#And it's In Bloom too... The word you are looking for is GRUNGE.

[iero]

I hate to be that person, but Nirvana just came on on a "Classic Indie" station I put on. Brother, I do not know how to tell you that Nirvana is definitely NOT indie rock...

[everystephoftheway]

camp cloudtop- chapter nine

Vex is kinda a bitch and Vax is kinda a simp, so, you know, the usual. 

This can be found on ao3 as well.

Backpacks fell to a heap at the door as Vax and Vex arrived at their apartment, their bodies falling on a heap on the couch just as the door swung shut. Their apartment, just like everything in their lives, was a perfect conglomeration of their two styles. Most of the furniture had been thrifted, but they managed to keep a thread of industrial grunge mixed with some posher elements. Their apartment was essentially a stretched out U-shape, following the odd architecture of their building. The open floor plan kitchen and living space were on one end and the bedrooms and bathrooms were on the other. The dark vinyl couch was long enough to fit three people comfortably, four if one was of the smaller species; bits and pieces of the fabric had started coming off the arms and ends, but the twins didn’t seem too bothered. Their coffee table was littered with their toys: arrows of all kinds, both made and in construction, were scattered about while a collection of Vax’s throwing daggers were kept well organized in a case he kept on the bottom shelf of the table. Over the wall mounted TV they recently brought in was a painting, Vex’s favorite painting, of a bear frolicing through a sunlit field, a little family of other bears in the background. 

“Did you see the girl in my group with the white streak in her hair?” Vex reached over her shoulder and pulled the hair tie from the bottom of her braided ponytail, slowly working her hair out so it laid on her back, wavy and voluminous.

“That’s Cassandra, right? Percy’s sister?” Vax turned his head against the couch cushion to look at his sister. “She got so tall.” 

“I love that she’s in our group. No one can roast another like their sister can.”

Vax scoffed. “Tell me about it.” 

Vex laughed, reaching over to punch him in the arm. Percy had left them just after the teleportation circle; he and Cassandra lived in one of the nicer districts of town in a brownstone that the twins could only dream to own one day.

“Kash made quite a bold move on your ‘partner’ this afternoon.” Her eyes watched her brother as she made air quotes around the word partner, and while he didn’t cross his arms or stiffen his shoulders, she could tell that he had held his breath for a moment; it was what he did when he was trying to hold something back, thinking of an appropriate response.

“He always liked to believe he was faster than me.”

“Let him be. You don’t need that in your life. Dating a coworker never ends well.” 

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black if I’ve ever heard it.” 

“Do you ever listen? I told you this morning. Percy and I are not dating. We’re fucking. It’s different.”

“You might want to tell him that.”

One of Vax’s brows arch high onto her forehead. “What on Exandria are you talking about?”

“Don’t you see how he looks at you? He practically worships the ground you walk on.”

“Well, everyone should do that no matter the circumstance.”

Vax rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet, walking over to their fridge to grab a beer. Despite his annoyance, he tossed one to Vex as well. 

“But, really, Vax. I know you. The last thing you need is to fall head over heels for your ‘partner’,” again with the air quotes, “only for it to end poorly. Then you’re stuck, miserable, for the rest of the summer.”

What Vex didn’t understand was Vax wasn’t quite sure he had a say in the matter. Keyleth was so kind and bright; it was hard not to find himself overtaken by her spirit, even if they had only known each other for a few days. 

“Besides,” Vex shrugged as she took a sip of her beer, “if you go frolicing about with nature girl, when are you going to have time for me?” 

A pang of guilt bloomed in Vax’s chest, his lips down turning into a heavy frown. She was right, wasn’t she? The twins made a pact long ago to stick together, no matter where they went, no matter the cost. It was them against the world, and it would always be them against the world. How selfish was it that he was thinking about dividing his attention; would Keyleth even understand his loyalty to his sister?  

He took another swig of his beer. “I’m sure Kash will show her a good time.” Vax then retreated to his bedroom and closed the door behind him, ready for a hot shower and the buzz of three more beers he planned to drink.

[writingmochi]

chapter v. blue period

cast: grunge kid!yeonjun ✗ art student/painter!fem.reader

synopsis: you’re an out-of-place art student living in your childhood hometown, pursuing your dream of becoming a painter. one day, you were given a mysterious responsibility as you try to not get your childhood best friend killed

genre: coming of age, college/university au, childhood best friend au, supernatural au, angst, fluff, mature content (sensitive topics and explicit smut)

based on: video game life is strange (2013)

word count: 8605

taglist? closed

warning(s): suggestive (a direct continuation of the last episode), nudity, attempted suicide (this is a safe place carrd for awareness and resources, you can reach out to me by anon if you need someone to talk to), blood, mention of bullying, implicit mention of mental breakdown, implicit mention of self-harm (if i forgot some, let me know)

message from the moon: remember that this story is fiction. do be careful and read the warnings at the top as both the chapter and the series as a whole will contain serious and sensitive topics.

thank you for waiting for two months for this chapter. not gonna lie, this is the hardest chapter to write because of the subject matter + gaining the time and right head space to write them down as i want it to focus on the characters and what they’ve gone through to reach there instead of the actions they do. nonetheless, i hope you will like it and if the subject matter is too hard for you, you don’t have to read it…

masterlist

your eyes gazed at the window as you see a glimpse of light streaming down behind the blinds. eyes now sharp and focused as you let them move from the beams to yeonjun who is still sleeping beside you, his hands encircling around your body, feeling him holding you in a tight squeeze. you lightly touch the skin of your body as you felt it stick to your fingertips, observing the dry patches or stroke of paints all over your body that makes you feel icky. you see the bathroom door slightly ajar and the dark interior behind it, your mind attracts you to it, slightly reminding you of your project that you haven't finished.

you slowly pull yourself off of him, realizing that you slept in the position you are from the night with him being inside of you, moving slightly but surely on the wrinkled bed cover while putting his hands on top of where you slept. you bit your lips, feeling the heat coming to your cheeks as what happened last night flowed into your memory. you put your feet onto the ground and push yourself up, your legs tremble as you almost trip from the pain in your pelvis but you're able to find your balance as you walk slowly to the bathroom while wrapping your arms around your naked body, feet being dragged by each movement as you bit your lips to not utter a sound that can make yeonjun wake up.

turning the light switch on in the bathroom as you feel the cold tiles that surround you making your skin shiver, you lean your arms against the counter in front of the mirror full of soaps, deodorants, and clutter items that exudes yeonjun. you look up to see yourself in the mirror and your eyes widen as your eyes can't believe what they are seeing, almost don't recognize the body they are in. seeing the strokes of grey and light gold on your body clearer than when you lay down with the addition of bloomed purple hickeys on your shoulder and near your chest, some dried crust on your face and your swollen lips and glossy eyes. the remnants of last night stand there as your mind takes notes on how each of them came to paint your body.

you turn the knob open as running water comes raining down the drain in front of you, feeling it getting warm from the water heater as you step into the now warm water that you've adjusted. you let out a sigh as you can feel the water trickle down your body, letting your muscles relax from such physical activity you did last night that you haven't done in a while, tiring yourself out like the gym classes you last attend back in high school. washing your face with it as you gather the water in your hands and brush against the skin of your face, rubbing them lightly as you see a blurry silhouette on the other side of the glass.

"jun, gosh. i…" you jumped as you realize it is yeonjun leaning against the counter behind the glass of the shower area, hearing him chuckle and you mimic him lightly while you covered your body from him unconsciously.

"can i join?" yeonjun tilts his head as he proudly exhibits his body full of tattoos, dry paints, and hickeys like the ones you have before washing most of them away, a few of them hiding behind the waterdrops that stick to the glass wall. you stood stunned as your eyes look down at your body, hands wrapping around your private parts and helped by the hazy glass from the warmth of the water.

"come on, we've seen each other naked." yeonjun pouted as he walks to stand closer behind the glass, his palm resting on the glass as if you were a fine china being placed inside an exhibit. seeing his nose scrunch that you usually lose against.

you let out another breath and said, "okay, you can join."

you see yeonjun moves in with a smirk on his face and walk past you as he places himself underneath the running water from the showerhead, his hair flattened from it as you see colors trailing down all over his body combining with his tattoos, seeing them being drain as you remember the source of it, his painted wing on his back.

"let me help you clean the paint on your back," you spoke as yeonjun stopped brushing his hair with water and nodded, turning around to face the tiled wall and then tilting his head down, letting the water run down from his hair to his back as a few of the paints are carried down. you step close and place your hand on his broad back, softly rub the water to the ruined body painting and seeing the skin and tattoo underneath it, hearing him hum as you also untangled some of his back muscles unintentionally.

"if you massage me, then i can massage you right after." you hear yeonjun mumble as you finished pouring his body soap on your palm, slowly rubbing it against the other palm and placing it on yeonjun's back as you clean and massage him. letting the bubbles form on top of the peeled paints as you spread down his back and along the ink adorning his skin. reaching to his left shoulder and soothe the paint away as you continue down his back.

"where did you discover your powers?" you heard yeonjun ask, making you pause from what you're doing.

"where?" you asked back as your hand slips down his back from the slippery alkaline of the soap. he's asking you about that, isn't he?

"where were you, what kind of situation." he elaborates further, confirming what you thought as the memory is being played in your mind while you think about what you will have to tell him. you can see yeonjun turning his head to the side so that he can peek through the corner of his eyes, calling your name while you stood quiet as the water calmly splashes around your feet. you finally exhale.

"i was… i was on my way back from my class and i usually use a shortcut in between buildings to go back to my hall." you can hear the tap being closed from in front of yeonjun, the bubbles on his back now falling down into the shallow pool where you two stood in.

"found these boys one day on my way back, they were arguing about something when i realized one of them is familiar to me." you continued as you look to his head, knowing he is peeking at you from behind the few wet strains that curtain his eyes.

"one of them was you." you see his head move more as you unconsciously gnawed your lips.

"you were almost stabbed and i tried to reach for you, then i got sent back in time a few minutes before."

"i heard a can being thrown and saw a dog following it to the bushes that day." yeonjun's head now fully facing towards you, his eyebrows creased as you can finally see a glimpse of his eye. your lips form a thin line as your shoulders slump down.

"that was me after the rewind." you lean against the cold tile wall, fingers playfully tangling with each other, finally letting out the catalyst that saved yeonjun was you all along. the creases on yeonjun are more prominent and it slowly slips as he realized the reality of it all.

"wait. so, i was supposed to get hurt… supposed to get stabbed…?" he mutters out and you gave a nod at his words, taking a glance at him as much as you can even though you don't feel like it.

"i almost lost you." you felt your nose itches and you covered your body from feeling shivers on your wet skin. you can see conflict in yeonjun's eyes as he is leaning closer to you, resting one of his arms on the wall beside your shoulder while the other gently grabs your hand, feeling his palm soothing yours. his face now right in front of yours, seeing his eyes glisten as he examines your contorted face from all the emotions you are feeling and the conflict in your head when he gave the hand that he holds a kiss on the back.

"i owe you so much." yeonjun whispered as his eyes started to glisten more, earning a light chuckle from you for the unexpected reaction.

"you don't owe me anything," you replied.

"still…" he answered before enveloping his arms around your body. you heard him sniffle as he grips your waist tight, making you soothe him by rubbing against his back, feeling the bumps that you presumed were by you from the other night, thinking back on how wild it must have been and sorry for hurting him so much.

"you do owe me a massage and you better hurry cause i have class later near noon." you heard him chuckle from your whispers as he pulls back, giving an unexpected peck to your lips as he grabs the soap and pours it in his palm for your turn.

-

wearing his clothes that fits yours as your previous clothes were wrinkled after using them the other day, you sat in yeonjun's truck as you look out the window, seeing the dark clouds floating above you and the town, feeling his hand holding yours near the gear stick. the sun is slowly covered by the cloud as you see raindrops starting to drip down the roof of the truck, hearing the sound of the streets from the slightly open window from your seat being masked by the rain now falling down and wetting your environment.

the rain pours more as the truck nears the parking lot of your campus grounds, people crowding at the lot and walking away but not to the buildings near them, which makes you lean your head in confusion. the truck stops in the middle of the lot as more people start to walk towards one side of the campus, hearing some people from the outside saying some incoherent things or watching their phones as they look tense. you looked down at your lap as you try to shake it out of your mind, thinking that maybe it was just you. but looking back at the surrounding of the truck, you see more people walking towards the same side.

"something's not right," you mumble to yeonjun, tightening the grip between his and your hand before letting go and picking up your bags on the floor of your seat, opening the door as you go outside in the rain, feeling the water seeping down onto your clothes. you heard yeonjun shout your name as you step closer to a group of girls whose eyes widen and cover themselves with their bags or binders as they walk towards the same side as others.

"hi, mind if i ask what's happening? i've been seeing people walking towards that way," you asked while pointing the way the girls are going to go.

one of them replies, "something's happening in one of the halls. it's the girl from the video that got spread."

the girl from the video that got spread…

herin…

as your mind puzzles the information, you felt something on your shoulders and it spun you around as your breath was taken out from the sudden movement.

"i swear, (y/n). don't scare me like that." you heard yeonjun's voice pierce through the sound of the rain meeting the ground. yet you can only see the image of herin standing in front of a hall in your mind, your hall. you took yeonjun's hand in yours and walk away not minding the rain, dragging him with you as you both run to the hall.

"hey, hey. what's wrong?" yeonjun questioned as you both go through a shortcut, the same alley that you save him as you can see the stray dog cowering inside a box. but you're not stopping as you turn the corner, the same one that hid you from him.

"something is happening with herin." you frantically replied while continuing to run through your shortcuts when you see the crowds formed in front of the entrance of your hall, all looking up, fighting against the pouring rain. you see a silhouette on the edge of the roof. herin on the edge of the roof.

you heard yeonjun gasp as he looks up. that's when you turn to look at him pulling out his phone, typing in the emergency hotline, and sticking it to his ear. you look back towards the hall when you listened to more gasping coming from the people around you and see something falling.

no…

your palm immediately opens and instead of just feeling it as you close, you see the rain goes back up as you rewind the fast-paced time. the silhouette follows and you stopped it as it rests on the ledge again. sensing your head getting heavier and something running down your nose. blood, as you see the smear on your finger.

you heard the same gasps when you look at the stain on your finger and instantly open up your palm. instead of feeling the same sensation as rewinding, you tap into something different, the same thing that you felt yesterday.

you have to stop her.

you see the rain rewinds back again but instead of the time running again as you finished, you see the rain goes up slowly and slowly until it almost stops as you can see them rise up millimeter by millimeter. everything slows down except for your movement, which you tested by touching one of the raindrops and seeing it scattered slowly.

this is your chance, (y/n).

you took a peek at yeonjun who is holding his phone that you knew he would call the emergency and left him to go to the hall. walking past the people in front of you and through the floors as you ascend to the roof as you can't bear to close your palm, seeing the people inside slowly rewinding as their heels meet the floor behind them while walking back.

you arrive at the roof heaving, feeling the power dissipates as time moves forward again, seeing herin's soaked clothes in front of you like the gray clouds covering the sky.

"herin!" you heard your voice hoarse.

herin startled figure looks behind her to the entrance of the roof, your hands on your knees as you take a big gulp of breath.

"what are you doing here, (y/n)?" you straighten yourself as you wipe the flowing blood from your nose.

"are you just gonna humiliate me like the rest?" you heard her shout, her voice is also hoarse as her breath hitches from her cries.

"i'm-i'm not like them. i-" you took a huge breath and replied as calmly as you can, "i let you down by not being with you and i'm sorry. i'm trying to help figure out what came to that video spreading." your eyebrows furrowed as you try your best to subside the dizziness, wanting to focus on the girl.

"without me? yeah, right…" she scoffed as you see her hands clenching into a fist beside her.

"your life matters to me. what you received was unfair." you slowly took a step towards her as you frown, feeling your eyes sting between your tears and the rain.

"it is and i felt so dirty. i can't wash it off no matter how hard i try. everybody's made up their minds about me because of that now." she sobs as you see her take a glance at the edge.

"there's no 'everybody'. your friends and family love you." you put your hands on your chest.

"i don't have any friends!" you heard her scream. "i was so nice to other people even in my lows yet all i've gotten is bullying and that video that tears me down. nobody cares about me."

"you're my friend and i care for you." you took another step. "please trust me and stand by me. i can help you." you let your hand out.

"i just want to make it stop. i came to that party to forget yet someone recorded it and spread it like wildfire. i-" you took another step, almost arms reach from her. you thought about what you've been experiencing with herin thus far and the memorable moments of hers sticking to your mind and seeping out, making your frown fade.

"i remember the poem that you wrote last week, how you're missing home, your family, your friends back home, your dog. it was beautiful, reminding me of my family in the city." you sniffle as you see herin looking at you.

"i remember back in orientation days, you were the mood maker of our group. me, as socially awkward as i am, thought about you like 'how can this girl be so positive in this very tense situation with a new environment and new people?'" you chuckled, hearing her chuckle too.

"last week was actually my first time walking back to the hall with anyone from my class and it was very fun, given the circumstances of the social awkwardness, and i'm glad it was with you cause you're fun." you heard her giggle. as you see that your distance is near enough from her, you squat in front of her like you did towards her the day you gain your powers, that you did to yeonjun days ago, that you did to your friends here when they're down.

"remember that day when i tear the paper that got thrown towards you and did this?" you see her nod, "i meant in when i said you can talk to me. you're my friend, no matter how close we are, and i will try my best to help you with everything i can." you speak calmly and you stood up and let your hand out.

"i have your back," you stated, seeing her arm reaching out to hold yours and you lightly pulled her into your embrace, feeling her pouring her tears out on your shoulder as you both knelt feeling your legs giving out, not minding the wet concrete on the floor of the roof on your pants.

"thank you for reminding me." you heard her mumble on your shoulder loud enough to pierce the rain ambiance as you look back to the open door of the roof to see paramedics coming in with two of the institute staff following in.

you nod towards her and whisper, "i'll talk to you later."

herin gives a warm smile as the paramedics help her leave the roof, giving a warm smile as you wipe the light streak of blood. you didn't notice that yeonjun was there with minjeong behind him before seeing them, giving a tight lip smile as yeonjun strode and envelops you in a hug, resting his foreheads on yours as you felt him cup your cheeks. minjeong chuckled as you hug her, felt that some of her clothes were dry now getting wet by both your body and the rain.

"sorry for making it wet." you quickly said.

"it's okay, i stepped out to the rain on purpose." minjeong replied, making you giggle then you saw her frown.

"your nose is bleeding." you brushed your hands under the nostrils, remembering the new skillset that you've gotten because of it.

"i'm fine, i still have class though…" you mumbled as you felt the vibration in your pocket, seeing mr. park's art history session canceled for the day.

"let us meet her when you can and visit her." yeonjun replied as he glance towards minjeong and see her nod towards you.

"a friend of (y/n) is a friend of ours."

-

you looked at the finished painting for your submission to the competition, seeing the cold and warm tones contrasting each other and how it creates a harmony of the two contrasting tones of the canvas' 'canvas' with the two windows. picking the canvas up and your bag from your chair, you walk to professor park's class as you remember he has another class today after the canceled one is being rescheduled.

as you walk with the canvas on your side, you remembered your conversation with herin two days ago when you visit her as she heals.

"sorry for being late. class and projects halt me," you said to her after you knocked on her door and saw her opening, wearing clothes that looks like one that she would be wearing in the hall.

"that's okay. come on in." she replied as she moved away to let you in, seeing flowers and 'get well soon' balloons near her hospital bed.

"i bought you some food that my friends are picking up if you don't mind me bringing them." she nods at your words while giving a warm smile as she walks inside sitting on the bed where you can see the journal of poems you remember seeing. you sat in the seat beside her bed as she puts the book on her other side.

"how are you?" you see the bandages on her wrists which concealed some faded marks that still can be seen outside of it, which you don't notice before as she wore long sleeves the last time you saw her.

"never been better and i wanted to say thank you and say sorry for burdening you." you see her moving her hand on yours, feeling how soft it is as you look from your hands to her face when you see how tired she looks.

"that's perfectly fine. i want to help you," you replied, the corner of your mouth lifted as you smile at her.

she looks around the room before saying, "the video, i just… i was not sober and i didn't know better." she lifts her knees onto the bed and curls her body so her knees met her chest.

"i never should have gone there. i never…" you hear her start to sob, her face covered by her unoccupied hands while she still grasping your hand.

"it's not your fault, herin." you sit closer to soothe her back as her sobs fade, witnessing her calm herself down.

"if you have any questions, you can ask away. maybe it will help you." you heard her voice out as she moves to the top of the bed and leans back on the lifted upper side of it.

you thought about what has transpired between the day before and more before it when you landed on a piece of information that your mind spun. but you might have a chance to ask her about it because she was mentioned.

"so, i walked past karin around a week or more ago," you see her looking up from her lap to you as you continue. "and at that time she has been warning me to 'not approach park from art history'" you spoke as you make an air quote.

"and then she blurts out this information about why she bullied you and claimed that you and park hooked up." you stopped as you see her look across her blankly, no movement, just blinking her eyes.

"karin… she's…" she chuckled as she shook her head. "that's why, huh?" you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion.

"i got this info from word of mouth so i cannot claim it is true or not. you see, karin is a… interesting individual." you tilt your head, asking for elaboration as she uses her hand to gesture you to sit closer, which you do as she continues to talk.

"karin has chased after park for years after she has a crush on him back in elementary school. which i can confirm that they did go to the same school after a former schoolmate of her said to me, who is my close friend back at home." you perked your eyebrows up as she resumes.

"she has been in the same alma mater as park's and when she knows that park goes to the institute to then graduate and work here, she follows." herin looked towards you as you nod, archiving them into your brain.

"so she is lovesick and what about park?" you questioned.

"he is complicated."

you heard knocks coming from the door, seeing from the message that lits your phone up that minjeong and yeonjun have arrived with the food. before you stand up to go open the door, you felt a tug on your wrist, seeing herin's bandaged hand.

"be very careful, (y/n)."

you nodded as you walk to the door to open up, minjeong peeking through the door and greeting herin. as minjeong walks in first, you see yeonjun waving awkwardly at herin as they stepped towards the bed, seeing herin gives a tight lip smile before you walk to sit beside her.

"so… these are my friends."

you arrive at the hallway of the classes where you see a few recognizable people that are in the same major as yours going to the other way from where you walk from. that is until you see a familiar figure walk into the same class you're going in front of you. their steps bouncing on the walls and you see a smaller canvas than yours on their hand.

you stopped right beside the door when you heard park and karin greeting and conversing, and you notice some flirty intonations coming from karin from the pitches you recognize like when tv sitcom characters are flirting with each other. taking a small glimpse from behind the wall, you see them talking near the table. you really don't want to interrupt, remembering her perception of you, but you want to submit your work as fast as possible to have the weight on your shoulders.

you knocked on the open door, both people turning their heads towards you where you see a scowl on karin's face as she realized it is you.

"good afternoon mr. park. i'm here to give my submission for the art contest." you see how park's eyes widen and form a smile on his face.

"come on in, (y/n). you can put it there." he pointed to a place in front of his desk behind him full of canvases of varying shapes and sizes.

you bowed your head as you fast walk to the canvases, seeing the same-sized canvas that you saw with karin's figure with her name on a sticky note, seeing other sticky notes marking the other canvases with the names of your peers both in your class and others. you see the marker and the yellow stack of sticky notes on the table and put the canvas right beside it so you can mark your canvas with your name.

"how is herin doing?" you heard park say besides you with a clack of nails on the phone in the background courtesy of karin on her phone. you side glance at park sneakily, your walls now up because of that uncertain review you got of him from herin and the whole situation with you, him, herin, and the girl across from him.

"she's doing better," you replied coldly as you wrote your name on the note and stick it to your canvas.

"glad to know," he added and you see how karin paused when she glanced at your canvas.

"that looks familiar." you heard her mumble under her breath which made you raise your eyebrows slightly. then you remembered about your art blog.

which she is a follower of it.

you never update about the progress of this specific work on your blog but then you see how she, as a follower of yours, can see the resemblance of it. your art style on the canvas really reflects the one that you painted in marisantheia, which makes the siren in your mind blare so loud it covers your eardrums.

you got to go before she finds out.

you cleared your throat as you put the canvas down with the other. "sorry for interrupting. i'm going to go now." you bowed your head as you walk away to the door.

"thank you for your submission." you heard park say to you, which then you see karin glare at him then back at you. you nod your head and walk away as far as you can from the very alarming situation.

-

you rub pansy's head where she rests on your lap, who are following you and yeonjun gazing at the sky and the sun as it sets, the lighthouse standing beside you. you're sitting on the open back of yeonjun's pickup truck after another day of picnic and playing around with pansy, introducing her to nature near the lighthouse. you coo as you see pansy's ears perk up at the sound of the rustling leaves, chirping birds, and the waves crashing on the cliff of the lighthouse.

you laughed as you see how pansy rolling on the ground and jumping in the air as she chased floating leaves while eating your favorite ice cream from your favorite ice cream parlor in haeyang that moved away from the downtown area. how yeonjun nags at pansy for pulling on the wool coming out of his ripped sweater, which makes him move after pansy and her bumping her head on your knees before you pick her up and soothe her head, her rambles of meows making you giggle as you see yeonjun pouts. you sat her down properly behind you two as you gave her the proper cat food that you bought, yeonjun's playlist blasting from inside the truck.

"yeonjun, what are we?" you suddenly asked, the tapping sound from him patting his thigh stops as you sense yeonjun move closer to you.

"aren't we friends?" he questioned.

you nod but you also replied, "friends don't see each other naked though."

"what do you mean? i saw you naked back before a few days ago and i skinny-dipped with soobin often enough." he contradicts while you bit your bottom lips.

"you know what i mean." you answered. "how you kiss me comfortable enough, how we had sex. yet you seem so casual," you added as you let your eyes wander away.

you sense how his shoulder is now beside yours as the scraping of cloth meeting metal stop as you continue, "and we seem to be connected more than what friends are."

"do you have romantic feelings for me?" he suddenly asked. you glance at him while contemplating your answer.

"i, i don't know… it's complicated. and i know you don't do dating." you replied, remembering another conversation a few hours ago where you both talked about your love life and how yeonjun never dated anyone, how he dislike the word 'boyfriend' and how he doesn't want to be defined as one when approaching someone he likes. he said how he wants people to love for the sake of love, not for identity.

"so if i do say yes to you, i'll be disrespecting your belief. which of course i don't want." you shook your head while your lips form a thin line. you heard him hum as he leaned forward and closer to you. you see the side profile of his contemplating state and how it forms with passing time. that is until you see how his head moves so fast that you hope he didn't get whiplash.

