and I couldn't. So I told you the same lie we told everyone."

"Sam⎯"

"But you don't deserve that. You deserve better than that." He continued. "So I told Becca about us. She gave me an out, but I couldn’t take it. I love Eden, I want to take care of her. I hope you can understand that.”

Grizz nodded, he had seen the way Sam looked at the baby. Maybe Eden wasn’t his, but it was very clear that he loved her. 

“But I don’t want to lose you. I care about you too. That is why I’m telling you this.”

“But Becca⎯”

“She said it was okay to tell you. She wants me to be happy.” Sam said, his face a bright pink color that made his freckles stand out. “And you make me happy, Grizz.”

“You make me happy too.” 

Sam smiled, but there was something sad about it. “I know this is still a complicated situation. And you said you didn’t want to sneak around and I can’t promise we won’t have to but⎯ I just want you to know that I want to try to make it work.”

Grizz was quiet, but his mind was racing with all this new information⎯ that Sam wasn't actually Eden's father, that Becca was okay with the two of them being together. They wouldn’t be sneaking around from her or from Eden. And, considering Campbell knew about them and had threatened to out their relationship, they probably wouldn’t need to hide from everyone else. The thought was frightening, but slightly less so knowing that it meant he got to be with Sam. 

Sam was staring at him, patiently waiting for an answer though Grizz saw the way he was chewing on his lip nervously. His eyes stayed glued to his mouth, he had wanted to kiss Sam since he saw him again, but with Becca and Eden he didn’t dare. There was nothing stopping him now, though.

Heart hammering in his chest with nervous anticipation, Grizz moved in slowly, giving Sam enough time to back away if he wanted and when he didn't, Grizz finally kissed him. It was chaste, just a soft press of lips⎯ an answer. Before he could even think to move away, Sam grabbed a hold of him. And then it was the type of kiss between two people who had really missed each other. Grizz gently cupped his face in his hands while Sam ran his fingers through his hair.

Grizz was the one to pull away once his jaw started to ache, slightly sore from Campbell’s punch. Sam’s cheeks were flushed and the smile that he gave him was giddy. Grizz couldn’t help but return it. 

“I want to try.” Grizz said, making sure Sam could read his lips since his hands were busy holding his face. “I want to be with you. We will figure everything else out.” Becca and Eden. Campbell and his threats. Whatever was happening in New Ham. They would figure it out together.

Sam sighed in relief. He pressed another kiss against Grizz’s lips. “I’m really glad you are back.”

“Me too, Sam.” Grizz smiled, feeling completely at ease for the first time since he walked out of those woods. He pushed their foreheads together. “Me too.”

[shih-coulda-had-it]

Angst then comfort?

I, uh, decided to go heavy with the angst. This is sort of a “What if?” take on Closing the Loop, which features Toshinori breaking the universe to save Nana. I got a comment asserting that Toshinori definitely tried a loop on his own, and, well... anon, you provided me with a good excuse to write it!

//

When Toshinori throws everything into a punch to save himself and Gran Torino, he is thinking, ‘I want to save everyone! I want to go back to when we were happy, and safe, and—!’ One for All sparks through his veins, a fiery if muted resolve that lets Toshinori break space and time.

He guesses even One for All has its limits. Toshinori would have liked to have landed before All for One murdered Shimura Sakumo and made oshishou look sad and drained, dissatisfied with all her shortcomings when she encouraged him to review, accept, and move past his. But it’s better to land in the middle of dinner than, say, in media res on the boat to Ekusegoru.

This time-loop thing bites. The trope seems so cliche in media. The set of conditions to end it, simple.

Toshinori sees All for One shove his hand through Gran Torino’s chest, the viscera clinging to the neatly-pressed black sleeve of his blazer and his pointed fingers, and has the very distant thought that he’s responsible for it. If he’d been smarter, he could’ve remembered where the hostage was when asked, and then Gran Torino would not be dead, and oshishou would not be screaming her terror and loss and fury—

One for All resets. Gran Torino is whole again, and so is oshishou, who is running a loop behind.

Toshinori is trying to think logically, like how Gran Torino taught him to be. It makes sense to warn oshishou of their mistakes; it makes sense that somewhere in the universe, there is a way that leads Toshinori to saving both of his mentors.

Oshishou wrestles with Gran Torino. She is not taking the spar seriously, and Gran Torino is clearly indulging her need to expend the nervous energy. Toshinori watches from the sidelines and wonders how two people in love can be so blind; sometimes, he wonders if his existence as oshishou’s successor prevents them from voicing it.

The boat. Ekusegoru. A swift, almost surgical strike to the heart of the empty city.

He snatches the hostage and leaps to the roof of a nearby building. He should get her back to the boat, post-haste, and add his strength to the fight. Maybe that’s what’s missing.

