#I bet I could come up with arts professions for enough of them to make a legit AU | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

poutyhannie · 4 years ago

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warnings: tsundere!minho, boxer!minho, fem!reader, mentions of d*ath, bl**d, kn*ves, violence, smut, fluff, angst :), dark cold minho finds a soft spot in y/n :))))

word count: +8k

The blisters on your hands burn as you placed the cash register on the shiny white counter. Finally, your life’s goal to begin a small cafe in town was complete, but this was only the beginning. Even the ache in your feet and back from the boxes and produce you carried in last night couldn’t shake the beaming smile you greet the empty store with. Golden light streams in from the freshly washed windows, bouncing off the racks of freshly baked breads and pastries. These beams of light must be the physical representation of the heavenly aroma of baking goods and you fill your lungs with it, content and elated at the prospect of a new chapter.

Among the normal baked goods, everyday items were placed around the counter, such as umbrellas and first aid kits. It was a small tactic to make a bit more profit or a thoughtful gesture, just in case customers needed something other than coffee and a croissant.

If you didn’t close the door soon, the cold morning gusts of wind would stale and harden the goods, but this display of openness was necessary to garner new customers so you quickly hopped from behind the counter to cover the goods with glass domes which served as lids.

The people of your city had been relatively friendly, spreading the word of your grand opening. Thanks to this, streams of customers filled your lavender-themed shop before the morning and evening rush. When the sun’s golden shine began to dissipate to cold blue, the goods were dwindling on the shelves, prepared to be restocked for tomorrow.

The front of your lavender purple apron was streaked with flour, chocolate, and jam as you wiped the counters of the same substances. The giddy excitement in your bones contradicted the cheerfully ticking clock on the wall that told you it was late into the night. When did the day spin away from you so quickly? Would all the days at your shop be this enjoyable? Sighing contently, you settle on one of the comfortable white chairs, finally feeling the pinching ache in your feet. You’d have to get employees once you made enough revenue, you were bound to only get more customers from here on out. Maybe you’d hire cleaners once a month to do a deep clean?

Thoughts prospective of your future and the future of your shop were interrupted when the door swung open—you were concerned the force would shatter the glass door itself. In stalked a darkly clad man, his back was turned to you as he quickly scanned the shelves and displays of your shop. He’d ignored the ‘closed’ sign. Still, one more customer couldn’t hurt. “Welcome,” you greeted warmly, feet aching as you walked back behind the counter. The customer gruffly rolled your word off.

The gloves on his hands didn’t have fingers and when he placed a small first aid kit and sandwich on the counter, you could see the beds of his nails were bleeding. However, when you saw his face, you realized his wounded fingers were not priority. A blistering red patch scored his cheek under his dark eyes. There was a fresh cut on his left cheekbone that matched his bust eyebrow and lip. At the state of his lip you quickly reached over to add a tube of chapstick to his order. “Don’t need it,” he grunted but made no move to put it back. “Its on me,” you explained, ringing him up, ignoring the roll of his eyes. Though his hoodie was pulled down, the sweaty strands of black hair were still visible, slightly blocking his vision. “Take care,” you offered him, placing the bag into his hand. The empty night was louder than him as he exited your store.

A month in and you’ve managed to perfect the flower-shaped croissants, exploiting the layers of dough and butter croissants naturally proved to achieve petal-like flares. Proudly, you arrange them on a baby blue decorative plate, fixing the eyebrow raising price tag in front of it. People would have to accept that baking was another type of art and that your croissants tasted as good as they look. Many customers have become regulars, your yellow post it note stuck on the cash register denotes what they usually get, just a courtesy. New people enter your store everyday, sometimes stopping to pose for pictures in front of the arguably aesthetic display case filled with your best work. A swell of pride always elates you and you remind them to tag the cafe in their social media posts.

Its because your shop has a softer, pretty theme that you’re surprised when you find yourself writing down what the bruised man from before would always order. Though you formally close at seven, you leave the light on as you close down for him because he usually enters at nine. At the end of every week, he replenishes his first aid kit, sporting nasty red, brown, and purple wounds on his face every day. His placement of the bandaids and salves are sloppy at best and as the daughter of a doctor, you can’t help but stop him before he disappears into the inky night once again. The accusative glare he shoots at you leaves you stuttering. “What do you want?” His words and tone almost have you denying that you even called him in the first place but you wonder why he’s always beat up and why he’s so cranky. “You’re not putting on the bandages correctly.” “What would you know about it?” “My dad was a doctor—here, just let me fix it for you.” You’re released from his heavy glare as he thinks over your proposal, eyes flitting around your shop before landing back on you. “Just make it quick.”

He’s never sat in one of your shop’s white chairs and he shifts on plush cushion, you across from him, preparing the first aid kit. No sound escapes him as he rips off his existing bandaids, though just watching him makes you want to wince. The used bandages are shoved into his pockets and he slouches in front of you. The wounds this time congregate around his jaw, a nasty blue-green bruise spreading from his chin to the end of his jaw. Cuts and rug burn-like patches are scattered around his face and you can’t picture what he’d look like without a black eye.

In the name of being prepared, you keep an extensive first aid kit under your counter. You gingerly smear the bruise with the respective salve before dousing the cuts with alcohol. All the while, the damaged man in front of you says nothing, but glares at you through his shaggy bangs. Though scared to anger him him, you softly push back his hair to reveal another bruise above his left eyebrow.

The tense silence tears at you and you blurt out, “Have you not met any left handed people? They’re always on your left side.”

“More like they haven’t met me.”

“You’re left handed?”

“Ambidextrous but they still never see it coming,” is his gruff reply.

Slowly, as you spread salve on his cuts you put two and two together. “You’re a fighter.”

“Boxer.” Though his uncomfortable silence had previously left you at a loss for words, you quickly get back into your old habits, “You’re a boxer? That’s why you’re always beat up. You must not be very good if you’re always getting hurt. Are you paid to fight other people or is it based on bets? You’re really young to be boxi—”

The coldness in his eyes as they snap up to you has your words choking in your throat. “I let my opponents have a semblance of victory before I beat them. Its based on bets so I get more profit if viewers place more bets against me.”

He rises and you follow him to the door. “I-if you…when you get injured, just come here. It’ll heal faster if I tend to it.”

A nod is all you get but its more than the silence you’ve been struck with by him before so you’re not complaining.

He holds you on your offer, coming in every night from nine to midnight. You don’t mind lingering at your shop longer because his scuffed boots find their way into your store every night. You learn that his name is Minho and that his boxing nickname is Lee Know. The air between you has melted from cold tension to quiet casualty. Though your heart clenches in wariness every time his battered face shows up, it also pangs in empathy for him. Empathy that he refuses to accept.

The glint in his eyes that he regards you with every night informs you that he scowls upon your empathy, the pout on your lips as you concentrate to clean his wounds and the worried laced in your voice as you ask him about his upcoming matches. “I’ve been preparing for the season to start. If it goes well, I can progress past my current bracket,” he explains and though his voice has been exclusively monotone, if you strain your ears hard enough, there’s a trace of hope and anticipation there.

“You haven’t been doing matches this entire time?” You exclaim, dumbfounded that this amount of damage has been from practices and preparation for the real thing.

For a passing second, everything in his demeanor except his voice calls you an idiot before he softens, realizing you know nothing about his underground life. “If we had matches all year, we’d kill each other in no time. No,” he laughs humorlessly, shaking his hair out. Its grown a bit longer than his eyes but you’ve secured it back, clearing his face up with a pink fluffy headband he scoffed at. “The lower division guys have up to 40 matches but the really good ones only have two or three.”

In the beginning of your late night first aid sessions, you’d timidly ask Minho small talk questions and he’d gruffly respond with a word or two, but never a full sentence. Now, you ask him because you’re genuinely curious about his profession. “How many do you have? Do you know who you’ll go against?”

“Twelve. Edging on the more professional bracket but still not there yet. Opponents are rolling; I don’t know until a few days before and even then, it’s not necessarily helpful. Just need to touch up on their weaknesses.”

“What’s your weakness?” You ask him, dabbing some burn salve on the glove burn stretching over his cheekbone. At the silence stretching across the two of you, you hope your tone came across as light and playful, not offensive. Though you were acquaintances with the boxer, you couldn’t yet bring yourself relax around his dark gaze.

“You’ll have to figure it out.” A giggle rises in your throat, maybe a nervous habit or maybe because you found him interesting.

An exhale eases out of your lungs as your legs give out, throwing yourself on your bed. The soft blue glow of your bedside lamp washes the room in a calming light but exhaustion refuses to let you bask in it. Soon, your eyelids are drooping and back is pressing into the sheets.

Danishes.

A harsh, ringing voice rips through your head; you bolt up, pulling your neck at the speed and abruptness. Gasping, you fling your shoes on, realizing that you left the dough proofing. If it were any other dough, you’d roll over and shrug off the loss of a batch, but this dough was made with premium French artisan flour that a kind customer had gifted you. Somehow, the panic in your throat wards off drowsiness and you speed down the empty streets. Bursting into your store, you rush to remove the dough from the bowl and knead them into small loaves.

Based on how the dough smells, you don’t believe it over proofed so the worry loosens your throat allowing you to inhale a yawn, sliding dough into the warm oven.

The chairs in your cafe are plush but nothing compared to your bed. It’s making you slowly regret coming back tonight.

A loud bang rings through the silent air and immediately fear grips your heart which is thrumming in your throat. Maybe its your drowsy state that has you flinging into panic at the noise. The rubber soles of your shoes slowly squeak over the tile as you move over to grab a knife you use to score the bread. Its size won’t scare anyone off, but its sharpness is one to be reckoned with. From your fuzzy, sleepy memory, the sound came from the small storage room so with white knuckles gripping the knife, you creep over. In your rush, had the door been carelessly left open? The storage room door is ajar but you can’t see anything inside. Relaxing the slightest bit, you nudge the door open slowly, entering on tip toe. Though dimly lit, you can see that the small room is empty and relief floods you, though not completely ridding you of the former panic—your heartbeat is still in your throat.

When you return to the main room with the counter, tables, and register, cold, blinding panic returns tenfold. There’s three dark figures in your shop, crouching next to the counter, quickly stuffing their bags with the money stashed away. In a flurry, you press your back to the storage room door, cursing yourself for leaving it in there and at the front door which you left wide open.

Your mind whirls, trembling with fear and apprehension. Where was your phone? You couldn’t possibly stop these men but would the cops come in time?

“What the fuck are you bastards?” A voice rings out. Harsh. Cold. You don’t dare turn the corner to look.

A muffled cry pierces the tense air, strained grunts, and sounds of impact following in succession. There’s a loud cracking sound and a wail that raises your goosebumps and you slink back further into the shadow, hoping that whatever is happening behind the wall will leave you alone. Breathy curses and threats are thrown before visceral, bodily squelches and groans silence them. Digging your fingernails into your palms to get your hands from shaking, you tremble in the corner, even after the sounds have been reduced to low, pained moans and a pair of footsteps. They wander around, heavy and assured before edging closer to where you’re hiding. You don’t dare breath, but you don’t think breath would come even if you asked it to.

“Y/n?” At the sound of your name, your eyes grow wide, though you’re still frozen in place. The footsteps round the corner and you’re met with scuffed black boots and ripped black jeans. Squeezing your eyes shut, your mind whirls as you remember staring at those boots, tending to wounds. His wounds.

When your eyes fly open again, he’s crouching in front of you, face significantly less wounded than you’ve seen it. The sound of your knife clattering on the tile startles you into flying into his arms. He makes uncomfortable, awkward noises above you, hands floating above your back as his butt smarts from the force you knocked him over with. “Did you beat them up?” You voice is shaking and you’re either on the verge of tears or already crying into his black hoodie, filling your mind with his deep sweaty musk, “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Yeah, its not that big of a deal though. Just call the police,” he pushes you off of him with surprising gentleness, seeing that his hands are stained with the blood of those three men. On his feet in a flash, he drops a bag onto your lap. “Here is your money.”

There’s no proper reason why your hand shoots out to pull him from leaving. Maybe it’s because the would be thieves are still laying in your store, maybe its because you want to keep inhaling the warm scent he exudes, maybe it’s because the thought of being without him tonight scares you. “The police won’t believe that I did this,” you whisper, hoping that that will ward off his need to leave. It’s impossible to interpret what the dark look in his eyes are—you can never seem to read his thoughts.

Only his verbal confirmation has relief flooding your chest, “Fine.”

After tying up the perpetrators, Minho settles half an arms distance away from you, a waft of his musk filling your nose as you think you hear the piercing screech of sirens. “Were you just gonna let them take your cash?”

You were wrong. His eyes can deliver something other than blank darkness: incredulous accusation. The disbelief and an audible scoff in his question has you curling up tighter, burning with the implications he poses. You’d let these men reap the fruits of your labor; you wouldn’t try to stop them.

“Y-yeah,” you attempt, trying to concoct a reasonable excuse that would get his disapproving stare from burning off the side of your face. “There were three of them, so of course I’d let them go.”

A scoff rips from his throat, clawing at the back of your neck. “This won’t do. You know,” he turns to you, one eyebrow raised, “this’ll just be the beginning. Are you gonna be prepared to defend this shop, bub?”

You bristle at his know-it-all attitude and the patronizing nickname, “Why do you care? And why were you even here this late at night?” The pale yellow suggestions of sun peak from the inky black sky as you’re reminded that you’ve gotten no sleep. Ignoring your questions, he rises, adjusting his jeans and walking over to the policemen now at the glass door of your cafe.

Even after the robbers were detained and police left, he remains, his dark scent permeating the air around you. “Listen,” he starts, hands shoved into his pockets and the regular scowl on his face, “I was just walking back from practice and saw them in here. And you need to get protection around here.”

“And how would you suggest that?” You throw back, fueled with remaining sass. A shrug. He turns away, walking to the door. Habit says he’ll ignore you, disappearing into the lightening city horizon, but he stops, hand resting on the glass door. You slap his hand off of it, but his hand’s grimy residue clouds a part of the door already.

His shoulders drop in annoyance before he grunts, “I could teach you how to defend yourself.” Mouth agape and eyes wide, you repeat his words, “You’d teach me how to defend myself? Isn’t your season starting up soon?”

His gaze drops, you think he’s taken aback at your remembering the dates of his season. “Coach doesn’t want me sparring. Get healed or some shit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m offering because it’ll be good for me to refresh on the basics and the next shop is twenty minutes away. I’ll be inconvenienced if this shop closes anytime soon.” The thought of Minho scowling down at you as a personal defense teacher scares you, but the vivid memory as you clutched the knife terrifies you.

“When are you free?”

“No, widen your feet; squat more, bub,” Minho lets out an exasperated sigh and slips behind you, hands on your hips to adjust your stance in front of the punching bag. The yellow lights overhead and the pale wash of moonlight are the only things illuminating your ‘self defense’ classes. With as much punching as you’re doing, you think it’s more of a boxing lesson than self defense.

“One.”

Your left glove strikes the bag.

“Two.”

Right hand.

Minho repeats these instructions, the two words seemingly molding together into a mash of sounds. As his cold voice continues to command you, the burning in your lungs intensifies and your thighs, arms, and stomach ache, screaming at you to stop. _Give up. _ A voice lures you, reminding you of how your knees shake and eyes sting from sweat. “I can’t,” you whimper, hands retracting as you meet Minho’s disapproving stare. It makes you avert your gaze, the burning in your cheeks from something other than physical exertion.

“I’m heading home then.” Scoffing, Minho slings his bag over his shoulder, nodding back to you, “see you tomorrow.”

Dejected, you fumble with the straps of the boxing gloves Minho gave you, unable to grasp them when both your hands are cocooned. The usual mocking sarcastic glint in Minho’s eyes were replaced with disappointment and his abrupt departure burns your chest. Maybe you should have pushed yourself more? Maybe he shouldn’t have.

“One, two. Don’t lean into it. One, two. Rotate your wrists. One, two. Guard your jaw, he’s gonna knock you out.

“Keep going, Y/n,” interrupts the usual ‘one, two’ and your teeth grit, pulling your elbows in and snapping your punches. Minho’s lips lift from the corner of your eye and this spurs you on, extracting energy from a place you didn’t know existed. Fueled with anger—anger at yourself for having given up last session, anger at Minho for pushing you—you pummel the punching bag, breathing harshly as the sound of slapping synthetic leather fills the musky room.

“Okay, break.” The ground collides with your body as your legs give out under you. Your breathing must have been uneven, because there’s white patches in front of your vision. After blinking them away, you’re met with Minho’s outstretched hand offering a water bottle. His face is turned away from you, but his cheeks rise, insinuating a smile. With a breathing ‘thanks’, you practically inhale the water.

“Slow down, bub. You’re gonna puke.”

Laying a hand over your spazzing heart, you give him the best glare you can muster, “No thanks to you, Lee Know.” He smirks at your use of his boxer nickname, sprawling on the ground next to you.

“Y’know,” you gasp in between breaths, “I don’t think this is self defense, this is just offense.”

Minho’s head tilts in acceptance, tongue poking out to swipe at his bottom lip. “No, what you’re doing is not boxing if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Oh yeah?” You tease, pulling a face at Minho, “I’m in boxing gloves, attacking a poor boxing bag.”

The veins in his forearms strain as he leans back onto his hands, “I could show you real boxing, bub. I have a match next week. I can get you in.” Your heart clenches at the thought of seeing the blood and gore you’ve seen on Minho’s face being made. He senses your uneasiness and leans forward, hand brushing over your knee almost…timidly? “You don’t have to come, but you can. I’ll text you the details,” he shrugs, “show up or don’t.”