"have you heard of twin flames?" he spoke out. twin flames? as in how your soul has a twin of itself?

"yeah…" you replied.

he sat upright as he open his arms wide, eyes and mouth follows as they widens, "what if we are one?" he exclaimed.

the idea of being twin flames with yeonjun?

"what do you mean by that?" you tilt your head as he groans and searches for the term 'twin flames' where he comes across one article.

"'signs you have met your twin flame. number 1: instant recognition.' didn't we just hug each other when we met up weeks ago? like we instantly recognize each other from the get-go." he instantly asks as you nodded and lean closer, remembering the first moment you saw him after a decade and the smell of cigarette sticking on his body.

"'number 2: you two are very similar. both of you will find that your past stories have a lot of coincidences and similar experiences' i mean, we did grow up with each other and got separated." you read the words.

"and we both struggle to then found something that our lives now revolved with. you with painting and me with my lifestyle." he continued, making you tilt your head.

"okay…" you replied hesitantly. you both continue identifying the signs and how your relationship has connections to it. from you two as you both recognize the struggle you both have with loneliness with yeonjun quoting, "the outcasts of the outcasts" when describing you two. how you two where you give proof with how many times yeonjun asked you to meet up even though you have class, no matter where and no matter when.

"last one, 'they push you to do and be better'." you stayed in eye contact with him after he read out the words. you look down at your hands where you possessed the power you have and your art skills.

"you made me meet people that i don't usually hang out with and i'm mostly sober now, no getting high, no getting drunk, just me and my cigs," he replied which make you reply too.

"you pushed me out of my comfort zone even though sometimes on purpose." you heard him giggle as you continue, "and you push me to help people out and being my partner in crime."

"in time, don't forget." you chuckle as your warm gaze connects with his. "there might be more than we can dissect but that's enough to prove my theory." yeonjun spoke out with you nodding.

"we are twin flames… that sounds… intriguing." you let your eyes wander to see the sun now meeting the surface of the sea, how beautiful it is to you and even pansy, who gets off the truck then stands on the edge of the cliff as her head sticks to the sun.

"more than lovers," he replied as you see him picking up the tissue napkin leftover from when you were eating ice cream and grab something from your bag, one of your outline markers, and write something on it.

"you should write one too." yeonjun said while smiling widely and then you see the words written on it.

'y/n's twin flame'

he handed you the last tissue that he got and give it to you where you wrote it in your own handwriting.

'yeonjun's twin flame'

"putting this in my wallet so that i can remember," he mumbles to himself with you chuckling and following him in putting in a pocket in your bag.

"speaking off…" he suddenly speaks, you see him pulling out a flimsy paper that he opens and give to you. you recognize the drawing and the date you wrote on the corner of the paper.

it was the drawing you finished right before the moment yeonjun's mom left the house. the day she died.

you see the drawing of the tree with colorful leaves, some on the tree while others on the ground.

"thought you might wanna have it." you take the drawing from him and observed the tree when you see a few of your art styles in their infancy.

"when i looked at the date, sometimes i wonder what will happen if what happened with mom didn't happen." yeonjun mumbles out.

"and since your time abilities don't include time travel, we might not know. but well, what happened happens so here we are." he continues as you both see the sun now more than halfway down the horizon. eyes looking from the drawing then to the sky in front of you as the sea swallows the ball of light.

-

after you kiss him goodbye, you walk through the lit pathway to your hall. your breath hitches as you stood at the entrance and look at the carving by the side of the building. you swallow your saliva as you're climbing the flight of stairs and walk to the door of your room where you heard minjeong playing violin from her room, which you can recognize is the third part of the concerto she's going to perform.

you enter your room, letting your bag falls on the bed as you sat beside it. seeing all your finished and blank canvases on the corner, remembering the reception they got when you post them in your blog. how you almost got recognized by the person that despised you in some way as she is a fan of yours.

you lean back on your bed and felt a paper brushing your cheek, which after you grab and felt the flimsy texture is the tree drawing that yeonjun gave you. you focused on it and how the colors are so different but it creates a synergy of uniqueness. slowly blurring into one.

but, when you blink, the blurring doesn't disappear and strangely only the paper is blurry, not the ceiling behind it.

you immediately sat up and look throughout your room, holding the paper with your two hands as the appearance of the tree trunk is now mixed that it doesn't resemble it anymore. however, you heard voices. voices that seem familiar. a certain voice that you know.

"yeonjun, look at it. it's almost finished."

the voice seems to come from the paper and it gets louder as you lean in closer to look at the blurry colors, seeing them twirl into each other. then you heard a voice you haven't heard in a long time.

"the fridge is almost empty."

your eyes sting as you realized who that is. the color gets blurrier as it swallows your vision. swallows your body whole. and it all turns white.

-

"and boop." you heard your child self say as the colors start to get more define as you blink rapidly. you sat on the floor of yeonjun's house's living room instead of the minimalist look that you saw last time, it's more colorful, more homely, then you see a shadow entering your vision.

"that looks good, (y/n)." you heard a familiar voice and the shadow turns around and you see them.

it's yeonjun, his 10-year-old self.

"(y/n), i said it looks good." yeonjun's voice pierces your trancing self.

"oh, yeah. thanks," you reply, with your 10-year-old voice. as your eyes wander on the room you're in, you see some blurry colors and white on the places that are supposed to be the backyard, the upstairs, and the front door. you look down at the table to see the paper with the drawing of a tree and its color beneath you, how it looks new that you can see a minuscule air bubble from the newly written date of the day, the paper looks sturdy, unlike the ones you have that could easily break.

you see the outfits that you wore and how little your body used to be before you became your adult self. you glance at yeonjun beside you playing mario kart on nintendo ds and heard footsteps from above you, trailing your eyes to the stairs where you heard it step down. that's when they widen when you met the woman you haven't met in a long time.

yeonjun's mom.

"yeonjun, (y/n). i'll be leaving to get some groceries, okay?" you see her said.

it was the last moment you'll see of her cause she died in a couple of minutes.

the paper made you travel to the time you finished the art, the moment before she left.

"okay, mom." you heard yeonjun reply while still playing his ds. your gaze sticks to his mom and how you felt your eye glisten from the tears that you hold. she finished wearing her socks, after that you see her grab her bag from the chair at the entrance, and then she goes to the kitchen to grab her wallet.

"take care of him, (y/n)." you heard her say when it triggers more in your brain than it is supposed to be knowing the implicit context.

"i'm literally the same age as her, mom." yeonjun replied as you see her come to yeonjun and kiss his head while chuckling.

"i know you are. love you, angel," she replies as she walks to the door and proceeds to wear her shoes. the front door opened to blurry colors and white where she stepped out.

"no-"

then it all turns monochrome as soon as she is consumed by the whiteness.

seeing the room from a third-person point of view, you see how your little self reaches out to her, different from what you remember happening when you were looking at yeonjun continuing his race.

you're in a pocket dimension where you can save yeonjun's mom. the contemplation forming in your head if you want to save her not. why? because you don't know if everything will change or not unless you are willing to try. that is for yeonjun's curiosity.

for yeonjun's happiness.

you extend your hand and open your palm, see the monochromatic colors blur and you go back to the start where you finished your drawing.

"and boop." you heard your child self say then the colors start to get more define. you look around the room to remember what pathing did her mom go through before leaving. what did she grab first? her socks.

"that looks good, (y/n)." you heard little yeonjun say beside you.

"aww… thanks," you replied more enthusiastically, remembering that you are your 10-year-old self. you stood up and walk near the front door where you see the socks on the lowest stair and the bag on the chair, waiting for it to be picked up. you quietly grab the socks and pick them up to put them behind one of the cushions of the sofas. then, you heard footsteps from above you and trails to the stairs where you heard them stepping down.

"yeonjun, (y/n). i'll be leaving to get some groceries, okay?" you see her said.

"okay, mom." you heard yeonjun reply while still playing his ds, yet your gaze stick to his mom, observing her closely.

"where did that socks go?" you heard exclaimed, seeing her looking at the stairs and around it. "oh well, sandals it is," she said making your eyes widen in panic then you see her grab her bag from the chair in the entrance and then she goes to the kitchen to grab her wallet.

"take care of him, (y/n)." you heard her say.

"i'm literally the same age as her, mom." yeonjun replied as you see her come to yeonjun and kiss his head while chuckling.

"i know you are. love you, angel," she replies as she walks to the door and proceeds to wear her shoes. the front door opened to blurry colors and white where she stepped out.

and it all turns monochrome once again.

'not again. think (y/n)'

you try over and over again, putting her bag somewhere so she searches for it but it's too big but she said she doesn't need to bring all of it for a grocery run, telling her to maybe let uncle choi pick her up which she denied cause she knows her husband is busy, telling her you want to join but she denies again as she promised your mom you have to stay here. that is until you remember the wallet.

the wallet, a big priority for going on grocery runs, is small enough to be hidden. you have to make her search for it.

you extend your hand and see it blurs and you go back to the start where you finished your drawing.

"and boop." you heard your child self say then the colors start to get more define. you look around the room, peeking at the kitchen.

"that looks good, (y/n)." you heard little yeonjun say beside.

"thank you!" you replied enthusiastically your 10-year-old voice before you stood up and walk to the kitchen where you see the wallet on the counter. you quickly grab it and hide it beneath your clothes, hoping its shape will not be shown that she can easily recognize it. you heard footsteps from above you and trails to the stairs where you heard it step down where you stood in the kitchen, pretending to grab some water.

"yeonjun, (y/n). i'll be leaving to get some groceries, okay?" you heard yeonjun's mom say.

"okay, mom." you heard yeonjun reply while still playing his ds, and your gaze stick to his mom, observing her closely.

she finished wearing her socks then walk to grab her bag from the chair at the entrance and then she goes to the kitchen to grab her wallet.

"hi (y/n)." you waved at her as she stares at the kitchen counter, you see her eyebrows furrowed.

"have you seen my wallet?" you shook your head and you see her look around the kitchen. "oh god where is it?" she looks at the kitchen cabinets, opening and closing them.

it's working.

"do you want me to help, auntie?" you asked.

she replied with a nod. "auntie might put it here or upstairs."

"okay, i can help you search downstairs…" you responded so you can stall for time.

she lets out a smile and then an answer, "that would be great. let me know if you find it."

"can i ask what it looks like?" you questioned, diverting her attention for a split second.

"it's a very thin wallet but it's long, not the folded one like the one yeonjun has." you nod your head and see her walk out the kitchen, hearing the footsteps above you again, feeling the wallet's leather material cold on your skin.

you stall her for a couple of minutes, hoping it is enough time to let her stay alive. you walk around the entrance, to the dining table to crouch under it, search at the tv cabinet that you open and close, and now on the couches as you slid your hand at the sides of the cushions. you were really glad yeonjun doesn't seem to notice you wandering around his house as he is racing very seriously.

"found it!" you exclaimed, calculating that it is enough time as you heard the footsteps going down the stairs. you slowly climb off the couch and walk to the entrance with her wallet in your hand.

"that is it, right?" you see her eyes widen and turn into a straight line as she smiles.

"yes, it is. good job." you smiled as you follow her to yeonjun from the entrance.

"got to go now, i'm already running late" you see her come to yeonjun and kiss his head while chuckling.

"love you, angel," she mumbles as walks to the door and proceeds to wear her shoes. she opens the front door where blurry colors and white are she looks back at you, holding the door.

"thank you, (y/n)!"

"you're welcome." and you see her walk away as the blurriness consumes your vision once again.

-

you rub your eyes as you see the ray of sun blinding your vision, feeling the soft and cool duvet underneath you as you heard the default alarm sound from your phone. as you sat up while rubbing your face softly with both of your hands, eyes heavy, you slowly dropped your hands to see the blurry colors of the room that you recognized from the layout, your room.

your room without paintings, canvases, and your easel in the corner.

instead, you see a dressmaker's mannequin with a measuring tape hanging around the neck in its place. the corner of the room behind it—that used to store your blank and filled canvases—is now rolls and rolls of fabric. on the desk, there is a small sewing machine with rolls of colorful thread seated inside a box beside it. you look at the wall beside your bed and instead of seeing your watercolor and gouache paintings, you see sketches of outfits and pictures of models on the runway with notes on their fashion house, s/s or f/w collection, and the year on a ripped paper that you recognize lies your handwriting.

you look down at your body to see that you're wearing a tank top and shorts, the kinds of clothes you are never comfortable wearing. that's when you realize that your alarm is still blaring and you grab your phone to stop it when you see the lockscreen of the phone.

a mirror selfie of you with thick makeup and a black short slip dress with gold pieces of jewelry on your hands and neck.

it's you but different.

a notification banner shows as you stare at yourself long enough from someone massaging you and your eyes widen when you see the name.

karin <3: (y/n) baby don't forget about that take-out you owe me!! he's gonna come right before noon.

you're friends with karin?

you dropped your phone on your bed and stood up so quickly you almost trip yourself. you look around the room, seeing a few unfinished sketches of dresses and fashion magazines, a collection of makeup more than you use, and your open wallet where you see your university id card with an almost unrecognizable photo of you and your major.

fashion design major.

you felt your breath halt as you pick up your wallet to look at it closely. she, well, you looked so different, so poise and elegant. so confident in herself. you put down your wallet to feel calluses on your fingertips instead of on the side of your fingers like you used to have when you paint, a proof of your struggle of being a fashion design major and tailoring clothes as you're dealing with pins and needles.

a set of knocks on your door startled you as you look towards it while gnawing your lips. should you open it? you have to found out soon enough. maybe it's minjeong but instead of playing violin, she plays the piano? cello? brass instruments? or even a different major like theater, maybe near yours like literature. or she doesn't even go here. what about herin? is she here?

you walk to the door, resting your hand against the same texture you felt back in your, literal, room, your hand sliding down to the knob, and opening it. you stumble back when you suddenly felt hands cupping each side of your cheek and something on your lips. someone's lips on yours.

you felt the figure who is kissing you moving you inside your room and closing the door to then pushing you against it, hands roaming all over your body as your hands chase them. you held onto their hands when they are on your cheeks and pull yourself away to see them when you saw a face you never thought you see with your own eyes.

"soobin?"

taglist: @bubblejunnies @rein-deer-stuffs @papiibuprofen @kookthief @endzii23 @xiaoting999 @soobsfairy444 @xxunmeixsenpaixx​ @stayzentiny​ @rebsmoonn @msxflower @fluffyywoo

can’t tag: @meowchikatt @yuakagi @ricepill @kayalayadayla

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[a-supernatural-writer]

My dude, a stressed kid with upcoming exams would appreciate a Poly lost boys with a scary ass grunge reader? Like I’m talking they hold a lighter to their tongue for fun, they carry around butterfly knives, they’ve got a warrant for their arrest in five states and pick fights with Surf Nazis and win- the boys have never been so intimidated. Pretty please?

Scary Grunge S/O

Poly Lost Boys x gender neutral reader

No problem! I hope you enjoy this and I wish you all the luck with your exams! ❤️❤️

Warnings: cursing

The boys having a scary ass grunge partner would 100% add some spice into their life. They were already intimidating but having you at their side increased their intimidation tenfold.

They thought they were tough, hello, that was thrown out the damn window the moment you told them that you have a warrant for your arrest in five different states and that's why you fled to Santa Carla. The most that they’ve ever been really “charged” with is being kicked off of the Boardwalk for the night. Well, that’s when they were caught doing something.

Of course they’d ask what you were charged for and grins would bloom on their faces at your words, finding it amusing that a human like you slipped through the authorities fingers like sand to avoid your charges.

Not even a couple weeks into your guys relationship, they revealed themselves to you, showing you that they were actually vampires. To say they were surprised at your reaction would be underselling it, they were shocked. You didn’t bat an eyelash when you saw them ripping apart their prey for the night. Blood spraying everywhere, limbs torn off, and then being thrown into a fire when done.

All you could do was grin at their vampire faces and comment on how cool they were. You never thought vampires could even exist and here you were dating four blood-sucking creatures of the night… it was awesome.

You always went with them when they fed. Watching from the trees or hell, even getting up close in the middle of the action which led to blood getting all over your clothing. You would just shrug and smile as your boys fed. You’ve seen some fucked up shit and this wasn’t even close to some of the things you’ve seen.

Pretty soon, you're not even seen apart from anyone of their sides. You officially moved with them in their cave and set up your own little next in one of the many hotel rooms that sunk into the earth. And with moving in, they began to learn and experience your habits.

You like holding a lighter to your tongue for fun? Honey, you got four very fascinated but worried boys on your hands. You’d just be lounging around in the cave, hanging out on one of the couches when the idea crosses your mind. You’ve done it a million times before, you just never did it in front of your boys.

The second you flick open your lighter and hold your tongue over the lit flame, it’s immediately snatched away from you by David’s hand. And the scolding commences. Of course you have to point out all the crazy shit they do and the stuff that you’ve done, what harm could a lighter do to your tongue. A lot, but who gives a shit? Certainly not you.

Reluctantly, David gives you back your lighter cause somehow you will find another one no matter how many times David takes it from you. From that point on, David will just shake his head at your action, but is also curious. He watches you as you test your luck with the lighter, always kind of on stand by just in case anything happens.

Dwayne is on the same level of David. Always hovering over you as you do this past time activity. He watches you not only for safety but out of fascination. If anything he’ll ask you questions; why do you do it? What’s so fun about it? How long have you been doing it? That kind of stuff.

He tries it a couple of times and hell, even got David to join in once or twice. But these two are the ones that wouldn’t join you most of the time. Yes, they are dead and technically it wouldn’t affect them greatly, but they just didn’t see the appeal as you did.

But Marko and Paul are 100% down with you. You wanna spend the next hour holding a lighter under our tongues and the first one to bow out buys dinner? Hell, yes! When they first see you playing with the lighter, they immediately start watching and giggle at how cool it was.

These boys are hoarders, and I mostly think that’s because of Marko and Paul, so you better believe that they are buying stealing cool lighters for you and you soon have a vast collection for whenever you finish one.

Your butterfly knives are also on the same level as you playing with your lighter, but they find it really impressive and you could do some actual damage to someone. They know that you could handle yourself and if anyone dared do something you didn’t like, it would end up with the other person getting hurt and you coming out of it without a scratch.

You take them out at random times if you're not fighting up against some surf nazis or anyone that wanted to put up a fight with you. Mostly it would be around the cave when you're bored is when you would pull one out and start doing random tricks with them that required very little effort for you.

Again, these boys are impressed at your knife skills, and also worried that you could possibly cut yourself by accident, but they trusted you from your years of experience with them.

When it comes to your knives, all of the boys want to learn some tricks. The ones that got it down are David and Paul. David always keeps the one that you picked out from your own collection in an inner pocket of his trench coat. He never really uses it for fighting, but he uses it like you. Takes it out randomly if he’s not doing anything or lost in thought.

Paul uses it like a fidget toy. You personally have to watch him like a hawk when he plays with his butterfly knife. He accidentally flung it in Dwayne’s direction one time when playing with it too much and from then on, you carried his along with yours. He would have to ask you for it if he ever felt the urge to do something with his hands. Expect a lot of requests to teach him new tricks.

Dwayne tried but this boy's hands are so big he kept on dropping it halfway through twirling the damn thing. It upset him a little that he couldn’t do it but he settled with watching you instead. He still has one on him, always trying when you aren't looking so that he could too, one day, at least pull off something similar to what you showed him.

Marko… don’t give Marko stabby or any pointy objects. He likes them a little too much. So much that it even made you lock up your entire collection so he wouldn’t take one. You had to scold him on numerous occasions that even though you did get into fights like him sometimes, you only pulled out your knife if it called for it. Marko was the opposite and wanted to pull it out for every fight he got in. You were thankful that you weren’t kicked off the Boardwalk because of his actions.

Speaking of fights. You were very much like Marko when it came down to it. But instead of waiting for a fight to present itself, if you felt like you were in the right mood, you would pick a fight with a group of surf nazis cause, why not? The night was young and no doubt your boyfriends would make them their next meal anyways so you decided to have a little fun.

When you got into the heat of your fights, it was very easy to tell from the outside that you enjoyed it a lot. There would always be a wide grin on your face as you gave one guy a black eye and another a punch to the nose, breaking it. You were violent and every single time, you would win. It didn’t matter how many there were, you’d be victorious.

It’s funny because that’s how the boys met you. They saw you coming out as the winner of your little brawl and wanted more than anything to get to know you. You kicked some surf nazis ass without getting thrown off the Boardwalk? You’re pretty cool in their book.

Aside from that, Marko would be the one to really get into fights with you. He would always say that you two were “partners in crimes”, which was very true, not just with Marko. If anything, it’s always Paul surprisingly trying to drag the two of you out of your violent tendencies. David and Dwayne… if you get them going, good luck with that. Not even Paul can stop them.

Overall, them having a scary, grunge partner adds even more excitement into their lives. You were always looking for action, which kept them on their toes. Always doing dangerous and reckless things that they would jump in on. All of that still continues when you decide to turn and become one of them.

When you turn you realize that you're practically dead and the stuff you did before can be even more fun. You take things further than what you could do as a human. You tested your limits and your boys were always with their badass partner every step of the way.

[almostnugget]

Eyeliner

Reggie x Reader

Y/N manages to convince Reggie to let them put eyeliner on him. It just ends up being a little more distracting—considering their not-so-subtle feelings for one another—than either of them would have thought.

Warnings: uh, romantic tension? but otherwise: none that i know of! it’s just kinda fluff-ish

A/N: okay so this was originally part of something bigger that i was writing but i decided i needed to post and i figured i should share this all with you so hope you enjoy! (it’s not even that good tho nothing even happens i-) (also happy thanksgiving if you celebrate it, hi what’s up)

If anyone asked, Y/N wouldn't be able to tell them how this had happened. Having the garage to their selves wasn't much of a problem for Y/N and Reggie. Alex left for an impromptu date with Willie and Luke decided to bother Julie at school.

"Stop moving," Y/N whined, shifting on the couch. They were half in Reggie's lap by now, a hand holding his chin with their face twisted in concentration.

"Why is this taking so long?" He asked, scrunching his face up as Y/N let out a reprimanding hiss. "I'm just asking!"

"You're moving your face!" 

"I'm talking," he corrected, trying to keep his face as still as possible now. He could feel Y/N’s breath on his face, which was making it hard enough not to fidget around, but it felt like they were purposely taking forever.

"I've never done this on another person," they explained, shifting their weight again and turning Reggie's face slightly. "Plus, I'm focusing on what I'm doing and holding this eyeliner."

Talking Reggie into putting on eyeliner was surprisingly easier than Y/N had thought it would be. They supposed he was from the 90s, and in a rock band, so maybe they shouldn't have been so surprised.

"Can you focus faster?" he whined, his eyes still shut. Y/N let out a laugh, prompting him to open his eyes so he could glimpse the smile on their face.

"Hey! I can't do your makeup like this," they scolded quickly, though their lips were still quirked upward. "Close your eyes."

Reggie hummed in response, shutting his eyes and letting them continue. He was getting antsy, but part of him was enjoying the attention too much to make it stop.

Chewing their bottom lip, Y/N began to actually apply the eyeliner. They softly hummed a familiar song under their breath, making a dorky smile spread across Reggie's face.

"Is that a Sunset Curve song?"

"I listened to the demo," they replied nonchalantly, continuing to work and hum quietly to themselves—as if Reggie couldn't find himself any higher on cloud nine.

He stopped concentrating on how long this was taking, instead putting his full attention on the person practically humming in his ear and the fact they were so close there was almost no distance between the two of them

"This is not turning out right," Y/N said suddenly, a laugh bubbling out as they sat back—though not fully removing themselves from his lap either. "I was way too confident in my abilities."

“I'll try," Reggie declared excitedly, opening his eyes. Y/N held the eyeliner out, the boy enthusiastically seizing it from them. The garage had a bathroom with a mirror, and fortunately ghosts were visible in mirrors—to themselves at least. "Oh! Can you...?"

He nodded down at Y/N’s legs, Y/N taking the hint and sheepishly moving back beside him.

Getting to his feet, Reggie hurried to the bathroom to do his own eyeliner as Y/N collapsed back onto the couch. Drumming their fingers against their stomach, they stared up at the ceiling in wait.

"Alright!" Reggie exclaimed from the bathroom after a few moments. "Drumroll please!"

Y/N chuckled and rolled their eyes, but they sat up nonetheless and began to rhythmically pat their thighs like a drumroll.

Reggie jumped out of the bathroom doorway, enthusiastically throwing his arms outward. "Tada!"

Y/N was on their feet in an instant, crossing the room to get a better look. Reggie wore a proud smile that was only moderately giddy. Around his eyes was black eyeliner, slightly smudged for the perfect grunge look.

“Oh, definitely way better than whatever I could do," Y/N decided with a nod. They squinted their eyes for a moment before reaching up to ruffle his hair a little.

"Better?"

Y/N nodded. "Better." They continued to study him a moment, oblivious to the distance between them that Reggie was trying desperately to ignore.

"What?" he croaked out after a long silence, Y/N snapping out of their momentary trance as they staggered back.

"N-nothing! You look good," they admitted, trying to act natural like they hadn't nearly lost it over how good Reggie looked with eyeliner. Instead, the words bubbled out before they could stop them. "You look hot."

Their eyes blew wide, any other words to correct themselves dying in her throat. It took Reggie a moment, his brain trying to decide between flustered or brazenly confident. He chose the latter.

"You think I'm hot?" he questioned, his usual dorky grin replaced with a slightly cockier one.

"Shut up," Y/N dismissed, ears growing warm as they twisted away. They jumped back when Reggie just appeared in front of them. "Hey—!"

"Hey! I'm just repeating what you said!" he defended casually, a sense of pride still blooming in his chest.

"Eyeliner has that effect!" They tried to reason, but they were clearly floundering now. Why did everyone have to leave them alone? Alex had to get back from his date soon, right?

“You think I'm hot," he repeated in a sing-song tone as Y/N playfully rolled their eyes. He had definitely just got an ego boost, that was for sure.

"Go take it off," they instructed, gesturing toward the bathroom. "Our little experiment's over."

"Oh no, it's staying on forever now!"

"Reggie!"

[creativeashproductions]

Faded Memories // Julie Molina

Summary: After the death of her mother more than music is dropped from Julie’s life. Julie breaks up with her best friend turned then girlfriend Ramona. When Ramona gets closure it causes Julie remembers that Ramona was more than a girlfriend. She was her best friend too.

Warning: Swearing, talk of death, break-up, angst (ain’t new here), Julie and Ramona are ex-girlfriends and no happy ending (oops)

Characters: ex!Julie Molina x ex!Ramona Monet (just worked better with an OC even when it will get less traction, sorry)

Words: 2.9k

A/N: So in my Charlie Gillespie imagine A Walk Down The Aisle the reader played a character Ramona Monet on the show. @leave-reality-behind wanted a fic off the tiny scene I wrote. So here you go.