“Ma’am,” Toshinori says, distractedly, “you should brace yourself.”

“Wh—”

He’s not as fast as Gran Torino, and he lacks the ability to remove his considerable mass from the equation. So Toshinori jumps, kicks off the sides of buildings, ascends. He gains a vantage point that lets him see Gran Torino’s yellow cape streaming away from the center of the battle, and the concern blooms, malignant and malicious.

Toshinori changes directions to follow. Almost loses them for a bit, and then Toshinori wishes he had, because he’d rather have been ignorant than witness oshishou, sprawled broken against Gran Torino, the silvered head bowed with something like grief and resignation—

Toshinori screams. He doesn’t realize that the hostage has slipped her hand in his.

One for All resets. Oshishou is whole again, and Gran Torino looks so exhausted and fragile, hugging them both and breathing raggedly. Oshishou is just realizing the cause for their second loop, and Toshinori’s brain is whirling.

Logically, the loop is resetting after his mentors are dying. The solution is not their sacrifice.

One for All resets. The solution is not to eliminate All for One.

The solution is not to run away to oshishou’s place either, but Toshinori thinks the idea has merit. Gran Torino is burdening himself to solve this, and he needs time to recuperate. And if oshishou can connect to the spiritual nature of One for All, perhaps all she needs is time to really hash things out with the Quirk.

It provides him an opportunity to try another solution as well. He’s the consistent reason for their deaths, no matter that All for One wields the knife. Toshinori runs away, every single goddamn time, even though he’s the one who’s used One for All to break the world.

I want to save everyone, he had wished. A monumental effort that requires a monumental sacrifice.

Toshinori obediently moves from the couch to the spare bedroom oshishou had set aside for him. He hears her bedroom door click shut, and waits a breathless five minutes before getting to his feet. His bedroom window is just wide enough for him to wriggle out of, but first he needs his gear.

Gran Torino has tried to teach him how to sneak.

Sneaking is a lot easier with a fake excuse. Toshinori judges the distance from the kitchen to the front door, and hopes that oshishou is too distracted—ack, gross, gross, even if Gran Torino is unbelievably sweet and stupid—to think about his footsteps to the kitchen.

He roots around for a mug and switches on the kettle. Tensely, Toshinori waits for oshishou to peek out and double-check on him.

When that doesn’t happen, he darts for his gear. Boots and cape. His wrist bracers and belt are still on. Toshinori wraps his shoes in the fabric and lobs the package through his bedroom door onto his bed; it lands with a muffled thwmp.

Toshinori makes tea. He carries it carefully back, and sets it down on his desk. He listens for the soft murmuring of their conversation, and hears nothing. Not even a snore.

Time to go.

There aren’t any alternatives to reaching Ekusegoru. He’s only eighteen; he’s an intern to a nobody pair of pro-heroes; he doesn’t have money to hire some unsuspecting captain. So Toshinori puts on his brightest smile and charms the hell out of the crew.

“It’s only a recon,” he laughs. “Oshishou and Torino-sensei think I should get some experience with a solo patrol, y’know?”

The captain is visibly uncomfortable by the change. “All Might, are you absolutely sure that your teachers want you to do this alone? Maybe I should call the agency.”

“They’re preoccupied with something else,” Toshinori lies, smiling. “A really dangerous villain tried going for the archives and is trying to go underground, and they dispatched me to take care of this while they dealt with that.”

“Huh,” mutters the captain, tugging the brim of her cap. “They trust you a lot.”

“I’m top of my class.”

“Kids these days…”

And she takes him to Ekusegoru. Toshinori chafes his hands together and tries to think about a strategy. He can’t kill All for One. That resets the loop. At the same time, giving his oshishou’s greatest enemy—Japan’s greatest threat—One for All is definitely not on the table. Toshinori needs to die, and the best way to do that is to goad the bull.

If this doesn’t work, he tries to comfort himself, then the loop will simply reset, and his mentors will be none the wiser.

If this does work—well. Not like Toshinori will have to face the consequences anyway.

He enters the empty city, hyper-aware that he is walking into a trap without the certain possibility of a safety net. He sprints for the heart, channeling all his desperation and resolve, pulling on One for All in a way that burns.

The world looks sharper. It looks a little smaller. His suit stretches to the point of tearing a little. Toshinori doesn’t have time to gauge the differences; his body moves instinctively, and he slams into the warehouse shouting, “All for—!”

He freezes.

All for One looks at him coolly, with disinterest. The hostage is discarded on the floor, dead. Her wrists and ankles are untied; in the previous loops, she’d been forced to her knees, and the dread of disobeying her captor were all the restraints needed.

“The intern,” All for One names.

“All Might,” he corrects. Toshinori forces his feet into moving, forces himself to circle All for One instead of leaping directly to extract the body.