Maybe you shouldn’t have worn a pastel purple skirt to a boxing match but it’s too late to turn around and change. At least you had the sense to wear safety shorts and sturdy combat boots. Yelling can be heard in the distance and while you’d usually flee from sounds like that, you find the GPS on your phone leading you right to it.

The barbaric shouts are deafening as you stand in front of a grey building. A man, who’s arms are the size of your shoulders guards the door. “You lost, little girl?” He asks gruffly, but he doesn’t seem sarcastic.

“I-I um,” you clear your throat, “Lee Know has a match here?” Your statement comes off more as a question and you wince at how weak your voice sounds.

The bearded guard nods, his black shirt straining as he crosses his tree trunk forearms in front of him. “So you’re the lady he’s been babbling on ‘bout.” A blue tattoo stretches on his forearm as he opens the door, a wave of stench, heat, and yells ramming into you. Thanking the man quietly, you slip through the door. It’s an arena, like a football stadium but scaled down significantly. Burly and wiry men alike fill the seats, howling like dogs. You pull your sweater closer to you and your skirt down. The lights and sounds whirl in front of you as you try to spot Minho in the crowd. Further up, closer to the boxing ring, there’s a familiar head of black hair and broad shoulders. You hope it’s him as you squeeze past the admittedly scary crowd of men.

Tapping his shoulder, you breathe in his musky scent. It almost cancels out the stale rotting stench around you. When he turns, his eyes are dangerous and dark—you almost stumble back—but when he sees you his eyebrows shoot up. “Didn’t think you’d come,” he shouts over the chaos, “here,” he pulls your shoulders into his chest, shielding you in his arms as he begins to weave through the crowd, “my match is in a little bit so I was gonna head to the back.”

The screams are muffled now as Minho closes the door to a small, empty room. He slouches on a chair, gesturing you to do the same. “It’s always so fucking chaotic out there. I can never focus before a match. I can never think,” he mutters, mostly to himself, so you freeze, not wishing to distract him, “My mind is always somewhere else and I can’t remember anything. It’s like nothing else but my nerves exist.”

Only after a beat of silence, after Minho turns his wide eyes up to look at you, do you realize he was talking to you. “But you’re so good. You’ve been training all year,” you blurt out, not pausing to think about your words, taken aback at how innocent and lost his eyes look, “isn’t it like muscle memory?”

He groans, you worry you’ve said the wrong thing, “Yeah, I know but it’s just so fucking frustrating, bub.”

Smiling widely, you tease him with a nudge on his shoulder, “You’re gonna be great. Plus, you’ll have me cheering you on.” Awkwardly, you make punching movements, “I’ll take your opponent down if you can’t.”

That’s the first time you hear Minho laugh. A genuine, hearty laugh. Not a scoff or a mocking tease. It’s warm and sweet and surprisingly high. His eyes crinkle, still smiling at you when he stands, “Okay sounds like a plan.”

Seeing the dark glare Minho holds his opponent with as they circle the ring, you understand why Minho sports the look so often. It takes you off guard; you feel like you haven’t seen these dark eyes in a while. A strong swallow of spit tightens your throat. You blink, his opponent strikes, mitt slapping against Minho’s blocking forearm. Gasping a breath, you freeze in apprehension as the crowd around you roars to life. The sharply muscled, bald man circling Minho does not lack in speed; the blurring blue of his mitt once again slams against Minho’s forearm. The bald man tenses, charging at Minho with a flurry of attacks. Desperation clenches your throat as you will Minho to do something. He ducks his head behind his forearms, abdomen clenching at every blow inflicted to him. Soon mutters calling Minho a ‘punching bag’ and a ‘free win’ crawl into your ears. Anger flares in your chest—you know how good Minho is at fighting. Why isn’t he doing anything? However, Minho’s wiry muscled, grey haired coach standing beside you is stoic, a stark contrast to the screaming audience, hurling saliva with every abusive word they target at Minho.

“Why isn’t he doing anything?” You whisper to yourself, too engrossed in the match to care about the raw vulnerability in your voice. The bald opponent retreats, panting as Minho continues to circle him.

Minho’s coach growls, a smirk breaking his expressionless wall, “It’s over now.” Wide eyed, you turn back to the match, taking in the sweaty, hunched—you’d daresay weary—shoulders of the bald man, heaving with pants. A relief spreads a smile across your face. Minho had been doing something. The red boulder of Minho’s mitt slams into the side of the man’s head, jerking his neck awkwardly, hurling him into stumbling, expression blank shock. An electric wave of excitement shoots through you. Minho is merciless, unwilling to let his staggering opponent recover, pummeling him with firmly resounding attacks. You recognize some basic moves he’s taught you, only now do you realize capabilities of those punches put into action.

The red of Minho’s mitt is soon darkened with the seeping blood of his opponent and the fickle crowd now screams Minho’s name, invigorating him, causing his blows to land harder, until the bald man is thrown onto the blood spattered floor. The referee slams the ground thrice and the crowd erupts into a cacophony of cheers and groans.

A satisfied smirk cuts across Minho’s barely harmed face as he unfurls his sweaty arms in victory, bathing in the cheers of those who bet on him and the cries of those who bet against him alike. His coach turns to you, a satisfied twist to his lips, a wad of cash already in his clutched, calloused hand, “This is why he wasn’t doing anything, sweetheart,” he says, shaking the money, “Minho’s a tough kid but he’s also a smart kid.” After a pause, his coach shifts, frowning in, “You’re the first person Minho’s brought to a match. Nobody else. Take care of him,” he warns.

Minho’s panting presence behind you raises goosebumps on your neck. You turn to see his glistening bare abdomen as he towels himself off with a sweat rag. Bruises bloom on his forearm and but he ignores them, receiving the majority of the cash from his coach.

“Let’s get out of here before some ass crack takes his faulty betting out on me,” he says, resting a hot hand on the small of your back, guiding you to the back exit, ignoring jeering crowd members. The empty night greets you and he nods to a black car, gruffly explaining, “You walked here, right bub?”

“Yes, also,” you gush, “that was pretty cool."

He looks away, deflecting with, “Yeah, get in.”

“Why do you do it?” You ask, strapping your seatbelt on and retrieving the makeshift first aid kit from your purse.

The car murmurs to life and Minho’s voice is surprisingly quiet and soft, “I got into a lot of fights up to high school so coach came up to me and asked me if I wanted to make it a profession,” a pause and Minho murmurs, “he took me in, taught me how to channel the joy I got from fighting. Turn it into something better. Focused.”

“He seems really proud of you,” you observe, leaning over to rub a salve onto his shallowly cut lip. “You should put on more chapstick, Minho. Where’s the one I gave you?”

Under flash of passing yellow streetlights, you can almost make out a dusting of pink on Minho’s cheeks. “I lost it,” he admits, tilting his head slightly to give you better access to his lip.

Sighing, you settle back onto the carseat. “I can take better care of you when we get there.” Minho’s eyes are wide, looking back from the road to you, “Where?”

A clench of nervousness holds your gut, but you shrug, “Yours, mine, I don’t care.”

It’s Minho’s turn to be flustered; he nods quickly.

Minho’s apartment is bare, only cluttered with various trophies and medals, a ground table, a tv, and a small couch. You set down his bag, you insisted you carried it and Minho opens a cabinet, retrieving the first aid kit. He settles on the couch, legs crossed tightly underneath him. For some reason, its stupidly endearing. The alcohol on his cut stings and Minho’s eyebrow furrows in pain. “Y’know, you don’t have to be tough around me, Minho.”

His eyes are blank, “What do you mean?”

“You barely let yourself feel pain, you’re always glaring at something, and you never open up about anything. You don’t have to be like that around me, Minho.”

An eyebrow lifts and he tilts his head to the side slightly, “I told you about coach,” he offers.

You nod slowly, “Yeah, that’s true. I guess, I just like seeing you smile,” you shrug, “that’s all.”

Suddenly bashful, Minho looks down, biting his lip to repress a smile.

“That’s what I mean!” You exclaim, placing your hands on his cheeks to cradle his face, forcing him to look up at you, your heart in your throat. He groans, an endeared smile finally breaking out, “Quit being so fucking cute and maybe I could think enough to talk properly to you, bub.”

Burning excitement fills your chest and you pose with a peace sign, “You think I’m cute?”

An exasperated roll of his eyes is all the answer you need. “Well,” you say, patting his head, “you’re very cute too.”

This time, his scoff is soft, “I’m a boxer.”

You press a bandaid over his cut, “Yes, a very adorable boxer who needs to smile more.” He breaks out into laughs, filling you with bubbly warmth, gazing down at you with eyes that are anything but dark and dangerous. It’s warm and tender. He is. Sobering up, Minho tilts his head slightly, his eyes traveling down to your lips.

Anticipation fills your chest and your mind whirls, not knowing what to do so you blurt out, “Oh yeah! Chapstick,” leaning over, you retrieve a tube, “Here.” Minho, however is unfazed by your awkwardness and cocks an eyebrow, suddenly confident, nodding to the chapstick, “Put it on for me.”

Its your turn to blush, but you do still, not realizing that this isn’t clear chapstick. Its only when you pull away do you realize his lips are painted a pretty shade of pink. Clapping in joy you shove your phone camera in his face. “You’re so pretty!”

Stuttering in surprise, his eyes bug out but he doesn’t make any move to wipe it off, “The fuck?”

“So pretty!” You exclaim, holding his face to put more on, laughing at his shocked expression. Minho pulls back, tumbling you with him until you’re staring down and all your laughter has been swallowed. Silently, his hand travels up to the back of your head, gently pulling you towards his freshly moisturized lips. Smiling because of nerves, you don’t need his hand to guide you.

His lips are surprisingly soft but perfectly sticky with your pink chapstick. Almost timidly, his tongue caresses your bottom lip and you whimper as he eases your lips apart. Saliva gathers at the corners of your mouth and your arm cramps from holding yourself up over him but he’s so gentle and careful with the kiss you don’t want to stop. Your arm gives out and you press against Minho, snaking your fingers into his slightly sweaty hair. Panting, Minho pulls back as he gazes up at you, his eyes wide and sparkling. “I don’t want to go too fast, Y/n,” he whispers, thumb gently caressing your cheekbone.

Brazen with unfound confidence, you pout at him, “No. Be mine now.” Minho smirks, laughing softly as his eyes crinkle up, “Okay, okay,” he reassures you, pulling you down to lay on his chest, “I’ll be yours.”

“Don’t you dare do that, Y/n. I’ll sue you,” Minho threatens, eyes wide but voice joking.

Giggling, you ignore him, continuing to create a new dessert of your own design called the ‘Minho Mochi’. It’s a soft peach mochi covered with waffle cone. “No, I take inspiration from you and plus,” you mention, “you said yourself that the juxtaposition of the soft sweet mochi and the shell of the waffle cone was good.”

“Yeah,” he groans, plucking a mochi ball from the counter and popping into his mouth, “but that was before you decided to use my name for it, bub.”

Reaching up to clean the potato starch residue on his lip you correct, “I made the mochi with you in mind first, not the other way around.” Minho mumbles half heartedly, turning away to smile but you tug his arm. He’s blushing and grinning softly; your heart clenches in adoration.

“I can make you one for every match you have, would that make you feel better?”

Minho laughs, bringing your potato starch and rice flour covered hand to nuzzle his cheek, “Fine, I guess this is what I get for having girlfriend that owns a purple bakery.”

“Hey!” You deny, pulling back, “This is lavender, not just purple.”

“Yes, yes,” he agrees quickly, tugging you into him. “I’m covered in flour,” you protest into his chest, his deep musk a relieving break from the sweet scent of mochi. You feel him press kisses to the top of your head as his arms tighten around you so you relax into him, circling his waist with your arms.

“You should really decorate this place, Min,” you comment, gesturing at his bare apartment. You’re comfortably draped across his shoulders from the couch as he sits on the floor. He looks back from the TV, eyes wide and a puppy-like pout graces his now well moisturized lips, “What do you mean? I have my trophies as decoration.”

Groaning you protest, “No, those are trophies. You need proper deco here, it’s just sad.”

A familiar, flirty smile spreads across his face and he winks at you, “You’re prettier than any other decorations I can get.”

Though you feel your face burning, you roll your eyes at him, trying to suppress the smile bubbling in your chest. He gets up to sit next to you on the couch. Still smiling, he pats his lap, making your stomach jump in excitement. Settling down on his thighs, you play with the collar of his shirt, avoiding his stare. He ducks his head, forcing you to look at him. “Why you shy, bub?”

“I really love you, Min.”

His eyes are soft and you don’t expect him to say it back. You’re just content that he knows.

“I love you too, bub.”

You’re at Minho’s apartment basically every day for the past year and today’s no different. The soft beating of his heart resounds in your ear while the other listens to the calming voice of the audio book you guys are working through. The plot follows a personified kitten who tries to find her place in the world that is too cruel for her. Despite the objectively morbid theme, this part of the story is hopeful—the kitten has found friends and feels at home.

When the narrator concludes the end of the chapter, Minho reaches over to turn the recording off. You take the opportunity to crane your neck up and plant a kiss on his lips. He smiles softly, grabbing your waist so that you’re straddling his hips. One hand travels up to gently tug on your chin, deepening the kiss. His tongue is hot and lavishes against yours, a juxtaposition between his hand, methodically stroking your hair. Your fingers dance across his face, stroking his cheekbones, tracing his jawline and neck.

Soon, your fingers are replaced by your mouth and Minho’s Adam’s apple bobs with the groan he lets out. The fire in your chest and the beginning aching in your core has you tugging at the hem of his soft black tee shirt. His breath is shaky on your cheek as you pull the shirt over his head, softly dropping it next to the bed. Sitting back on his hips, you gaze down at his bare chest, wonder and admiration filling your heart as your hands travel across his toned torso. The lightest breeze of pink blush blows across his cheeks so you lean down to reattach your open mouth to his. The whirling in your mind rids your thoughts of everything except how he feels under you. His wet lips against yours, rising of his chest against yours, his hips pressing against yours.

So his tense voice catches you off guard, “Y/n, are you sure?” He’s pulled back and his eyebrows are furrowed softly, his pretty lips red and swollen but glossy with your spit.

Your gaze drops, hands fumbling to play with his hair. “I want to but if you wanna still take it slow, I’m fine wit—”

“I want you too, Y/n,” he whispers. Hungrily, he pulls off your shirt, sitting up to cradle you in his arms as he nuzzles your breasts, pressing hot kisses against your skin. Sighing contently, you unclip your bra and try not to blush at the dumb, awestruck look on Minho’s face. His rough hands come up to gently fondle them and you press kisses to his forehead and cheeks.

“You’re beautiful, Y/n,” he breathes, his hands firm against your bare waist as he gingerly turns you over so your back is pressed against the cool sheets. “We can take it slow.” Nervousness tightens your stomach and you’re sure he can feel the thrumming of your pulse as he slowly drags down your pants, maintaining eye contact. An endearing toothy smile spreads across his face and he hides it by kissing your tummy, trailing down to your pantie covered core. “Tell me if you’re uncomfortable or wanna stop, okay?”

You smile softly, “Okay, you too.” Minho nods, reaching up to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. “I’m gonna make you feel so good, Y/n,” he murmurs, reaching to tug off your underwear. Being completely bare underneath someone would make anyone ashamed or uncomfortable and your face burns as his glossy eyes take your most vulnerable state in. His lips are parted slightly and the soft glow of the lamp casts shadows of his eyelashes onto his red cheeks. A harsh swallow has his Adam’s apple bobbing. “God, you’re dripping, Y/n” He whispers, eyes shining, “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready, Minho,” you confirm. He slides his finger into your hot, aching core, his lip caught in his teeth as he watches his digit being sucked in. Slowly, Minho pushes his finger deeper into you, gaze dancing from your face to your core.

“M-more please,” you whimper, consumed by the unfamiliar feeling of your velvety walls around something. When he adds another finger deep inside you, you gasp, a hand traveling down to clutch his free one. His thumb strokes the back of your hand as his other continues, scissoring into you as wet sounds fill his bedroom. When his fingers curl up, hot white pleasure shoots through you and Minho smiles proudly, working at that spot.

“H-holy fuck,” you moan, head rolling from shoulder to shoulder at the unfamiliar pleasure.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you curse, bub,” Minho muses, releasing your hand to push himself up the bed so that your faces are close together.

“I-its because of you, Minho.”

That triggers something in him and his eyes turn dark, but rather than scaring you, it makes the coil in the pit of your stomach tighten. When Minho removes his fingers from you, it unwinds slowly but clenches at the sight of his now solid length being pulled out of his sweats. His eyelashes flutter closed on his cheeks as he strokes himself with his fingers, still slick from your juices as he retrieves a condom from the bedstand and rolls it on, hissing at the friction. “Are you ready, Y/n?” He pants softly, eyes hooded as he stares down at you, hand still moving up and down his red glistening cock in a way that has your pussy throbbing and mouth salivating. You respond by hooking your legs around his hips, smiling as he leans down to kiss your lips softly. His tip pokes at your hot core and you sling your arms around his shoulders.