Please ask to be tagged in my inbox because I can’t promise you will through commenting on the fics.

Masterlist

Ramona Monet’s deep burgundy lips manoeuvred into an ‘o’ as she released a deep breath of air sending her fringe flying. The last place she wanted to be was the spirit rally, but her Pops had banned for from the hidden gem in the older parts of LA. Ramona’s love of old movies stemmed from the many times her father had dropped her off at the movie theatre on his way to work. Being banned and her best friend performing at the rally is the only reason she would show her face.

Ramona had chosen a red tartan shirt with her fishnets that would more than likely land her in Principle Lessa’s office. As usual, she would fight ‘it broke dress code’ earing a little less respect from the adult but admiration for the quick retorts. Ramona made her way to the gym as the first beat of Carrie’s song played, her black ankle boots finding the way to the bleachers.

“Hey, Monet,” Nick spoke, leaning forward from his concealed position in the nest of jocks. The kind blonde had always been lovely to his girlfriend’s best friend.

“Nick.” Ramona nodded looking back as Carrie burst into the fast pace choreography that went with the pop song.

Dirty Candi’s music was not what Ramona listened to, but she couldn’t fault that it was a catchy song that would be in everyone’s head for days. From a distance, Carrie’s brown eyes finding Ramona wearing her self-made merch.

Ramona’s shirt sported the letters of Dirty Candi in the iconic colours Carrie had stressed over in the beginning. The black shirt was bleached in a tie-dye fashion, but it made Carrie’s heart flutter at the supportive friend she had.

“Whoo!” Ramona called over the loud background noise as Carrie gracefully dropped to perform the floor choreo. The words referencing to the band Queen made the teen girl knowing it was Carrie’s way of acknowledging the car karaoke.

Ramona’s attention was brought to the side where two girls were watching the performance. Flynn and Julie had been in the back of Ramona’s mind since the accident happened; Ramona’s heart dropped at the girl. Julie and Ramona had a good history tainted by tragic loss and teenage angst.

Ramona and Julie had been childhood best friends being a few houses from each other and that history was bittersweet. The two girls had nervously shared their first kisses in the now dilapidated treehouse in the Monet’s backyard. A relationship bloomed like a flower in the morning sun before the sun was concealed behind a storm cloud. Julie’s mom died, and Julie asked for a break.

Now everyone knows that a break is really a breakup and the naïve girlfriends had believed that. Then as Julie struggled with music, she struck out to the closest person, her girlfriend and Ramona found herself dumped. The dumping shattered Ramona’s heart, and the friend group divided. Flynn chose Julie and Carrie, disgusted by the cruel words, chose Ramona in a true Carrie fashion; Carrie and Ramona had initially only interacted together for their mutual friend/girlfriend. Then Ramona’s heart was obliterated when days later, she caught Julie staring at Nick with the same look Ramona used to get.

Ramona’s head turned to disregard the girl that had run out of music class the previous day during her performance. Rumours circulated by the end of the day that Julie Molina had been officially kicked out of the program; Ramona was both sad and relieved. Julie’s own head turned to catch the profile of her ex-girlfriend.

“Go Bobcats!” Carrie Wilson chimed strutting off to the girls change room for the dramatic exit. Needing a break from Julie, the Monet girl followed Dirty Candi into the change room.

“Nailed it,” Ramona spoke, revealing white teeth behind her dark lipstick gaining the pink-haired girl’s attention. Carrie’s face beamed at the compliment.

Ramona and Carrie Wilson couldn’t be farther in comparison with their different tastes and appearance. Carrie was all pink and glittery while Ramona was grunge and angst. Ramona was the one to push Carrie into making a YouTube channel, even promoting the group to Ramona’s followers without prompting.

“Oh! Thank you!” Carrie tugged her best friend into her arms, choking her taller friend with the tight embrace.

“So, I overheard Julie and Flynn when I walked by the music room. Julie’s going to perform for Mrs Harrison.” Ramona warned her best friend concerned as Carrie’s complexation changed to make the gaudy pink wig, “OH!”

Carrie’s French manicure gouged Ramona’s bare arm as she was tugged after the teenager back into the gym. A gasp fell from both their lips as Kayla, the purple dancer for Dirty Candi appeared. The three students rushed the stage where three guys popped out of nowhere on the stage. 

“What the hell?” Ramona demanded watching her ex-girlfriend break out of her music shell, “Wow.”

“What do you mean ‘wow’ Ro?” Carrie asked in exasperation as her best friend stared at the stage, enjoying the music being played. Carrie scoffed only to soften when she saw the expression on Ramona, “Ro, she doesn’t deserve you. She never did.”

The sad smile appeared on Ramona’s face as her eyes met the bass player’s wink. Ramona flushed at the attention taken aback from the confidence. For a split-second, Ramona considered wiggling her way into the band to get back at Julie. 

But while Ramona dressed like a confident badass, it was inside that she felt alone and hurt that Julie was doing so well without her. That sent rage flooding Carrie’s body so when Kayla fawned over the band Carrie glared at her. Kayla dropped her head at the glare.

“I’m gonna go,” Ramona spoke walking away from the stage and her ex who apparently, she still had feelings for. God help Ramona. Why was it when Ramona was shaking the feeling that Julie had to come back with a bang?

Ramona was striding out of the gym as the band disappeared, leaving the Molina girl alone to explain. Ramona leaned against the bathroom sink uncaring of the germs in carried staring at the teen in the mirror. The bubbling sadness faded down, remembering the changes that had happened, she was better without Julie.

Ramona walked back into the hall, catching the tail end of Julie’s conversation with absolutely no one near her. Ramona’s mossy green eyes rolled as she walked by the younger girl the bubble of anger reaching the surface. The sheepish smile on Julie’s face as a concerned custodian pushed his cart by.

“Oh, so does this girl.” Reggie spoke, watching as a rocker chick made a wide berth around his only remaining alive friend, “Ooh, she’s pretty.”

Julie watched the older girl walk by keeping her gaze ahead, “Hey Mona.”

Ramona cast a weird look at the other girl with a roll of her eyes, “Good on you for performing. Surprised someone other than Flynn survived Bitch Bomb 2019.”

Ramona turned around the corner of lockers leaving the Puerto Rican’s shoulders to deflate at the remind of Flynn running off. Sunset Curve watched the interaction with raised brows flicking between the very different girls.

“What was that about?” Alex wondered, viewing the sad expression of the gifted singer’s face. The utter sadness reminding him of when he broke up with his first boyfriend in ’93 and the lingering feeling.

“That was Ramona.” Julie sighed, picking at the braided bracelet on her wrist that had matched the one you used to wear. 

Being fourteen without jobs and little allowance gifts had been mostly thrifted or homemade so for the six month anniversary they had braided bracelets. They had never come off their wrists until the breakup; Ramona had cut it off in a puddle of tears. Julie couldn’t bring herself to remove hers.

“When did Julie get smart enough to how about holograms?” Carrie scoffed as Ramona joined her at the lab table. The performance lingering like a bad taste of the girl’s tongue, “I worked weeks on that song! It was so hard getting Katy’s choreographer to help.”

“Carrie she-“

“She is so stupid! We’ve all lost someone, and we didn’t pull a Bitch Bomb 2019.” Carrie exclaimed referring to the first months of Julie’s grief-led wrath. 

Carrie was both right and wrong in that sense because everyone grieved differently, Carrie would do retail shopping. Ramona’s way of dealing was locking herself in a room with a piano and lugging up water balloons to a roof; very Peyton Sawyer of her. Julie never reached out to apologize for her actions, but Ramona blocked her on everything.

“Car focus on the lab. You still have that bomb-ass song you’re working on.” Ramona sympathized with the teen. Carrie nodded her head, deciding to not focus on some girl with a fluke of a performance; Julie almost puked on the piano a few days ago, so her surprise band was probably a one-time thing.

“Don’t you have anything better than-“

“Carrie do you hear something?” Ramona pursed her lips, scanning the classroom with a feigned look of confusion. Carrie’s lips twitched at her best friend’s antics, “I swore I heard the voice of irrelevance.”

“Ooh and I swore I smelt gutter water perfume too.” Carrie flicked her hair over her shoulder, smirking at Flynn’s look of anger, “Mr. Taylor! Flynn threatened to burn me!”

Mr Taylor turned his attention from Kayla to Flynn’s expression of disbelief and the glare directed at the table ahead. Putting on a look of shock, Ramona appeared genuinely flabbergasted to the chemistry teacher.

“Flynn, that’s detention.” Mr Taylor spoke, turning back to Kayla.

“You bit-“Flynn was cut off by the bell ringing. Ramona and Carrie had already left the confident girl in the room. Flynn was fuming with both Julie’s lying and the unfair detention because of two popular vindictive girls. 

One would expect Ramona Monet, as a member of the music program, to play guitar or drums. However, Ramona was a classically trained pianist with an affinity with stringed instruments as well. The Monet family had a footing in the music world with her mother taught in the same way, and her father a composer.

“Oh! Sorry.” Ramona’s intense focus on the music enchanting the room was pulled as the awkward form stood in the entrance.

“Seriously, Molina?” Ramona winced as her hands fell on the keys creating an ear gouging shriek. Her green eyes shining brighter with the bare face she had chosen with little motivation for makeup, “I’ve been using this room every day at the same time since freshman year. You should know that. Guess I really wasn’t even an afterthought.”

Ramona’s hand shoved soft top binder of her notes in her black bag covered in many pins and embroidered patches. Her bright pink nail polish surprising Julie but her eyes drowned in the form-fitting ripped black jeans with the wine red cable knit sweater. Cheeks flushing Julie stuttered.

“S-sorry. I just-“

“Whatever.” Ramona shoved passed her ex-girlfriend, “Why do you even wear that?”

Julie glanced at the meaningful bracelet that Ramona intensely stared at with the dark and light strings braided. Julie’s eyes fell to see Ramona no longer wore braided bracelets but a bracelet with a moon charm.

“It means a lot.”

“Just not the person.” Ramona darkly chuckled, “Kinda childish?”

Julie shuffled uncomfortably on her feet picking at her cuticle at the insult her antagonist ex threw at her. Three ghosts glared at the Monet girl pissed at the unfair treatment she was giving Julie.

“Hey! What the hell is your problem?” Luke snapped, stepping forward even as Alex made his input of it being unnecessary; they were dead. To Alex shock, the disgruntled girl shifted her gaze from Julie to the trio.

“My problem is none of your damn business Uncle Jesse.” Ramona spat earning raised brows at her reference.

 “Did she die in the ’90s too?” Reggie stage whispered to his best friend staring the pretty brunette down. Ramona’s eyes rolled.

“Should have known. The only people Julie didn’t scare off would be the dead.” Ramona snarked twisting on her heel to storm off into the distance.

“I’m sorry!” Julie yelled, bringing the brunette to a dead stop with her foot not planted on the floor yet as the apology finally came.

All Ramona had ever wanted was Julie to apologize for her shitty decision to dump Ramona cruelly. Using bitter words on her personal life to drive the wedge but the final nail in the coffin was the slammed door in Ramona’s face.

“For what?” Ramona seethed, “For asking for space and screaming when I gave it? Dumping me and acting like I was the black plague? How about when you forgot about my audition? Burning the flowers, I sent for the funeral? Or making breaking off communication and Flynn completely ignoring me?”

“Oh damn.” Luke murmured, stepping back to the drummer and bassist floored at the confrontation. His heart dropped, finally understanding why Julie avoided all topics relating to Ramona.

“I was wrong.” Julie admitted, “I pushed you away. I got mad when you gave me what I wanted. I should have talked to you and not broke up with you that way I did.”

“She burnt funeral flowers. “Alex whispered to Reggie, surprised at the out of character action from his new friend.

“I chose you over my audition. I chose to offer support for my best friend, not just my then-girlfriend, on one of her worst days. I get to the funeral, and you refused to let me say goodbye to the woman that practically raised me as well.” Ramona calmed down, staring at the younger girl breaking apart in front of her.

It felt like a weight dropped off Ramona’s shoulders or the chains of heartbreak and confusion unlocked with the key of closure. The clouds disappeared, letting the sun help the flowers bloom after a year of rain. A genuine smile spread on the girls face as Julie’s dropped at the beautiful sight.

“I hope you well Birdie.” Julie’s heart fluttered at the pet name Ramona had coined for the teenager. It shortened from songbird to birdie, and Julie hadn’t heard in what felt like years, “I gotta go. It’s filming day.”

Julie went pushed into a memory.

Summer 2018

The camera was entirely set on Ramona in the treehouse that her Pop had built when she was five years old. Fourteen-year-old Ramona was relaxing as she fixed her white off-shoulder crop top to be straight once more. The cover of the song accompanied by her acoustic guitar was pretty to the years of the short girl at the entrance.

“I still think it’s cheesy to call it Music Monday.” Ramona told the camera with a shy smile after strumming the last note. Her eyes meeting the girl that tackled her in a hug, “Birdie!”

“Birdie?” Julie questioned leaning back from her kissing attacks on every inch of her dirty-blonde girlfriend.

“Songbird is a bit of a mouthful.” Ramona blushed hiding in Julie’s neck unaware of the camera still rolling. The blush deepened at the lingering kiss to Ramona’s hairline.

“I love it.” Julie softly spoke, leaning back to gaze into Ramona’s green eyes swimming in the soft feeling.

Julie Molina and Ramona Monet had been the classic best friends with hidden crushes that shattered one afternoon. Ramona was nervous about a date she had the next day, and she had never kissed anyone. Julie, awed by her best friend, admitted she’d never kissed anyone and so in a cliché, the girls decided to share their first kiss. Feelings were revealed, and the two started to date.

“So, what brings you here.” Ramona asked, stopping the camera from recording as her girlfriend shifted, “What’s up?”

“If you’re ready I’d like to have you over for dinner.” Julie shyly asked, avoiding Ramona’s gaze.

“That’s not new Birdie.” Ramona chuckled helping the shorter girl to her feet fingers caressing the bracelet that was a twin to her own. Julie’s eyes flicked down to the light pink shorts that matched the butterfly click in Ro’s hair.

“Not as my best friend. As my girlfriend.” Julie murmured fearing the response.

“Should I call your parents Mr and Mrs.” Ramona wondered, kissing Julie’s cheek as the other girl relaxed at the statement. Julie feared Ramona wasn’t ready or didn’t want to be at that stage in the relationship, “If you are ready, then so am I.”

“You’re the best thing to happen to me.” Julie beamed, “Oh! I wanna show you the song Mom, and I made!”

Julie tugged her pretty girlfriend to the front of the house to lead her to the Molina’s garage they renovated into a music studio. The girls’ laughter floating in the summer breeze, the relationship blooming under the sun as it developed further. Naïvely the two young teens believed nothing could rip them apart, if only they knew.

“So, I’m guessing she’s off-limits?” Reggie offered as he bounced on his heels, attempting to lighten the mood. The glare from Julie was enough to answer that question.

“Reg. Firstly, don’t date your friend’s ex. Secondly, you’re dead.” Alex deadpanned at his best friend to turn to Julie, “Are you okay?”

 “No.” Julie honestly spoke, “I guess I never realized that losing my girlfriend also meant I would lose my best friend.”

On the other side of the school, Ramona Monet could finally smile as the memories with Julie regained the colour grief had erased. Ramona Monet was better than fine, she was happy.

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[softboywriting]

Broken Promises | Shawn Mendes

Summary: You and Shawn made a promise to never fall in love with each other. Some promises can’t be kept. [friends to lovers] [non au] [little angst] 

Word Count: 2k

|Masterlist In Bio|

Sometimes life doesn't go the way it's planned. Sometimes you don't get that promotion at work, sometimes you spill coffee on your way to class, and sometimes you break a promise you made a decade ago to your best friend.

When you were thirteen years old you and Shawn made a pact, a promise that you would never fall in love with each other. At the time it made sense. You were both teenagers just getting started in the world of dating. The two of you had been friends since you were five years old and agreed at thirteen you'd be just that. Friends. So one hot summer day in July you and Shawn signed your handwritten promises to each other and buried them under the old oak tree in his backyard. The ritual was ridiculous and juvenile but held so much meaning then.

Fast forward to the present. Shawn is making his way in the music world, working with a studio in Toronto towards a big break. You're interning at an animal hospital while studying to be a veterinary assistant. Your lives couldn't be more different but you still make time for each other every single week, because that's what friends do. You know he is going to make it big one day, that you're going to lose him in the blink of an eye and that hurts to think about. But what hurts more is the reason why. You've broken your promise and fallen for him, hard, and losing him to a crazy world beyond your comprehension is more than losing just a friend. It's losing the only person you've ever truly loved.

You can't pinpoint the moment when your feelings changed toward Shawn. Maybe they had always been there but you repressed them but tonight is going to change everything.

Halloween. You and Shawn attend a party thrown by some friends. The theme is fashion throughout the decades. Of course that means people show up as everything from hippies to grunge rockstars. You and Shawn decide to do an eighties theme. You go with work out clothes, crazy print leggings, crop top with a tank top underneath, leg warmers and a sweatband with your hair all teased up. Shawn...well he went all out. Headband, ripped cut off jeans, color blocked windbreaker, tube socks in an old pair of k-swiss white tennis shoes. He is a sight to be seen.

The party is great, everyone has a lot of fun and gets wasted, and that is precisely where your troubles begin to bloom. You and Shawn had taken an Uber to the party, knowing you would both be drinking. The whole night you stayed close to Shawn, not wanting to lose him since he was the one paying for the ride home, but also because you really don't like some of the guys there.

It's not until after midnight and you're stumbling out of the party, arm around Shawn, that you realize something is wrong. You sit him down on the curb and he holds his head in his hands, clearly not okay, as you suspected.

"Hey," you rub his back and he groans. "You doing alright?"

"No."

"What's wrong?" You sit down and he grabs your hand. Not an unfamiliar move but definitely not a normal one. "You were so happy earlier."

"My ex is here."

"Oh." You sigh softly and remain quiet.

His ex girlfriend Tessa really fucked him up. She was an Instagram girl trying to be a model. You know she was set up with Shawn for the clout, for both of them as they make their way in the game industry. But things got serious and they actually became an item for about nine months, well, it seemed that way. Then it all came tumbling down. She started ghosting him, standing him up for dates. Shawn didn't know what he did wrong, and truthfully he didn't do anything. Tessa found another guy, someone with more followers and a much bigger public view. A better victim. Shawn found out when he saw them together on the front page of a tabloid, and that really sent him into a spiral. Seeing her tonight was bad news.

"I couldn't even talk to her." He squeezes your hand. "I just want to know why. Why didn't she just break up with me? Lie, say I wasn't the one or something. Why did she just...just abandon me?"

"Shawn, she didn't love you. I know that's hard to hear but it's true. She never cared about you and you cared about her too much." You clench your jaw and you're glad he's not looking at you. It's difficult to remain calm when talking about Tessa. You hate her for everything she did to Shawn. "She is a horrible person."

"But-"

You lay your hand on his shoulder. "Shawn stop. I know tonight was hard but you have to let her go. You're not defined by her, or by anyone but yourself. It's been months, don't let her ruin all your progress."

"You're right." He drops his head against his knees. "God...I should have never made that promise."

"What promise?"

"Nothing, never mind." He looks over and you can see his eyes are red in the light from the nearby lamp post. "Do you wanna come to my place?"

"Of course. I love staying at your place. My neighbor still has that yippy dog that keeps me up."

Shawn cracks a little smile and stands, dragging you up with him. "Thanks for being here tonight."

"I wouldn't rather be anywhere else." You wrap your arms around him and he presses his face into your hair, clinging tight. Your heart swells, tears burning your eyes. You want to tell him the truth, how you've fallen in love with him and he doesn't have to worry about Tessa or the next person who might hurt him. You want to make him feel loved and whole again but you can't because if he doesn't feel the same, it's all over.

_____________________

The Uber drops you off at Shawn's place in downtown Toronto and you get him up to his apartment with a little more effort than you thought you'd need. He is drunker than you initially thought and he's got jelly legs apparently.

"Just stay there okay?" You murmur as you prop the giant man against the back wall of the elevator. "You're killing me."

"I'm sorry." Shawn says quietly. "I have octopus legs."

You stifle a laugh. "Oh yeah? I didn't notice."

"Yeah...they're sleeping."

"Uh huh." You bite your lip to repress a smile. He's ridiculous.

The doors open Shawn's floor and you get him out. He hands over his keys and you get him inside the apartment. It's a mess. There is shit everywhere and you have to maneuver him delicately around guitar cases, a spotlight stand, two amps and a box of old records just to get to the couch.

"When did you become a pig?" You grunt as you deposit him on his huge white sofa. "This place is ridiculous."

"I've been working."

"Really?" You look over the sea of instruments and their equipment. "Because I have no idea how you can focus in here."

"I can't." He lays his head back and you sit on the edge of the coffee table that's littered with tea mugs and water bottles. "My head is goop."

"Goop?" You lift his feet up onto your lap and pull off his shoes. "Why do you have goop brain?"

Shawn rolls his head, an attempt at shaking it back and forth it would seem.

"You don't know why?"

"No...well yes."

"Uh huh?"

He slumps over onto the arm rest and stares at you. "It's a girl."

Your heart sinks. Of course it's a girl. "Yeah? Tell me about her." You say reluctantly as you place his shoes under the coffee table. You know if you don't act interested he will find it fishy. "Why does she make you have goop brain?"

Shawn closes his eyes and smiles. "I can't explain it. She just makes me feel like I'm invincible, but I can't focus when she's around lately."

"Uh huh."

"I've been seeing her for a while now. Well, sort of. It's complicated."

You get up and go to the kitchen a few feet away to grab some water for him. Funny. He has never mentioned a girl before now. As far as you knew Tessa was his last interest.

"Wanna know the worst part?" Shawn calls out and you look over. "She doesn't even know what she does to me."

"What?" You toss a water in his lap before sitting down across from him in the bend of the couch. "She doesn't know she makes you goopy?"

He shakes his head. "I think it's been so long she thinks it's normal."

"How long have you been seeing her?"

"Years."

Your eyes go wide. "Years? Who the fuck are you seeing Shawn? Why haven't you said anything before now? Are you losing your mind?"

Shawn laughs, for real belly laughs as if you just told the best joke he's heard in his life. Frankly you're annoyed. How dare he laugh in your face while speaking in riddles and secrets. "You're so dense!"

"Excuse me?!"

"It's you! You're the girl!"

"I'm the...oh." Your stomach goes cold and sick with nerves and you are simultaneously relieved and panicked. "Wait...so I make you have goop brain? Why?"

"Because I'm in love with you." Shawn swallows hard and stares at the ceiling, head back on the cushions. "I broke our promise and I fell for you. It's so cliche and cheesy, falling in love with your best friend, but I did and it's killing me."

"Shawn."

"And I'm so sorry if this changes everything but I can't hold it back any more and-"

"Shawn!"

"What?"

You bump his foot with yours. "Look at me."

Shawn reluctantly lifts his head and looks at you. He's such a mess. "I fucked up didn't I?"

"No, we both did."

"But you didn't...oh...oh!" A grin spreads across his face and he gets up, half standing as he slides over to be next to you. "You fell too?"

"Real hard." You play with his hand and he flexes his fingers over yours. "I can't remember when, but I did and I've been fighting it for years."

Shawn leans in and bumps his nose against your jaw. "We shouldn't have made that silly pact. I'm pretty sure we were always meant to be together."

"Absolutely."

"Can I kiss you now? I've always wondered what it would be like."

You cup his jaw and his eyes find yours. "One kiss, and then you have to go to sleep. You're very drunk and you stink like cinnamon whiskey."

"Just one," he mutters, lips brushing yours.

"Just one." You tilt up just a bit and his lips press flush to yours. It's innocent and simple but so overdue.

Shawn smiles against your lips and surges forward, pushing you back but never breaking the kiss. He squishes you into the couch as he lays on top of you and strokes your hair back as he kisses endlessly.

"I said only one." You mutter and he pulls back just a little bit. "What's all this?"

"It is one." He strokes his finger down your nose and traces your lips. "You didn't say how long."

You run a hand through his hair and he drops his head to your shoulder. "You're a punk."

"Nuh uh."

You roll your eyes and relax, hand still in his hair. Minutes tick by and you're sure he's asleep by the slow rise and fall of his chest. It feels so right. "Hey."

"Mmm?"

"I'm glad we didn't wait any longer." You say softly, flexing your fingers against his scalp. "I love you."

He is quiet for a moment, face buried in your shoulder. "I love you too, more than anything." He lets out a heavy breath. "Yeah, more than anything."

End

_____________________

Please send feedback in asks, replies or reblogs. Thank you so much for reading! -A

*****Note: none of my works should be posted anywhere outside of my linked accounts. I do not give permission to repost with or without credit to my accounts. Please notify me of any reposted fics.*****

[dreamsister81]

 Jeff and MI:

By age, you fit in the G.I.T generation, but you obviously are not one of them...

These facilities are a mystery to me. There they tell you only one thing: hurry up! This leads you nowhere, afterwards your own children run away from you. Through these trainings you get to know women, you get to know men, music is inoculated into people who have no feeling for it; then they can only scare other people or insult them...

I was in this terrible place too, by the way-G.I.T That was a complete waste of time, apart from the theoretical lessons and the friends that I had there. Otherwise: an absolute wrong decision.

How long have you studied there?

One year, the normal program. They give you tons of material, you have to absorb everything, you practice, you are tested and you go to the next course. An intensive support with development is simply not possible. I did so many things: theory, single string technique, jazz class, rock class, all sorts of genres. My friend John was teaching bass there, and he once said that there is not a single teacher at the institute who says to the students, "OK, you're learning all this stuff here now, you're learning how to entertain people and you're learning to learn. But do you even know that there is no one in the universe other than yourself who plays the music you play? " John left the school then. For me it was all a joke that cost me $ 3,900. People interested in music should take private lessons somewhere, start a band, do something with people who like them and have what it takes. These schools are a scene in their own right, a very small, secluded world-the music, on the other hand, is gigantic and open. If you don't notice it, you miss a lot of magic, pain, development...(thinks) and rock! Apart from Paul Gilbert, there was no one there who really rocked. Session musicians are bred there; and at the end of the year you get a piece of paper that says, "Now you have the skills to become a professional musician." Well, congratulations! And then you look for jobs and play what other people want. But that's not all the music, there's something else isn't there? Where's the music coming from? From your own head or stomach, or the concepts of the people you work for?-Gitarre & Bass, October,  1995

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I had a friend named John Humphrey. I went to this really crappy guitar school for a year, and he used to teach there, he was a bass teacher. And then he left, and we ended up being roommates later on, after I graduated. This is the kind of school where you give them a shitload of money in order to spend a year learning their curriculum.