All for One doesn’t even turn to keep him in sight. “Shimura’s stray, ready for a fight that he shouldn’t even know about. Aren’t protocols for recon to check the perimeter and then investigate?”

Don’t freeze. Don’t stutter. Goad the bull and allow yourself to be gored by the horns.

“Even the blind could tell this was a trap,” Toshinori retorts. “Your reign of terror is over, All for One.”

“Oh? You know who I am?” All for One’s voice saddens, sweetens. “I knew the woman was a fool, but I hadn’t taken her to be cruel enough to force a child into this vendetta. You’re her successor, aren’t you? Number eight?”

Toshinori lunges at All for One’s back.

It’s a short fight. He gets curb-stomped, for lack of a better term, even though his body moves faster, endures better, hits harder. All for One is an opponent he hasn’t been prepared to face; oshishou prioritized running away and survival for him. For good fucking reason, apparently.

“You’re a hundred years too early to be challenging me,” the enemy chides. Toshinori can barely hear past the pain of being broken and bloodied and bruised.

“Asshole,” he curses.

“You know how this works. Give me One for All, and all this ends.” All for One’s grin is wide and manic with victory. His hand settles over Toshinori’s heart; Toshinori’s pulse is going rabbit-quick with fear. “I must thank Shimura before she dies. It’s always such a hassle, knowing the wielders’ luck in finding successors right before I can retrieve my Quirk.”

“It’s not yours,” Toshinori denies. It won’t be. I won’t. I won’t break.

“It was mine before you existed. Mine to give, and mine to take back.” All for One pulls out a pager. “Now, will you be a good hero and give me One for All, or shall I message Shimura that you’re my hostage? She’ll die for nothing, and I promise, I will make you watch her death.”

Goad the bull and allow yourself to be gored by its horns.

He wonders how much time has elapsed. Two hours total, for the boat to return to the mainland, get oshishou and Gran Torino, and come back. By then, the five hours allotted to them by the time-loop will have run out.

“Why are you such an asshole,” he says, wheezing.

“I’m righting the wrongs of the world. I need power to do it. Power, that comes from your stolen Quirk.” All for One presses the hand on Toshinori’s chest down, and something is creaking. Something is breaking. Unbidden, tears mix with sweat and grime and blood. “You understand. All Might. A man after my own philosophy.”

“No—”

“You want justice and equality. I’m going to provide that.”

“You monologue too much,” Toshinori spits, and All for One sighs.

“Well. We have time.” The pressure on his chest relents, and All for One backhands him—

One for All resets. Toshinori wakes to the scent of oden, savory and nauseating, and he understands now why Gran Torino is always moving violently after a loop. He should hide the trauma; he can’t unnecessarily burden them with the knowledge; he understands why Gran Torino didn’t want to tell oshishou.

He falls off the stool.

“All Might!” Oshishou immediately slips off her seat and kneels on the ground beside him, and the worry in her expression—Toshinori’s hyperventilating, burning with shame and terror, and he wants—

“Oshishou,” he sobs, gasping, and her cape falls over their heads, curtaining them off from the world. It’s the first time he’s been subject to the use, and he gets why oshishou wants to register the cape as a shock blanket. It’s very effective.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, you’re safe,” she says, soothing. “You’re okay, Toshinori.”

“Oshishou, I’m—I’m so sorry—I’m—”

He’s glad, in a way, that another loop has been triggered. It means that One for All is generous. It does not want anyone to die; it’s following his wish. One for All wants everyone to be saved, and is willing to reset time until they learn sacrifice is not the name of the game.

Toshinori hugs her, repeating his apologies. Her hug is firm, and gentle, and kind; she continues to reassure him, even though it must be increasingly awkward to break down in public like this.

Eventually, he collects himself. He can cry later. Probably in the office, as a defensive measure when Gran Torino inevitably wrangles the story out in the debrief.

Because Gran Torino will tell oshishou that they napped the last loop away. And no nap should result in Toshinori crying and having a panic attack. Therefore, he’s done something traumatic and he needs to tell them.

This needed to be tested though. Toshinori could never forgive himself for being too much of a coward not to try, and his mentors wouldn’t have given him permission.

(There’s an unspoken agreement, after, that the loop will be spent recovering. Five hours is not nearly enough time to gloss over the memory of All for One, but Toshinori is sandwiched between his mom and—and his dad—and even though Sorahiko seethed over Toshinori’s inherited ideals of martyrdom, Sorahiko was the one to call for a dogpile.

Of course, Sorahiko is a hypocrite who goes to confront All for One on his own. Oshishou is much smarter, if bitter, and she tells Toshinori, “I am going to talk to One for All, and I am going to figure out how to end this cycle.”

Toshinori feels hope rise, and he believes her.)