Minho’s eyes are piercing as he gazes darkly at you, searching for the slightest trace of hesitance on your part. Painstakingly slowly, he slides into you. Maybe the foreplay did help to prepare you, but the stretch has tears pooling at the corners of your eyes and he’s not even all the way in you. Shakily, Minho exhales, eyebrows furrowing as he tries to hold back from pistoning into you. His lips press into the tears forming and spilling over at your eyes and he nuzzles your cheek with his nose softly, staying still until you reassure him, “Okay, you can keep going.”

His teeth and tongue travel over your neck as he fully enters you, but his soft hiss has you unintentionally tightening around him. “Ah, Y/n don’t,” he groans, lifting his head from looking at the place you two are connected at to to smile at you. “Can I start?”

You nod, hooking your ankles around his hips, “Yeah, just go slow for now.” Minho starts thrusting deep into you, angling his hips and going slow enough to feel the drag of your soaking walls rub against his throbbing cock. ��You feel so good,” he moans, reaching to hold your hand as his hips continue to rock against you.

“I-I feel so full,” you whisper, squeezing his hand and he smiles softly at you, eyes crinkling up. “C-can you go faster?”

His tongue pokes out to wet his lips and he snaps his hips into yours, groaning. The lustful and loving sounds of skin slapping resounds in the room, mixing with both of your moans to create a beautiful sound you tuck away in your mind. Minho pulls out till the tip before slamming into you, sweat forming at his forehead. With his free hand, Minho reaches down to rub your clit in tempo with his powerful thrusts. Moaning loudly, you whimper, “P-please, Min I-I think I’m gonna,” your words get swallowed by another moan when Minho’s hips increase their pace, his stamina through the roof.

“Me too, Y/n,” he pants, “Cum for me.”

The hot coil tightens and you squeeze your eyes shut, overwhelmed at the sensation until white, electric pleasure crashes through you and you release around Minho’s length. He moans loudly, quickly chasing his high. His face twists in pleasure as he reaches his high and your fuzzy brain is left awestruck at his beauty. Minho collapses next to you, removing the condom, chest heaving in deep pants as he stares into your eyes, smiling like an idiot.

“How was that, Y/n?” He asks, arms circling your shoulder, pulling you close.

You giggle into his chest, fingers tracing imaginary doodles, “That was fucking crazy, Min.”

Minho’s chest bubbles with laughter and he boops your nose, scrunching his own nose up, “That’s great cause I was kinda worried about giving you a bad experience and all.”

Looking up and tapping your chin with a finger in mock thinking you smile, “I loved it, but I want you to call me cute names, Min.”

“I call you bub. But you mean like princess? Babygirl?” he says, an eyebrow raised.

You roll your eyes, “Bub is not a cute name but yes, the others are okay.” “Okay,” Minho laughs, gently rubbing his nose against yours, “You’re my princess, you’re my babygirl, and you’re always my bub.”

Minho shuffles in the sheets, turning to face you, an excited smile on his face, “Just move in with me. You’re already here more than your own place and it’s unsafe there.” Still after loving him for so long, your stomach churns with nervousness, but you laugh softly, scooting closer so that you can bury your nose into his bare chest to breathe his scent in deeply. “This apartment building is safer than mine?” His arms find their way around you and he hold you close, his chest rumbling against your face with every word, “It’s safer because I’m here.” Laughing you pull back, supporting your weight with one arm as you gaze down at him. He lifts an eyebrow, stretching his arms towards you and you can’t help but collapse into them. “Okay, I’ll move in with you.”

A shining smile breaks out across Minho’s face and he nuzzles his nose into your hair softly, gently stroking your bare back.

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kisskissbanggang · 4 years ago

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Hello Stranger

[14K Words/1Hr. Read - Teacher!Bang Chan x Admin!Female Reader - Fake Relationships, Guest Appearances, Fluff, Smut, Slow Burn, New Teachers, Vanilla, Office Sex, Allusions To Troubling Subjects]

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You should’ve expected a phone call when you read the email. At least then you would be somewhat prepared for the verbal lashing you were currently receiving from one of your greatest teachers.

“I’m sorry, but — wait, you know what? No I’m not, I’m not sorry — but I am not staying here with this dumpster fire waiting to happen! He’s wrecking the department — Johnny, let me talk — and I didn’t even want him here to begin with. Congratulations, ma’am, you torpedoed my program I worked so hard to build.”

Doyoung paused, waiting for you to call his bluff, to appeal to his good side as usual. He was right. He’d done so much for his school — for the district, really, and this was getting out of hand. Johnny could be heard behind him, the poor principal having apparently had his desk phone wrestled away from him to begin with.

“Mr. Kim,” you spoke into the phone, mustering all the confidence you had in you, “what do you want me to do? I mean it. Tell me what you want.”

“He goes or I go,” Doyoung dramatically laid out into your ear. Johnny could be heard trying to console the raving teacher before Doyoung apparently ducked him every few seconds. “I’m losing my mind. I have 150 students becoming fucking hypnotized and they’re influencing their peers like the plague.”

“Besides losing either of you,” you carefully negotiated, “what do you want me to do? I value your input; I always have. Dig into the meat with me here, please.”

“I will not teach beside some noble renegade who wears hoodies to class and asks his students to call him by his first name. I won’t teach in the same building, nor in the same school. This is dangerous, and you know it is. For all the money you’re throwing at PR this year you could be putting it in your students.”

You hated that Doyoung was right. This was not a great start to the year. A sigh escaped that you had not meant for, and Doyoung audibly steeled himself on the other end of the receiver. He was waiting now.

“I’m coming down there,” you announced. Apparently Johnny heard you, a god fucking dammit being heard behind Doyoung’s shoulder. Doyoung, however, was sated.

“Fine,” he replied, but he didn’t sound fine. He sounded like he was surprised he got anywhere. “I’m sorry I got so upset.”

And like that, Doyoung hung up. You slumped down in your chair, having been pacing your otherwise pristine office for the past 15 minutes which had felt more like 15 hours. You were fussily rearranging your desk, trying to calm yourself back down when your assistant finally felt it was safe enough to poke her head into your office.

“Ma’am—” Yeji greeted before you held up a hand to stop her. You pinched the bridge of your nose in exasperation.

“How many more calls this week?”

“Only four,” she replied. A relieved sigh softened your tense shoulders as she set the personnel file you requested on your desk.

You felt so old now, run ragged by all the mayhem, but it wasn’t so long ago that you were young yourself. Even then, you still were according to most standards. You were the youngest assistant superintendent to ever serve the district, a set of magnet schools within the city comprised of one private Montessori primary school, one public STEM-focused junior high, and one private-public hybrid high school of the arts. You pined for the ultimate position, but that chair was long occupied by Mr. Simmons, a token favorite of the school board. He called you dear and was always acting like some big man pitying a little girl. However, this didn’t mean you hadn’t tried like hell to make an impression.

Your first three years had been a terrific uphill trajectory. In year one, you brought on Doyoung to replace the retiring choir teacher and head of the music department at the high school. To date, he’d brought in more accolades than his predecessor did in twice the time. For your second year, you collaborated with your junior high on an agricultural enrichment program that offset food costs district wide to the point you could improve offerings in all three cafeterias. This year, you re-established the district PTA. Doyoung’s rabid Booster Club and the parents of the junior high’s robotics team made up the first meeting, and more and more parents had joined since.

So it only seemed fair that this year was your first true hurdle. It had been such an innocent decision: you took a proposed program from the junior high and adapted it for your high school students. A music production and distribution program was a clean, sleek idea that was sure to impress the PTA and enrich the lives of your students in their already affluent music department and work as a dual credit with the business side of the class. What you hadn’t betted on, however, was what exactly a young teacher could get into in a high school setting.

Chris Bang wasn’t naive — you were sure of it, looking at his portfolio. He’d cut his teeth independently producing from a young age and gathering a loyal following online. This was a concept you understood well enough, but had a time and a half explaining to anyone older than you, it seemed. Anyone older than you, but also especially Doyoung, who was very fiercely proud of his hard work to get his double Masters in Choral Conducting and Music Theory at 21 and didn’t have the patience for homegrown prodigies. You couldn’t blame Doyoung, really, even with his dramatics. His competition choir was a force to be reckoned with — surprisingly disciplined, endlessly talented, and ravenously competitive — and now two of his students were wrapped up in all this, too, and that was just the extent you were aware of.

You tapped out an IM to Yeji from your desktop, asking her to come back into your office, and she dutifully popped in a few seconds later. She pulled up a chair in front of your desk as you rested your head in your hands for a moment. “Tell me, Yeji,” you sighed, “what’s your read on this?”

“Well, ma’am,” she mulled it over, “it’s not great. It’s awful, really. But it’s hard to tell by now what’s real, what’s a cry for attention, or what feels real but is actually just the zeitgeist. You know how this is, what it can turn into.”

You did. You’d remembered your own whirlwind feelings at a similar age, even just out of high school. Strangers and dissenters had a hard time believing it, but before you had assumed the role of meticulously poised and proper, you were frustratingly belligerent and stubborn like many of your peers when you were younger. It was easy to recall how real, how present every moment was at the time, but you didn’t even remember the whole story now. In fact, you hadn’t thought of that story in ages, but you were suddenly reminded of the smell of pine trees and sugar, the cool electricity of being out past midnight. It was quite possibly the most excited you’d ever felt, but now you couldn’t remember the fine details, the corners sanded down to curves over time. To your students, these letters were the most exciting and dramatic thing to ever happen to them, and if they would remember the details later on would depend on how you handled the situation.

The first letter surfaced just a week before, and online of all places. A full declaration of this girl’s undying love for Chris and all of the very, very, very inappropriate things she wanted to do with him, found in an envelope on the keyboard outside his office and posted online before he could ever see it. The next letter was eventually found two days later, apparently picked up from where it had missed the trash can: a 17 year old boy, feeling emboldened enough to finally profess who he was — gay, madly in love with Chris, and willing to risk it all. A third was stolen from a girl’s backpack from some bullies and she had been a wreck, so sure that Chris had picked one of the other two and she’d missed her chance. That girl hadn’t returned to school yet. Who knew what else was going on in the hallways, in the cafeteria and bathrooms, in the parking lot after school?

Four more parents contacted your office, according to Yeji. Four more letters. And now Doyoung was threatening to quit, for added reasons you hadn’t even been aware of. You flipped through Chris’ personnel file, hoping not to find any red flags, but hopefully find any reason this spiraled out of control, anything other than tumultuous teenage life wreaking havoc on your students.

Your sigh renewed in spades as you glanced at your assistant again. “Who do you remember most from high school?”

Yeji’s eyes were cast downward as she thought about it. “Other than my friends? Probably the student teacher in my auto class,” she blissfully reminisced. “The teacher would sleep half the time and the student teacher would just teach us whatever we wanted to know and what we needed to know for tests. I remember I had the biggest crush because of that.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Yeji gave an apologetic smile. “What about you?”

Her question knocked you off your feet for a moment. For some reason, you hadn’t been expecting it, but you immediately had an answer. “Aside from friends? Weirdly enough,” you began, “someone I didn’t meet until graduation.”

As sickly sentimental as the thought of it was, it was true. You didn’t even remember that boy’s name anymore, but you’d met exactly three times before you left for college. He had been hanging out by the bonfire on the beach at a grad party no one had expected to get so crazy. You couldn’t remember your conversation, but you could remember his bleached hair tucked under a beanie catching your eye as he sat by himself, his friends apparently wreaking havoc on their own somewhere. His lip ring was crooked, and in a fit of beer-buzzed confidence you’d fixed it for him while you talked about the phony gravitas of graduation. You’d almost kissed him, too, connecting over things that seemed way more kismet than they probably were when your friends finally made you walk home with them.

You gathered up the rest of your patience and courage as you bid Yeji goodbye until your return and headed out to your car in the lot, making the tedious journey to the high school. The handsomely vintage architecture was charmingly modern inside the gates and within its walls, but not overly so. However, this also meant the school was a hike and a maze to navigate through to find the music department. You were distracted, though, missing a turn here or there and having to turn back a couple times now that you were suddenly remembering your clandestine romance from years ago. What was his name? It wasn’t even that long ago. Had so much really happened since then? You wracked your brain. He had a reasonably fresh and nice scratcher tattoo on his bicep, you remembered, but you couldn’t remember what it was for some reason, just like his name. He had to have said it in one of these memory bites.

The second time you’d met, he’d been handing out flyers on the boardwalk for his own show at a rave in a warehouse on the other side of town, out where the beach met the woods. He’d seen you before you’d seen him, and he had popped up with a greeting of Hello, stranger. He had made you promise to be there, which is where you met the third and final time later that night. He greeted you again the same way. Hello, stranger. You’d thought it was cute then, and still did, which must be why you still remembered that detail, at least. He liked your shoes, your worn work boots you’d picked up at a thrift store and refused to get rid of despite all the times your parents asked.

Those warehouse shows were always nuts, all sorts of vendors arriving who were willing to shack up with any event that passed through. He had bought you cotton candy from one of these vendors when you met him after his set and you chatted as you walked along the tree line, talking about his dreams of becoming rich and famous on his own terms. He kissed you, once, and you tasted his lip ring and spun sugar for weeks. You found yourself wondering now if he ever did become rich and famous.

Doyoung gave you a passing glance in the hall as you stalked towards Chris’s classroom: he looked impatient but thrilled and, sure enough, well dressed in his usual suit and tie. You wondered if this new staff member was exactly what Doyoung was fear mongering. Maybe it was simply a difference in values. This was Chris’ first year teaching professionally, you remembered, and now you felt miserably guilty. What a horrible way to start a career. You hadn’t even visited your new teacher since he began, but just the door outside his room was a mess. Doyoung’s fretting made more sense now. Even though you’d only gotten four phone calls, Chris’s classroom door was plastered in letters.

The door creaked and fluttered as you opened it and peeked your head inside. The room was devoid of any human presence. For a space that needed to serve multiple purposes, it was sparsely filled except for classroom materials and equipment. Regular desks and chairs filled the floor as opposed to risers or music stands like in the other department classrooms, but there was still a soundproof practice room in the back of the room, and only the recording equipment stored around the room gave any hint to the classroom’s purpose. To deal with the mess after the third letter, a sub was leading Chris’s classes in the library, but you at least expected to find him here himself, or at least some posters or framed photos. You peeked inside the small office at the head of the classroom, finding it just as empty as well, but with some more personality. A few extra milk crates of visibly nicer vinyl records for sampling and listening were stacked beside the desk along with a nicer record player than what was by his desk out in the classroom. Some books sat on a shelf with a modest cactus in the corner, and finally some photos: Chris shaking hands and smiling with tons of industry players and friends, and occasionally appearing in one of those hoodies Doyoung had been warning of. He did own suits, apparently. Multiple. And he looked good in them.

A polite cough surprised you at the door of the office.

You whirled around, the sun outside silhouetting Chris as he stared at you in his dimly lit office. “My office hours are cancelled this week. May I help you?”

It was your turn to cough, clearing your throat. He was certainly young. He was certainly handsome, his grimace pronouncing the charming dimples in his cheeks. He certainly didn’t dress like a teacher. Chris stood in the doorway of his own office, looking at you curiously in his hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. He even had a backpack hung on his shoulder and a bag of greasy fast food in his hands. He suddenly looked down at it, embarrassed.

“I, er, wore out my welcome in the teacher’s lounge, it seems,” he sighed out a sullen laugh. “And I needed some fresh air.”

“Mr. Bang, I—“

“Call me Chris,” he insisted with a tired grin. Your heart shamefully thumped at how friendly and cute he was. It was easier to pretend you didn’t hear him. He stepped around you and dropped down into his desk chair. He silently gestured at his food, appearing to ask if you were alright if he ate while you talked. You nodded. He dug into the bag and cheekily offered you a fry. You coolly shook your head.

“I’m sorry we have to meet like this, but as assistant superintendent—“

Chris sputtered, standing up from his chair as he choked down the fry he’d just put in his mouth. “Ma’am,” he gasped finally, “I didn’t—“

“I know,” you nodded again. You waved up a hand in understanding. “Please, sit back down. I wanted to come by and see how you’re doing, considering the current state of affairs.”

Chris stayed standing, uneasy and fidgeting. “Alright, what do you want? Is this it? Please don’t suggest I need an attorney, I don’t think I can handle it.”

“What?” You asked, surprised.

“I’m sorry for snapping,” Chris lamented, “but I’ve gotten dozens of emails and messages through the school portal from parents and students asking me if I did anything, and it’s doing my head in.”

“They’re what?!” You hadn’t even considered anyone actually thought the teacher was guilty of anything. He nodded gravely.

“Read the letters outside!” His demand came out brokenly as he pointed behind you. “They’re begging me and taunting me to do all sorts of shit. Confess, quit, fuck them — all sorts of awful trash that I never even imagined. I just wanted to teach. I don’t know why the hell this is happening to me.”

You had no idea about any harassment. This looked bad. It looked bad to your students, their parents, the staff — everyone. You pulled out your phone from your purse and brought up the PR rep’s number, now on your speed dial. “You didn’t do anything.”

“Of course I didn’t—“ he sputtered before you cut him off.

“I wasn’t asking, Mr. Bang. You didn’t do anything and I believe you. A good superintendent would support good staff. Your first few months brought nothing but praise past my office.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Chris quietly said. He finally sat down as you dialed the rep. She would be by shortly. You found another chair hiding under a pile of books and cds and moved them so you could sit. Chris was looking at you oddly now as you hung up, sitting closer than you’d normally like in the small office. You shifted uncomfortably. Chris offered you a fry again before you stiffly refused once more. He shrugged and began inhaling his food in earnest.