What was it, G.I.T. (Guitar Institute of Technology in Los Angeles)?

Yeah, it was G.I.T.. They give you their curriculum, and it's not too comprehensive, but it's just enough, and then you can [snaps his fingers] move on to the next thing. And pretty soon you have all this shit inside you and then they give you this paper that says you have what it takes to be a professional musician.

It's a rock-oriented thing, isn't it?

In the end, I think, the only true product of that kind of learning is to get you gigs on the studio circuit and to get you gigs on the session guy circuit.

So, Lee Ritenour went there or something?

G.I.T. was started by Howard Roberts, the guy who played the wah-wah guitar on the theme to Shaft. And this other guy named Pat Hayes. I don't know. It just seemed like a racket, really. John said a lot of things to me that stuck in my mind. He said that there was nobody who stopped you, sat you in a room and said, okay, we have all these artists that you're learning the licks from, you have your guitar heroes, your virtuoso lust objects. But there's nobody who can make the kind of music you can make now except for you. And you can make it now. You don't even have to know how to go fast. And that makes all the sense to me in the world. It's also kind of an unseen process, that concept, originality. It's like that in all the education systems; there's never any real...identity education, self-generative identity art sort of thing, to be yourself. If everybody in Melbourne had a Wurlitzer organ and had the passion to sing something or make something, you'd have hundreds of thousands of different styles, if they were coming exactly from only their DNA, only their makeup, and their emotional percepts, their idea about what art is. You could have way-removed genres from what is already accepted, avante-garde country-rock-punk-folk-whatever. It's unlimited. But for some reason, the conventions always take over and there's a very ready and powerful formula to step into...

Those are the type of [formula-derived] players who can say, "Well, I was listening to the radio in 1967 and I heard the guitar solo in Jimi Hendrix's 'All Along the Watchtower,' and that guitar sound, that tone, would work perfectly for this television commercial."

Yeah. See? "Stealing from the greats, that's okay." That's right. Once I stopped in [at G.I.T.] years later, when I was on tour going through L.A., just to see what it was like. They've got a completely high-tech, multi-million dollar facility...

More so than when you had been there?

Way more. When I was there, it was just a ragtag bunch of teachers, and they had all left by then. They had video facilities and a class for stage moves and all kinds of things. And I saw this guy who was working the desk, the guy who watches the door. He had a bass on, and he was practicing his Nirvana chops! He was playing "In Bloom" on his bass, way up on his chest, jazz-fusion style, to the Nirvana song. I thought, oh shit--he was practicing his grunge riffs! He was getting his grunge down! Best fucking thing you can do, if you have the interest, is go to a private teacher, go someplace, some college, and learn theory. That was something I really enjoyed, actually, something that wasn't totally pointless. Theory meaning the meaning of the musical nomenclature. I was attracted to really interesting harmonies, stuff that I would hear in Ravel, Ellington, Bartok.-Double Take, February 29, 1996

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Once the site of a seakeasy and a bra factory, the 30,000-square-foot quarters were now the home of Musicians Institute, a vocational school for anyone who considered himself or herself a serious musician. With its wooden desks and chipped-tile hallways, MI resembled any other urban school, but at those desks, student guitarists and drummers studied scales and power chords in hopes of becoming the next Eddie Van Halen or Neil Peart, the flashy drummer with Rush. On their way to class each morning, flaxen-haired guitar gods in training could be spotted holding their guitars and practicing licks as they walked down Hollywood Boulevard.

Jeff had heard about Musicians Institute (and its subdivision, the Guitar Institute of Technology) while in high school and told everyone it was his one and only destination. However, potential superstardom did not run cheap. The school charged $4,000 for its one year course, and by the time Jeff Graduated from Loara High School, Mary Guibert was beginning to fall on hard financial times as she went in and out of jobs. In need of money for herself and her two sons, she prematurely broke into a $20,000 fund earmarked for Jeff, but only after he tured nineteen. Once Mary proved to the courtsthat Jeff needed it for his education, he and Mary received it a year early. In a deep irony, the father Jeff had barely met and increasingly resented would be paying his son's way through music school.

On graduation night, September 15, 1985, at the Odyssey in Granada Hills in the San Fernando Valley, Jeff, Stoll, and Marryatt closed the ceremony by playing Weather Report's "Pearl On the Half Shell."-from Dream Brother

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With its 30-odd thousand feet of floor space and row upon row of "labs", where hopeful guitar heroes could jam with such shit-hot players as Scott Henderson, LA's Musician's Institute must have seemed like nirvana for someone like Jeff Buckley, trapped as he was behind the Orange Curtain. According to his buddy Chris Dowd, that's exactly why Buckley enrolled there, arriving just before autumn, 1984, bankrolled by $4,000 that Mary managed to squeeze from a Tim Buckley trust fund.

Originally known as the Guitar Institute, which in itself says plenty, the school was opened in 1977. Drawing on the educational philosophy of journeyman guitarist Howard Roberts, it was co-founded and managed by Los Angeles music businessman Pat Hicks, "a real shyster opportunist", in the words of Tom Chang, an expat Canadian who would become very tight with Jeff Buckley during their two years at the Institute. In 1978, thr Bass Institute was opened, followed by the Percussion Institute two years later. Desppite Hicks' questionable business ethics-amongst other things, he'd hire students as cheap labour to do essential maintenance work on the building, which led to Buckley being hired as an electrician's assistant soon after graduating-he did manage to persuade well regarded players and bands to lecture, and play alongside, the hopefuls who'd enrolled there.

What Buckley lacked up in "front" he clearly made up for in ambition. That was proved, in spades, by Buckley's graduation performance which was played out on September 15, 1985, at a venue called the Odyssey in Granada Hills. While the sonic crush and enviable chops of Rush and Led Zeppelin still rocked the world of this Orange County teen, Buckley had also developed a real taste for such "noodlers" as Weather Report.

The number chosen by Buckley for graduation was their "D Flat Waltz" (not "Pearl On The Half-Shell", as documented elsewhere, which they'd performed at a previous event), a typically complicated few minutes of Weather Report neo-fusion-a "really cool piece, very involved", according to Tom Chang-and a standout from their 1983 set Domino Theory. But Buckley, accompanied by Stoll on drums and Marryatt on bass, didn't just play the piece, he also wrote the individual parts out beforehand for the band.-from A Pure Drop

MI pics by me

[eleanorbloom]

When You’re Ready Ch. 16

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x f! MC (Eleanor Bloom) x Ethan Ramsey.

Word Count: 4.9k

Warnings: Angst and cussing.

A/N: Hello! It’s time for some delicious angst from chapter 11 from OH. I hope you enjoy it! 😘

Taglist @utterlyinevitable @binny1985 @shanzay44 @choicesficwriterscreations @laiba-the-person @starrystarrytrouble @lahellacute @lucy-268  @cinnamonspongecake @romewritingshop @bratzlahela @mrs-raleighcarrera​   @mercury84choices  @curiousconch

_______

Chapter 16: Into The Dark.

If I could choose, I'd have you stay

But I gave my heart to you, so is yours to break

Before my fears tear us apart

Won't you follow me into the dark?

A grunge song from the 90s was playing in the background, but Bryce was barely paying attention. Even if back in his teenage days he was all in the grunge and rebel aesthetic, now was too troubled to hum Nirvana.

The image of Eleanor leaving the softball game with Ramsey was stuck in his head just as all the painful memories do. You want to forget them, but they're already past your hippocampus,  all settled in your guts, determined to make you hurt and distort everything about them. You forget what is real and what is not. There's only pain, and you can't help but soak in it.

Bryce knew he had no right to be this mad because he had pushed Eleanor to do it, but he couldn't help it. There wasn't a good way to react to the fact that Eleanor would have dinner with Ethan at his apartment to talk.

Eleanor hadn't given him any reason to doubt, though. She hadn't changed a thing towards him since Ethan and she made peace. She wasn't distant or suspiciously nervous or guilty. If so, she looked a lot less affected by Ethan, and when she talked about him was very casual. Almost nonchalant. But he wasn't sure if that was an act, or not.

He wasn't sure about anything. If she was smiling when she got in the car; if she was looking guilty when she approached him. He even started to doubt about past days. That's the problem with memories mixed with pain. Everything was distorted.

"B? Are you okay?"—Sienna asked him, waking him up from his trance.

"Yeah, sure, just a bit tired, that's all."—He replied almost mechanically, giving her a quick glance.

Sienna looked at him with a sad smile before standing up and sitting next to him so they could have more privacy, while Elijah and Jackie were in deep conversation with Sothy and Gary.

"It's Eleanor, right? I saw she left with Dr. Ramsey."

"N…"

"Please, don't lie to me."

Bryce sighed looking directly into his half-drunk jar of beer.

"Yes, Si."—He admitted—"I know I shouldn't be worried, Eleanor has been honest with me the whole time, but…"

He closed his eyes, ashamed. He hated to be this way. He wasn't like that in the first place, but overthinking was his best way to be prepared for the worst. To not be surprised by the punch the moment it's thrown.

"…there's always the possibility that Ramsey will say exactly what she wants to hear and that could change everything for her. For us."

Sienna hummed thoughtfully for a few seconds.

"Yes, but also might be the words she needs to open her eyes and realize he's not for him. Nothing is 100% sure."

"I know, but I don't wanna be optimistic in this case. If this goes wrong…"—He shook his head trying to discard the fatalist thought off his head.—"Has she… tell you anything about him? I don't wanna interfere in Eleanor's privacy, believe me, but… maybe you know something that I don't?"

"If I know if Eleanor has been in something suspicious with Dr. Ramsey?"

"God, when you put it that way, I hate myself for asking."

"I wouldn't break Eleanor trust, I swear, but she's been sincere with you, Bryce, maybe even more sincere with you than she's with me."—Bryce nodded, kind of relieved—"She owes you honesty, and I believe she's been acting accordingly to that. I haven't seen or heard anything unusual. She's interested in you as usual."

"And what about Ramsey? As uninterested and distant as usual?"

Sienna took a few times before responding.

"I've seen her professional and friendly, just like she was towards him at the beginning of your intern year, before… you know, before Miami and all that jazz."

Before he opened his mouth and confused her. Before he kissed her and made her believe they would have a future together. Yeah. That could've been very tranquilizing to Bryce but he knew Ethan's words still held some power over Eleanor, that even if they were all professional now, a word from him could change everything.

Sienna observed how conflicted he was and she took his hand in hers.

"B, I'm sure nothing will happen."

Bryce felt embarrassed. He wasn't used to this, to open up to people. He had barely managed to open up to Eleanor, with a lot of effort, and now there he was, opening his heart almost easily to Sienna, but for some reason, it felt good. For once in his life, he didn't feel alone in this path. He now knew he wasn't the only one who wanted to be the one for Eleanor in the end, and that gave him a bit of reassurance after feeling hopeless the past hours.

"I really want to believe that, Si."

"Don't mortify yourself, okay? You'll know more in the morning."

"I hope so. Thank you for listening."

"Anytime, my friend."

She gave him a reassuringly pat on the shoulder and tried to change the subject to cheer him up.

*

It was almost midday when Bryce got out of the OR and bumped into Elijah after wandering for some hallways.

"Hey mate, have you seen Elle?"—He asked. —"I have my cellphone in my locker and I can't find her."

"No, I haven't seen her. Since yesterday, actually."

His eyes opened wide and the panic froze him for a second.

"You… You didn't see her this morning?"

"No, she wasn't at home last night either, and maybe she just stayed the night here?"—Elijah shrugged.

Sienna had told Elijah that Eleanor couldn't join them after the game because she'd been paged, so he just assumed that if she wasn't at home, Eleanor was still at the hospital. But Bryce knew better.

"Do you want to call her with my phone?"—Elijah took out his phone from his coat and offered it to him.

"No, I… I, crap! I actually have to prep for another surgery."—He said, watching the hour on Elijah's phone screen.—"I'll reach out later. Thanks anyway!"

Bryce waved and then got lost behind the emergency stairs' door.

If somehow he had managed to have hopes this morning, every single one of them was screwed by now.

Eleanor had spent the night with Ramsey.

And if she did so, it only meant one thing. Love. That was the only reason Eleanor would go all the way with him. She had been very reluctant to all that "let Ethan make a move on you" thing, and he didn't want to believe that she would be so hypocrite to just go all the way with him out of curiosity. Not when she had been avoiding him for four months.

There was only one explanation, and as he started to feel how painful that realization was, soon he decided that he didn't want to deal with it now. There was nothing he could do, so he just had to focus on work and seclude himself from anything that would involve Eleanor and bumping into her: cafeteria, doctor's lounge, even the Nurses' Stations if he could. That was his only way to survive the day.

Late in the afternoon, Bryce went to his locker, worried that Keiki would've tried to reach him during the day. He checked, as he supposed, that Eleanor had sent him several texts asking to meet her. The last of them were more insistent. She was affected by Kyra's diagnosis and she wanted to talk.

He was affected too but he couldn't bear to be close to her at that moment, so he ignored her texts and just focused on finding a way to help Kyra.

He knew there was something else that could be done to help her, so after analyzing and overanalyzing her latest tests' results, he talked with Dr. Tanaka about the possibility to make an Extrapleural Pneumonectomy on Kyra and replace the lining of chest and heart with fore-tex, a procedure he had done a couple of times before with him, and he wanted to do it on his own.

Tanaka, impressed with his disposition, questioned him, however, about the difficulty of this procedure, considering that even if he had assisted two times, it required a lot more time to be ready to perform the surgery by himself and that it was better if he only assisted. Bryce, always ready for a challenge, and even more willing if it meant helping a friend, gave him enough reasons to let him fly solo this time. After making an exhaustive interrogatory, and confirm he indeed knew the procedure well, Tanaka accepted his proposition and went to talk to Dr. Banerji, to ask for his consent.

A couple hours later, Tanaka paged him to tell him he could do the surgery, and due to the delicate state of Kyra, it had to be soon, so Bryce ran to Kyra's office to deliver the news and almost forcing her to agree with his idea.

The offer was tempting. It was a really good option, and Bryce managed to give her all the information and all the possibilities, probabilities, and outcomes that could be expected after the surgery. It was risky, Kyra might die during the procedure, but it was a risk worth taking because if everything went well, she had a high chance to be cancer-free in the future, a scenario that had never been offered before.

That information, and the fact that Bryce was so excited about performing the surgery by himself, made Kyra impossible to say no to him.

By the end of the day she was admitted, and while Kyra and he were in the middle of their usual banter and teasing, Eleanor appeared to check on her, amazed that she had agreed to be readmitted.

The moment he saw her, his stomach flipped. He had been so focused on helping Kyra that Bryce had completely forgotten about Eleanor, and somehow he was glad it was that way because just being close to her made him feel… Scared. Hopeless. Like he wasn't himself.

After informing Eleanor about the procedure, and a few minutes of chatting, Bryce and she decided to leave Kyra to rest.

The moment they were alone, Eleanor threw the first bomb. They needed to talk. And that totally froze him. She looked scared and maybe guilty, and for once in his life, Bryce felt cowardice. He had always been ready for whatever life throws at him, even the worst. But he wasn't prepared to have a conversation with Eleanor, so he just pretended to be really tired and said they could talk another day. It wasn't a lie, he was tired, but in different circumstances, tiredness was never a reason to not spend time with Eleanor. He was just delaying the inevitable.

So he went home and found Keiki watching the TV, waiting for him to have dinner.

"Hey, glad you came, I'm starving."—She said, standing from the couch.

"I'm sorry. You know there's no need for you to wait for me, right?"

"I know, but I already have breakfast and lunch alone, so, I would like to have company at least at dinner."

Bryce sighed and guilt and sadness twisted in his guts.

"I'm sorry, you're right."

Keiki turned to him, his somber expression too evident to ignore.

"Are you okay?"

He hesitated for a moment. He hated lying, but in this case, part of the reason he was sad didn't involve telling a lie to his sister.

"Actually no. Kyra, my friend, was readmitted."

"What happened?"

"Her cancer is worsening"

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Is it… too critical?"

"Yeah, her chances of surviving are low, but I found a way to level up her chances and maybe beat it up."

"Really?"

Bryce told her about the procedure and that he would do it as lead surgeon.

"Woow."—Keiki just said after hearing her brother and imagining him bossing around the OR like in the movies.

"'Wow, bro, you're the coolest', I think those were the words you're missing"

Keiki punched him in the shoulder before sauntering to the kitchen to turn on the oven.

"Okay, maybe you're kinda cool."

Bryce walked toward the kitchen counter and leaned over.

"Have you thought what I told you the other day?"—Bryce asked, watching as Keiki was taking two plates from a cupboard.

"About calling mom and dad?"

"Yes. You're missing school, Keiki. You're alone all day, you need to do something with your life."

"I know. But I'm scared of what they could do."

"Knowing them and considering all the time has passed and they've done anything… maybe they won't do anything and they'll just agree to make things easier."

Keiki stared at him, unsure. And he couldn't blame her. He didn't want to risk her stay with him, but the fact that Keiki was missing school and she wasn't able to do anything more than being at home or explore the city alone, was worrying him too much. Bryce was giving her all the spare time he had, but it wasn't enough, and of course, she needed to continue her education, and the only way to get it, was calling their parents.

"Two more days, Keiki. After Kyra's surgery, I'll call our parents, and it's better if you are agreeing with this, alright?"

"Yes. Okay, I'll think about it."

The next day he didn't have to do so much effort to evade Eleanor. He was busy all day going in and out of surgeries, and Eleanor was really busy with Senator Farrugia, the star case of the Diagnostic Team. By the end of the afternoon, he bumped into her, and, while managing to hide his surprise, he did his best to not look nervous or hurt.

But he was nervous.

Nervous to be around her and seeing the guilt in her eyes, the eyes of the person who might break his heart. But he knew he could do so much better. He had years mastering the art of hiding his feelings, and even if it was a lot more difficult with Eleanor, it wasn't impossible, so he just teased her when she announced she was going to an interview with Ethan –the damn Ethan— to give the appearance that he was a lot less affected than yesterday.

But she knew him too well, and at that moment, he hated it.

"Bryce… We need to talk. I know you're crossed with me."

She said and he nodded deadpan, unable to deny it. But he brushed it off again. Cowardice again. He couldn't. And honestly, the best he could do at that moment was to avoid it. Not have a difficult conversation before such an important day as Kyra's surgery. He needed to focus. And she agreed, of course she agreed. She gave him her characteristic understanding smile he loved so fucking much. That smile that always made him wrapping her by the waist and kissing her like the world was about to end. So he tried to leave before the temptation was too big.

But she stopped him as if she knew she could test his reins.

How could she know him so damn well?

"Could you give me a kiss at least?"—She muttered with those puppy eyes she rarely used.

He was the one who would use puppy eyes when he did something wrong or was too annoying with her. But Eleanor, looking at him pleading… For a kiss? No. That wasn't normal. And although that guilty and apologetic look on her face made him fear the worst, he surrendered. He needed that too, but he did his best to hide how much he wanted to kiss her and hug her and not letting her go ever.

Instead, he gave her a chaste kiss on the lips. And even if he saw the hurt in her eyes for being too cold with her, that kiss hurt him the most. It was against all what he was. He wasn't like that, he didn't use to ignore people. He hated to ignore Eleanor, and not kissing her, and not talking to her. But it had to be done. He had to protect himself.

The last time he saw her was the next morning, while he was wheeling Kyra to her surgery. Her expression had changed drastically. There was no guilt in her eyes, no pleading and she wasn't pushing his boundaries either.

"I know she will be golden with you in there, but please, take care of her for me."

"Of course, I will, Elle."—He replied softly, addressing how worried Eleanor was about Kyra. He was too.

Eleanor looked at him like she wanted to say something else, but instead, he just stared with her eyes swelling with warmth, candor, and something he wasn't sure what it was, but it made his heart skip a beat.

A few moments later, she muttered tenderly:

"I'm so proud of you, Bryce, you have no idea."

Then she kissed him on the cheek and turned to Kyra, witnessing the exchange from below, with a smirk on her face.

"I second. I'm proud of you too, hotshot."

Eleanor hugged Kyra one last time and then took a step back so Bryce could continue wheeling her to the OR.

The procedure went by without complications.

It had passed more than three hours when he heard loud whispers and surprised expressions, and people walking in and out of the observation deck, which startled him a bit. It wasn't a normal situation that people would act that way in the deck.

"What's going on?"—Bryce asked, looking up at a resident entering the OR.

"Sorry, Dr. Lahela. Chief Banerji sent me to round up whoever I could. The feds are here… Something's going on upstairs."

He looked up at Ines Delarosa, who was observing the procedure since the beginning. Her expression had changed. She was scared and her eyes somehow looked at him with worry.

"Dr. Delarosa, what's happening up there?"

She reluctantly hit the button and answered:

"There's been an assassination attempt on Senator Ed Farrugia and apparently some staff were caught in the crossfire."

Ed Farrugia. All his bones froze up at the mention of his name.

"Ines, that was Eleanor's patient. Was she in there?"

Ines hesitated before answering. Those two seconds felt like an eternity to him.

"Yes".

For the first time in his career, his scalpel hand shook. All his body trembled, his chest started beating fast, his mind went numb and a lump grew in his throat, making him stand motionless for a few seconds.

"Is she okay?"—He asked in a tiny voice, and then he cleared his throat, trying to regain composure.—"Is Eleanor okay, Ines?"

"So far, yes. The assassin used a kind of spray, the whole floor's been evacuated, and she's been put under quarantine, along with Bobby Gunderson, Danny Cardinal, and former paramedic, Rafael Aveiro. The CDC is here, and the FBI are on their way."

At least she wasn't wounded, but the use of a chemical weapon wasn't any consolation either. It was unpredictable and quickly lethal if it's not treated on due time.

Eleanor was at risk and the only thing he could think was running to her side. But after a few seconds, he remembered where he was. Kyra needed him. He was the reason she had agreed to that surgery. He couldn't fail her. And he had promised Eleanor that he would take care of her.

Despite the horrible feeling, and that his legs were burning for running to Eleanor's side, Kyra was first. Her life was depending on him, so he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and somehow managed to control his mind and fear for two hours until Dr. Tanaka finally entered the room to continue the surgery.

The moment Bryce left the OR he started running upstairs to the fourth floor. Once inside the empty floor, staffed with a few nurses and some feds, he found Ethan talking through the Diagnostics Room door. When Ethan felt his footsteps, he turned and approached him with a solemn expression.

"Ethan. How is Eleanor?"

"She's stable. Giving her symptoms, she was the least affected by the canister. Rafael is with her but in worse shape. They have put Danny in a separated room with life support, and a few minutes ago they took Bobby Gunderson's body."

"What?"—His heart did a flip for the umpteenth time that day.—"His b... body, you say… Bobby died?"

"Yes, he received the major amount of the content as he was close to Travis, Senator’s assistant, and who planned all this. Bobby died almost instantly."

This was worse than he expected. Eleanor might die. She could've died if it wasn't because she happened to be in the right place. Otherwise she…

She would be dead by now.

Ethan saw his troubled eyes and for a second, it seemed like they both shared the same painful and desperate concern, but after a moment, he came back to his stoic poise, like he reminded he was Eleanor's doctor and he had to behave like that in front of Bryce too.

"And what the hell was in that fucking canister?"

"It's unknown, not even Travis was able to tell us. I'll have to get information from the FBI someway because so far they haven't shared a bit. If they don't share anything, we'll have to investigate on our own."

"Are you serious? Ethan, they must help to find out what's in there, people might die because of their fucking national security and crap. She… She could…"

He couldn't bring himself to say those words.

"I know. I'm furious too, but you need to calm down, Bryce. Right now, the best we can do is give Eleanor peace and stability."

Bryce took a deep breath and nodded.

"Go to see her, I'm sure she will be happy to see you, but please… Pull yourself together. Even if she doesn't want to show it, she's scared, and we need her in her best mood to inform us if her symptoms or Rafael's are changing. She's our best hope to solve this case."

Bryce followed down the hall until he reached the quarantine room. Eleanor was talking to Rafael, who smiled at him weakly when he spotted him on the other side of the door.

"Elle"

Eleanor turned around and her eyes sparkled with hope for a moment.

"Bryce? Wh… What are you doing here?"

"You cannot expect I won't race to your side if I know you're in danger, babe. I had to come to see you."

"I know, but… Kyra?"

"Dr. Tanaka is taking care of her now. I did everything I could until he showed up. I… I don't know if I could've kept up much longer."

Bryce frowned to show his worry, but he gave everything he had to hide how terrified he was actually.

"I'm happy you're here. Thank you."

Bryce gave her a reassuring smile. She was trying really hard to stay calm, but her whole body was shaking, and Bryce could read the fear in her eyes. The desperation, the hopelessness.She was losing it.

"... and no one knows what was in the fucking canister, not even Travis knows! We all could die without knowing."—She said while telling Bryce how everything happened. She shook her head.—"Fucking asshole, how did I not realize sooner?"—Her voice was caught up in her throat.

"This is not your fault, babe. He had been planning to kill him for years. The only responsible it’s him.”

“I know, but I could’ve been more subtle. I brough Bobby here and now he’s.. And Danny, and Raf and me.... Could..."

Her lips quievered, and large tears streamed down her face. She wanted to have hopes but it was difficult to. She couldn't get the image of Bobby dying off her head. She knew she could die. They were racing against time.

"Hey, babe, look at me."—He said softly—"Look at me."

Eleanor obeyed, looked directly into his eyes. Bryce laid a hand against the glass, and she slowly lifted her own to meet it. Even if they couldn't touch, the gesture seemed to have the same soothing effect on her as if they were really touching.}

Just the fact that he was there was enough for her.

"Everything's going to be fine, alright? Everyone here is doing their best to help you, and I'll help however I can too. Stay strong, beautiful. You'll get through this, I know."

"Thank you. Thank you for being here despite… you know, everything that has happened."

There was a hint of guilt in her eyes, but the guilt he was feeling was even bigger, but couldn't let it show.

"Doesn't matter know. What matters is that you're okay."

Bryce gave her a reassuring smile, but she was barely paying attention now, it was like she got lost in his eyes.

"You're doing amazing, princess."—He insisted—"Keep holding on, okay?"

Eleanor didn’t say or do anything, just stared at him, with an amazed smile for a few seconds until she broke the spell of silence.

"I love you."—She whispered lovingly, adoringly, her eyes conveying love, admiration, thankfulness. But again, there was something different about the way she was looking at him that he couldn't name. He was too blind to realize what it was.

"I love you too babe. So much."

"No, what I mean-"

But she was interrupted by Ethan, who appeared beside Bryce and looked at them ruefully.

"I'm sorry for interfering, but with June and Baz are getting inside to get some samples. Danny's too weak to risk even drawing blood right now, so we'll have to get them from you and Rafael."

Eleanor nodded.

"I'll be near if you need anything, okay?"—Bryce gave her one last look, before winking at her and turning towards the hallway.

*

About an hour has passed since Bryce saw Eleanor. He was lost in sight, observing Danny from outside, when Aurora stood beside him.

"Hey”

“Hey Aurie”

“I wanted to know are you holding up."

He breathed heavily, considering his words.

“I’m terrified as fuck, but managing to not lose my shit for Eleanor’s sake.”

Aurora gave him an inquiring glance before insisting.

“Okay, now how are you holding up for real?”

Bryce shook his head and then laughed bitterly. There he was again, opening his mouth even if a part of his head was telling him to shut up. But another part of him, one really powerful, was begging for someone who could save him from the hell he had inside his head. 

“Like crap. Guilty. Ashamed. Stupid.”—He replied sharply.

“Why?”

Aurora turned to him, but he couldn’t look at her back.

“I’ve been ignoring Eleanor for the last three days and now I can’t stop thinking of how much time I wasted. How bad she must have felt… That she’s alone there… and I…"

"Bryce, don't go there." 

“What else can I do, Aurora? What else besides feeling guilty?—He shoved his hair with both hands in frustration, still unable to look at her.—“I… I should've listened to her, even if what she wanted to say would hurt me, but at least she wouldn't have felt bad because I ignored her."

Aurora knew what was happening, Eleanor had told her the day before, and somehow, she wanted to do something to open his eyes and made him realize that nothing his mind was thinking, was real. She also knew it wasn’t her place to do it, but he was blind and the circumstances were... painfully unusual. 

“Bryce, you got it all wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“About what happened that day.”

“What do you know?”

“Everything. Eleanor told me.”

“Even about… Ramsey?”

“Yes. About him, about you.”

“And what happened between him and Eleanor that night?”

“Bryce, I can’t tell you that. That’s something you have to talk with her. But you have to know that whatever you’re thinking about that day, it didn’t happen.”

Bryce considered what he was gonna say for a second. What he had been thinking was disgusting, and he wasn’t sure how Aurora would react, but that was the only way to find out what he had been fearing to know for three days now.  

"I thought that she gave him a chance. That she… That she slept with him” He confessed, with evident shame.

Aurora gave him a humorless smile, shooking her head.

“She didn’t.”

“But Elijah told me he wasn’t at home that night, so I thought...”

“That was a misunderstanding, she slept here, at the hospital. But she… She didn’t sleep with Ramsey, Bryce. In fact, that won’t happen. Ever."

If Bryce had been feeling guilty for ignoring her despite the fact that she would break his heart, he had no idea what was the sentiment he was feeling now. There was a chance that he could lose her, and all he he had been doing was ignoring her for something that didn’t happen only because he let the fear ate him alive.

___

[howaminotinthestrokesyet]

Behind The Album: Nevermind

The second studio album from Nirvana was released in September 1991 via DGC Records. This release would be their first on that label, as well as the first album to feature new drummer Dave Grohl. The album initially begin as a project for Sub Pop with producer Butch Vig attached to it at the suggestion of the label. They traveled to Madison, Wisconsin to record at Vig’s studio in early April 1990. At this time, the group recorded eight tracks including “Lithium,” “Breed,” “In Bloom,” and others, but Cobain was still working on more material for the record. On April 6, the band played a local show in Madison, but the singer strained his voice putting on hold temporarily the recording sessions as they had a short Midwestern tour that same week. After the tour, drummer Chad Channing announced his departure from the group putting everything on hold once again. Krist Novoselic and Cobain had seen the band Scream featuring drummer Dave Grohl and were impressed by his playing. By lucky coincidence, his group broke up around that same time. Grohl contacted Novoselic to see about an audition. He would join the band shortly thereafter as the bass player would say with Dave “everything fell into place.”

By this time, Sub Pop continued to have major financial difficulty, which worried the group. Cobain made the decision to forgo working with such an independent label, but instead signing with a major record company. After shopping around for a few months, they signed with Geffen Records imprint DGC after a recommendation by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. The label would suggest a number of producers for the second album, but Nirvana held out to continue to work with Butch Vig. The reason behind this came in the fact that they were comfortable with him. Another factor was that he did not ask for percentage points upon the release of any album. The group recorded the LP at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California in May and June 1991. In an interesting twist, they needed gas money to actually get to the studio to begin recording, so the band played a show for extra money where “Smells Like Teen Spirit” would be performed for the first time. The other new song that had not been worked on in the previous sessions was “Come As You Are.” The recording sessions lasted 8 to 10 hours a day as Grohl and Novoselic completed their parts in a matter of days. Cobain‘s work took a little bit longer as he added more guitar parts and put the finishing touches on the vocals. He would sometimes only finish writing lyrics just before he would sing them for the album. Butch Vig would say that he only could convince Cobain to double track his vocals when he told the singer that John Lennon used to do it. The producer expressed frustration with the Nirvana frontman. “He'd be great for an hour, and then he'd sit in a corner and say nothing for an hour." Nirvana was unhappy with the first few mixes of the album after they finished recording. They made the decision to bring in another producer to do the mixing. Eventually, they decided to bring in Andy Wallace, who had worked on Slayer’s 1990 album. Krist Novoselic she would say, “We said, 'right on,' because those Slayer records were so heavy." Nevermind would be mastered at the Mastering Lab in Hollywood. Howie Weinberg began working on the record despite the fact that nobody else from the band had arrived yet. By the time everyone had gotten there, he was essentially done. After the release of the record, the band expressed a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction with how it sounded. Everyone in the group felt that it was too commercial. Kurt Cobain said, “Looking back on the production of Nevermind, I'm embarrassed by it now. It's closer to a Mötley Crüe record than it is a punk rock record." Butch Vig would later say in an interview that it was the artist in Cobain that made him complain like that. One simply could not say in public thank you for helping to create an album that sold 10 million copies.

The major influences for Kurt Cobain during the writing of Nevermind were Pixies , the Smithereens, REM, and the Melvins. He intentionally wanted to emphasize melody in a much more emphatic way on this album. A key development came when they released the single “Sliver” before Grohl had even joined the group. The singer said it “was like a statement in a way. I had to write a pop song and release it on a single to prepare people for the next record. I wanted to write more songs like that." His goal from the onset was to write power chords that could be combined with punk rock guitar riffs. He would use the example of trying to combine the Knack or Bay City Rollers with Black Flag. One new feature of the music on the album emerges in the band's employment of extreme dynamics, meaning that there exist abrupt changes from quiet to loud verses. Guitar World would say this about Cobain‘s playing on this album. “Kurt Cobain's guitar sound on Nirvana's Nevermind set the tone for Nineties rock music." Dave Grohl would later say that the singer always stressed that the music came first, not the lyrics. He was still writing lyrics halfway through the recording of Nevermind, while Vig has said that some of the lyrics are inaudible anyway. "Even though you couldn't quite tell what he was singing about, you knew it was intense as hell." Later on, Cobain would complain about journalists trying to understand him through his lyrics. “Why in the hell do journalists insist on coming up with a second-rate Freudian evaluation of my lyrics, when 90 percent of the time they've transcribed them incorrectly?" Charles R. Cross, author of the Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, would claim in his book that half of the songs on Nevermind are about Kurt Cobain‘s ex-girlfriend Toby Vail. The first line of “Drain You” was something that she had actually said to him, “One baby to another said 'I'm lucky to have met you.” He modified the lyrics to “Lithium,” which had been written prior to meeting her in order to reference his relationship with her. The phrase “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was something that she came up with while living with Cobain. It was originally meant as a joke, but the singer took it as some sort of revolutionary phrase. Krist Novoselic would later comment that the track “Lounge Act” is undoubtedly about Vail.

The working title of the album had been Sheep, which Cobain thought represented a funny inside joke as to who would buy the album. The origin of that title comes from the public's reaction to Operation Desert Storm. The singer decided to change it to Nevermind because he also liked the fact it was grammatically incorrect and symbolized how he felt about life. Nevermind also referenced one of Cobain’s favorite albums by the Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks. He does mention the title once in the track “Smells Like Teen Spirit:” “oh well, whatever, never mind.”

The famous cover of the album was conceived by Cobain as well after watching a television show with Dave Grohl about water births. They first tried stock footage of water births, but the images were much too graphic for an album cover. They finally found at least one photo that may work, but the company wanted $7500 to use the photo. Finally, a photographer went to a pool to find a baby for the picture. The actual baby they found was someone named Spencer Elden, the son of a friend of the photographer. Eldonwood recreated that picture for subsequent anniversary photos for the album throughout the years.

The album debuted at 144 on the Billboard charts, but by January the record was number one in the country. The success of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” saw the demand for the album spiral in such a way that the record company could not keep up with the demand for a time. Geffen Records needed to stop printing any other albums released around the same time, so they could make more of Nevermind. At its height, Nevermind sold 300,000 copies a week. The LP would be certified platinum in November 1991, a mere 13 months after its release. The president of Geffen Records would say this to the New York Times. “We didn't do anything. It was just one of those 'Get out of the way and duck' records." The members of Nirvana seemed relatively unconcerned about the success of the album as Novoselic would say in an interview that achieving gold record status was cool, but not that important to him. By the time of their European tour in 1992, the sales of the album made any marketing ideas previously planned by the record label to be unusable.

Another interesting thing that came about through the phenomenal popularity of the album was the fact that not many places actually reviewed the album at first. Most of the reviews remained positive, but they seemed to stress the potential of the band. Entertainment Weekly’s David Browne would give the album an A minus, while the New York Times would say, “With 'Nevermind,' Nirvana has certainly succeeded. There are enough intriguing textures, mood shifts, instrumental snippets and inventive word plays to provide for hours of entertainment." The best review probably came from Everett True of Melody Maker, who had this to say. “When Nirvana released Bleach all those years ago, the more sussed among us figured they had the potential to make an album that would blow every other contender away. My God have they proved us right.” Not everyone loved the album though as evidenced by the Boston Globe saying that the record was for the most part generic punk rock. The greatest achievement of Nevermind was the fact that the record brought Seattle grunge, which later became alternative music, into the mainstream. The bands, the fashion, the culture that existed in Seattle now had made its way to Madison Avenue. The album led to the success of other groups like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, and so many more. Please check out the article later in this book on the story of grunge for further discussion on the cultural legacy of Nevermind. Rolling Stone named the album number six in its 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, as well as number one on its list of the Greatest Albums of the 1990’s. In 2001, VH1 would poll over 500 rock writers and journalists for the greatest albums of all time, which led to their choice of Nevermind as the number one album. In 2005, the record was added to the national record registry put together by the Library of Congress. Even Pitchfork would name the album number six for the decade of the 1990’s. The site wrote, “Anyone who hates this record today is just trying to be cool, and needs to be trying harder."

[whirlybirbs]

⋆    —–   CARHOP COOL, 3.

summary: you and steve talk. apologies are exchanged. steve wishes he had friends like you and robin a year ago. you might like steve. robin can tell. pairing: steve harrington x reader, post season three word count: 1.6k a/n: we love some good dialogue work & h.s. regrets/nostalgia, don’t we?  

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If he was being honest, you were the last person he ever thought he’d find himself next to on a summer night, perched on the bumper of your hatchback at the drive-in’s. 

Even more so, you’re the last person he would ever see himself having a big, ol’ honking crush on. 

High school hierarchy had established that you were both very different people and for the sake of keeping the metaphorical crown of Hawkins High King on his head, he’d stuck with what he knew. And that was being a huge dick and having good hair, mostly, but also keeping the chit-chat with the weird kids to a minimum.

Now, Steve’s realizing that you aren’t a weird kid and if anything, he’s the weird one. You seem to humor it, though -- frosty demeanor quickly melting with every passing minute spent in the setting summer sun in the back of your car. 

(Robin’s taking a suspiciously long time getting a bucket of popcorn. She’s been gone for fifteen minutes at least.)

“Okay, sure,” Steve drawls, leaning back on his palms and swinging his legs, “But if you had to pick...”

You grimace, pulling one leg up to your chest and screwing your brows. Steve’s face quirks into an amused smile, leaning to watch the way your thought process plays out on your face. He could care less about your answer to the trivial question, mostly interested and enamored with the fact you’re actually talking to him, never mind laughing at his jokes.

“This is hard.”

“Yeah,” he chirps, hair bouncing as he shakes his head, “See?”

“I dunno,” you lean back against the side of the trunk, turning to eye him critically, “And you said I had to eat it everyday -- but, does that mean every meal?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve rattles off, raising a finger with each word, “Breakfast, lunch and dinner. All three meals.”

“What about snacks?” 

“-- They have to be smaller bits of the Hawkins High meal of choice.”

You groan and Steve grins to himself. 

“I guess chicken patties,” you huff, giving in to his line of questioning, “That was, like, the best lunch they served, so --”

“Oh, amazing choice.”

“You think?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve waves, dropping his hand to his jeans and speaking as if he knows what he’s talking out, “Dress it up, dress it down, put it on a salad --”

You snort. You nudge him with the toe of your skate shoe. “What about you?”

“Uh,” Steve shrugs, “I packed my lunches everyday, actually --”

You blink. “Really? Steve Harrington carried a lunchbox around?”

He raises his hands. “I know, cool kid faux pas --”

You laugh at that, dropping your chin to your knee and shrugging a bit. “Who cares. You cool kids weren’t even that cool anyways.”

Steve dramatically blinks at you, laughing a bit as he pretends to be offended. “Uh, says who?”

“Me, the girl who had spitballs in her hair for three periods because of you!”

It’s different this time -- you’re laughing as you say, leaning to flick his ear. Steve makes a surprised sound, dodging the attack and playfully shoving you back.

“Hey! That wasn’t me!”

“You and Tommy H. shared the same brain cell, Steve.”

“Rude.”

Your jaw drops as you laugh, startling another grin out of Steve as you shove his shoulder. He laughs as you do, raising his hands in surrender. 

“I’m kidding -- I know, I... Listen, I was -- I was the worst in high school. Robin’s made that pretty clear,” he says, turning. His converse poke yours, knees pulled to his chest as he leans on the back stereo to face you completely. The Rolling Stone’s song Beast of Burden is playing through the radio, “And I know I was. I’m... I’m sorry. For being the worst. And the spitball --”

You move to open your mouth.

“-- And the perm thing,” Steve raises a finger, eyes gentle, “And, like, every other instance where I was mean.”

Your mouth closes and your lips turn up into a content smirk.

“... Apology accepted.”

Steve blinks.

“... Really?”

You raise a brow. “Yeah...?”

“Wow,” he says, doe-eyes glued to the look on your face, “I thought... Okay. Cool. We’re... We’re cool?”

You exhale quickly, laughing a little before breaking into a wide smile. “Yeah. We’re cool. I’m... I’m not good at holding grunges anyway.”

A lie. Steve calls it.

“Yeah, okay, Frosty.”

Your jaw drops again, spurring Steve to grin and shrug, turning to face the blank screen. More cars have started to congregate now with the sun setting almost entirely. Still, Robin is nowhere to be seen.

You lean around, popping into his field of vision. You look amused.

You are.

“Hold on, ‘Frosty’?” you peel into a laugh, “What, like the snowman?”

“No, like, uh, like the Foreigner song?” he asks, corners of his lips quirking as his voice hikes into a high croon. He’s singing the song, “You’re as cold as ice --”

“Oh, come on --”

“I thought you were gonna punch me in the mouth,” he says, shoulder to shoulder with you, “Seriously -- the other night at Roll-o’s? It was, like, absolutely terrifying.”

“... Really?” you ask, whispering a little.

“Yeah, god -- if looks could kill,” he chirps, “I’d be in a shallow grave.”

“I... Sorry,” you say sheepishly, “I thought -- I thought you were still an asshole.”

Victory fleets across his face. “Does that mean I’m not anymore?”

You shoot him a look in retaliation. “I’m still deciding.”

“Okay,” he grins, “Okay. That works for me.”

You both slip into a comfortable, friendly silence that’s different -- there’s no malice in the way you nudge his shoulder with yours when you spy Robin juggling two huge containers of popcorn, moving quickly towards you both.

You’re about to make a joke about her taking her sweet time when she blurts out:

“I have to go.”

Both you and Steve blink at her as she shoves the popcorn into your lap and Steve’s.

“What?”

She’s wide-eyed, moving to smush herself between the both of you. You and Steve share a look, leaning around her to connect your gazes. She’s zoned out, face contorted into a look of absolute horror. 

What? he mouths.

I dunno, you shrug.

“Tammy Thompson,” Robin breathes, “Works at the convenience stand --”

You both perk up.

“Rob, that’s good --”

You nudge her, beaming. “Did you say hi?”

“Oh, did I -- I made an ass of myself -- she didn’t even remember me.”

Your face falls. And Robin makes a pained noise into her hands. Steve grits his teeth and winces, silence falling across the three of you -- then he speaks.

“I mean, you’re not missing much,” Steve wiggles the popcorn, “She still sings like a muppet.”

Your jaw drops for, like, the upteenth time tonight. “Steve!”

Robin groans. “He’s right!”

“I know he’s right,” you groan, “But --”

“Oooooh, don’t you want me baybee --” it’s not Steve Harrington singing, it’s Kermit.

And you’re laughing. 

It’s not soon before Robin is too, cracking a pained laugh through her internal suffering as he continues to croon in a muppet-styled serenade, aimed at both of you with the kind of theatrics that would have gotten his a lead in the spring musical.

That seems to remedy the moping as she leans into you and scoops up a handful of popcorn. She shoves it entirely into her mouth.

“It was awkward.”

“Seeing people from high school is always awkward,” you say, trying to ease her worry, “Remember when we saw Farrah Goodman when she worked at Kroger’s?”

Steve pulls a face. “She was mean.”

“Vicious,” you correct, “An absolute bulldog.”

“Yeah,” Robin mumbles, “She tried to give us coupons.”

“Coupons?”

“Yeah, for adult diapers,” you supply, “And we were too scared to say no, so we just smiled and laughed and said, ‘oh we will be using these, for sure’, like assholes.”

“She was scary!” Robin cries as Steve descended into a round of laughter, “Did you ever see her deck girls during soccer games? She lived for bloodsport.”

“I can say,” Steve snorts, “I never went to a soccer game.”

“We know,” you groan, “It was our safe space.”

“Safe space?” Robin cries again, “Says you!”

“It was my safe space,” you offer Steve.

Silence settles between the three of you as you begin to munch on the popcorn, ignoring the fading of Robin’s remorse -- Steve breaks the silence with a quiet string of words that catch you by surprise.

“I really wish I was friends with you both in high school.”

When you look over at him, he’s looking at his hands.

Robin watches the exchange, eyes light with a budding curiosity for how you’ll react. She’s pleasantly surprised when your usual hardened demeanor towards Steve seems to be absent. 

“... Really?”

Steve swallows, nodding a bit. He looks up, catching your eyes. 

“Yeah. I mean, maybe then my Senior year wouldn’t have sucked. I would have had... I dunno, I would have had real friends and --” his words trail off, voice splitting into an emotion like regret, “And I woulda been happy, probably.”

It’s like getting punched in the gut.

In a desperate attempt to move past the feelings his words stir in your chest, you speak quickly. 

“... Does that mean we’re cool?”

It makes Steve laugh, if only a little.

Robin feels like she’s watching from the outside, grinning like an idiot.

“Yeah,” he says, finally, brown eyes glued to your blooming smile, “You’re cool.”

Oh, this is good.

[orderofthefanfic]

The Subway: The First of Many

It's All Over But The Laughing: Chapter Two

The walk to the subway was relatively short, and the two of them left it to vague silence until they got to the station. It was bustling, as usual, people from every walk pushing past each other, lost in their own little heads or invading those of others. She was wringing her fingers together as they made their way to the train, Arthur keeping a minuscule radius between the two. He wasn't quite sure the best distance to keep, worried he'd make her uncomfortable being too close, but if he was too far, she may feel just as nervous as she would had she been here alone. So he fluctuated a bit, falling behind before awkwardly shuffling so far forward he nearly bumped into her in a repeating rhythm. She seemed unaware, but she was studying his movements the whole way, intrigued by the way he moved with musical fluidity despite its discomfiture. It was entirely unique and she smiled to herself at the sheer amount of personality he seemed to exude in everything he did.

When they got into the car and, luckily, found a seat, Arthur stepped aside and gestured towards the empty chair, nodding to her with a smile. (Y/N) returned the expression but hesitated as she sat. His eyes darted around quickly before he finally eased into the seat next to her.

When he noticed the furrowed brows, he leaned to her and hushed, "You never know when some jerk is going to steal any empty chair they see. I just wanted to make sure you got one at least."

She held his gaze for a moment, a bewildered smile tugging at the corners of her nude-tinted lips. He had taken some time, in the hall, observing her appearance, from her decaying running shoes and gently worn sweater all the way to her well-placed makeup. Although not theatrical, it was applied in a way that your attention was drawn to her eyes, a small pop of delicate color highlighting her lid, her smile painted with a dull shade that muted her lips. It looked well-practiced and he assumed it was her daily routine.

“You really are kind, A-Arthur,” She struggled on his name the most but seemed personally determined to force it out, scrunching her face a few times as she did, “Does a-a-anybody e-ever..Does anybody tell you that?”

“Only my mother.”

She almost laughed, perceiving the statement as an intended joke, but stopped short at the solemn sincerity behind his tight-lipped smile. So she hummed, nodding her head as her gaze drifted back forward.

With a tilt of her head towards him, she mused, “Well they should.”

Arthur didn’t say anything for a moment, his knee bouncing ever so slightly as he mulled over her words. Kind was not a common word directed towards him. Usually, it never deviated far from creep or freak. Never, as best he could remember, had anybody else called him kind. As his mind ran on a small tangent on the subject, anxiety began to fill his chest. Perhaps it never would have developed past that, had he not attempted to hold it back, building the sensation stronger the more he focused on it. When he felt the onset of laughter, he wanted to panic. The subway cart they chose was not entirely packed, but even one person was enough, and he wholly did not want to have a fit in front of her.

(Y/N) was still staring off, unsure why he had become unusually quiet but, having just met him all the same, not wanted to push him. From the corner of her eye, his hand shot up to cover his mouth. As she was turning with a furrowed brow to see just what was wrong, he burst into forceful laughter. He saw he nearly jump out of her seat, her hand pressed to her heart as she looked to him with shocked confusion.

“What? What is it?” Her voice had risen in pitch, urgency in her question as she watched the strange man guffawed painfully.

When his hand held his throat, coughing roughly through his fit, her panic rose and she repeated her question again. His hand was smacking his pants pockets, fingers sliding into a few of them frantically before he pulled out a card with a shaking hand. He did his best to calm himself as he gestured it towards her.

She hesitated to take it, becoming unsure in him entirely as the realization hit that she truly didn’t know this man at all before she jumped on a subway with him. She was disappointed in herself for the thought the moment she read the card.

Forgive my laughter. I have a condition. (more on back)

Her heart sank. The card nearly flew out of her hand with how fast she turned it, scanning the words as fast as she could before she turned back to Arthur.

“I’m sorry, I h-had no idea. Are you okay?” Her nerves were getting the best of her and she wasn’t even sure he understood a thing from her lips.

But he struggled through a nod, sucking in deep breaths as the sound subsided. The car was dead silent now, most heads turned with distaste towards the two and she caught the judging eyes of them. She watched as Arthur slowly seemed to slip into himself, an unimaginable embarrassment flushing his gaunt cheeks as he pinched his hands between his legs and lowered his head.

“It’s okay.” She suddenly shot out. The last thing she wanted him to do was feel judged by her, so she did her best to normalize the situation. “It’s not like you can help it. It doesn’t b-bother me at all.” 

He had grown very shy, posture huddled slightly, but his head timidly angled towards her. He relaxed his legs just slightly. A comforting smile peeked on her face and she continued.

“We can just keep talking if that’s what you want.”

That had to be the first time in her life that sentence left her lips. A remark she spoke aloud in slight disbelief as a small, tension-breaking chuckle tumbled into the air. He lifted himself again, slowly straightening as he met her eyes and infectious smile. He'd never had anybody just except his condition in such a nonchalant way. After her initial startle, it was as if he didn't have a fit at all, just brushing it off and moving forward. Arthur decided he preferred that. Clearing his throat, he nodded, rubbing his neck once or twice before he settled back into the seat. The rest of the passengers fell back into relative normality, determining the situation wasn't something to gawk at anymore, and the murmur of side conversations began again.

"I a-a..suppose your condition is one of the reasons you go to the office?" She started cautiously, but her tone lightened quickly, "I've never seen you there before. We must not have the same schedule."

Arthur took a moment to reply, still gathering himself. With a few glances around and finding himself content with the lack of attention from the other passengers, he did his best to move past his fit.

“We must not. I’ve never seen your face there before either.” 

She chuckled softly, furrowing her brows in a playful manner and teased, “What, you know every face in that office?”

“Yes, mostly.”

The assured and factual way he answered stopped her abruptly, and when he noticed her intrigued look he added with a shrug, “You never know when you’ll need to remember somebody’s face. It’s a habit for me to focus on things like that.” 

In a quirky little way, there seemed to be the hint of a genius behind his unusual dull green eyes. (Y/N) wondered just how much was hidden under his nervous exterior. His face looked worn, but a gentleness settled in his energy. With a nod of agreement, she buffered for a moment, wondering what to ask before her finger shot up as her lips parted.

"What do you do for a living, A-" 

She paused, her nose scrunching in her uniquely personal way as she seemed to choke over his name. She tried again, getting no further than the r before she squeezed her fist and let out a frustrated huff. All the while, Arthur stayed quiet, unbothered by her inability to get her words out and merely sat and waited. The whole time they'd been talking, she never felt rushed to get through her words, or looked down on for struggling with them, and for that, she was eternally grateful. (Y/N) reminded herself to thank him later.

When she managed to finish her question, Arthur gave a smile and started, "Well, I'm a party clown," he rubbed his palms on his knees, straightening as a genuine display of delight played in his eyes as he talked about his work, "It's a good way to make people smile."

"I bet," the true joy he seemed to feel for his job brought a grin to your face.

"What do you do?"

It was funny. They had not been asked that question before, and in just a span of less than an hour, it was one of the many firsts they had. A shared expression bloomed on their cheeks and they relaxed a little more.

"I'm a singer, in truth," (Y/N) chuckled out, watching Arthur tilt his head at it, "I know, I know, someone who can't even speak sings for a living. But a-actually, I don't stutter when I sing. So I enjoy it."