“Hungry?” You asked sarcastically, instantly regretting it. There was no sense in kicking him while he was down.

“Emotional eater,” he clarified around a mouthful, equally sarcastic in your resumed awkward silence. You considered the young teacher in front of you. If you recalled the personnel file, he wasn’t just a brand new teacher, he was new to the area as well. A rumor apparently spread among the students and even some of your staff that he had been running away from something, but you never paid that any attention until you were actually in the same room with him. He caught you zoning out in his direction, an eyebrow raised as he paused on his mouthful of food, and you sheepishly pulled out your phone and checked your agenda until your rep finally found you hiding out together in the tiny office.

Ryujin had become your go-to girl since the school year started but even more so over the past week. Public relations for a school district should never have to become very high-maintenance work, but Ryujin was quickly proving herself over-qualified for the job. She stood in the doorway, tall and cool in her confidence despite her short stature as she looked over the situation.

“Stand up,” she simply directed Chris.

He gave you a quick glance, not moving until you nodded. Chris set his food down and stood, hands in his hoodie pockets as Ryujin circled him. He warily shied away from her prodding as she pinched and pulled at his clothes, looking at tags and labels. She fiddled with the cute studs in his ears, tugged on the strings of his hoodie to draw him more to her level, and ruffled his dark, fluffy hair to look for showing roots or product. Ryujin looked at you now. “This isn’t so bad,” she told you decidedly.

Chris was confused, left about ten miles behind the conversation. “Why—“

“What do we do?” You asked. Chris looked wildly between both of you as you decided his fate without him. “We’re dealing with harassment now.”

“Of course we are,” Ryujin nodded thoughtfully, “I mean, look at him.”

“Hey!” Chris rightfully looked offended, even as you held up a calming hand to settle him down. Ryujin impatiently waited for you to let her continue.

“He doesn’t look like a teacher, he doesn’t act like a teacher, he’s under 30, and— I’m sorry— he’s cute. He was bound to get eaten alive when his students are only a few years younger than him and he has no experience.”

“So,” you reiterated, “what do we do?”

“He can go back to teaching,” Ryujin ruled, “but he has to look and act the part. No more first-name basis, no more street clothes.”

“This is so ridiculous!” Chris laughed in disbelief.

Both you and Ryujin glared at him now before she continued. “He’ll have to make a statement first. I’ll write it, of course. He can speak at the next PTA meeting. But —“ she turned to face him for once, “you shouldn’t be alone. Do you have a spouse? A partner? Some boyfriend or girlfriend?”

Now you shared Chris’ confused look. “Why does that matter?”

Ryujin folded her arms. “I don’t mince words. Sympathy, mostly. For anyone worrying, he’ll clearly appear to have support. For anyone who is doubting him, he clearly appears to have a loyal and loving presence in his life that can attest to Mr. Bang never having any nefarious predilection for his students and never intending to inspire any regrettable actions. It’s ultimately a similar reason to why I suggested you should wear a wedding ring.”

Your face heated up once again at being outed in front of your staff member. Ryujin had suggested a fake wedding ring ages ago when you first hired her. The moment you were appointed, parents instantly began doubting you. Even Superintendent Simmons, a parent himself, questioned you at your third interview. How could you — a young woman with no spouse and no children of your own — ever deign to understand what it’s like to raise and nurture one? The sheer stubbornness that you felt in response to that sentiment made you refuse such a placating notion as a fake wedding ring. Chris seemed to notice your embarrassment before he piped up himself, almost seeming to want to change the subject back for your sake.

“No,” Chris said simply, “I’m single and fine with it.”

“Look,” Ryujin rolled her eyes, “that is fine. Find a fake, then. It just needs to look real. It’s not fair, but these parents will assume you’re a better person if you’re not single in this situation. They need to see that you’re a loving and committed professional who just wants to teach and nurture young minds. The next PTA meeting is this Thursday night. Today is Tuesday, so you have a little time, but not much. Consider it, and I’ll have an optional line in your statement for whatever you decide. Do you have a suit?”

“For funerals and weddings,” Chris grumbled.

“A sweater is fine then,” Ryujin shrugged. She put a reassuring hand on your shoulder. “This is going to be fine. Let me know if you need anything.”

“You’re leaving?” You realized with thorough embarrassment that you sounded distressed.

“Unfortunately, yes,” she sighed, “the Superintendent wants a meeting about his son or something. You will be fine. Keep me updated.”

Ryujin ghosted out the door as fast as she’d come, and Chris reeled. “The nerve! I can’t believe her, can you?”

“Yes,” you nodded seriously, “I can. She’s right.”

“Oh, come on!” Chris blustered. You stood back up now, gathering your bag in the crook of your arm and straightening the carefully pressed collar of your suit jacket.

“I don’t want to see you have to end your career so soon, Mr. Bang,” you sympathized as you pulled out a business card from your purse and handed it to him. “Again, I’ve only heard good things about you until all this. Call me if you need anything. You shouldn’t have to face this alone.”

Things settled for one day. And then Thursday morning happened. Yeji was pale as you entered the office in the morning.

“John called from his cell.”

You checked your watch. First period was just starting at the high school.

God dammit.

You jogged into your office, grabbed the phone, and dialed him back. Johnny was out of breath. “I have a situation,” he panted into the phone. You could hear shouting behind him. Specifically, you could hear Doyoung shouting behind him. God dammit.

The tires on your car screeched as you peeled out of the parking lot of the admin building, tearing across town and barely breathing until you passed through Johnny’s office on your way into the building. He was icing his cheek with a cold pack from the nurse, his tie loose and slack around his neck and his suit jacket haphazardly slung over the back of his chair. Before you could say anything, he just shook his head with a disappointed laugh before returning to work at his computer. You walked quickly through the hallway, students watching you from their first period classrooms until you reached the music department. Taeil, the band teacher, closed Doyoung’s door behind him as he saw you in the hall.

“Ma’am,” the teacher greeted, thoroughly exhausted, “I wouldn’t go in there. We already called a sub for the rest of the day and I took Doyoung’s kids to the library for independent study.”

“Thank you, Mr. Moon,” you thanked him graciously, “do you have any idea what happened?” Taeil shrugged helplessly. His tie was crooked as well, his rolled sleeves uneven. You looked over at Chris’ room, open to the hall. Letters had shuffled off the door and onto the hallway floor. “Take care of Doyoung,” you instructed Taeil, “make sure he’s okay and that he gets home alright.”

Taeil nodded and let himself back into Doyoung’s classroom as you carefully approached Chris’. The room was dark, books and papers strewn across the floor. You cautiously switched on the light, only to find the teacher slumped in his chair at the head of the room, icing his own face with a metal water bottle. He silently glanced at you and sighed as you rushed over to check on him. You set your purse on his desk and gingerly pulled the water bottle away, sharing Chris’ sigh as you saw the bruise on his cheek. It felt a bit gross to still find him so frustratingly handsome in this moment.

“What happened?” You softly asked him. Chris sank into the chair and gave a dejected shrug, helpless to recollect. And he didn’t get much of a chance to even try, as a commotion erupted in the empty hallway. Doyoung stood fuming in the doorway with Taeil futilely attempting to pull him away.

“So you are here,” Doyoung grimaced at you before he shot a glare at Taeil, “why are you lying for her? Everyone is treating me like I’m insane and I’ve had it.” He stormed over, only stopped as you turned to press a confrontational hand to his chest. Doyoung had quite the busted lip.

“Mr. Kim, I know tensions are high—” you began staunchly before Doyoung steamrolled you.

“Do you?! Do you even know what happened?” He leaned to the side, staring daggers into Chris. “Tell her, you sorry excuse of a—“

“I’m telling you, Kim, just like I have been telling you,” Chris glowered, “I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about! You’re the one who came in here looking to start a fight.”

“You’re a goddamn liar!” Doyoung shouted. You put your hands on his shoulders, making him look at you.

“Tell me, then, Mr. Kim.”

Doyoung shiftily looked back and forth between the two of you. “Tell you what, ma’am?” he grumbled. “Tell you that I had the joy of overhearing one of my brightest students talking with her friends during zero period, bragging about fucking in his practice room? Tell you that she’s just a freshman? Tell you that I caught her and her friends giggling as she wrote her own fucking letter?”

Doyoung pulled a crumpled piece of notebook paper out of his suit jacket and shoved it into your hands. You looked back at Chris, his shaking eyes horrified as he was apparently hearing this all for the first time.

“I admit, I took matters into my own hands. I flew off the handle. Why, though, would I come to you with all this first, ma’am?” Doyoung pleaded. You recognized the helpless heartache in his eyes, hating how much he was losing his students. “You wouldn’t come to me first if I asked for your help. You’d go straight to him.”

You glanced down at the notebook paper in your hands, catching glimpses of curly, naive confessions, and you looked back at Chris again. He didn’t look guilty. You didn’t want him to be. You wanted this all resolved, as cleanly as possible before you possibly wrecked the year before winter break. You thought fast.

“I did go to him first, Mr. Kim,” you conceded, quiet yet confident, “and I apologize if my actions come across as selfish, but this ordeal has caused quite the strain on mine and Chris’ relationship, even more so since it’s still fairly new.”

Doyoung backed up, aghast as his eyes flicked between the two of you again. His normally soft gaze was pure hellfire. “You’re kidding me,” he shook his head in disbelief. He had no interest in waiting for a confirmation before he turned to storm off, herding Taeil along with him.

Chris was staring at you when you turned back to face him, shocked as he was at your sudden plan. “Why the hell did you do that?”

You pulled out your phone to dial Ryujin, but before you actually sent the call through, you bored your eyes into Chris, who was still wincing past the bruise on his face. “You still didn’t do anything?”

“Never,” he adamantly shook his head.

“Good,” you nodded. “We will need to talk before the PTA meeting tonight. My assistant will call you with details.” You plucked your purse up from his desk and shouldered it. Chris watched, still stunned as you made for the door. His continued stare made you pause, a hand on the door frame as you turned back to face him. “You’re innocent,” you explained, “but if you quit you’ll be proving everyone who’s doubting you right. It seems like no one is on your side except me, so if no one will do anything then I will. You’ll be fine, Mr. Bang.” With that, you regained your confidence once more to walk down the hall. You caught your breath before you tapped out a message for Ryujin on your phone. Somehow, you didn’t expect her to call you right away.

“I’m sorry, but you what?!” Ryujin exclaimed, stooping you in your tracks from wherever she was.

“You said he needs to find someone and make it look real!” You hissed, trying to keep your composure the best you could in the quiet hallway.

“I didn’t mean you!”

You grumbled out a curse under your breath. “Well, it’s a bit too late for that clarification,” you bit out, “so what do I do now?”

Ryujin could be heard tapping on her cell phone as she spoke to you. “I’m on it,” she assured you, “and I’m sure you already figured you need to talk before the PTA meeting tonight. We need to make sure you’re on the same page. I’m forwarding you the statement I wrote. Hang tight, I’m going to meet you at your place.”

Chris frowned at the suit laid out on top of your couch after you’d extracted it from its garment bag. Ryujin had brought it, on loan from some unnamed resource, complete with notecards of her prepared statement in the breast pocket. “Why does this also feel like proving everyone right for some reason,” he said uncomfortably.

“What exactly is wrong?” You sighed. Chris fidgeted. He looked out of place in your apartment, his soft black hoodie and worn jeans contrasting starkly with your minimalist and meticulously organized sanctuary. His brows were furrowed with impending panic, but he looked determined.

“I’m nervous,” he bemoaned, “tell it to me again.”

“We met over the summer at a cafe downtown,” you explained impatiently.

“That’s so soon for someone like you to be backing up a pariah like me,” Chris laughed, almost on the verge of breakdown, apparently. He was choking down a milkshake. He’d brought you one too, of course, but when you politely refused he took it as a consolation prize. It was incredible to you that he seemed to be in such good shape for how much food he put down. Or, you realized, maybe a catastrophe of this caliber wasn’t very common for him.

“Put on the suit, Mr. Bang,” you urged, “please?”

“Oh my god, you need to stop calling me that if we’re dating!” Chan nervously laughed again.

“Look, I’ll be just fine, I’ll be able to fix it when we’re in front of people,” you insisted, “but you need to calm down.”

“Calm down? I’m having an entire escape plan thrust upon me and I’m trying to adjust.”

“Well,” you huffed as you found yourself meeting his level, “maybe you wouldn’t need this escape plan if you didn’t take such a lax approach to teaching.”

“Excuse me?” Chris asked, blindsided by your outburst.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what people are saying!” You doubled down in defense, squaring up against him as you impatiently folded your arms.

“Why don’t you tell me, ma’am, what exactly people are saying about me?” Chris stood defiantly, toe to toe with you and daring you to follow through. You took the bait.

“You know exactly what people are saying,” you challenged him, “that you refuse to take the role seriously because it’s easier that way. You give these students too much freedom, and you’re encouraging them to act out. Who needs homework? Who needs textbooks? Who needs seating charts? They call you by your first name and think you’re their best friend, that you’re one of them, only older, just like they wish they were! They live and die by your approval because you seem so cool and you don’t seem like a teacher.”

“Oh, so I don’t seem like a teacher now?” Chris scoffed.

“They certainly don’t respect you like one,” you snapped. A deep pause coursed through you both like a cold breeze before he burst.

“Well you sure as hell don’t respect me like one, so why the hell are you helping me?!” Chris shouted.

“Well,” you mocked, quickly losing grip, “here I was thinking it was the right thing to do!” You heaved out a frustrated sigh, throwing your hands in the air and finally turning away as you couldn’t stand to look at him.

However, you may have glossed over the in-progress milkshake that had been in his hands, now currently all over his hoodie and on the spotless hardwood floor of your apartment.

“Oh, great!” Chris laughed incredulously. “I sure look like I could use the help now, Miss Assistant Superintendent. Guess I’ll put on the stupid suit so I don’t make a bigger fool out of myself at my public execution tonight.”

Your face regrettably heated up as Chris frustratedly tugged his hoodie off over his head, his shirt following right after as he fished the pressed white shirt out from within the suit jacket. He had an admittedly nice figure, his toned torso never being hinted at through his comfy wardrobe. A set of tattooed compass roses on his upper arm caught your attention, and you wished you didn’t find it attractively endearing. “I don’t know why I agreed to this,” he ranted, “no one would ever believe I’d date a stuck-up, uptight, tyrant like you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” you fumed as you turned away, not wanting to get distracted, “except no one would believe I’d ever date an arrogant ingrate like you.”

Chris could be heard pacing behind you as he buttoned the shirt, apparently pausing at your mantle over the fireplace. “I bet you were a nightmare as a student, a real grade-grubber and brown-noser,” he grumbled, now seeming to have found your framed photos of you and your friends at graduation, first from high school and then from undergrad. “I’m going to hang myself with this godawful tie— is this you?”

You rolled your eyes as you walked over and snatched his tie out of his fingers to do it yourself. He’d already deftly changed his pants while you weren’t watching. “Sure, that’s me,” you muttered, “and no, I wasn’t a nightmare, thank you very much.” You paused as you felt a shift in his silence and glanced up at him. For the first time you noticed a subtle cologne on him, a gentle musk that was miserably attractive on him and you just wanted to get this over with even faster. Chris was giving you that indecipherable look again as you fiddled with the stupid necktie. From this close, you could see a cute little dot just under his lip, a telltale spacer that more than likely usually held a lip ring and—

Oh.

Hello, stranger.

Chris was gravely silent as he parked in front of your apartment later that night. The PTA meeting had been a disaster, starting the moment you left to travel back to the high school, where the meetings were held in the main theater. A loaded silence had staked itself between you the whole drive, and neither of you had reviewed Ryujin’s statement whatsoever. Nonetheless, you sat and stood close enough to each other during the meeting to be clear but not obscene in what you both were implying with your proximity, and you were faithfully beside him as he approached the podium. It was difficult to ignore the hushed whispers resounding through the audience. Chris’ brazen confidence was all but gone by now, fully broken as multiple hands immediately shot up to get a word in. Chris had forged ahead, though, even as his hands tried not to tremble around his notes. Ryujin’s statement didn’t mince words, just like her. He read out how his inexperience wrongly led him to take a more casual approach to teaching, how he’d recklessly and misguidedly inspired his students to put too much trust in him. He read out what a struggle this presented for both of you, being faced with accusations of such severity, and wishing to regain the trust of the assembled teachers and parents. The hands stayed in the air, and Johnny moderated question after question and Chris adamantly confirmed again and again and again that he had done nothing except naively neglect to put a firmer stop to all this. He was the one, and not Ryujin, to say that he should have brought the letters to Johnny’s attention and not simply ignored them, hoping the situation would stop on its own. More hands kept raising. Seemingly every parent belonging to a letter on Chris’ door was here wanting personal reassurance and, subsequently, a reason from him that their children were acting out. It felt like a never ending ordeal, a constant string of hurt and confused parents needing comfort. Johnny had no words for Chris when he finally ended the meeting, putting him out of his misery. Nothing else got done on the agenda that night. He only clapped a sympathetic hand to his teacher’s shoulder.

You tapped out what happened in a text message to Ryujin. Her diagnosis was optimistic but tough, and in your continued silence in the car, you suddenly realized you were stopped in front of your apartment. Chris was quiet, zoning out at the wheel until you nudged him.

“Ryujin says we can still do this,” you encouraged him. “Enough of the parents should believe you. We just need to make sure the students and staff do, too…. as well as the board.”