They talked like that for the rest of the ride, getting to know each other in the amount of time before the subway arrived at the station. Falling back into almost silence, they walked side by side to her uncle's apartment, hands in their pockets and smiles on their faces. Arthur relished in the true feeling of enjoyment but felt a twang of disappointment when her building loomed over them.

Although it was by no means extravagant, with its aging walls and scaling door, it still put his own building to shame. It was smaller overall, but the bricks managed to remain vaguely inviting, their red tones prevailing over the grunge and bringing a sense of life to the complex, one his own lacked entirely. Even the street itself was less cramped, as much as it could be for Gotham anyway, with small shops on the ground level and more apartments lining the rest of the open spaces. Less cars passed and it felt as though the beeping and groaning of traffic was muted where they stood.

Stopping just short of the steps, they rocked awkwardly on their feet. (Y/N), with her hands now wringing in front of her, twisted the ball of her foot into the concrete, lips pressed together as she looked up her building and shyly over to Arthur.

"This is me," she gestured towards the door.

"So, it is."

They went quiet again for a moment.

"H-Hey, so," Arthur perked up immediately when she began to speak again as she smiled, "It was really nice to meet you. You really made my day."

His grin widened and his head nodded strongly, "I hope we see each other again."

She was very quick to agree, laughing at her speed, but when her eyes drifted back towards the door, her gleam died. Her voice dulled, and an exhaustion filled her features.

"I should probably head inside. Seems like I have some packing to do."

He mirrored the change, nodded sympathetically before he suddenly jolted, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a worn notebook with a pencil stuck in the rings. Folding it open, he gingerly tore a corner from a back page and began to scribble on it.

"I understand if you'd rather not, i-if you think it's strange, but there's a vacancy at, well at my apartment building if you have trouble finding another place. It's not great but its cheap."

Thrusting the note into her hand, he bounced nervously. His hand briefly pushed his hair behind his ear as she read the address off.

"Oh, I can't th-thank you enough. That means a lot." Her teeth bared themselves again and relief spread through him. When she glanced back down, her brow furrowed before she shot her eyes back to his and exclaimed, "now, hold on, this building's on the other side of town. You said you always take the subway. You don't need it to get back from the office!"

"Yeah, I lied," he rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish look and she sat her fist on her hips, "But you looked like you really needed the company. And I do take the subway a lot. Just not for that."

"Damn you," she crossed her arms, but her lips fought to turn upwards, "Thank you. Even though you lied."

He shook his head, showing his palm and then shoving them back in the pouch of his hoodie. He popped onto the balls of his feet before plopping his weight back down onto his heel.

"No need. My number is on there, too, if you need anything. But I shouldn't hold you up anymore."

And with that, they said their goodbyes, (Y/N) promising to give him a call sometime and thanking him once more for his kindness. Her thumb was grazing over the graphite writing, as she waved with her other hand and started towards the steps. They glanced to each other again, exchanging another short wave before she finally disappeared behind the door.

Arthur stood for a moment, watching (Y/N)'s back as she left him alone, and smiled to himself. The chill of Gotham's air didn't bite him so hard this afternoon, the stench and weight of smog wasn't clinging to his airways, and with another pop onto his toes, he began his journey home, a slightly stronger dance to his step as he daydreamed about the next time he'd see her face

[insertselfinserthere]

Three Rules ~ Leon Kuwata (1/?)

AN: I’m finally making a whole fanfic! I have no idea how many parts this’ll be. But this is set in the canon universe, maybe sometime later I’ll make a happier fic set in a non!despair AU

I never had any ultimate talent, and I'd never attended Hope's Peak either, but I still felt I could have somehow prevented the inevitable. I'd made friends with lots of students who went there, like a nice girl named Chihiro who attended my creative writing class, and another boy named Gundam who I'd met while volunteering at the animal shelter. I'd met both of their friends, even managing to sneak conversation with people as they left school grounds while waiting outside for one or the other.

Meeting them was both the worst and best things that have ever happened to me. Chihiro was a kind girl I grew attached to very quickly, my introduction to her friends resulting in me meeting my boyfriend, Leon Kuwata. We didn't get along at first, until I'd gotten comfortable in the group and Leon got to know the louder and much more humorous side of me hidden behind my timid first impression. He'd eventually asked to get ice cream after school one day.

Gundam I'd met nearly a year and a half later. We'd also not gotten along at first. I was quick to shut out his longwinded words, smiling and nodding absentmindedly when he started conversations. Seeing how he treated the animals was what opened my mind. His eyes melted like butter, smile soft and friendly. It was then Gundam and I exchanged numbers, and I'd began hanging out with him outside of volunteering with a mixture of our own friends.

I really did hit it off with Junko the couple of times we'd met. I admired her photoshoots majorly, being awestruck when I saw her in person. Junko claimed to like my makeup, and from that, I'd decided we'd bonded.

Knowing Gundam and all his classmates, knowing Junko as well, is what hurts the most. I'm trying to reassure myself, looking down at my phone as it rings and goes to voicemail, that he’s okay. The disaster outside will be tended to and Leon is safe and hiding out somewhere, waiting for me to find him.

I know this isn't true. It doesn't stop me from reassuring myself, though. I can't remember what street I'm on, they all look the same. People are running, things have already been destroyed, and robots are roaming about.

Receiving a call makes a grin come to my face, breathing ragged as I press the phone to my ear. "Leon!" I wheeze, tears running down my cheeks. "I-Oh my Gods, are you okay? Where are you?"

"I'm okay," There's rustling in the background, but it's nothing compared to the shrieking and honking of cars on my end. "You remember that park, right? The one where someone stole one of the swings, with that really shitty basketball court."

"Yeah," I breath out, "On my way. Stay with me,"

Leon breaths in and out steadily, and I can't tell who he's trying to calm down more, me or himself. "Is there anyone with you?" He pauses, continuing when I don't respond. "Do you know how your family is?"

"My parents aren't answering their phones," I tell him briefly, turning a corner. I see a familiar restaurant, knowing the next turn to the park is just up ahead. "I tried going home-" I gasp for air, "-Road's blocked."

There's more rustling, and I consider maybe he's pacing. "My parents weren't fucking picking up either," Leon's voice is obviously frustrated, steadily rising in volume. "My cousin, Kanon, picked up, though. She said she needs to go fucking check on her dad, can you believe her? She's fucking crazy,”

I shriek as a robot barrels towards me. I drop to my knees, crawling rapidly away. Rising to my feet as fast as I can, I sprint to where I see the park. I even see Leon, his red hair sticking out against the greenery. He's standing against the foliage of the trees surrounding the park, pacing back and forth as he twirls a baseball bat in his hand idly. This is a change of scenery, rather peaceful, and I deduct the robots must have not managed to reach here as of yet.

"Here!" I scream into my phone, waving one of my hands in the air.

He looks up, dropping his phone from his hand in the process as he matches my pace towards me. I know he isn't running towards me, rather at the machine that follows behind me. Leon raises his bat above his head, leaping at the robot. Straddling it, Leon bashes it until I can see sparks.

The robot is still being smashed to smithereens long after it's stopped moving and it's only laying on the ground. I watch as I catch my breath. Just seeing Leon in person, despite him being covered in grunge with a blooming bruise on his cheek and blood running somewhere in his scalp. Even looking this worn down, chest heaving and eyes wide with rage, I'm able to admire him. My family is gone, I know that already. I have no one left besides Leon, and I'm grateful he's alive and by my side.

When Leon rises, his breathing is rapid and his shirt is sticking to his abdomen. He turns to me in a daze, pulling me into a delicate hug. Leon touches me like I'm glass, but my grip is like iron when I throw my arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder. We stand like this for a long time, both of us crying in absolute relief.

"I thought I lost you," Leon speaks quietly, voice deep as he tries to ensure it won't break. "You screamed-You..."

"I'm okay," I say rapidly, "We're okay. We're doing great."

Leon nods silently, pulling me closer if that were somehow possible. "The school," He croaks out, "There's a gate. We can go there, maybe it'll help. Naegi, you know him, the small one. It was his idea to go back to the school, board it up and hide out until things settle."

"Oh Gods," Comes out my raspy response, shaking my head lightly. "Poor Chihiro, she must be losing their mind right about now." Leon is silent, only stroking my back slowly in reassurance.

"Let's get going," He tells me firmly, pulling us apart and holding my biceps firmly, looking into my eyes with a gaze that matches his rough tone. "The longer we stay out here, the longer we're in danger. Once we get in the school, we can lounge around and do whatever we want, okay?"

My nod is delayed, but it does come. With it, relief floods into Leon's pale eyes. We're both unable to speak as we turn, overlooking the wreckage before us with dread. I follow behind my boyfriend obediently, albeit much slower than he would have liked, but we're still moving forwards whether I want to or not.

It's a shame that I see many recognizable faces as I move along. The woman whose input I asked for when I was buying a dress not too long ago, which was now probably burned and covered under the debris of my house. My shoulder is brushed as a waitress comes barreling past me, sobs wracking her body. I remember she served me pizza three days ago, she let me leave even though I was a whole four dollars short, paying for the shortage herself with a blinding grin.

While Leon and I make short and steady progress, he avoids fights with relative ease. The robots are focused on uncovering the debris, attempting to find survivors which are hanging onto their last frayed threads of life, ready to be snuffed out in an instant. Survivors rush past the robots easily while they're distracted.

Once the academy is in view, it feels like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. We near the closed gate, and when we finally reach it, I half expect it to swing open invitingly. Instead, it stays in place, and I stare at it rather dumbly. "Here, up on my shoulders," Leon tells me, though I only blink back at him. "We're climbing it."

It takes a while for me to process that, but eventually I nod silently. I suddenly feel stupid. People are out there, fires surrounding them, on the brink of death, yet here I am. Intimidated at the idea of climbing a damn fence.

There's a bit of a struggle, and I can practically hear Leon's legs quaking as I stand up, but we press on. I make it to the top, and throw myself to the other side. I land unceremoniously on the ground, though make it to my feet swiftly, face glowing crimson. After checking if I was okay, Leon scales the fence with ease.

Within only a couple seconds, he's by my side, landing on his feet and grinning back at me. After he slings an arm over my shoulder, I hear his heavy breathing and deduct he most certainly rushed in order to show off. My blush deepens.

Inside the school, the familiar faces make my spirits lift abruptly and welcomingly. "Mondo, I haven't seen you in forever!" I boast, running over to the biker. His spirits aren't as high as mine, but he sends me a forced smile, giving a nod in Leon's direction. Greetings to everyone else ensues afterwards, and Chihiro and I decide to stay glued at the hip. Leon is hesitant, but him, Mondo, and Sakura head off to tend to harder labour.

“Maybe we should get you some clothes,” Chihiro suggests. Upon my confused look, she adds on. “We have a lot of supplies. We portioned them out right before Leon left to get you. Everyone else brought a bit of their own things, so I guess you can have a uniform or some gym clothes.”

I smile, relieved and tired. “Thank you so much,” I wish I could express how much I meant those words. That I could transfer my feelings to Chihiro, that they didn’t feel so empty. “What else is there to do?”

We begin walking, Chihiro leading the way. “We’re just making sure everything’s boarded up. We’ve got most of the windows, now we’re doing the doors.” I nod along. Chihiro’s large eyes are void of tears, I wonder if they’ve cried too much to have any left. “Here it is.”

Shelves are stacked neatly with supplies in this room. I spot gym uniforms immediately, as well as several other spare articles of clothing. Besides what we came here for, there’s many other useful things, like snacks, tools, and much more.

Chihiro turns her back as I change into track pants and a white tank top. They hand me a towel and wet it with a nearby water bottle, and they help me wipe soot and dirt off my skin.

Celeste enters as we do this. “You look terrible,” She states bluntly.

Her and I have gotten along rather well, and I do like her, but that doesn’t stop me from snapping. “Thanks, I didn’t notice,” I put as much venom into the short words as possible. “You’re a real help.”

Celeste pauses, holding a small hammer. She puts it down, walking over slowly. Celeste takes a towel of her own, wets it, and begins cleaning my face.

“Have you talked to the principle yet?” She asks, “He made us record videos before we started doing all these... renovations.”

I take in a breath, knowing I’m on the verge of using Celeste as a verbal punching bag. Instead I smile, toothy and forced. “No,” Her raised eyebrows tells me she knows how irritated I am. “I just got here. I really just want to change and get everything done as soon as possible.” Internally I don’t want to do anything, but I know I have to do my part. My feet hurt and the side of my stomach is cramped.

Chihiro reads me well, and I’m reminded of how I wear my feelings so obviously on my sleeve. “Let’s go see the principle,” She tells me, smiling wide. She takes a pair of leggings and a white t-shirt off the shelf handing it to me. “Right after you change. Everything should be done after that.”

Relief floods through me. I take the clothes wordlessly, the two of them turning as I change. Once I’m done, Celeste says her farewells and is off to wherever that hammer of hers is needed.

I can’t say I’ve been in the halls of Hope’s Peak very often. I’ve been to a talent show in support of Leon. I remember telling him I wasn’t going, then seeing the ecstasy flare into his pale eyes as he caught my gaze. I wish such happy memories couldn’t be overrided, but they are, by much more profound feelings of sadness, fear, and despair.

Chihiro and I eventually come up to the door of what must be the principle’s office. I never really thought anything of the video I recorded that day. It was a no brainer for me. Hope’s Peak was safe, with most of the people I cared about close by. I thought we’d escaped tragedy, but it’s very obvious that I was very wrong.

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Hi babes! Chapter 4 for you! It’s a biggie!

Eternally grateful to the tripod, without @dirtystyles -and @bleedinglove4h I would fall on my face- maybe into someone’s cleavage if I timed it right!!

Ski Da Yo- Chapter 4

It's silly really, the entire scenario that she's found herself in. Ada could laugh, nobody would hear it over the music. It's loud, and people are taking turns at the stage. Though She could go join the group, she should, rather than lurking in the corner like a weirdo, fixated on a previous performance. She's not laughing, even at herself. She'd kinda drooling, way more embarrassing.

But she just had to watch him.

He was in his element, relaxed, on, charming, lit up like a Christmas tree. Merry, bright.

She'd never seen him like this, in the flesh. Glimpses, in the interviews she watched and called research. She'd seen the fuss there, agreed to the picture partly on the strength of it.

She could see it, what the fuss was about. And it was the first real glimpse she'd had, besides those moments she felt she had to steal from him to get on film. She was beginning to think there was a limited supply of Styles' magic. Perhaps, that was why she was only able to get a precious few minutes a day.

Watching him now, that did not seem to be the case. Harry was incandescent and she felt blinded by the light. She could chalk that up to all of her rockstar fantasizes brought to life, but it didn't explain everyone else's rapt attention on him, their enthrallment. Maybe they all had a grunge fetish too?

When she walked in and she clocked him, even with the stupid glasses that obscured his face, festive she supposed, he looked different.

On set he looked, perfect was the word that came to mind, but not in the way people usually meant. Polished and made up and proper in his prince clothes.  Perfect, fake. And anxious, like the film was a bit of an albatross around his neck. Or maybe the pressure.  And he looked like it was heavy, all the trappings trapping him. Ada worried over it. Like, the movie made him regress. Maybe it felt too familiar. He said that a lot when they talked about scenes, when he was frustrated with himself.

"I know just how he feels."

Because he had been there. Is that why he had such a hard time getting the shot? Because it made him freak out a little, feel like he'd not called his own shots for years? But he'd made these choices. Had agency. Maybe she could help him see it as therapeutic. Because it was a way to safely rebel - a redo, no risk.

She'd talk to him about it. They needed to have that drink. She could order him one now.

Ada shook her head. Not tonight. She didn't want to kill his vibe tonight. It was too lovely to watch, and to live she guessed. No shop talk.

He looked light as a cloud, and as soft edged too.  Nothing perfect or fake about him. His skin was a little slick under the stage lights, the ridges near his nose were shiny especially. He had glitter on his cheeks, but not like highlighter, like the glasses he wore were cheap, and shedding tiny pieces of shine.

But he did shine.

And he had sounded good.

Not everybody could sing Nirvana, in a chest voice no less.

She was weaned on that. And really into indie rock, especially grunge, while her dad was fostering 90's slick hip hop. It was a silly means of rebellion, but she took her opportunities to disappoint Garner seriously.

She remembered her dad had called the cover of in utero obscene, which made her laugh as he had just put out a video full of nearly naked females in bikinis, but anatomical drawings were obscene. Okay.

She had snuck a new copy in after he threw the first one away and poured over the lyrics in her baggy jeans and crop top with a flannel. Had a giant crush on Kurt, May he Rest In Peace, and when she met Dave Grohl it may have been the only time she was really starstruck.

Well, she felt like she had been hit about the head by a celestial being currently. Harry had it, that was for sure. How had she missed it? The bushel basket he'd been hiding his light under must have been thick. There was something obscuring her view or his personality definitely. Not tonight. Star power was all over him tonight; that was the boy she had signed up to direct. Right there, from those red carpet clips she'd watched. Those sold her and then she had watched concert footage, shaking camera and all. Those were another level. This silly karaoke gig almost matched the wattage when he was bedecked and bantering on stage. He looked dashing, and like he could carry a movie on his thick shoulder pads all with a joke on his vibrant lips. That man was in this building, singing one of her all time favorite songs. It had an effect.

Wow, the rasp in his voice. God, she was still reeling and hiding out in the back like her crush was nearby.

Her eyes widened.

That's what was going on! She was doing what she had done with Danny Diaz in 10th grade. She wasn't teenage dream obsessed about him, really. But, she'd paid him a lot of attentions, clandestinely. He'd been so cool, and was really into raving. Which, in hindsight, made his post high school life a little clearer. But he liked music that had nothing to do with her dad and he was cute, had long bangs and a shaved head and he could dance! She loved to dance.

She needed to go, before this bloomed like a cherry blossom and she fell off in a great big clump to wait for shoe marks. Like 10th grade, only less poetic.

The pathway to the door was clear. Her heels on the floor made a click click click, though nobody should be able to hear it. She turned back to make sure nobody was following her, was watching, and her heel caught, right in a crack in the concrete floor.

"Shit!" Her ankle twisted and her heard a crunch, that was not good, but her trajectory to the ground wasn't either. Her hands went out to catch her.

He smelled good, like leather a bit, smoky, with a sweet tinge. And he caught her and hoisted her up like she was feather light. She never felt like that, because she was the tallest of her friends, not even tall, just taller, and she had never been small. She had that insta baddie body before it was popular. Grown up in the big titty, little hippy 90's. She always felt huge.

But not right now. He had her, was righting her before her weight came down and she properly broke something. This felt like that time she'd sprained her ankle jumping fences to go skating with the boys. Stupid heels.

Back to the rom com moment she found herself in. He's caught her under the arms. His hands span her whole armpit and his fingers curled into her scapula. Ada spared a thought for how sweaty her underarms might be. Yuck! But she should be ok, she'd gotten properly ready, lots of antiperspirant. She knew that, took a deep breath and then realized she'd missed something. He's staring at her expectantly. The rockstar with the totally revealed charm. Harry.

"What?" It came out with no finesse, like a burp.

"You ok?" Harry was kinda grinning and loose, left eye more hooded than his right, and his breath, definitely 80 proof. She heard the shift and he's no longer got her in a dip fit for a tango . She felt like she'd been whirled and thrilled.

"Um, I think I'm ok." She realized they were still locked in an embrace when she tried to check her foot. Ada looked down at the place his hands had migrated to, on her hips. She didn't really need to look, she could feel all ten fingertips, like little bruise marks formed from hope not pressure. It saved her from looking at her own hands where they were full of the muscular forearms she knew to be covered in tattoos beneath the green button-up he had on. It was a a stall.

But Harry released her the minute he saw her eyeing his familiar hands. She had him well trained apparently. Massive walls between them. They were massively out of place at the moment, regrettable. She wasn't balanced on her feet yet either. Ada nearly fell before he steadied her with a rebound hand at her hip. She caught it to stand on one foot, for safety.

Her ankle circled around ok. She felt a twinge of pain, but it was entirely manageable. That was good. She'd probably need to stay off of it, no treadmill tomorrow, and she'd need to elevate it. Ice too, she could ask the bartender for some.  She was plotting how to locate an ace type bandage, and who would be best to ask for that. They may have some in makeup - they'd used them to bind breasts on Wildflower, but she couldn't think why they'd have them for this movie. Harry had perky nipples, but they didn't need to be bound. Stop thinking about Harry's nipples. The lowlight would thankfully mask her blush. Wait, Maybe she could ask his friend, Masa, he owned a gym.

Harry. She could ask him too. And that would be really easy because he was still right there. Holding her hand.

They had laced their fingers at her hip. Ada looked at Harry, he had a huge lazy smile on his face. Pleased as punch. She was punch drunk, though she wouldn't say it. He looked so young and toothy. Though the gathering of sweat at his hairline, little droplets above his upper lip, made him real. Imperfect.

She shook herself and their hands unlatched. "I need ice I think?" Of course she needed ice. What was she talking about? Who even was she? Next she's start babbling, and tuck her hair behind her ear and duck her chin.

"Yeah, and a way to put it up." His head swiveled around and he nodded. "C'mon." He gently took her arm and looped it around his shoulder. He was just tall enough.

The table was closer than she would have liked, a walk under his arms was worth remembering, but it was good for her foot. Harry sat her in a booth and put both hands out in a straight stay there motion then grabbed a chair and propped up her ankle gently. The wrong one, but she went with it.

"Be right back." He tripped a little as he looped off to the bar.  Ah, that looked normal. The trip to the bar was only the chorus of the song too. He didn't wait long for the bartender. The whole place seemed to be filled with their group, pleasantly vibrant, but not busy. . It was a quick exchange, with a little sign language thrown in. He was big on hand talking on a normal day. Gesticulating when he described most things. He was very full body engaged and engaging before scenes, before he floated away on her.

Huh, she just thought about that, Henry wasn't gesticulative. A little more in the Akio scenes.

She hadn't noticed that Harry had layered physical control into his performance. She found herself nodding. That was good.  Made total sense for a royal.

He was walking back to her now with a thin white towel and he was crunching ice in it.  Oh shit - she hadn't switched feet, she'd been watching him.

"Cold!" She flinched, "a little warning Styles!"

"Sorry," he chuckled. "I figured me walking from the bar with a towel after I went over to get ice was warning enough." He curled his tongue a little at her and the ice gave her goosebumps.

Wow, maybe he needed liquid courage on set sometimes. All his nerves were gone.

"Usually someone tells you they are about to put ice on you, even nurses, unless they are trying to be little shits!" She arched one of her brows st him. They were her favorite feature and she used them to her advantage.

"You got me, just wanted to see you squirm, since you get to see me uncomfortable a lot." His slow cadence sometimes bugged her on set. It was another thing she could find irritating, during the literal 11th hour. Ada talked fast. She talked a mile a minute on set because they had shit to do and her brain was usually ten paces ahead of her mouth.

But it was kinda nice, the way he took his time.

"You sounded really good! When you were singing." Oh God he blushed. It was his job to sing, did he know that? "You moonlight in a Nirvana cover band often?" She flexed her foot where his hand was still moving ice around to find the sore ligaments, on the wrong foot. She followed the fire and ice.

He squawked a laugh. "No, just the one time, and only because Kunichi is so persistent. I think he could sell bad fish to a Tokyo chef!" He raised his eyebrows and Ada caught her hand just before she covered her laugh.

"So, it's not the song you've always wanted to sing? That wasn't you living out your teenage rock dream?" He shook his head, just hers then.

"Oh, it's a great song, I love rock." He moved his head like, obviously. His body of work spoke to that. "But I like a little more melody when I'm convinced to do karaoke," he made a drinking motion and she was laughing again. "I like disco divas and duets. And if there is absolutely nobody around to tell on me or god forbid, record, Britney Spears is a blast to perform." He'd placed his hand to block his lips from curious eyes and leaned in to tell her this secret. His lips were plump, they like to reach out and touch her faith.

She was thirsty.

Oh shit, did she just say that out loud? How much had she already had, while skulking in the shadows?

"Sure, what do you fancy?" Quicksilver grin, poisonous and enigmatic.

"Um," what had she already had? "A dirty martini!"

"How dirty?" He flashed his eyebrows.

"Very, three extra olives." She gave him her single brow, the one that she used to dare him when that was what he needed on set.

"Three olives!" He made a shocked face. "Well, I never." And he gave her the goofiest grin and went to grab her drink. He looked comfortable. Like a favorite hoodie she wanted to wear. She only got to really watch him one way. He was back quickly.

He sat by her when he put down her cloudy drink. She'd switched legs while he was away and thought she'd got away with it, but caught his eye as he was studying her legs and he smirked at her.

That was a damn good face. "You need to do that for the scene Monday, the one at the club." Ada segued seamlessly into shop talk. She was actually really excited about that one. It was set at a place she had frequented in her time here; she had really happy memories. She was feeling really excited too, this felt like an actual fresh start, she should have taken Harry up on his offer of a drink ages ago. He was a joy loose. This was the rapport they needed, him loose and smirky, handsome with a side of solicitous and cocky sauce. This was the Harry Styles she'd been waiting for!

🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵

Harry felt like he should get an Oscar for this performance. For his steady hands, that he was currently sitting on, and the confident smirk. It wasn't all an act, but the amount of times he'd had to turn this on like a lightbulb in an interview was invaluable right now. It was mostly fake those times, maybe even faker now. He had been relaxed and joyous, and then he had been so relieved to see her smile at him, he just went with it. But the minute he walked away from her, the first time, for the ice, the nerves kicked in. But he faked it, like a seasoned porn star, because she was looking at him, and touching him, and holy shit! Ada Scott was hanging with him. He would keep the action and make the moans believable.

Wow! Was this the way women felt all the time? When they had to put on some performance for the man they were interested in, or for the men they weren't, but couldn't offend?

It felt easier to relax tonight. The day had set him up for success. Things had ended so well on set, and he'd been in the best mood, and had gotten brave. He'd gone to her trailer. To invite her again.  Harry was excited about the evening at the bar and seeing music, though he wasn't sure what it would be like, because it wasn't a gig, nor karaoke, some hybrid he had been told. He liked novel nights out.

But everybody was coming. His whole Japanese network, including Jeff and Masa and his girl!

Everybody but Ada. So he'd put on his man panties and went going to ask her.  She needed to be there, and even though she'd turned down all of his invitations and returned the replacement shoes, he was going to ask her again.  For the whole cast. They had months left and needed to bond.

He needed to bond with her. It felt possible after their day on set, her brow wasn't creased and she didn't speed walk away. She slowed down enough for him to keep up. They'd had a conversation, not about a scene. He'd kept up and not drifted away on her voice. She walked and talked fast. He liked it.