Chris leaned forward, letting his head rest against the steering wheel. “I wish they didn’t have to believe me. They’re probably stressed as hell over this. This whole thing is such shit,” he muttered. “We don’t even like each other.”

“We don’t?”

“What?” Chris sullenly chuckled. “Just because we did ages ago?”

“I mean,” you shrugged, “I remembered that pretty fondly. I thought of that kiss all summer.”

“We kissed?”

Ouch.

You sighed. “Fine then. You’re right. We don’t like each other. You’re cocky and naive and I’m…”

“Uptight?” Chris smirked, but he shut his mouth when you clearly didn’t appreciate the jab. “I’m sorry. I do appreciate everything you’re doing, you know. I just… I’m going through it.”

“I know,” you commiserated.

“What do we do now?”

“There’s a board meeting next Wednesday night,” you explained. “You can accompany me to that, and that’ll take care of them. Until then, we keep up appearances at school, now that we’re exposed.”

“How are we doing that?”

“I’ll figure something out,” you reassured him. “What’ll you do now?”

“Oh, you know,” Chris laughed tiredly, “probably go pick up a taco box and try not to ruin this suit.”

You nodded in understanding as you unbuckled your seatbelt and dug around in your bag for your keys. “No hoodies, okay?”

Chris nodded, watching as you stepped out of the car and fussily smoothed your skirt back down. “Do you need me to walk you up?”

“I can manage,” you grinned softly as you pulled something out of your bag. You handed him the offending note from that morning. “I didn’t do this just because I thought you didn’t do anything. This letter is addressed to a Chris but it appears to actually be a student named Christian S.”

“Oh,” Chris grimaced, “isn’t he Superintendent Simmons’ son? I have him in fourth period. He’s one of the first chairs in Taeil’s concert band. He’s sort of… gross, sometimes, about girls. I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m still disappointed.”

“You alright?”

“I should’ve done something,” he muttered as he sank back into his seat, still staring at the letter.

“Don’t start with that,” you lightly admonished, “it’s not always easy to know when to interfere.”

“Thank you,” Chris said quietly.

“Of course,” you said with a small smile. “Goodnight.”

Johnny and Doyoung did a double-take as you walked into the music department the following day at lunchtime. It only made sense to you that if Chris was trying to dress up more, you’d match him by dressing down more. Your requisite suit and heels were switched out for a simple blouse with some tailored jeans and flats. That alone was a huge step for you, considering you even refused to dress down for the annual Welcome Back picnic for the district staff every year. You felt uncomfortable despite still looking clean and poised, but leagues more approachable apparently, proven as students’ passing glances lingered on their way to the cafeteria. Johnny’s look was simply one of surprise, but Doyoung’s was nothing but bitterness. Even Chris, as he happened to prop open his classroom door when you walked down the hall, was curious to see you looking so casual and chipper as you strutted up to him with a bundle in your arms. He was surprisingly handsome, wearing a blazer over a simple t-shirt with some slim jeans and sneakers — better, but not quite there. He couldn’t help a small smile as you theatrically revealed what you had brought: his cleaned hoodie and shirt folded and draped over a bag of takeout to split.

“Hungry?” You asked sweetly, but hopefully not overdone. A couple of students walked past, their eyes boring into you. Chris looked unfazed, took the hoodie and shirt from your hands and, with a quick look down the hall at Doyoung and Johnny, beckoned you into the classroom with a nod.

“Starving,” he answered with a grin, and even gave Johnny a cheery wave as he promptly shut the door again behind you. “What are you doing here?” He quietly asked you, the dazzling facade of confidence instantly crumbling. His panicked surprise wasn’t lost on you.

“We need to keep up appearances like I said. It’s Friday, you’re going through a hard time, and you’re eating like you grew another stomach. I brought us something to eat,” you explained, pushing the bag into his hands.

“You—“ Chris looked dumbfounded, eyes darting between you and the food in his hands, “— brought me lunch?”

“Yes? What else was this supposed to be? I’m your girlfriend, for all intents and purposes.” You led Chris back into his own office and helped yourself to a seat. “We also need to brush up on our relationship in case anyone asks.”

“Fine,” Chris nodded as he dug into his food. “Let’s study, then. I’m guessing you went to college right after we met, and I’m sure you taught at least a little before this.”

“Grade schoolers,” you nodded, “it was good but not for me. I never asked about your accent.”

“You did, actually. That first time, so that’s probably why you don’t remember. I grew up in Sydney, moved here before junior year in high school. Do you live by yourself? I didn’t see a roommate or any cats.”

“I live by myself,” you confirmed, “I gave up on roommates around the time I took this job. No time for pets, either. I guess I’m too uptight.” Chris winced as you continued. “Yes, I’m aware of it; I guess I’m just sensitive. Did you find a good place in the area?”

“Yeah,” Chris said thoughtfully, “cute little house. You should probably see it sometime.”

“You bought a house?!”

Chris’ ears reddened. “Yes? Again, it’s little. A couple bedrooms, a couple bathrooms. Lots of work to be done on it, but it’s all mine. Here, look.” You watched, momentarily stunned as he fished his phone out of his pocket and clicked it open. He pulled up a surprisingly adorable photo of Chris in front of a humble little house, holding what you could only assume was his dog you didn’t know he had. “Cute, right? Her name is Berry. You should meet her.”

“I’m so sorry,” you shook your head in advance, “but you could afford a house? What brought you to teaching anyway?”

“Producing was good, but not for me,” Chris meekly bit at his lip, “I always wanted to try teaching what I know, and thankfully your team brought me on while I’m still earning my degree.”

“So one day you just decided to be an educator?” You asked dubiously.

“Didn’t you?” Chris seemed more cagey now, more defensive.

“Sure, but maybe this explains your approach to teaching.”

Chris sighed hard and set his food down. “You know what? I knew you were bringing it back to that. Here I was thinking we were on a little better footing after last night. My approach to teaching came from thinking of what I wanted when I was these kids’ age. I wanted someone to treat me with respect and value my opinion and talk to me like an adult.”

“Right,” you nodded, “but that acceptance clearly looks like an invitation to some students.”

“An invitation to what? The other staff are always saying how closed off their students are, but they’re not like that with me. They’re proactive, they’re independent, they’re thoughtful, they’re excited to be here.”

“What about students who aren’t yours?” You challenged him with your stare. It would’ve looked better in a suit. “Your students are in love with you — some of them literally — and it makes them act out with their other teachers, even students who aren’t yours are citing you as their inspiration. Terrific and capable teachers are being defied simply because they’re not you. Admit this is easier for you than establishing and upholding boundaries.”

Chris listened, but he scoffed nonetheless. “Fine. It’s easier. I’m terrified of these kids but I want them to like me and trust me. But even if I assign them homework and treat them like they’re children, that still won’t solve how the teachers don’t trust me.”

“They will,” you impatiently assured him.

“Even Doyoung?”

“Why do you care?!” You gave a stunned chuckle.

“I mean he punched me in the fucking face yesterday,” Chris shrugged. “Is it true you two dated?”

You gaped at him, stunned. “Why do you care?” You repeated. Chris nonchalantly shrugged. “Are you jealous?” You were provoking him on purpose, but there was no use in pretending you weren’t disgusted with this line of questioning.

“No! We don’t even like each other.” Chris was floundering, now facing his desk more than you. “I’m a naive and arrogant asshole and you’re an uptight ballbuster who sold out, remember?”

“Sold out?” You guffawed, standing up now. “Who the hell do you think you are?! I grew up.”

“Right, well—“ Chris barked as he got up to square off against you. “Did you grow into a stuck-up busybody who is more worried about how she looks than how she’s doing?”

Chris’ ears were burning scarlet as you bristled at his words, but he still walked you to the door as you stormed away. “That was too much. I’m sorry,” he apologized sheepishly before he opened the classroom door into the hall.

“Go fuck yourself, Mr. Bang,” you quietly gritted out, despite your saccharine smile in case anyone was watching. “I’m helping you and then I’m never speaking to you again.”

You were right back in your suit jacket and skirt on Monday, having stewed all weekend over how much more you hated doing this with Chris now. Worse, you hated feeling like he was right. He was shamefully attractive and smart and funny and charming and as much as you hated it — he was right. Somewhere between getting your teaching degree and getting offered your job, you’d become incredibly jaded by the people around you, but not without reason. Even now, the only people who went out of their way to make sure you didn’t feel like you were some child were Ryujin and Yeji… and Chris. Doyoung had, too, which was why you had dated briefly, but now he had joined everyone else in babying you like you were bound to fail. That wasn’t even mentioning the board, made up of all men from old money who mostly seemed to hire you for humor and bragging rights. Even still, this wasn’t even mentioning Superintendent Simmons, who talked to you like he was a lion with a mouse in its paws.

So, sure, you had reasons to be aloof around the people surrounding you, but Chris’s nagging was starting to bother you. Yes, you were leagues more organized and fastidious than you had been growing up, and you even took some solace in sprucing up your space, but you also had to recognize you were quick to do that instead of facing problems at times. It was easy to organize the kitchen for the fourth time or clean out your closet, but it wasn’t always easy to deal with adult problems. You took great pride in your appearances, because looking capable helped you feel capable, but did that mean you were? It was difficult to say, almost as difficult as deciphering Yeji’s bemused look on your way into the office on Monday.

A gorgeous bouquet of flowers was sitting on your desk. You curiously walked over, plucking the small envelope from within the buds and gently prying it open.

Hello Stranger,

1. Are these still your favorite color? You mentioned it years ago so I could be wrong.

2. I’m sorry about Friday again. I know I’m a hot-head and what I did was terrible. You’re not stuck-up, and you’re not a tyrant. When I think back to that summer, I thought we were on the same page, and now you make it look so easy while I feel like I’m completely lost and failing the whole time. I appreciate you helping me. Thank you.

A stiff sigh fell from your lips as you looked at the note in your hands, with Chris’ dumb, nice handwriting giving you a feeling you couldn’t quite place. You quickly paged Ryujin and Yeji into your office. Once both girls were sat waiting for you, it was time for the dreaded question.

“What do people think of me?”

Both girls looked like they’d seen their lives flash before their eyes as you sat at your desk and did some quick typing. When you showed them your screen, they both gasped. There was you, all acne and unfortunate appearance choices at your high school graduation. “It’s not a loaded question,” you promised, “think of it more as a confirmation. I think I’m trying too hard to hide this person.” You gave the girl in the photo a sympathetic look. She was bright, funny, and brimming with potential — even you could see that.

Yeji surprisingly sighed out her answer first. “The other office staff were still whispering about you when you hired me. They said you just wanted to hire other young women to look progressive.”

All three of you rolled your eyes at the sentiment before Ryujin piped up. “The board does like you… because they think you’ll do their bidding. They think you’re ruthless. The teachers think you have an iron fist. The Superintendent? Well, you know how he feels.”

A sour grimace pulled at your lips. “Why don’t I like any of that?”

“Is it because it’s not what she would want?” Yeji thoughtfully asked you as she nodded in the direction of the photo on your computer screen. You thought back to what Chris had said, about wanting to be the person he wanted around at that age. It was such a trip, thinking of what that girl would do if she saw you now. She’d give you a belligerent sneer and close herself off from you because you were a cold witch and you knew it. The girls watched as your shoulders softened, sinking into your chair as you pulled out your phone and found Chris’ number that Yeji had fetched for you.

>>Thanks for the flowers. I’ll be by tomorrow so we can try this all again before the board meeting dinner on Wednesday.

There were decidedly less stares as you walked down the halls of the high school again the next day when the lunch period began. You saw Johnny try to catch your attention out of the corner of your eye, but you simply waved as you passed his office. You had a sneaking suspicion it was about your outfit. As opposed to Friday’s jeans, you felt much more comfortable being more comfortable as opposed to someone you thought you should be. The pencil skirt remained, only now in a cozier dark pallet and much comfier material. The biggest changes were pairing the skirt with a soft flannel shirt and a smart pair of suede oxfords. You felt exposed in how dressed down you were again, but Chris’ surprised smile as you stood in the doorway of his classroom reassured you. He looked good, his hair moderately styled back and wearing another smart blazer over another old band tee. You could see he was even wearing chinos today, still managing to coordinate them with some worn boots not unlike the pair you used to own all those years ago. It was a good look, one that made you a bit more bashful than you had been already.

“Hello, stranger,” you cheekily greeted from the doorway.

“Hey,” he smiled back, motioning for you to come in.

“Hungry?” You asked, fishing a bag out of your purse and placing it in his hands. He peered inside as you set your purse on his desk.

“Are these—?”

“I felt so awful this weekend,” you sighed as you leaned against his desk, still unable to keep from straightening stacks of his papers, “and especially after yesterday. I couldn’t think straight so I cleaned my apartment and made you some cookies.”

“You made me cookies?” He asked incredulously before taking a bite. You could’ve sworn his eyes actually sparkled for a moment. “Alright, these are so good there’s no way you still can’t think straight.”

“You’re right,” you nodded. “Just like you were already right, about almost everything. But you left one detail out.”

“What’s that?” Chris grinned around a mouthful of cookie.

“You make it look pretty easy yourself,” you smiled softly. Chris raised an eyebrow.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I know you do,” you laughed, “but it’s true! You’ve already done just fine in an industry of your choosing and impulsively decided to become an educator? And you just happen to be financially smart enough to have a house already? It’s reckless but it’s admirable.”

Chris choked on the last of his cookie, his dark hair falling out of place as he composed himself. “I, er, should be up front about that.”

“About what?”

“About deciding to change directions,” Chris sighed. “I had a giant proposal on my hands. I could have had my own company and my own team, but it was a huge investment entirely depending on me and my success. I froze up. I had enough. It felt way too big. I got rid of my fancy apartment, I got rid of my suits and watches, and I just moved.” A sigh fell from Chris’ lips as he folded his arms. He couldn’t meet your imploring stare. “I wish I could do what you do,” he continued. “I want to march headfirst into every single thing no matter what people think of me.”

A surprised laugh escaped you before you could stop it. You covered your mouth as your face heated up. “I’m terrified,” you explained. “Just like you were scared to take that chance, just like you and most of us are reasonably scared of these kids — I’m terrified. I’ve worn suits to attend sports events and picnics with the staff from how terrified I am of them.”

“Well, you look really good today,” Chris beamed at you, but the distracted nuance of his gaze didn’t let it last long. You playfully sat back on his desk, trying to keep his mood up.

“I feel good today.”

“I lied, by the way,” Chris sheepishly blurted. “I know we kissed that night. I thought about it all the time. I didn’t go out with anyone for almost a whole year, I thought about it so much. If you knew I still remembered, I would be too tempted to get distracted. But I’m getting distracted anyway, so I thought you should know. You look really good today.”

A flattered smile pulled at your lips as you reached for Chris’ hand where it rested on the desk. His hand was warm and gentle in yours and he looked up at you, silently gauging your look to see if it was alright to lean up more into your space… when your phone buzzed with a message. It was Johnny.

>I was trying to get your attention when you came in. Simmons is here TOURING THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT. Get that time bomb out of there NOW.

But it was far too late. Superintendent Simmons could be heard talking to Doyoung in the hallway. Chris watched curiously as you whirled around just in time to catch them appearing in the open doorway.

“Yes, Mr. Kim, I’d love to hear your plans for the year but— ah, hello, dear!”

You winced at the use of the word “dear” but fought it back. “Superintendent,” you nodded cordially, “what’re you doing here?”

“I wanted to take a stroll through the department,” the older man coolly insisted, his hands in the pockets of his suit. “I also thought I could finally meet young Christopher here since I wasn’t sure if he was accompanying you to the meeting tomorrow.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Your question was stated friendly enough, even as you subtly waved a calming hand back to Chris to keep him back.

The Superintendent shrugged. “You know how it is, dear. My son takes his class but I haven’t even met the man before. We’re certainly not exempt from being aware of current goings-on and I wanted to see who all the fuss was about.”

“Do I live up to your expectation?” Chris suddenly asked, unmistakably indignant as he came forward.

“Seeing as my expectations were of a naive, insubordinate, carpe-diem-prescribing kid,” Simmons smirked, “then yes.”

“Excuse me, Superintendent,” you huffed sharply, “but I do not appreciate you speaking to Mr. Bang that way, first as one of my staff members and second as my partner.”

“Oh-ho!” Mr. Simmons threw his head back with a laugh. “Your partner? How unbecoming of you, dear. Now, I would normally do the professional courtesy of discussing this in private, but as you always deem it appropriate to throw a fit, I’ll do it here— you know we need to terminate Mr. Bang. Too much liability.”

A wildfire ignited behind your eyes before you quickly jumped into action. If you had a moment to spare, you would’ve considered the possible consequences. “Mr. Simmons,” you spat, “you know for a fact there are liabilities just as big, if not bigger, right under your nose, just like I know for a fact Mr. Bang is in possession of a confiscated note containing quite the insinuation that your son Christian is having a very close and troubling relationship with one of Mr. Kim’s most promising freshmen.”

You hazarded a look behind you and Chris returned it, petrified. It was a low, risky blow, but an apparently fair one as Mr. Simmons’ eyes grew wide. He stubbornly shook his head. “Christian is a smart boy who is studying hard and has no time—“

“—Christian turned 18 over the summer and wants to have as much fun as he can in high school before he goes to college,” Chris finally spoke up. “He’s said as much in class, and if I recall correctly, that girl is 14. I can show you the letter. He met her at a party that she doesn’t remember but all she knows is she is woefully in love with him. As your son’s teacher I’m a mandated reporter if I think this is an unsafe situation for either of them.”

“You want to play executioner with a man you admitted you just met? Fine,” you warned. “But just like your gossip, you’re not exempt from this, either.”

At that moment, Doyoung sheepishly poked his head into the open doorway, politely coughing to get the attention of Mr. Simmons, who was now sputtering until his face had turned red. “Mr. Superintendent,” Doyoung timidly spoke up, “perhaps you would like to come discuss those plans—“

“Fine time for you to decide to act like a teacher,” Simmons growled towards Chris, before he thrust a fat finger into your chest. “This isn’t done, dear. He’s on thin ice, and now you are, too. Let’s see how long it can hold both of you.” Superintendent Simmons turned on his heel, marching out the door past Doyoung and towards his classroom. Doyoung leaned into the room, giving you both a look that remarkably appeared to be sympathetic support. “Are you alright?” He quietly asked.

You nodded shallowly, still a bit stunned. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Kim.” Chris was seemingly dazed as you turned to face him. “Mr. Bang, can I see you in your office?”

Chris barely nodded himself, having gone pale during your confrontation, and Doyoung silently wished you well before closing the door behind him and trotting down the hall after the older man. You clutched onto Chris’ sleeve and pulled him into his office, guiding him in before you quietly closed the door.

You realized you were breathing heavily, chest rising and falling hard with adrenaline as you looked behind you to check on Chris. He was staring back at you, almost shocked, even as you gently took his hand again to make sure he was alright. His fingers had turned clammy where they squeezed yours, and you shared a brief silence, recovering and staring at each other until he finally spoke up.

“You wanted to see me, ma’am?”

“Yes, Mr. Bang,” you nodded, leaning back against the door and pulling him a little closer. You felt a bit lightheaded. “I wanted you to finish your thought from before we were rudely interrupted.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded dutifully, now cutting right to it as he followed your hand in his to press against you where you leaned against the door. His lips hesitated a mere breath away before he finally kissed you, deep and seemingly driven by every kiss he’d wanted to give you since that night years ago. You could’ve sworn you tasted cotton candy and his lip ring again, maybe even smell evergreen trees if you weren’t mistaken by his cologne. It was electric, re-energizing enough that Chris seemed to finally realize what just happened outside in his classroom.

“Holy shit,” Chris gasped like he just came up for air. “Did I just threaten the—“

Chris’ frantic recollection persisted even as you continued to kiss him. “Did you just warn the superintendent that he is better off tending to matters closer to home in more need of his attention? Yes.”

“Holy shit, I’m going to be fired,” Chris lamented, but even still he let his lips run over your jaw, falling into you and pressing you into the door.

“No, you’re not,” you shook your head as you cupped his face in your hands to make him look at you for a moment. “He would’ve said so. He knows this is bad and it’s going to be a pain to deal with.”

“Wait, you don’t want me to—“

“Report? You just said you should. Honestly, Mr. Kim probably would’ve already if he read the letter more closely in the first place.” You held his gaze as you led his hands around your waist and he quickly got the hint, wrapping around you and diving back into you. “Am I still a ballbuster?” You breathlessly chuckled.

He nodded heartily as he nibbled and kissed your neck. “I love it.” Chris hesitated as he pulled away from your throat, almost asking permission as he kissed you hard against the door, his tongue hot and needy against yours as he almost knocked the breath out of you.

“Mr. Bang—“ you gasped, and you felt him shiver in the cutest way. He seemed emboldened to let his hands get a little braver, following your hint when you led them to the waistband of your skirt, and he fumbled with your shirt as he untucked it and began unbuttoning it. It was a bizarre sensation, feeling so vulnerable to someone you hadn’t known long but had been thinking of for years, and maybe you weren’t the only one. Chris’ breath seemed to catch in his throat as he leaned back enough to see, his hungry eyes falling on you as he pulled open your shirt and became impatient for more. You gasped again as he pushed you back against the door, his strong hands now tenderly roaming down your chest and groping your breasts as he kissed you before he came back to the waist of your skirt again. His confidence seemed to be returning in full now as his hands firmly ran down your thighs to the hem of your skirt, his lips trailing down your chest and nuzzling your cleavage as he gingerly lifted it. Another gasp caught in your lungs as his fingertips wandered up your legs and paused, his trepidation even spreading to the extent that he seemed hesitant to kiss you again. You reached up to gently cup his face, his cheek warm against your palm as you tried to see what could possibly be wrong in this moment. Out there, sure, that was all understandable, but in this tiny office there was no reason for anything to be wrong.

“Mr.—“ you began softly, instantly cutting yourself off as you realized. Oh. “Chris,” you began, more confidently now, “are you alright?”

He sighed out a small laugh before he finally kissed you again. “I am. I just missed you, is all. I’ve been thinking about you. It’s still hard to believe any of this is happening, so Mr. Bang is going to be fine for my students but I’d much prefer it if you and I are more personal than that.”

“I can do that,” you grinned, that stunted gasp from earlier finally coming back and completing as Chris finally let himself caress you under your skirt, getting as personal as you both were yearning for. His fingertips were firm but slow, purposeful as they teased the hem of your panties but continued over them to feel you between your legs, making you so aware of your heat against his hand. He smirked as you shivered at his touch, and you felt your face heat up. “Sorry,” you laughed breathlessly, “it’s been a while.”

“I couldn’t tell,” Chris assured you, finally gasping himself as you regained your mental footing and let your hand drop, trailing down his chest to get an exploratory grip on his growing erection in his pants before you brought him back to kiss you again. His muffled sighs and moans grew feverish as you teased him through his clothes, up to the moment he pressed your hips back against the closed door. You watched curiously as Chris’ lips ghosted down your chest and stomach until he was on his knees for you, dangerously close to nuzzling your damp heat until you let yourself subtly roll your hips towards his mouth. He took the cue to instantly pull the thin fabric aside, just enough that he could dip his tongue into your folds.

Chris couldn’t take his eyes off you as he lapped you up, one hand holding your panties aside and the other clutching onto your bared thigh as you squirmed and mewled for him. Your fingers stroked back through his hair as he held you tight and hungrily licked until he just happened to hit the perfect spot. That, of course, was when he stopped, leaning away and his shiny lips pulled into a mischievous smirk. “I need you so bad,” he drawled, “I’m getting impatient.”

“You?” You giggled sarcastically. “Impatient? Impossible.”

Nevertheless, Chris rocked back onto his feet and pulled you over to his desk before he sat you on top of it, gently pulling your knees apart to step between them. “Are you sure?”

“Definitely,” you nodded. “Do it.”

Chris grinned shyly as he unbuckled his belt and brought his pants down enough to reveal his hard cock, groaning as you brazenly grabbed his length and pumped it a few times in your hand before guiding him into you. You both gasped in tandem now as you were stretched open, and your legs quickly found purchase around his hips as he kissed you again, the faintest taste and scent of your wetness still on his lips. He filled you out unexpectedly, prodding deep into you in this angle and his girth just wide enough at the base to make you whimper each time he bottomed out.

“God, this is so good,” Chris groaned against your lips, “you’re so good. I’ve thought of this so many times.” His groans and whispered curses were hot in your ear as he fucked you on the desk, and you were both lost in this endless moment while you both sounded like you were steadily climbing your respective peaks until you noticed his prolonged smirk.

“What’s so funny?” You jokingly accused.

“Nothing,” Chris shook his head with a breathless smile, “I’m just surprised. I honestly expected you to be a little more in charge.”

“Oh, am I not as dominant as you thought?” You pouted for effect, seeming to only convince him for a second before you kicked him back into his chair anyhow and willingly taking his bait. He watched, his hands clutching the armrests with intrepid excitement as you dropped onto his lap. “Is this more what you had in mind?”

“Actually, yeah,” Chris nodded hungrily as you raised your hips, just enough to pull your panties to the side and grind your soaked pussy against the head of his cock. You both sighed in pleasure at the sensation as you took your sweet time dipping his length into you just the slightest bit, your lips parted to barely kiss him the whole time you teased yourself against him. He actually waited patiently as you barely rolled your hips lower into him, even as he began to get impatient again. “Heh, hey,” Chris laughed under his breath, “aren’t you gonna—“

“Whatever happened to your lip ring?” You asked him, teasingly oblivious to his question.

“My wha— oh, that?” Chris was almost delirious trying to rock his hips up into you. “Don’t laugh, but I didn’t think it looked very professional when I first interviewed. I already wasn’t wearing it out to events and meetings, so not wearing it to school made sense.”

“I’m not going to laugh,” you smirked as you playfully pretended you were about to kiss him over and over, your lips ghosting over his own time and time again as his cock surreptitiously tried to work deeper into you, “but that’s ridiculously funny. You’re literally still wearing your earrings, and don’t try telling me that’s different. Weren’t you waiting for something, by the way?”

“Was I waiting—? Come on, aren’t you going to…?”

“Aren’t I going to what?” You asked innocently. Chris’ head lolled back against the head of his chair in exasperation.

“Aren’t you going to fuck me?” His question was quiet, almost as if he were shy to be saying it out loud, but he asked it nevertheless.

“Sure,” you shrugged casually, “are you going to wear that lip ring for me sometime? I want to see if it has the same effect.”

“Anything, if you’re that easy,” Chris quipped, even as he was unable to hide the excited tremble in his voice.

“I’m easy?” You asked, eyebrows raised as you finally sank deep onto Chris’ erection and kissed him again. His muffled groan was thick, laced with satisfaction as you began to ride him in earnest. The hot moans falling from his lips echoed your own impassioned whimpers, only growing more feverish as you angled your hips down, enabling yourself to grind your clit down against his lap. By now you were so lost in it that were thoroughly soaked through your panties you were still wearing.

“Are you sure you’re not easy?” Chris chuckled exhaustedly, even as he nuzzled against your heaving cleavage and gripped tight onto your hips. It was his turn to whimper as you desperately ran your fingers through his hair to clutch onto him as you felt your peak coming fast. Chris must’ve not been far behind, considering the way he sweetly groaned your name against your skin, as if to personally coax out your orgasm.

The air between you was hot, static, and the way Chris held you was surprisingly affectionate. Despite how much ire and sarcasm had been slung between you previously, now you were both rendered speechless, your staccato breaths falling heavy in the spaces between your sighs and moans. Giving in to Chris didn’t feel like giving up like you had been afraid of for some reason. Reality seemed to be that he may even be quite fond of you, maybe even more than you’d previously imagined, despite how much you did or didn’t change. He obviously wanted to do more than kiss you, and now it seemed he wanted to do more than just fuck you. Chris’ fingertips dug into your hips as he thrust up against you, and you suddenly caught yourself meeting his gaze. The feeling was mutual, apparently, the blown out arousal in his eyes probably echoing your own impending orgasm slowly rising up your spine and making your head spin. He seemed to catch this as he wrapped his arms around you, holding you tight and pressing his lips to your throat as he pistoned his hard length deep inside you, the head dragging along your sensitive walls and daring you to cum.

So you finally did. It hit you hard, giving you barely a moment’s notice for you to grab onto Chris, wrapping your arms around his neck as your core shuddered, radiating out to your quaking thighs and trembling fingers as your heightened moans hit a fever pitch. This, of course, was the final straw for Chris, his orgasm not far behind yours as he tensed up, palms pushing flat against the small of your back as he rutted into you with a broken groan. He uttered a sharp curse under his breath, eyes squeezed shut with the force of his own climax spilling into you as you finished riding out your own on his lap.

It felt like an eternity, wrapped around each other, faces buried in each other’s shoulders as you both fought for breath and you finally realized how cramped it was straddling Chris in his desk chair, the armrests uncomfortably digging into your legs. As if to mitigate this silent complaint you had, Chris gently began to ease you off of him as he simultaneously pulled you to him for a tiredly satisfied kiss. The bright lights in your eyes finally dulled and the imaginary cotton in your ears finally fell out, letting the sound return to normal. You could hear the low drone of the air conditioner, the muted hum of the hard drive in Chris’ laptop, the clatter of the classroom doorknob outside turning open—

Chris heard it, too, with how he bolted upright with you in his lap. You both stared at the door of his office in terror; this was no way for the assistant superintendent to be found, in post-orgasmic bliss with her legs wrapped around a teacher who was still in a heap of trouble, and you had no chance of escape. Footsteps could be heard approaching before Chris quickly pushed at your retreating knees, apparently on the same page as you when he helped you slide off his lap and under his desk. You scrambled forward to grab at his chair and wheel him close as he desperately stuffed himself back in his pants and tried to make himself presentable. A knock came at the door and Chris quickly wiped the accumulated perspiration off his brow.

“Come in—!“ he coughed, trying to sound chipper and casual, and as if he didn’t just orgasm with you barely two minutes prior. He gave you one crazed look to make sure you were alright shoved under the desk before the door to his office gingerly opened.

“Hey—“

Doyoung?

“Mr. Kim!” Chris sat up a little straighter, inadvertently kicking you in your shin in the process and nearly making you curse out loud. You reflexively punched him in the knee, making him jump as he tried to appear natural. “Is everything alright?”

“What, with me? I’m fine. It’s just...” Doyoung sighed, apparently not moving from where he awkwardly stood in the doorway of the tiny office. “Was it true, what you said about the superintendent’s son?”

“It was,” Chris said solemnly. “Would you like to see the letter again?” His question was genuine, any ill feelings towards the other teacher seeming to have dissipated by now. Your ears perked up as Chris leaned forward. You could hear papers shuffled overhead. He still had it? You could hear a piece of paper being handed to Doyoung, whose sigh only multiplied.

“I can’t believe it,” he murmured, “that’s so…”

“I know,” Chris commiserated. “Will Samantha—“

“I’ll talk to Sam,” Doyoung resolved, “but first, about the other day, I’m sorry about—“

“Mr. Kim, you don’t have to apologize,” Chris insisted, “tensions were high, you were upset, and you were protecting your student. If you’d like to help me report this I’d appreciate that. You’re a good teacher.”

“So are you, Mr. Bang,” Doyoung conceded sheepishly. “Maybe you can join me in the teacher’s lounge for lunch tomorrow.”

“I’d like that.”

You could hear the smooth heel of Doyoung’s oxford turn to leave and Chris backed up from the desk. The sigh of relief you both let out revealed that you had apparently been holding your breath. He slumped back in the chair before leaning forward to offer you an assisting hand.

“Oh, one more thing—“

Chris snapped upright in his chair, accidentally kicking you again before his knees knocked into the top of his desk. He grinned through it as he attempted to look nonchalant again. “Yeah?”

“So,” Doyoung began stiffly, “you and her are, like… a thing?”

“Er,” Chris floundered for a second. “Yes. Why?”

“Why? Oh, I mean, it’s nothing,” Doyoung fumbled, “I meant, I guess, is it serious?”

Chris’ Adam’s apple could barely be seen bobbing with his sudden gulp from your vantage point, and you didn’t blame him. Serious? It wasn’t a stretch to imagine his ears turning beet red again. Your thighs were beginning to get sore where you were folded under the desk. “No! I mean, not yet,” Chris said, his stammer matching Doyoung’s now. “I want it to be, though. I really like her. Why?”

Your heart thudded against your ribs. You felt like such a sucker, but why did you also feel so smitten?

“No reason,” Doyoung laughed politely. “I’m happy for you. For both of you. She looks different with you, you know? You look good together. See you later.”

The door finally clicked closed and you both waited for the classroom door to do the same before it was Chris’ turn to let out the breath he’d been holding. He sighed heavily, melting into his chair before sliding back. His gentle hand reached down to help you out from under the desk. You held his hand, his fingers warm in yours as he met your gaze. “Hello, stranger,” he grinned, “did you have fun under the desk?” Chris fussed with your clothes, helping smooth your skirt back out and buttoning your blouse back up before he realized you were staring at him. He suddenly looked concerned, sitting up as he tried to make sense of your expression. “What? Is everything alright?”

“You want this to be serious?”

Chris almost flinched as he defensively tried to figure out your tone. He settled for getting back up from his chair and squaring up against you once again, arms folded matter-of-factly like he anticipated a confrontation. “You know what? I do.”

“This isn’t even real, Chris,” you smirked, flattered by his sincerity. “We don’t even like each other, remember?”

He let out an exasperated laugh. “Holy shit, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Go ahead, then, tell me how we aren’t real.”

“Well,” you smiled, “you haven’t asked me out, for one thing.”

It seemed Chris finally caught up to your game. “Fine,” he sarcastically scoffed. “Would you like to go out with me some time?”

“Sure,” you playfully shrugged with a smile. “How about now? Are you hungry?”

Chris was amused as he pulled you close into his arms. “You know what? I’m actually not.”

#stray kids smut #bang chan smut #kwritersworldnet #kprosenet #bang chan x reader #bang chan breakdown

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singledarkshade · 3 years ago

Text

Lost In Time

Summary: Reappearing in the world many years after he faced a Time Demon, Rip is surprised by how things have changed but where is Gideon and the Waverider? Author’s Note: Day 6: “Live the next day” – Rip is still out there, so how does he re-join Gideon? Perhaps he’s got something up his sleeve that he’s working on. ********************************************* The world around him filled with blinding light, before it faded to nothing. Rip lay in the darkness, floating in a sea of nothing unaware before consciousness rushed back upon him. Gasping Rip opened his eyes and sat up sharply, confused to find he was in a room which had light peach curtains that matched the bedspread covering him.