Masa loved to laugh at him, and was doing just that while he psyched himself up to go talk to her. "Just go ask the lady." He'd arrived to take him back to the hotel to Harry stalling. Masa was giving him a look.

His grin was presumptuous. Harry didn't like it. It felt like he knew. Yuki knee, Masa might. Harry did, know, but he didn't think he was so obvious. Did she know?

"You need a tutu?" Masa heckled.

"What?"

"Your mind is like a dancer on drugs," he made a flitting motion with his hands. "you might need a tutu for making the decision. "

"Oh fuck off, man!"

"Just go ask her. It's a cast party, I haven't even met her and she's supposed to be the leader. She needs to come. A leader should." Masa's brow shrunk.

"She is the leader, she's the boss!" He was full of defenses for her. "If you were allowed on set you'd see."

"Oh, I'm not allowed." Harry had neglected to outright tell him that, just let him be distracted, that would run out when they had to go on location. Whoops.

"You'd make fun of me, I've been totally fucking up. So you aren't allowed. At all."

"Isn't the movie about a royal fucking up?" Masa said after catching his wheezing breath. He sounded like a dragon with hay fever.

Hmmm, Harry'd have to have a think on that. That was a plot point he should consider when he was flagellating himself. Maybe he could use it, all his self frustration. He shook himself and jumped up and down like he was going on stage, when he turned around to tell Masa he was going, he was laughing at him, again.

"What now?"

"Are you going to punch her?" He gulped the air. "You do that before you box."

"I just need to hype myself up." Harry shook his head out.

"She must be really pretty."

"Shut up." She was really pretty, but it had been an asset today, made the scene work and Harry had decided he needed exposure therapy. So he needed to be around her, more. He was gonna go talk to her, get used to her face.

He strode to her trailer and stopped cold outside before he could knock. For once, it was not over nerves, but his jaw which had dropped to the floor. That sound as coming from her trailer.

She was singing. Well!  To Mary J. Blige's Real Love. And he wanted to sit on the little steps up to her door and listen.

So she could have gone into the music business, had everything going for her there. Connected daddy, pretty face, hot body, and pipes. Wow, she could belt! He had goosebumps. Her voice was rich and evocative. Deeper that he expected.

And he could not talk to her.  Not now. Now she was even more impressive.

So he did what any brave young lad would do.

He asked his manager to do it.

Jeff smirked, but sent the text.  And like the magic 8 ball he could be, he made the face he did when the outlook wasn't good.

So Harry had resigned himself to Ada not coming to the bar.  He was disappointed, but also relieved. Those two feelings must be dating as often as he felt them together when it came to Ada. If she didn't come, he could relax and have fun, let loose, but not bond with her, or have another chance to impress her. Or throw up on her. There would be alcohol involved again. He needed to gain back the ground he'd lost when he spewed at her feet.

A second chance at a first impression.

But Jeff seemed to be right, as he often was. Ada was softer with him after the last cut because he had done a good job. He'd work that angle to bond.

He resigned himself to having another kick ass day on Monday for him and Ada, and having a great time tonight for himself, free of expectations. He was feeling buoyant, Kunichi had noticed right away, pounced and got him on stage. First on the drums, which he played like a 7th grader after a few lessons, and then on the microphone.

God, it was fun. So fun. And he felt the perfect amount of tipsy, like tomorrow he'd need two paracetemol and extra water, a good sweat and nothing else.

He felt extra intoxicated when he spotted Ada. In tight jeans and a slimmer t-shirt than normal, and high heels. He tried not to stare at her ass on a sneaker day, he was doomed with the thrust the 3 inches gave her curves. She looked amazing, but she looked like she was leaving. And he'd just realized she was there!

The social lubricant in his blood didn't give him a chance to think better of it. He was walking to Ada. He got there just in time. Her heel stuck in a crease in the floor, and he caught her. It was every rom com moment he'd ever sat on his mum's couch moon eyed over in one.

He got to help her. And he was able to talk to her like a normal human, and get her a drink. All in the span of 20 minutes!

She seemed relaxed, her shoulders pressed against her tee nicely, but were down, easy. And she smiled at him, a lot.

He was trying his best not to think, he'd spin out. When he went to get her ice towel and then the martini, god, she kind of flirted, right? People flirted with him all the time, or went mute. She didn't do either until tonight. And he was buzzing, more off the flirting at this point than the alcohol.

The little insecure boy inside, the one who was really loud in new situations or around new people, especially people he admired, was chiming in about the stage. The stage cast a spell on people, and he worried about people who knew him from it or expressed attraction to that aspect of him.

It's why he'd always held back with Helene, regrettably.

He didn't want to make that mistake again, he'd made wrong assumptions that cost him Helene's affections. He didn't want to do that here, wanted to do the opposite. Part of him wanted to dive in, head first, but he wasn't sure. Rejection hurt no matter who you were, and though he'd had his share, Harry's skin was still cling wrap thin. He wanted her to like him too.  He wanted this to be real. Which meant he had to be honest, and open. But he was rushing it, like he did when he was crushing.

He was going to let this night be what he hoped it would be, a beginning. And he was that guy, the one on stage, with the smirk, and the wit. He was also less commanding, and lost his cool at times, but she'd seen that guy. He just needed to show her more of his best side, tonight, and on set.

He caught Kunichi motioning to him. Ah, he'd almost forgotten his promise.

He leaned back, let his arm brush her shoulder while he relaxed. He'd turn on the charm for just a minute, he could manage that, he wanted something he'd been a little consumed with for the better half of this night. And he wanted it from Ada.

He flexed the dimple and titled his head to the side. "This smile?" He pointed his finger at his lips.

"That's a good one, but no. The cockier one!" Oooh, he really did love that eyebrow. Gave him tingles.

"I will do my absolute best," he smirked and her lashes fluttered. "If you'll come up and sing with me."

[zombiescantfly]

Words About Games - Unreal Tournament 3 (Epic Games, 2007)

Unreal Tournament 3 is nothing short of an utter embarrassment, incompetent at nearly every level, and a gross misunderstanding of a playerbase that was, at the time, nearly a decade old.  I wish I could just leave it at that, but this is the first game I ever felt wronged by.  

This was a franchise killer.  UT3 flopped so hard that it took fans desperate for any sign of a new game ten years to make Epic even consider adding a new entry to the series, and even then it is, as of time of writing, on indefinite hiatus so the handful of developers assigned to it can make more Fortnite dances.  But that comes later.  Unreal Tournament 3 comes first.

The Unreal series was hardly a stranger to hard knocks.  Return to Na Pali was a dull-at-best expansion pack while the much-maligned Unreal 2 missed the point entirely and has since slipped into laughable obscurity, and even the original Unreal Championship on Xbox had to be redeemed with a well-received followup.  I played neither of those, by the way, it's just my understanding that the first one was bad and the second was good.

So what made UT3 the last chance?  What about it was bad enough to kill the franchise that had gone toe-to-toe with Quake and lived to tell the tale?  The real question is what the hell Epic was thinking.

Unreal Tournament 3 lacks a great many things.  At launch, it boasted a meager six gamemodes, and even then only by virtue of splitting 1v1 deathmatch maps off of Deathmatch and into a new category called Duel.  So, our gametypes are: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Duel, Capture the Flag, Vehicle CTF, and Warfare.  That's it.  No Bombing Run, no Mutant, no Invasion, no Domination (double or otherwise), and yet again, for some ungodly reason, no Assault.

I feel like I've done this before.  What else did UT3 leave out?  Facing Worlds!  Yep, it's out again, and this time without a replacement.  That's right, no Face 4 to make up for it.  A new Curse map, a staple of the series since the original Unreal multiplayer, is also missing.  Most of the character factions introduced in UT2003 and 2004 are gone, like the Nightmares, the Robots, the Juggernauts, the Mercenaries, the Gen Mo’kai, the Egyptians, and the Skaarj.  You know, the Skaarj, literally the most important faction to the series at large.  They're gone.  Xan Kriegor, the Big Bad of every Tournament since 1999, the final champ who uses an AI setting above Godlike, who has his own spaceship where the ultimate match is duked out 1v1 in a truly brutal and awesome deathmatch?  Gone.

But that's not the worst of it.  Sure, they stripped out almost everything they'd spent so much time building up throughout character and map descriptions for three games, but even that wasn't enough.  There has to be something else they could take away to really strip the game of its identity.  The Flak Cannon?  No, too easy.  The Shock Rifle?  Almost.  Malcolm, the veteran of all the in-universe Tournaments and arguably the (human) mascot of the series?  I'll do you one better.

They took away the Tournament.

They took away the Tournament.

They took away.

The Tournament.

Unreal Tournament 3 has no Tournament.  

What do we have instead, in Unreal Tournament 3, if not a Tournament?  Calling it Gears of War 1.5 is a good place to start.  

Unreal Tournament never really had a defining artstyle to call its own, but it was still recognizable.  UT99 had its harsh shadows and pockets of bright light on largely cool-colored maps, a very neo-industrial/tech vibe with a smattering of ancient temples thrown in there to call back to Unreal.  UT2003 and 4 turned their tech maps into something a bit shinier overall, left a bit of industrial grunge in, had their fun with future space techno Egypt, and splashed a bit of East Asian architecture in one or two maps for good measure.  Colors were bright, each map had an identifiable pallette, and it's hard to confuse one for the other.

UT3 came out after Gears of War, which means it looked like this:

Not helping matters is the new direction character design was taken, which basically boils down to taking Gears character out of their usual armor and putting them in UT styled suits.  Malcolm’s there and he's put on about 200 pounds of muscle.

Man, just look at all those graphics.  And it's a good thing there are so many, because otherwise how would we know what we're looking at when the dramatic cutscenes play?

Because since we have no Tournament in our Unreal Tournament game, we of course have to have a very dramatic story about a Krall invasion and this guy named Ronin’s quest to get revenge.  

Let's unpack that.

The Krall invaded.  The Krall, the mercenary/slave race kept on retainer by the Skaarj, are the primary antagonists, but not the Skaarj themselves.  Ronin, an entirely new character made for this game, is the primary focus when actual series (human) mascot Malcolm is right there.  And the whole thing is a heroic revenge story, not a Tournament.

I hate this game.

So UT3 forces a series of ladder matches across all of three gametypes into a narrative nobody asked for.  If it had had anything to with the series’ history, it probably could have been acceptable, but it doesn't mean anything as it is.  Matches are now short gameplay segments in between an overproduced narrative about revenge and retribution, and they're given wholly unnecessary context.  Deathmatch is no longer literal bloodsport to entertain the masses but a gritty, brutal battle of attrition until one side wears down the other side’s respawner charges.  Capture the Flag isn't a game, it's you taking a daring and gritty shot at capturing your ugly, inhuman enemy’s Field LAttice Generator to turn off their respawner.  Warfare/Onslaught isn't a fun territory control match, it's a gritty and unrelentingly brutal comment on how war is hell, as you capture territory to destroy the Core that powers your gritty enemy’s respawner.

Do you get it.  Respawners.  Real war.  Not a game anymore.  No fun allowed.

Sigh.

This game came out when I was late into highschool, and was one of the first games I was super excited about.  Back then I didn't actually play all that many games, tending instead to stick to a smallish library of my favorites.  So when UT3 was announced, originally as Unreal Tournament 2007, I was hyped.  It would be one of the first games on the brand-new Unreal Engine 3, and the handful of prerelease screenshots kept my attention for months with their unparalleled lighting and detail.  Blurbs about the changes they were making excited me, talking about how they were putting a bit more speed back into the game to win over the holdouts who thought UT2004 was too slow.  An entirely new roster of vehicles was going to sit alongside the existing ones, and a whole host of changes was coming to merge the best of UT99 with UT2004.

That's what they promised.  What was actually delivered was an anemic blend of half-baked executions.  People don't like double jumping and think UT2004 is too floaty, others like double jumping and think UT99 is missing critical movement options?  UT3 keeps double jumping but makes the total jump height of both equal to a single jump in UT99, removes wall and air dodging, and adds a noticeable recovery delay after dodging from the ground.  Cool, great.

People didn't like the weapon balance changes and replacements?  Toss out the Assault Rifle, bring back the Enforcer, but make it just as inaccurate as the AR!  Make the spread on the Flak Cannon’s primary tighter, but have its alt fire shell fall off even faster than UT99’s!  

That's not to say all of the changes were bad.  Believe it or not, Unreal Tournament 3 actually does have a handful of things I really like, which makes their presence in an overall worse game all the more painful.  Vehicle physics are greatly improved, the new vehicles are amazing, Adrenaline is gone, the Rocket Launcher has its grenades back, a lot of the new weapon designs are superb, powerups are back on the map, you get a hoverboard on Warfare and VCtF maps, and I'm all out of nice things to say.  

The game, visually, is a mess (see above).  A new graphics engine means new effects to play with, but those effects here are bloom and more bloom.  Players get lost in overstuffed scenery because the artstyle inherited from Gears of War is red on brown on gray.  A more grounded overall concept strips a lot of identity from returning maps, taking them from space or exotic locales and putting them in a generic futuristic cityscape.

That's a small complaint, and totally worth dismissing, but it shows a certain lack of respect to the history of the series, to me.  These are maps that have been iconic as a whole that have been repurposed to show off how many pixels can be crammed into a skybox.  When Facing Worlds was eventually re-added in UT3’s first and only content update, it was transplanted from two opposing towers on an asteroid spinning above Earth and just set in the mountains somewhere in China.  

If you're looking at it from a pure gameplay perspective then there's nothing wrong with the change.  But it's just part of an inherent ignorance as to what players wanted from this game.  We didn't want a weird storyline where we watch Epic mush per-pixel lit action figures into each other before graciously being allowed to capture the enemy’s Field Lattice Generator three times, we wanted to mush those action figures together ourselves as we climbed higher up the ladder towards facing the Tournament champion.  We wanted to thunder across whatever alien landscapes the map designer thought up that day and add another piece to the expansive puzzle of the Unreal universe, not spend two-thirds of the game puttering around China or the generic scifi city. 

Also, in going back to get those above screenshots, I discovered something I’d entirely forgotten: there are no map descriptions.  The strongest part of that good old fashioned world building is just gone.  No more short tales of a skyscraper built by a hubris-devoured crazy person, no more small insights into the shipping lines around this or that outpost, no more glimpses at all into the world beyond the game.  For them to suddenly make such a big deal about the story, Epic sure didn’t care about anything beyond their cutscenes.

But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.  What else is in UT3?

Not a whole lot.  With a lack of gamemodes came a lack of maps, though I suppose 41 maps was still more than you could expect at the time.  The bonus pack that turned UT3 into the “Black Edition” (I have no idea) added 19 more and did, as previously mentioned, re-add Facing Worlds.  Mutators are also lacking, with a fair chunk appearing just as basic gameplay tweaks - no hoverboard, no Orb (we'll talk about the stupid Orb), no powerups, the Arena mainstay, no Translocator (just a game setting in all previous titles), friendly fire (also a previous game setting), game speed adjustments (yep, was a setting before), and your basic Instagib/big head/super berserk mutators like you always get.  

Gone are fun things like quad jump, vampire, big wheels, slow motion corpses, all the “other UT” mutators (UT Classic and UT 2003 Style if you recall), and vehicle arena.  Remember, no fun allowed.

And I sure do wish there was fun allowed, because some things almost are.  Warfare is the star here, or at least it should have been.  Imagine:  a map five times as large as the largest Onslaught map, still joined by paths of dozens of capture nodes linked together to create distinct fronts, laced in between guided objectives reminiscent of Assault scenarios.  Completing these objectives grants you unique bonuses on your path to the enemy Core, if you can make it past the army of players and vehicles ahead…

That's what Warfare was billed as, but that's not what Warfare ended up being.  What did it turn out as?  Literally Onslaught again, but with an Orb now.  

The Orb is a game-breakingly frustrating mechanic.  Here's how it goes:  the Orb spawns at a node you control.  Someone can pick up the Orb and carry it around, shooting a giant pillar of light into the sky wherever they go.  The Orb will instantly destroy and capture any enemy node it's brought to, and will be destroyed in doing so.  The player carrying the Orb can't use any vehicle except their personal hoverboard.  

The Orb either wins games outright or does stone nothing.  See, both teams get an Orb, so what happens most of the time is that one guy uses the Orb to capture a node, then the other Orb is used to take it back.  It's not like you can use it to get a sneaky capture, because of the giant pillar of light shooting into the sky and an icon on the minimap.  The Orb is stupid, and proper control of the map makes sure that absolutely nothing comes from its presence.  So good work Epic, you added another layer to a gamemode you already stripped back to exactly what we'd gotten before, and all that comes of it is absolutely nothing.

The new vehicles are cool though.  Everything from UT2004 makes a comeback with a tweaked design, and new Necris vehicles are added as well.  They're usually just an analog of an existing vehicle except with wiggly scifi tentacles, so you get a single-person hoverthingy and a VTOL jet with lasers and missiles, but they really outdid themselves with some of the other ones.  Filling the spot of the main battle tank for the new vehicles is a giant War of the Worlds style tripod that can clamber over most obstacles and terrain.  The light attack jeep spot is a laser-toting mini-walker that can retract its tendrils and roll around as a ball, squishing people on its merry way.  Like I said, not all bad.  Oh, but only one team gets them, and not all maps support their inclusion.  So only mostly bad.

But they are all that's left of a much larger gamemode that had more and more stripped from it until they were left with literally just Onslaught but with the Orb.  

And the bad things just kept coming, this time in regards to the music.  New composers were brought in again, in the form of Jesper Kyd and Rom DiPrisco, and they make a total mess of the place.  There are a good number of “remixes” present on the soundtrack, but where the musical genius Kevin Reipl took GoDown and made Hyperblast Redux, whichever of the duo made the UT3 remix of GoDown just added some modulation and a breakbeat.  Or maybe the classic Foregone Destruction, where the UT3 version just adds some modulation and a breakbeat.  Mechanism Eight?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  Skyward Fire?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  The classic Unreal Tournament theme itself?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  The instantly recognizable stage music for UT2004’s Torlan, SDG-ONS1?  Surprisingly, a mold-breaker here: no modulation, only an added breakbeat.  And someone wailing over it.  I get that it's supposed to have a vaguely Middle Eastern or whatever sort of vibe, ‘cause the original did and Torlan itself was set in a dusty oasis sort of thing, but they changed the setting for UT3 to be more temperate so I really have no idea.

My point is that the music in UT3 sucks.  Even past the embarrassing quality of the remixes, none of the original compositions are memorable.  There's no energy, there's nothing that plays to the idea of the game, and there's no bombast.  The music probably has its fans out there, but I'm about as far from one of them as you can get.

I’m also about as far from a fan of the game itself as you can get.  When this came out, I was mainly confused as to how it could be so bad.  It’s not like it was the first time I ever didn’t like a videogame, but for Unreal Tournament of all things to turn out so bad, I just didn’t really know what I was experiencing.  UT3 was so bad that within a month I was looking up tutorials on how to use UT2004’s editor.  A year or so later Epic put UT3 on Steam and added a content pack that turned it into Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition (I still don’t know), but that added so little that it barely made a difference.  Two new gamemodes that just amounted to new types of Deathmatch, a handful of maps, and that was it.  

People made their own maps, sure, and I’m sure if I looked now I could find mods that make it a more bearable experience.  But at the same time, I’m not really sure.  Because see, UT3 didn’t just release on PC this time around, it also came out on PS3 and the Xbox 360.  Epic wanted to bring the award-winning modding scene to those platforms as well, which means the entire process of modding and the number of things that could be modded was cut way down to adhere to guidelines from both companies as well as the much more limited space available on the console’s hard drives.  I only ever looked into mods back around when the Black Edition dropped, and the most popular mods I remember from back then is just adding a Master Chief character model.

To say that Unreal Tournament 3 was a disappointment is perhaps the biggest understatement of this entire essay.  I’m not going to rant on about how it was a betrayal of brand integrity or something, because I’m not entirely that naive, but the failure of this game to do as much right as its predecessors or even impress on any great scale meant a lot for the arena shooter genre.  Id Software had bowed out and wouldn’t reappear with Rage until years later.  Halo was wrapping up its trilogy to critical acclaim.  Call of Duty was rapidly changing the face of shooters with Call of Duty 4.  Fallout 3 was near, Bioshock had come out a year or so prior, and Gears of War 2 would cement Epic’s new direction.  

There was no redeeming followup to Unreal Tournament 3.  Nothing came out to add Assault or Domination or Bombing Run back in.  It came out, bellyflopped, and Epic let it sit in the lovingly-rendered mud full of bloom and speculars that it landed in.  

In the decade-plus since then, the face of shooters has changed again and again.  CoD4 ushered in an unrelenting push towards modern-day settings, a small subset of shooters with RPG elements grew larger, Bungie made more Halo games and then Destiny, a whole indie subgenre popped up to try to let us relive the days of Doom and Quake, then a fantastic new Doom came out, and now everyone has a battle royale.  Even Epic.  

A few years ago on the official Unreal Tournament forums on Epic’s website, a group of fans formed a plan to make their own Unreal Tournament entry under a different name.  Work started, schedules were made, and it caught Epic’s attention as so many remake projects do.  But rather than end with a Cease & Desist like just about every other one out there, a few people from Epic expressed surprise that there was such a massive push and actually pledged their own support to the project.  Unreal Tournament 4 was suddenly an official project.  

It was a strange relationship, of course - Epic’s people gave it a place in their launcher and let it use their official servers, they signed off on all major updates and made everything nice and official, but the weapon, map, and character design was going to be on the community.  We can get into the ethics of that some other time, but the point was this:  Before all that long, there was a playable Unreal Tournament 4.  Maps were using placeholder art and geometry, most of the weapons were just the UT3 models, there was one character model, and all you could play was Deathmatch, but it was coming along.  And it did come along.  The Enforcer, Link Gun, Flak Cannon, Rocket Launcher, and Sniper Rifle were all finalized and modeled, a few maps were finished entirely and look gorgeous (and play really well!), and more character models were added.  

And then Fortnite got big.  

Fortnite, a weird little Orcs Must Die-alike with building and survival elements, wasn’t much of a big name until Epic added a battle royale mode of their own, not too long after Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds swept across the Steam Early Access scene.  What that meant for the UT4 project is that the handful of official Epic people who were getting paid to curate this giant mod endeavor were suddenly reassigned to work on something a little more immediate, namely Fortnite.  

The long and short of it is that Epic killed Unreal Tournament twice in a row.  There are still arena shooters out there.  Toxikk is basically just UT2004 deathmatch with a shiny coat of paint (I played a bit, it’s okay but lacks a lot in comparison); Quake Champions is a perfectly fine hero shooter with a lot of balance problems and way too few maps, plus it’s Quake which means all the problems I have remain; Tribes: Ascend came and went just as fast as players in it moved thanks to a suddenly overaggressive monetization model; and lately I guess Dusk has its multiplayer which I hear is pretty healthy.  

The arena shooter isn’t dead; no genre really can be, and I have firsthand experience with how much work can be done to keep individual games alive, but it’s certainly not a popular choice these days.  If so much has happened to the shooter genre at large since Wolfenstein 3D came out, that much and more can happen again.  More people are playing videogames than ever, technology marches onward, and maybe one day someone in the right position with the right resources will create something that finally puts the public eye back on the most classic of multiplayer shooters.

But until then, the decade of languishing that arena shooters have been the subject of is entirely Epic Games’ fault.

[fearofyoongi-blog]

I Bloom For You | Minjoon

pt. 2

tags: college au, clique au, minjoon smut, vhope, sugakookie, fuck boy!jin 

main character: park jimin

word count: 6132

read pt. 1 HERE

In the library of the university, Jimin smirks back at both Taehyung and Jungkook with a sense of pride. After explaining his encounter with Namjoon, they were left shell shocked.

“Is anyone going to say anything?” Jimin asks, glancing between the other two at the table. They all met in the library, a usual hang out between classes if no one was hungry. His sexual encounter with Namjoon was three days ago, but the boys ate lunch together for those two days, and Jimin didn’t want to share that information over food. Today seems like a good enough day to drop the bomb.

“What do you want us to say?” Taehyung retorts, taking the bait collectively for himself and Jungkook. “I mean… Namjoon? Kim Namjoon?” Jimin only nods in response.

He knows where Taehyung is going with this, and truthfully, Jimin knows he deserves the lecture. While Joon is a liked and lovable guy, it was also his downfall. Many people loved him. Literally. Jungkook has shared those details before, between the three of them, stories and rumors that circulated the school. Namjoon hooking up with teachers. Namjoon hooking up with classmates. Namjoon humping a tree because he was high.

Everyone knew the upperclassman well. Perhaps that is why Jungkook was so quiet right now.

“Just tell me why,” Taehyung sighs. “Why did you sleep with him? Of everyone you know. Of everyone you could ever date, or see, or get to know better? You just… Give Kim Namjoon your virginity. Just like that?”

“You slept with Hoseok after only a week of knowing him!” Jimin snaps.

“Is that what this is about?”

“No-- No--” The blonde shakes his head quickly. “No, that’s not why I slept with Namjoon. I’m just saying.”

“Saying what? You can’t possibly be comparing my relationship with Hoseok to your one time in bed with Namjoon?” Tae scoffs at the mere thought. “Hobi may be friends with him, but he is nothing like Namjoon.”

Jungkook clears his throat.

Which catches the attention of both Taehyung and Jimin harmoniously. He perks up and folds his arms across his chest. “What?”

“What? What do you mean what? What was that for?” Tae asks in a defensive tone.

“Well… You said Hobi is nothing like Namjoon but… How do you know?”

Jimin tilts his head and glances back to Taehyung. “What’s he talking about?”

But Tae keeps his reserve and brushes them off. “This isn’t about me right now,” He leans forward on the desk to speak lower. “We’re talking about Namjoon.”

Jungkook sits up and purses his lips. “Yeah, Tae, but didn’t---”

“This isn’t about me!”

Jimin rolls his eyes. “You thought the world of him not too long ago.”

“Like, three days ago,” Jungkook chimes in.

“What happened?” The blonde adds.

Taehyung sits back in his chair and tucks his lips into his mouth. The look on his face fades from guarded to somber. He clears his throat and shakes his head. “He just… He hasn’t called me. That’s all.”

It seems like Jungkook already knew this, because Jimin is the only one reacting in pure anger and shock. His mouth is agape and he’s visibly annoyed by this news. “He-- What?!” When his eyes peer over at Jungkook, his brows furrow. “He hasn’t called? But-- Since when? You only told me you had sex days ago. And you were talking to him for a week!”

“I told him it’s not a big deal,” Jungkook takes the heat off of Tae for a moment. “Yoongi said Hobi has been working a lot, plus they’re recording a mixtape. He’s been into that.”