“Well, it’s about bloody time,” a familiar voice made Rip turn to the man walking into the room, “You’ve been taking up space in the spare room for long enough.”

“John?” Rip frowned.

Self-professed Master of the Dark Arts, John Constantine nodded, “So no amnesia. I lost that bet.”

“Where the hell are we? Rip demanded, “Because this is not the Mill House, unless a spell went very, very wrong.”

“This is our spare room.”

“Our?”

Before John could answer a woman called, “Is he awake?”

Rip stared confused at the woman who appeared, recognition hitting him after a moment, “Miss Tomaz?”

“Zari Tarazi,” she corrected before explaining, “You must have known the other version of me.”

“The other…” Rip let out an annoyed huff, “They changed time again, didn’t they?”

John and Zari swapped a look before John noted, “There were circumstances.”

“Bloody arrogant as always, thinking they know best,” Rip snapped before rubbing his temple, “Okay, other things to think about just now. Where is my ship? I need to let Gideon know I’m alive, even if the lecture will take several hours not to mention the medical exam.”

John and Zari glanced at one another again before John noted, “The lecture can wait. You’ve been unconscious since you appeared in my living room three days ago.”

“Three days?!!!”

John nodded, “Yes, so slow down a bit. Get your strength back.”

“Have a shower, get dressed then have something to eat,” Zari added.

With a smile, Zari disappeared, and Rip turned to his friend, “She is very different from the women you normally hook up with.”

“We’re trying to make a go of it,” John shrugged, “Seeing how it goes.”

Rip looked around the room thoughtfully, “And how long have you been seeing how it goes?”

John shrugged, “Ten years or so.”

Laughing Rip managed to stand, “So not long then.”

Rolling his eyes, John left him to freshen up.

Zari looked up from her phone when John arrived in the living room, “We have to tell him.”

“Considering how he’s going to react,” John said, “I want to let him recover first,” he sighed, “The Waverider and Gideon are gone for good, but he will kill himself trying to prove us wrong.”

Zari rested her hand on his arm, “I know he’s your friend, but you can’t protect him from this.”

“The Gideon we knew and the Gideon he knows are completely different,” John told her, before explaining at her confused look, “To us Gideon was an information source who worked the ship but to Rip, Gideon was family.”

Shaking her head, Zari sympathised, “I understand you want to protect him, John but he won’t thank you for it.”

Sighing John caught her hand and squeezed it, “I’ll tell him.”

“Good,” Zari leaned over and kissed him, “I have to go and meet my publicist. Make sure he eats something before you drop the news on him.”

John nodded and watched Zari sashay out the room, already going over in her head the meeting about her book. Not long after Zari left the house, Rip appeared dressed in the clean clothes they’d left out for him looking around thoughtfully.

“I’m guessing you didn’t decorate,” he said before adding, “Which having seen your old place is a blessing.”

Chuckling John drew him into the kitchen, and Rip took a seat.

“Since when do you cook?” Rip asked watching his friend, “I remember Chas once saying you would starve if he didn’t feed you.”

John shrugged, “I learned. I had to after…”

“After what?” Rip asked curiously when John trailed off.

Becoming very interested in the sausages he had in the pan, John replied, “Zari doesn’t cook.”

Rip fell silent and watched John, which didn’t make John feel any better because he could feel Rip’s mind working. And one thing John knew was exactly how smart Rip was.

Rip was getting frustrated. John kept dodging questions about when he was, where he was but especially where his ship was. As he ate the breakfast John placed in front of him, which was actually not that bad, Rip contemplated everything being said and not said. Once he’d finished, Rip watched his friend clear everything away, avoiding Rip’s eyes.

“John,” he stated getting annoyed that the other man kept avoiding his questions, demanding, “What happened to my ship and where is Gideon?”

Freezing John grimaced, “You know you should…”

“I do not need to get my strength back,” Rip snapped, “I want to know where Gideon is.”

John let out a long breath before starting, “It…well…”

“Spit it out!!”

“The Waverider was destroyed,” John confessed, “Almost six years ago.”

Rip gripped the edge of the table, “No.”

“I’m sorry,” John breathed, “I know this is hard.”

Anger filled Rip’s eyes, “I should have known they would do something like this, I should have…” he trailed off, anguish at losing his best friend welling up. He took several deep breaths before asking, “What did the Time Bureau say? Did they check for debris or…” he trailed off again at John’s grimace, “What?”

“There is no Time Bureau,” John winced, “It folded about a year after you supposedly died.”

Rip gave a bitter laugh, “Five years it took me to build that, five years of my life and they destroyed it in one. How bloody typical.”

John passed him a mug of tea stating, “Nothing stronger, you just woke up.”

“So, how are they causing chaos across time these days?” Rip asked, taking a long drink before grimacing and putting the tea to one side.

“They don’t,” John shrugged, “After we managed to get to safety, nothing worked anymore. All the Time Couriers were dead, so we went our separate ways and get together for a drink every so often.”

Rip rubbed his eyes, “Well, that’s a blessing.”

“There was a rumour the Flash team has a time travel device,” John continued, “But either it wasn’t true, or Barry is hiding it.”

Musing for a moment Rip felt a smile touch his lips, “No, they have something thanks to Thawne,”

“What did he do?” John asked confused.

A smile touched Rip’s lips, “He got Cisco Ramon to build him a Time Sphere.”

“I heard about that,” John replied, “But if they wouldn’t give it to Sara, who they know, why do you think they’ll give it to you?”

“I’m not going to ask them for it,” Rip laughed, “I’m going to build my own.”

John frowned, “How?”

Rip rolled his eyes, “It’s my design, and I can build another one easily. First thing first though, I need to get to my base.”

“Your what?”

“What happened to my watch?” Rip demanded.

Confused John shook his head, “I left it next to the bed. Why?”

Rip ignored his friend’s questions and retrieved his courier. He had based the one the Time Bureau used on the courier he’d had back when he was training. It was a useful tool which gave the wearer information, tracked them, monitored health so Rip just added the time travel function. This one however had even more functions, had ensured it was camouflaged as a watch and that no one other than Rip could access it. Finding his duster in the wardrobe, Rip fixed it on his wrist before turning to find John frowning at him.

“Where are you going?” John demanded.

Tapping the controls, Rip opened a portal behind him, smiling at his friend’s amazement, “My base. Come on.”

John knew Rip had secrets.

The man never told anyone the full story, but John understood why. Rip had been trained to be secretive, trained to work in the shadows and then all the people he trusted turned on him. It was no wonder Rip played his cards close to his chest. But John was stunned as they walked through the portal into a large familiar looking room separated into distinct areas and only missing the seats for the crew.

“Gary,” Rip called the moment he stepped through.

“Yes, Captain Hunter,” a polite voice came from around them.

Rip closed the portal and hung his coat on the stand in the corner, “Status report.”

“All systems are working within normal parameters,” Gary replied.

“Where the bloody hell are we?” John demanded as he looked around, “Is this a ship?”

Rip shrugged, “It was. This was once the Astraea, Miranda’s ship,” he gently rested his hand on what looked like the central console, “I found it floating after the Vanishing Point was destroyed so rescued it and Gary.”

John stared at him.

“This was my base of operations while I built the Bureau,” Rip continued, irritation slipping into his voice, “And after I escaped their imprisonment.”

Looking around, John noted, “I’m guessing you also spent time here when the Time Bureau was in existence.”

“It gave me a place to work in peace,” Rip replied, as he accessed the computer, “Now, I need to know everything about what happened including the exact time and date you arrived through the portal after you abandoned the Waverider.”

“For what?”

“So I can find my ship,” Rip replied, “Because I know she’s still out there.”

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

Rip took a drink of water as he went over in his head what he still had to do to finish the Sphere. The good thing was he had most of the equipment and parts sitting around, because when he had nothing else to do Rip tended to build and repair things. It used to drive Gideon crazy when they were on missions that were mostly surveillance and he had nothing else to do.

“Gary,” he called, “How are the scans going?”

“Still nothing, Captain Hunter,” the AI told him, “But from the information Mr Constantine provided, I have currently only managed to search fifty percent of the zone.”

Rip sighed, “Okay. The moment you locate something, anything I want to know.”

“Of course, Captain.” Gary replied.

Returning to work, Rip tried not to focus on his fear that Gary would tell him that he found no trace of the Waverider, and Rip would have to accept that Gideon was truly gone. Part of him wanted to find Sara and give her a piece of his mind however that would let her know, not only that he was alive but that he still had access to time travel.

“Captain,” Gary spoke up interrupting his thoughts, “Mr Constantine is calling.”

“What can I do for you, John?” Rip asked, Gary instantly connecting the call.

“Just checking in,” John told him, “How’re you doing?”

Rip let out a soft sigh, “I’m getting there. We’re still searching for the Waverider though.”

“Let me know if…when you find her,” John told him, “I’ll come with you to help bring her back.”

Rip frowned for a moment, “Just you?”

“If you’re asking if I’ve told Sara about your return then I am insulted,” John noted.

“You’re not the only one who knows,” Rip retorted.

“Zari has promised me she won’t tell anyone,” John replied adding, “And I trust her.”

Rip hesitated but John had earned his trust over the years, “I’ll contact you the moment I’m ready to leave.”

“Captain Hunter.”

Rip groaned when Gary’s voice invaded his sleep, covering his eyes with his arms as the lights came up in his small bedroom he demanded, “What?”

“I have located the Waverider’s energy signal.”

Rip froze, he slowly sat up and asked, “And?”

“The ship appears to be intact,” Gary assured, “I have not managed to contact Gideon, but this is not unexpected.”

Relief filled Rip that his ship was there, now he just had to finish the Sphere and fix an anchor point so they could return it to normal space.

And then he would have his ship back, he would have his best friend back.

“Do you have a lock on the Waverider?” Rip asked.

“Yes, Captain,” Gary assured him, “And projected her trajectory in case there is a loss of signal.”

Rip nodded, “Then I am going to get a few more hours sleep. Wake me at the usual time and I’ll finish the Sphere before contacting Constantine.”

“Okay,” Rip nodded studying the readouts, “Shut the engines down and recharge.”

Sliding out the Sphere, Rip moved to the monitor and reviewed the system information. Now the Time Sphere was ready, he created an anchor point that would allow him to fly his precious ship back into the timestream proper before bringing her to the bunker.

Since he’d woken up in John’s spare room over three weeks ago, Rip finally felt he had a chance to get back his best friend and confidant. Gary was helpful but he didn’t have the same capacities as Gideon.

No other AI ever had.

It took a few more hours until Rip was ready to enter the Time Bubble and rescue his ship.

“Gary, contact Constantine and tell him he has an hour to join me or I’m going alone,” Rip said.

“Mr Constantine swore at me,” Gary came back a few minutes later, “And told me to open the portal in five minutes.”

Rip nodded as he pulled together what he needed and packed the sphere, hearing the portal open he turned to see John walking through.

“You didn’t exactly give me time to prepare,” John noted, “I could have been doing anything.”

“I have a lock on the ship and don’t want to lose it,” Rip replied, “Now is the best time to go.”

John nodded and slid into the passenger side of the sphere, “Waiting on you.”

“Gary,” Rip called as he entered the sphere and started the engines, “I will contact you when we’re ready for re-entry. Ensure the anchor is stable at all times.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Rip glanced at his friend, “Ready?”

“As I will be,” John replied, “Let’s go.”

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

Rip frowned when they materialised within the cargo bay, and it remained in darkness. Ensuring the Sphere was powered down fully, Rip grabbed a torch and his toolkit before sliding out, John following him.

“Lights aren’t coming on,” John noted, “That does not bode well.”

“No,” Rip grimaced, he started to the door pausing at the control panel and checked the power.

“What?” John asked at the bemused look on his face.

Rip turned, “The power is fine.”

“That’s good right?”

“Yes and no,” Rip replied, “The sensors should have activated the lights.”

John licked his lips nervously before asking, “Gideon?”

“Not sure yet,” Rip mused, “Her matrix doesn’t appear damaged but…” he sighed, “I can’t find any activity.”

Wincing John noted, “Let’s keep going. Once we get to the bridge you can check properly.”

Rip nodded and manually activated the door, turning on the lights in the hallway for them as they headed for the bridge. Even though the ship was trapped and appeared to be dead it was good to be home once more.

If only he knew where Gideon was.

“I don’t like this,” Rip mused, “There is something off about how the ship seems active but there is no reaction to our presence. That’s not right. Gideon should be reacting to our presence.”

Rip pulled out a wire from the Courier on his wrist and connected it to a panel on the wall.

“What?” John demanded when Rip spun looking shocked.

“There’s a life sign,” Rip told him, disconnecting from the panel, “Coming from my room.”

“Your…” John rolled his eyes as Rip marched away frowning as he entered a section of the ship he didn’t recognise, “What the hell is this?”

Rip glanced back at him, “Gideon and I sealed it before we let the team take the ship.”

“Why didn’t the team remember it existed?” John demanded, “Because we could have used the extra space.”

“Because Gideon altered the teams’ memories so they wouldn’t,” Rip replied with a shrug, “I didn’t want them going through my things or using my room.”

“What?”

“You didn’t think I was letting them keep my ship, did you?” Rip asked annoyed, “This is my home.”

John frowned as they continued along the small section of corridor, “Who unsealed it and why?”

“That is my question,” Rip noted.

Reaching the door, he found the manual release to unlock the door which opened only a few inches. Rip could see a figure curled up on his bed through the small opening. Pushing the doors open fully Rip motioned John to stay back. They didn’t want to overwhelm whoever it was, and it was better if there was one of them back if whoever this was attacked Rip.

Reaching the bedside, Rip touched the lamp raising the light slowly and stared at the face peeking out from beneath the covers.

“Gideon?” he breathed.

“What?” John snapped, frowning when Rip motioned him to stay where he was.

Rip sat in the edge of the bed and gently stroked Gideon’s hair back, “Gideon,” he called softly, “Wake up.”

“No,” she whimpered curling away, “I don’t like this dream.”

“Gideon,” he called again.

She cried softly, “You’re never here when I open my eyes and I’m alone again.”

“I’m here,” he promised, resting his hand on her cheek, and wiping away the tears leaking from her eyes, “You’re not alone anymore.”

Her eyes opened slowly, a mixture of amazement, joy and relief covered her face, “Captain?” she breathed, grabbing the hand that was sitting on her cheek, “You’re real?”

Rip nodded softly, “I’m real.”

With a gasp Gideon moved and was suddenly in his lap, arms wrapped around him as she held onto him tightly sobbing against his shoulder. Rip gently rubbed her back and waited until she was ready to talk to him.

Finally, she sniffed and pulled back, her eyes red rimmed and Rip just wanted to take all her pain away.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Gideon said, resting her forehead against his, “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

Rip smiled, “I thought the same for a while there.”

A pointed cough made them turn to where John was standing in the doorway, “So, we found Gideon then.”

Gideon quickly washed her face and pulled her hair back before changing into less rumpled clothing. Walking back into the main room, she smiled to see Rip standing there. It had been so many years since he’d walked off the ship to stall Mallus, both before and after she had been trapped here.

Walking to him, Gideon wrapped her arms around his waist holding on, just to be sure he was real. She just wanted to hold onto him and never let go because he had come for her, he must have known how small the odds were that she would be here, but he had still come.

Rip gently rubbed her back for a moment before he whispered, “What happened?”

Gideon sighed and stepped back from him, “We hit a time bubble. The team did not know how to deal with the problems that arose, because it was a phenomenon they’d never encountered before. It caused the engines to malfunction and due to the displaced time around the ship I was only able to contact the crew using text.”

“Which I’m guessing they ignored,” Rip frowned, glancing at John who winced.

Gideon started out the room, leading them to the bridge, “While they tried to release the ship, the self-destruct initiated.”

“That’s easy to fix,” Rip noted, “Diving into the bubble with the shields set properly would reset it.”

“I suggested that this was how you would deal with the situation,” Gideon noted, “But…”

Rip sighed, “Sara wouldn’t use my solution.”

They both turned to John who frowned, “She didn’t think it would work.”

“Because the person who was trained to travel in time since childhood and had used the solution in the past,” Rip noted sarcastically, “Plus the AI who ran the ship telling her it would were wrong?”

“Everyone thought it would kill us,” John grimaced, “We did our best to repair the ship and stop the countdown but there was nothing we could do. We were forced to abandon the Waverider. Sharpe suggested we send it deeper into the bubble so that when it exploded it wouldn’t destroy the time stream.”

“Except the Waverider did not explode when sent into the bubble,” Rip sighed, “Because as Gideon told them it reset the self-destruct. And without someone setting a release point trapped Gideon here.”

Gideon nodded sadly.

“How did this happen?” John asked, motioning to her human form.

“I do not know,” Gideon told him, “I theorised it was due to the shields not being raised when the ship passed through the bubble once more. But one minute I was a part of the ship then the next I was on the floor of the bridge, human. And completely alone.”

Rip wrapped his arm around her protectively, “How long have you been here?”

“You know time does not work like that here, Captain,” Gideon said softly, “But the chronometer shows that it has been several years chronologically. If you had not come, I would be trapped here alone for eternity,” she sighed, “Now we are trapped together.”

Shaking his head, “I thought I was the pessimistic over-dramatic one,” Rip chuckled, “Do you really think I would come in here without an exit plan? You know me better than that, Gideon.”

“You created an anchor point?” Gideon asked hopefully.