“Oh, bullshit…” Jimin scoffs, slamming his palm on the table. Unfortunately, too loudly, because it catches the attention of almost everyone in the vicinity. The three of them offer innocent apologies with their pouts before carrying on the conversation. “I call bullshit. They saw each other everyday for seven days, then all of the sudden Hobi’s too busy? Please. I don’t buy that.”

“And Namjoon?” Taehyung interjects, causing a lump to form in Jimin’s throat. “You mean to say that Joon’s talked to you everyday since you had sex?”

Actually, they hadn’t spoken at all.

The worst, most hurtful part, is that Namjoon never returned. All Jimin could recall is waking up to his bedsheets on his mattress but the bed not made. His apartment was empty. Not a note left behind. Nothing. Jimin relives the feeling of disappointment but doesn’t dwell for too long before shaking his head. “I don’t,” He answers honestly. “We had sex once and I never spoke to him again.” It was difficult to admit, but a lesson learned.

Did Jimin feel regret for doing what he did? Not entirely. Hardly, if he were being honest. He could still taste Namjoon’s lips. He could still feel his touch. It constantly set fire to his skin. Even though they haven’t spoken, if the other asked him to do it again, he would. However, Jimin would never admit this to Taehyung and Jungkook. They wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t know what it was like to have Namjoon the way he did. Whatever way he did.

“It doesn’t matter to me. We weren’t dating. It was a fling,” It’s bitter to say but a relief all at once. “He didn’t do what Hoseok did. He didn’t vye for my affection, screw me, and then disappear. That’s different.”

The table grows silent again. Taehyung drops his head and sighs, to which Jungkook speaks up. “Come on, Jimin… You don’t need to be harsh.”

“What? It’s the truth. I’m not---”

The words were ripped right from him. Right out of his throat. Taehyung and Jungkook sat across from Jimin, with their backs facing the entrance of the library. They couldn’t see Namjoon, Jin, Yoongi and Hoseok walking in, but when the blonde locked eyes with the group of upperclassman, he only saw red.

Taehyung is the first to turn around, and he immediately regrets it. “Oh fuck,” He hums as he sinks into his seat. “What’re they doing here?” He then shoves Jungkook to get him to look too. “You said you told Yoongi we were here! Why are they here!?”

Jungkook doesn’t bother to turn around. He’s casual, and appears uninterested in the news of his boyfriend’s presence. “I did tell him, but I don’t control him or his group.” Jungkook shrugs as he finally caves and turns around.

Jimin watches intently. The very second Jungkook twists, Yoongi’s eyes catch his movement. It must be nice to have someone notice you from so far away. Even though Jungkook is content, there’s a smile creeping onto his features. Jimin observes his friend as he fights the urge to feel excited. “Holy shit, you are so gay for him.” He chuckles.

Jungkook snaps around and shifts in his seat, peering at Jimin. “Shut up, I’m not. It’s fine.”

After all those years of being together, Jungkook wasn’t out of the closet. Jimin and Taehyung always wondered how Yoongi could be so patient and content with the arrangement, but respected their friend’s privacy nonetheless. Jungkook was a student-athlete, a very talented track-and-field star, that fit the bill of every athlete trope imaginable. Not only did he fall in love with an upperclassman, but he pursued the grunge boy that had big dreams and a soft voice. It was quite romantic to Jimin, actually.

As he smiles at Jungkook, he notices Yoongi approaching from the corner of his eye. That was nothing new. Whenever they were at the library, and Yoongi arrived, he would join them for a few minutes and eventually walk Jungkook to his next class. However, this time around, Yoongi’s separation from the group caused a shift in forces.

Jin remained at the librarian’s station, flirting up a storm, but Namjoon and Hoseok decide to follow Yoongi over to the table. Jimin could feel his heart start to race. Not just for seeing Namjoon, but for Taehyung as well.

“They’re-- They’re coming over.” Jimin whispers in a panic, sitting up straight as he fixes his hair.

Taehyung, on the other hand, takes a deep breath and collects himself. He doesn’t react the way Jimin wants. Preferably, he would like to be one-of-two freaking out over this.

Yoongi makes it to the table first, as per usual, sitting beside Jungkook. They were too close to appear as friends, so Jungkook, as per usual, scooted away. Yet they fell into a conversation with ease. Something about text messages. Something about dinner later. Jimin was far too occupied in his mind to pay attention.

Hoseok comes up next. With too much confidence, he sits on the armrest of Tae’s chair and peppers kisses on the boy’s head. Taehyung seems standoffish at first, but with slight giggles escaping, Jimin knew his friend was a goner.

It was up to him to keep up appearances.

When Namjoon approaches, Jimin stares at him blankly.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Did Joon really expect a warm introduction? Not only was the table out of chairs, but Jimin would never allow him to sit close. Instead the upperclassman stood a yard away, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“How have you been?” Joon tries again.

“Mmm… Hungry.” The confusion on Namjoon’s face is too cute. So Jimin caves and elaborates. “I’ve been waiting almost three days for a pizza. I’m starving.”

Rather than answering, Joon looks down at his shoes. This catches the attention of Yoongi, and Jimin peers at the other blonde, waiting for him to say something.

“You’re not mad that he ditched you, are you?” A voice chimes in sarcastically, to which grabs the attention of the entire group.

Jimin locks eyes with Jin, and immediately regrets it. Once he’s in the other boy’s stare, he finds it difficult to avoid.

Kim Seokjin was… for lack of better phrasing… not a nice person. How he managed to maintain such innocent friendships with Hoseok, Yoongi and Namjoon, was beyond Jimin. And just how did Jimin, a junior, know so much about Jin? Well, he’s experienced firsthand the amount of trouble one boy could bring.

Jin has a tendency to gawk at Jimin when no one is paying attention. He’ll shoot the younger winks, blows kisses, and has openly flirted with him in the past. Jimin was only a Sophomore when he first interacted with Jin. The boy was all too naive and eager for attention. That is until Yoongi did him a huge favor and recommended Jimin to stay away. It was the best decision of his life. Later they found out that Jin actually shared nudes of his then-lover to half of the student body. It was a disgusting act of cockiness.

Taking a deep breath, Jimin pushes some of his bangs back and relaxes in his chair. He watches Jin climb onto the table. The boy was so tall, his feet were still touching the ground. It’s bold of him to stand closer than Namjoon could ever bother. Jimin was too attracted to Jin’s confidence, he resents Joon for allowing his friend to be this way toward him.

Swallowing thickly, Jimin locks eyes with Taehyung before answering Jin’s question. “I didn’t know this was shared information to begin with,” He sighs through his nose as he peeks at Joon.

Jin chuckles condescendingly. “Hey now, there’s no need to be bitter. If you want, I can tell you what happened.” He fishes the other as he ticks a brow.

“Dude... Come on…” Joon’s weak attempt to intervene comes and goes.

Jimin doesn’t need his help. Jimin thinks he doesn’t need him at all.

“No, no. I want to know,” The blonde doesn’t take his eyes off of Jin, despite how much his head is tilted upright. “I’d love to know what was more important than my self-esteem.” His comment rattles the table. Everyone’s eyes are now on the exchange happening between himself and Jin.

Hell, even Jin is impressed by his forwardness. He loves it so much, he entertains it.

“The bet was only for two hours.” Jin states without missing a beat.

Again, Namjoon wants to interject, but Jimin doesn’t let him.

“What bet?”

“Jimin…” Namjoon steps forward.

“No, what bet?”

“You. You were the bet, silly,” Jin winks at Jimin, which fills him only with rage.

His eyes shoot between Jungkook and Taehyung, then Namjoon. “What the hell is he talking about?”

He notices Tae glare up at Hobi.

“Oh, oh. I see.” Jimin laughs lightly, crossing his legs under the table.

As if Jin’s grin couldn’t grow anymore, it does.

“A little birdy told us about that cute little v-card being up for grabs.”

“Jin, come on, that’s not--”

“Truth be told, when Taehyung came to air his grievances about that fight you two had over him and Hoseok, I was completely in shock. Park Jimin? Flower boy, SGA treasurer, studious and charming? A virgin? A lonely boy? It baffled me!” Jin continues to mock without apology, while Jimin watches Taehyung. He cluthes his chest so dramatically. “Oh now, come on, don’t blame Taehyung for being worried about his wound up friend. He just wanted to you relax. I mean, you did relax, eventually. Didn’t you?” Jin leans toward Jimin slightly, taunting him with that sly grin, as he reaches to touch his bottom lip.

Jimin wants run. He wants to leave this table and never look back. Yet something keeps him here. His eyes must have given away his need to be protected.

Because within seconds, Namjoon is grabbing Jin- his own friend- by his jacket and pulling him off the table. Jimin flinches at the interaction, watching in awe of the one-sided scuffle. Namjoon shoves Jin, which causes a small scene.

“Fuck, it was just a joke, Joon!” Jin giggles as he backs away. His hands were raised as he walks back to the table with caution. “My fucking God, I think your boy can take a joke or two, can’t he? I mean shit, he had sex with you, that’s a joke in and of itself.”

The worst part is that Jimin knows not to listen, but he does anyway. Hell, it’s not like anyone else was coming to his rescue. Taehyung has since pulled away from Hoseok, and was completely avoiding the guy even though he was mumbling things to him. Jungkook, however, is starting to pack his bag for an escape. That’s what Jungkook did when situations aroused with Jin. He escaped.

Jimin, on the other hand, didn’t bother to collect his things. Instead, he jumps up from his seat and walks away.

Lucky for him, there is a bathroom in the library. It’s far as hell, but it was better than sitting at that table any longer and allowing himself to listen to Jin’s nonsense.

As he pushes the door open, he falls against a sink and grips it between his fingers. His jaw unintentionally clenches from how anxious he felt. As his eyes peered into the mirror, at his reflection, he hears the bathroom door open and close behind him.

Jimin suspects Taehyung at first. This was his doing, wasn’t it? For being so upset that ran to Hoseok as if he could be any sort of confidante?

But it wasn’t.

Instead of a greeting and apology from a friend, his eyes make note of Namjoon. The audacity he has to follow him. Jimin spins around with apparent disgust on his face.

“It’s not what you think,” Is the first thing out of Joon’s mouth, leaving Jimin even more speechless than before. “Before you start ranting and raving, hear me out. Okay, yes, I ditched you. I’m sorry. But I can explain. The reason I left abruptly is because of Jin. I can’t say why… only that he needed me.”

“I needed you.” Jimin seethes.

Joon shakes his head. “Not like that. This was different. He’s… an asshole… but it’s complicated. He needed me and I had to be there for him.”

“Fine, you left me in my apartment after having sex with me. You didn’t say goodbye properly. Thanks for leaving my sheets behind, I guess.” He folds his arms with a huff.

“I was going to wake you but I wouldn’t have been able to explain what happened. So I just… left. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology,” Jimin admits sternly, brows knitted together as he glares at Namjoon. “An apology means you regret your actions and plan to never do them again. Obviously, you’ll do this again. You’ll always pick your crew, won’t you?” Namjoon is quiet for a moment. Jimin could sense he’s holding something back, and the silence bothers him. “This is ridiculous, I’m leaving.” As he tries to make a break for the door, Joon blocks him with his whole body. Arms stretched and chest out.

“I am sorry,” Joon urges, this time seeming more sincere than the last. “I am.”

Jimin, adamant as he is to feel resentment, softens his expression and takes a step away from the exit. His eyes trail along Namjoon’s features. From the knitted brows to his stern. thin-lined lips, a genuine look of concern etches his expression. Jimin releases a sigh. “It was a one time thing.” He speaks softly, shaking his head as his eyes avert to the ground. “I don’t know why I’m this angry. I guess I can’t believe you told Jin so easily.”

“Like you didn’t tell your friends?” Joon responds quickly.

His gaze shifts up to the upperclassman. Well, he wasn’t wrong. “For what it’s worth, they took it worse than Jin.”

“Jin doesn’t care,” The taller boy shakes his head, relaxing his arms to his side and stepping closer to Jimin. “Not as much as he seems.”

“I think Taehyung thinks I made a mistake.” Jimin feels smaller and smaller as Namjoon approaches, his eyes following upward until his neck is craned way too far.

Namjoon laughs lightly, for some reason, which causes Jimin to frown. When he notices, Joon speaks up again. “I didn’t need that book.”

Jimin remains quiet, baffled.

“I didn’t need the book,” Joon says it again, as if it would make sense a second time. “Just needed a reason to talk to you.” His arm raises and his fingers gingerly push Jimin’s bangs back. The blonde boy feels his knees buckling. His breath hitches as Namjoon touches him again, for the first time since their last. “I’ll admit there was a small bet. Just a tiny one. To talk to you, though. To flirt a little. Not… Not to have sex with you. I really wasn’t expecting that.” Namjoon releases a soft chuckle.

But Jimin pouts. Even as Namjoon’s fingers hook the backside of his neck, he’s guarded and tense, not wanting to cave to the other male’s flirtation. Jin really upset him, with all that he said, Joon couldn’t deflect from that. Not like this. Right?

“How come Hoseok hasn’t called Taehyung?” Jimin is quick-witted, eager to learn about Hobi and his actions. This group of friends had their secrets, and that was worrying. The last thing Jimin wants is to be involved but excluded all at once. “Does he like him?”

Namjoon only answers with a scoff. Reeling Jimin much closer, leaning down to capture his lips. The blonde allows it. Hell, he relishes in it. He presses back and wraps his arms around Joon’s waist. Joon’s tongue swipes over his plump lips, diving past them until he was dancing with Jimin’s tongue too. A soft moan escapes Jimin as his knees truly give, causing him to lean forward.

This was bad. He knew this was bad.

In the middle of the bathroom? At school? With their friends waiting across the building?

This couldn’t end well.

Just when Jimin felt like falling to the ground, Namjoon scoops him up and wraps Jimin’s legs around his waist. The upperclassman is strong, moving them both to the sink in the bathroom. This was a single room bathroom, they were lucky for that. Jimin peered over at the door and it seems locked. Lucky for them. When his eyes close again, he’s pushing his small fingers into Namjoon’s hair. Gripping each strand and tugging his locks with vigor.

Joon is the first to pull away though, staring at Jimin with a sense of hunger. There’s silence between them, a small touch of intimacy that locks their eyes and keeps them in their fanatical world. Jimin licks his lips delicately, already missing the feeling of Joon’s kissing him.

“Taehyung is safe with Hobi,” Namjoon answers finally. “He’s safe. Hoseok is mysterious and distant. After years of being friends, even I don’t know him well. But he won’t hurt Tae. He won’t hurt a fly.”

Jimin releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding, biting down on his lip as he leans back to rest on the mirror at the sink. His eyes were low and hooded. Honestly, the blonde forgot about that question, but feels satisfied with Joon’s answer. “And me?” He asks in a whisper. His gaze shifts between Namjoon’s eyes. The insecurity in his stare was too obvious, but hid well behind his tousled bangs. “What about me?”

Namjoon offers an unsettling smile. It makes Jimin uncomfortable, but neither pull away. The young swallows thickly as he waits. He doesn’t know how long he waits, per say, but the older shrugs a shoulder. There wasn’t a yes, or no, in sight. “I think you’re happy with the risk you’re taking.”

Tilting his head, Jimin furrows his brows. “Happy with the risk? What risk?”

“The risk of not knowing if you’re safe.” Joon answers contently.

His pout deepens into a frown. Jimin feels disappointed by Joon’s retort but… he isn’t wrong.

If he had to be honest, this was the first and only time he had done anything spontaneous. Why, with Namjoon, of all people? Jimin couldn’t pinpoint why. Perhaps it was the thrill of chasing an upperclassman. Perhaps it was the thrill of impulse. The thrill of letting go of inhibitions. The sheer thrill of not overthinking or having expectations. Jimin’s dating life could be found only under a microscope. It starts, and ends, with only one boy.

Jimin was only seventeen when he developed his first crush. Tony was an undergrad at the time, a varsity basketball player and a certified dreamboat. Tony checked off a lot of boxes in Jimin’s checklist. From his height, to his deep voice, to his attractive smile. A lot of Jimin’s sexuality could’ve been inspired by Tony. Unfortunately though, Tony was not gay. Nor did Tony like boys.

Still, it never stopped Jimin from daydreaming of a whirlwind romance. How he longed to be swept off his feet (the way Namjoon had), to be kissed and adorned (the way Namjoon had), but most importantly, to no longer feel inexperienced and innocent. To no longer have his virginity (which Namjoon gladly helped).

So the risk factor was great, but that’s what made it all the more attractive to him.

“Do you feel safe with me?”

Namjoon laughs again before shaking his head quickly. To which Jimin abruptly slaps the other’s chest.

“What risk do you have with me?”

“This not being a one time thing, which is what you said earlier,” Joon states, raising a brow. His eyes scan over their bodies (which are still very much mashed together), before meeting Jimin’s again. “This is the biggest red flag I’ve ever seen in my life.”

But Jimin only chuckles, letting the hand on Joon’s chest slide down to his belt buckle. Taking his bottom lip under his teeth, he begins to undo the belt with a shaky grip. “Will you take me on a date then?” He asks in a very seductive, overly softened, tone. At this point, Jimin is grinning so hard, his eyes have disappeared.

“I’m not that kind of guy,” Joon retorts, licking over his lips as he looks down at Jimin’s hand. Surprisingly, Jimin doesn’t stop what he’s doing. “I don’t date.”

“Then what do you do?” The blonde flirts casually, now working on the button to Namjoon’s jeans. Then the zipper. Then suddenly, he’s shoving the other’s jeans and briefs past his hips.

“This, this is it.” Joon’s voice sounds huskier than before. He’s clearing his throat and his lips are agape. Jimin looks down at his cock and is surprised by how hard it is. Brushing the pad of his thumb over Joon’s slit, he meets his eyes again.

“If I’m being honest, you’re not doing much of anything right now.” Jimin taunts him, shaking his head until his bangs are moved from his vision. Now he was looking fully at Joon. His sharp jaw cocked upright after Joon snatches his chin.

“Are you messing with me right now?” Namjoon asks, again, his voice so deep that it absolutely terrifies Jimin, but he doesn’t stop. Instead, he nods. “You don’t want it like this… I know you don’t.” He insists, narrowing his eyes at the small boy.

But Jimin is persistent. His fingers never stop moving. They touch Namjoon everywhere. From the ballsack he hadn’t paid much attention to the first time, to the tip of his head which twitches every time he strokes it. Jimin’s hands were soft, he knew this about himself. Taehyung teased him all the time for his delicate touch. So consider Jimin a bit cocky about his actions.

Then he grins. It’s wide and sneaky and now he’s terrifying Namjoon. The upperclassman steps back as Jimin climbs off the counter and down to his knees.

Fuck, he’s never done this before, but he wants to try. For Namjoon, if anything. Funnily enough, the other’s cock is much thicker up close. Jimin almost regrets being bold like this. Jimin helps Namjoon step out of his jeans before sticking his tongue out and swiping a long stroke of his tongue at the underpart. Joon releases the sexiest groan Jimin has ever heard.

Before he continues, Jimin swallows thickly. His eyes gaze up at the taller boy as he pokes his tongue out and wets the entire shaft. Every inch of Joon’s large cock was coated in Jimin’s silva, and in no time the boy was attempting to fit him in his mouth.

But poor Jimin, his mouth is too small. Just barely did he reach an inch past the head that he started to gag, which caused Namjoon to groan again. That seemed to be a decent enough reward for him, because Jimin becomes relentless. He’s watched enough porn to know that this is supposed to feel good, and well, Joon seems satisfied.

When the upperclassman begins to buck at him, Jimin clutches his thighs and grips tightly. He nearly falls back from each thrust, but Namjoon holds him in place for the last time. His large hand held the back of Jimin’s head so fiercely that Jimin could feel himself starting to lose air. He’s choking, unable to breathe, but when Joon lets up, a string of saliva is left behind.

Jimin’s jaw remains slack as he glances up at Namjoon again. When he goes for his cock again, Joon stops him. Instead, he pulls the smaller boy up and begins to undress him with urgency. The only thing left behind was his shirt. Jimin attempts to gasp for air, but can barely catch his breath as he’s being spun around to face the mirror.

Namjoon takes one of Jimin’s thick thighs and holds it in his forearm as he guides his wet cock into Jimin’s hole. He is as relentless as he was when Jimin had his mouth around him, forcing the inexperienced hole to stretch and make way for a cock too large for it.

Jimin’s mouth never closes. Never relaxes. He’s releasing a loud, frustrated moan. It’s pleading and begging Namjoon to be gentle, but at the same time he doesn’t want this to end. “Joon, oh--” He’s whiny and shrieking, pressing his forehead against the mirror to keep his balance. However, resting there only becomes painful as Namjoon starts to thrust.

Each one pounds Jimin’s head into the mirror. The only sound that could be heard outside of the bathroom was the sound of his poor skull crashing into the object. After the third shrilly moan, Namjoon placed his hand over Jimin’s mouth. It was loud and impossible to control, so it had to be silenced. Not that Jimin minded. Actually, having to be quiet kind of turned him on. He’s teasingly biting into the meat of Namjoon’s palm, which in turn causes the guy to shove his cock further and harder into him.

To think someone so innocent could handle so much pain. To think someone so rough could handle someone this delicate. The two were an odd pair, there was no denying this. However, the harmony happening in this bathroom was something neither would forget.

Jimin felt tears leaving his eyes as the strokes became a bit dry. Namjoon had a firm grip on his ass cheeks. They were spread as far as they could which made him only tighter. As Jimin grew closer to his orgasm, his stomach tightened and he began to clench around Namjoon’s shaft. His thigh grew a cramp and wanted to be let go of. Shaking Namjoon’s hand away from his mouth, he looks back the other with a distinct sense of pleasure. “Joon… Joon touch me, please. I’m so close.” He begs, jolting forward as Joon speeds up his thrusts. “Please.”

As suspected, Joon listens. He settles Jimin’s leg beside the other and groans at how the position shifts. But he does as instructed and takes a hold of Jimin’s cock. It’s wet and slick with precum that had dribbled out, so the glide on it is daunting. Jimin withers and shutters at the sensation. His breath is shaky and uneven as Joon coaxes out an orgasm. “Mmm, just like that, Joon. Just like that, oh fuck, I wanna cum so badly.”

Namjoon is so quiet, so deep in thought. He leans forward to rest his chin on Jimin’s shoulder. His still thrusting into him, but not as roughly. Swallowing the lump in his throat as he feels Jimin’s smaller frame become jittery and excited for a release. “Move to the toilet.”

Jimin is surprised by the demand but he does exactly as asked. His stomach aches and his legs are weak, but he’s towering over the toilet and holding his position against the wall. He can see Namjoon aiming for the toilet, which makes him all the more eager to cum. The upperclassman picks up his speed again. He’s moving so fast against Jimin that he starts to squeal again. “Just like that! Just like that! Yes, Joon! Fuck I’m close! I’m so-- I’m--”

Before the words even leave, before the sentence is out, Jimin’s cum streams into the toilet under him and clouds the water beneath him. There are some places that completely missed the bowl but neither really care. Because in no time, after his release, Namjoon is back to fucking him fast. Jimin is bent and curved more than before, and Joon takes advantage of that by plowing him with deep thrusts.

Jimin, despite his pain, couldn’t feel closer to paradise than he did right now. He’s grinning through the pain, gritting his teeth.

Only a few more thrusts, and waves of Joon’s orgasm are filling his hole rapidly. Jimin is surprised by the feeling, but embraces them. A soft gasp escapes him as Namjoon milks his cock a few more times.

That feeling of emptiness that plagued Jimin for three days soon subsided. Even when Namjoon pulls out, he feels rightfully full.  As he stands, some of the cum dribbles out and wets his thigh. To which Namjoon quickly cleans up for him. He was good at doing that, cleaning up his messes.

Jimin releases a sigh of contentment and swallows thickly. He rests against the sink again as Joon starts to dress him slowly. He starts with his briefs, but Jimin quickly protests. “I want yours.” The suggestion caught Joon off guard, but Jimin is adamant. “I want to wear yours.” Even if it’s a odd thing to say, the upperclassman does as asked. He slips Jimin into the briefs he walked in with, and then helps Jimin into his jeans.

“I want your jacket too.” Jimin adds as he meets Joon’s eyes again. The elder cocks his head and knits his brows together, but again, Jimin is matter-of-fact and knows what he wants. “Or your shirt. Either one.”

“Well, you’re not getting this jacket. It was a gift,” Namjoon snorts before taking off his shirt. It’s the first time Jimin sees his upper body, and boy, was he impressed. Even as Joon tries to hand him the shirt, Jimin can’t resist sliding his small palm over Joon’s chest and stomach. The elder attempts to redirect his focus. “Another time.” He insists, urging Jimin to take the shirt. “Take it.”

With a huff, he takes off his own shirt and offers it to Namjoon. Lucky for them, Jimin had on a longer shirt than usual. A dark green v-neck that fit loose, which actually ended up looking with Namjoon’s jacket. Jimin, on the other hand, was wearing a shirt far too big for him now. It revealed his collarbones too much, but he couldn’t go back on his request now.

Another thing Namjoon does, that causes Jimin to absolutely swoon, was fixing his hair for him. It was straight and stiff today, but after that ordeal, the locks shifted and seemed unkept. Joon was kind enough to smooth everything down, which the blonde appreciated.

With one soft kiss on his forehead, Joon moves away from Jimin and heads toward the door to leave. Yet again, a goodbye unsaid. Jimin can’t let this happen again.

“Can I change your mind?” Jimin speaks up, standing straight despite how shaky he felt.

Joon turns slightly. “Change my mind about what?”

“The date?” He answers meekly. “Can I change your mind about the date?”

There’s an air of silence that swirls between them, which makes Jimin happy. No matter how Joon answers, he knows that he didn’t hesitate. He knows that might have actually thought about this.

“I don’t--”

“What if I took you?” Jimin interjects before Joon could finish. “You don’t take me, fine, whatever. But what if I ask you. Will you say yes?”

Again, Namjoon goes quiet.

“Will you?” Jimin doesn’t hesitate to ask again.

“Yeah, I will.”

Jimin smirks as his wobbly legs move him toward the door, he stands in front of Namjoon shoots him wink. “I wasn’t asking you right now, I just wanted to know if you would say yes… if I did.”

Joon’s mouth drops, as if to say something, but it was too late.

Despite how awkward he looked leaving the bathroom, legs unstable and new like a baby deer, Jimin leaves first.

He makes his way back to the table, but it was empty now. The only person there was Taehyung. Why he waited, was beyond Jimin.

“Jimin, you-- Where have you--”

“Walk with me. Now. Let’s go.” Jimin glances back to see Joon behind him, but he grabs his things, grabs Taehyung and leaves the library. “I’ll tell you about it later.”