Rip nodded and found her in his arms once more, hugging him tightly, “I was not leaving you and the Waverider here.”

Releasing him, Gideon nodded smartly, “Then we have work to do to.”

Rip walked with Gideon into the engine room to reconfigure the shields and engines for their escape, leaving John to watch the energy levels on the bridge.

“Well, the entire ship is in perfect condition,” Rip noted as he opened the main panel while Gideon worked on the core.

“I had little else to do,” Gideon reminded him, “I put myself in stasis for months at a time, waking to perform maintenance.”

Rip turned and caught her hand, “I’m sorry, Gideon. I…”

“It was not your fault, Captain,” she said, “We agreed that I should go with the Legends.”

He sighed, “But I left you with them when I used the core against Mallus, and they never understood how special you are.”

A smile touched Gideon’s face, “I amused myself during their misadventures. I knew you would reappear one day, despite your belief it would kill you, the odds were higher that after the temporal electrocution you would survive the overloading of the core.”

“Nice to know,” Rip shook his head.

Gideon shook her head sadly, “I never thought you would find me here though. I feared I would be lost alone forever.”

Rip pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly, “You will never be alone again, I promise.” He pressed a soft kiss to her temple, “As long as you want me around.”

Gideon pulled back and smiled at him, “Always, my dear Captain.”

“Rip,” he corrected.

A sweet smile touched her lips as she conceded, “Rip.”

Turning back to the shields, Rip realised Gideon had a thoughtful pout on her face, “What?”

“I do not want the others to know you released the ship,” Gideon told him, “I am sure you do not either and if Mr Constantine’s relationship with Miss Tarazi is still ongoing then they will find out. Mr Constantine may not say but Miss Tarazi is likely to mention something to her brother, who will mention it to one of the others and Miss Lance will learn.”

Rip nodded, “Then we blank their memories of everything, starting with my return.”

Gideon sighed in relief, “Thank you.”

“But first we need to get the ship out of the bubble and back to the base,” Rip reminded her, “Gary will be happy to see you.”

“He just knows I am able to deal with you better than he can.”

Rip took the pilots chair looking out at the strange purple of the time bubble, while Gideon sat in the co-pilots chair so she could monitor the connection to the anchor outside the bubble.

“Ready?” Rip asked.

Gideon nodded, before glancing round at where John was sitting, “Completely.”

“Then let’s go,” Rip smiled, “John, make sure you’re restrained properly. This is going to be a bumpy trip.”

John sighed and gripped the chair, “Doesn’t surprise me.”

Glancing at Gideon, Rip took her hand, “Let’s get out of here.”

Activating the engines, Rip checked the shields before connecting with the anchor point that he’d created outside the bubble. Using the link, Rip opened a corridor out of the bubble, and as they began their exit the entire ship began to shake.

“Gideon?”

“Shields are holding, Captain,” Gideon assured him.

Rip gripped the controls, “Alright, we’re about to exit the bubble. Hold on.”

The ship began to shudder violently, Rip could see a pained expression on Gideon’s face at what was happening to her ship and wanted to comfort her, but he had to concentrate on flying the ship.

“Tell me we’re almost there,” John demanded, his voice wobbling from the vibrations.

“Exiting the bubble in three,” Gideon called, “Two. One.”

The shuddering stopped and outside suddenly became the green of the time stream once more. Gideon let out a sob of relief and Rip moved to hug her, her arms wrapped around him tightly.

“It’s okay,” Rip soothed, “You’re free.”

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

Rip landed the Waverider in the large bay he’d created for her within his base. Removing himself from the restraints, Rip turned to Gideon and hugged her once more.

“I’m bloody blind,” John snapped from his chair.

Rip shared an amused smile with Gideon, and they helped John out the chair, guiding him into the main lab.

“Gary,” Rip called, “Connect with the Waverider and perform a full system check.”

“Yes, Captain,” Gary replied before adding, “Welcome home, Gideon.”

Gideon beamed and rested her hand on the console, “It’s good to be back, brother.”

Rip smiled at the joy filling Gideon’s eyes at being reunited with one of her siblings, the loss of them had affected her so much.

“Before we allow you to settle in,” Rip told her, “We should get John home.”

Gideon nodded asking, “How is your eyesight, Mr Constantine?”

“I can see colours now,” John noted, waving his hand in front of his face.

Rip retrieved the memory wiper from its drawer, programming it while Gideon spoke with John. Part of him was sad that his friend would forget that he was alive, but Rip understood Gideon’s fear. If the others knew the ship had been freed, they would want to take it once more. It was not only Gideon’s home, but she had been abandoned by them when they ignored her advice, so Rip wanted to ensure she felt safe.

Activating the portal back to John’s house, they guided him through into his kitchen.

“My eyesight is back to normal,” John noted as he looked around.

“John, are you back?” Zari’s voice came just before she appeared in the kitchen. She paused seeing Gideon, “Who is this?”

“This is…” John stopped as Rip hit Zari with the memory wiper. Rip caught and lay her down on the floor as John demanded, “What are you doing?”

Rip sighed, “I’m sorry, John. But Gideon doesn’t want any of them to know we got the Waverider back and I know you trust Miss Tarazi, but I can’t take the chance she’ll slip.”

“So, what?” John demanded as Rip raised the wiper to him, “I forget you survived. I get to keep thinking that my friend is dead?”

Gideon caught his hand, “This is my request. Rip is doing this for me.”

Deflating, John sighed, “So, I don’t get to remember either of you are safe?”

“Can you keep this secret from Miss Tarazi?” Gideon asked softly.

Nodding John reminded her, “I can, and I will.”

To Rip’s surprise, Gideon caught Rip’s hand and lowered it before she hugged John who squeezed her tightly for a moment before letting her go.

“Take care of one another,” John told them, “You know where I am if you need me.”

Rip clasped his friend’s hand briefly before opening the portal and, wrapping an arm around Gideon, led her back to the base.

Gideon sat in the comfortable living room area of the base, amazed to no longer be trapped within the time bubble. She had spent so many years alone, so long wandering the corridors of her ship wishing for someone to find and bring her home.

She had dreamed so often of Rip’s return, only to be bitterly disappointed when she woke alone. Now he was just across the room making them tea. He had come for her, and Gideon was so happy to have him back.

Rip placed the mugs of tea he’d made for them on the table before taking the seat at her side. Gideon leaned into him, enjoying the tactile sensation, especially as Rip wrapped his arm around her hugging her close.

“What do we do now, Captain?” Gideon asked softly.

Rip shrugged, “We’re free, Gideon. We do whatever we want. But there is one thing you need to do.”

“What?” confusion filled her.

He smiled, “Stop calling me Captain and use my name.”

Gideon gave him a shy smile, “Of course, Rip.”

Pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head, Rip hugged her close and they sat together ready for whatever the future held for them.

#ripfic #legends of tomorrow #rip week 2021 #rip week #rip appreciation week #Rip Hunter #Gideon #John Constantine #zari tarazi

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a-day-in-the-afterlife · 4 years ago

Text

The 14th Department (AFTERL!FE) Meets the Demon Brothers and Undateables (Obey Me!)

Lucifer

Noah heard he has a dog. He is staying far away from the pretentious eldest.

Oldest big brother? You better believe Youssef finds a kindred spirit, even if they differ wildly in personalities.

Louis lives for the almost regal aesthetic Lucifer has got going on. Lucifer, in turn, lives for the day Louis will stop talking.

Quincy finds this whole trip preposterous (“What the heck is the Devildom? What happened to the Underworld?”) and does not like Lucifer’s condescending attitude (it conflicts with his own!).

Ethan doesn’t like Lucifer—proud and arrogant people with no reason to be so are not to be respected. Lucifer despises Ethan for the same reason.

Day! Will! Not! Go! Near! Lucifer! He’s so scary! But Cerberus is his best friend now (Nine-Nine who?).

Nine and Theo together find out that the eldest demon is into classical music and spend hours discussing early compositions with him.

Ell cannot be around this demon! He is a fallen angel! He tries to be nice (and because Ell is kind, so is Lucifer, even if the sickly sweetness of the angel drives him up the wall), but every good wish is punctuated with a sneeze.

Lucifer is so overworked, so by way of his calm disposition and love for meditation, Jamie helps him find ways to relax.

The eldest demon’s general demeanor astonishes June. How manly he is!

Likewise, Sian can’t go near Lucifer without feeling nervous. The man drips dominating energy!

Verine can’t understand the eldest’s love for classical music. Rock is infinitely better.

Mammon

Um, Mori and him are best friends. They together cause trouble in the House of Lamentation and in the 14th Department with their many get-rich-quick schemes.

Gaudy and expensive taste? Sign Louis up.

Ethan says ‘no’ to the demon’s general pomposity (it reeks of low self-esteem) and by God, doesn’t he own anything that depicts an iota of class?

Mammon is one speedy demon—how can Kirr not appreciate his fleetfootedness when it would bring him so much use whilst hunting? Apart from that, Kirr has no respect for that reprehensible thief, for the very idea of stealing brings back terrible memories.

Always belittled by their peers, Day and Mammon find a kindred spirit in each other, and Day is always reminded of his past life when he sees all the gold that Mammon professes to possess possesses.

Kati bit him twelve times because no dumb tsundere was going to steal his (cough Aitachi’s) spot as cutest in the Department!

Licht is eclipsed by Mammon’s demon form because how is he able to pull off wearing so little clothing so well? He must take notes. When he learns that Mammon is a model, too, he goes berserk with delight.

Cyrille finds the secondborn exceedingly stupid, although he begrudgingly gives him credit for being pretty decent at math.

Sian spots a fellow tsundere and runs away, because oh my God, it’s so obvious that Mammon likes this MC person!

Leviathan

Games? Social awkwardness? Extreme interest in things that no one else seems to care for? Cyrille has found his soulmate!

Aitachi and Kirr cringe at how Leviathan spends his leisure time, but are intrigued because they have never seen such methods of gaming and media consumption before.

Leviathan is forever at Quincy’s mercy, for the fellow demon has no qualms of absolutely crushing Levi’s already non-existent self-esteem.

Even though he loathes to admit it, Sian really likes the rhythm games Leviathan plays, and the thousands of idol posters in his room make him strangely nostalgic of his past life.

June wonders how Levi can go so long without feeling the overwhelming need to burst into a sprint now and again.

Theo almost kills the thirdborn because how is his room filled with so many Demonrito and Hell Mountain Dew containers? What filth!

Speaking of filth, Licht finds some of Levi’s dating sims and oh my darling, some of them are quite … lewd.

Ghilley and Leviathan together construct an elaborate Lego model of a castle from the anime My Sister Is A Fairy Princess, And Her Suitor Is Secretly An Ogre From a Land Far Away And Wants to Eat Us All, And It’s Up to Me to Save My Sister’s Kingdom.

Ethan can’t even walk past Leviathan’s room without a disapproving “tut.” Has the demon no discipline, despite being rumored to be the Grand Admiral of Hell’s Navy?

Kati spends all day poking at the cute monster and waifu figurines situated in Levi’s bedroom. He thinks Azuki-tan is cute, but not as cute as him, and anyone who says otherwise will get bitten!

Aitachi likes to rifle through Leviathan’s anime sword replica collection and giggle because in combat, they would be of no more use than a toothpick.

Satan

Finally! Someone with sense! thinks Ethan. Boy, do these two get along, right down to their educated and proper mannerisms to their mutual hatred of Lucifer.

Verine can’t go near Satan without coughing violently because the forthborn always has some manner of cat hair on him, no matter how diligently he preens.

Cats are infinitely better than dogs, so Noah sticks close to Satan.

Cyrille thought he had found a friend in Satan, who always has his nose in a book, but it turns out, Satan is more philosophically-and-intellectually-versed, while Cyrille is more scientific.

Nine likes Satan, for he is as calm as himself. Strangely enough, they both seem to have hidden wrathful feelings and bond over this.

Kitties! :D is all Day can think when he sees the fourthborn.

Youssef enjoys Satan’s company, too, for they both are anthropological in nature—always watching, but never interfering until there is a need.

Blond and princelike are the two of them, but Louis is sorely disappointed when Satan’s royal appearance is merely a façade of darker emotions to come, where Louis enjoys life in its every aspect. “How disappointing art thou, Satan!” Louis throws rose petals in distress.

Kirr and Aitachi try to hunt one of Satan’s cats, thinking it was some kind of Devildom’s finest prey. Satan does not forgive them for the attempt.

Theo sneezes the moment he enters Satan’s room. Although everything is in its place and not truly messy by any means, he refuses to let the stacks and stacks of books sit idly by when they are begging to be put in shelves!

Quincy and Satan each add to their respective repertoire of curses in their time together. It does not bode well for anyone in the House of Lamentation or 14th Department.

Asmodeus

They are … essentially the same person, so you can bet your ass that Licht and Asmo absolutely live for each other’s company. They literally spend hours modeling clothes together, discussing fashion, gossiping about their romantic exploits, and praising their overall appearance.

Louis joins in too, although he mostly stays for the latter, and the three vanquish away many nights complimenting their own and the others’ looks.

Sometimes Asmo likes to sew patches and sequins onto his clothes and mend them to his own design, and Aitachi, who likes to sew, learns many different ways of stitching from the fifthborn, although he hates the fact that Asmo, like Licht, never shuts up about what an “adorable and cute warrior” he is!

Asmo has to know Kirr’s hair care routine, which Kirr gives in one, succinct sentence: “I wash it. Sometimes.”

Nine has to constantly flee Asmodeus’ presence because it is in his nature to compliment the Soul Reaper on how absolutely beautiful he looks.

Kati expects makeovers, all of which should emphasize his cuteness, every other day.

Don’t ask how long Mori spent calculating how much money Asmo spends on beauty products, because he wept at the end of it.

Verine refuses to step a foot into Asmodeus’ room because do you know how much his sinuses are going to bother him when he spends even a second into a room so deeply entrenched in the fragrance of flowers and perfume?

Ghilley is used to a personality so akin to his roommate, Licht, so he has no qualms in dealing with Asmo and quite likes the gossip he is quietly able to distill from the fifthborn.

Beelzebub

Brothers in their flaming orange hair, June gloms onto Beel with astounding loyalty (Theo refuses to admit jealousy, but ...), especially when he hears of his dedication to his twin.

Cyrille has to interrogate Beel on the structural integrity of his wings in his demon form because there is no way that such a flimsy apparatus could lift a demon of Beel’s stature even an inch into the air! Also, how much does Beel exercise if he expects to gain muscle and burn off the infinite calories that he consumes? It is a scientific mystery.

Day likes snacks, Beel likes snacks! Everything is right in the world (even if the demon accidentally mistook Day’s hair for a mint ice cream cone).

Jamie is constantly offering fresh fruits and vegetables to the sixthborn, but even though he eats them willingly, Beel much prefers foods that will actually fill him up for a short amount of time.

Again, Ethan is appalled by the lack of discipline Beelzebub shows. The demon is simply a slave to his appetite and deserves nothing less than scorn.

Theo cannot decide if he likes or hates the fact that Beel leaves a trail of crumbs wherever he goes. On one hand, he gets to clean, but on the other hand, it’s so messy ...

Even though he has many misgivings of fallen angels, even Ell cannot help but like Beel! As long as he is fed, the demon is very sweet and kind.

Noah likes Beel, too. Something about his easygoing and generally cheerful personality pleases him to no end.

Beel tried to eat Kati’s hair, thinking it was a yummy bun. Sadly, he got bit more times than Mammon.

Youssef is a good cook and is thereby followed by Beel wherever he goes. The kind Soul Reaper doesn’t mind, though.

Belphegor

Noah likes how Belphie takes things easily and calmly, although it probably wouldn’t hurt for him to get more exercise.

Belphegor is even more of a conundrum to June than Leviathan was. He decides that next time he goes to the Devildom, he’s going to bring an extra pair of running shoes because the demon most certainly was wanting of physical exertion!

Kirr is absolutely astonished at the unguarded and completely lax way Belphie sprawls out in the House of Lamentation, sleeping. If he was an enemy tribesman, he would have no trouble in taking the demon down as he slept.

“This kind of laziness is not fit for a warrior at all!” cries Aitachi any time he seems Belphie dozing off.

Jamie likes Belphegor’s way of thinking. Sometimes, sitting under an apple tree in the sweltering summer heat after a hard day of work just causes one to be overcome with the desire to take a nap.

Youssef tries to brew Belphie a cup of espresso, but the caffeine just doesn’t seem to have an effect on the Avatar of Sloth.

Although he is slightly disheartened by the fact that his quiet footsteps seem to have no effect on the seventhborn, as he is always asleep, Ghilley revels in the prospect of drawing unsavory graffiti on the demon’s face when he slumbers.

Day sometimes tries to rouse Belphie, and Belphie, in turn, tries to kill Day.

Like his observations on his twin, Cyrille cannot fathom how the demon could sleep so much. How could one body need so much rest?

Simeon

Ell loves him. How can he not? He is the perfect angel! He is also very curious as to how the Celestial Realm of Obey Me!’s world works compared to the one in AFTERL!FE.

His whole aesthetic mesmerizes Louis. There’s something so tranquil but regal about it.

Licht wants to know where he can get an exact copy of Simeon’s outfit because darling, it's gorgeous.

Youssef probably spends more time around Simeon than he should, but his calm demeanor is so refreshing compared to the chaos in the 14th Department and the House of Lamentation.

Kirr and Aitachi together lament with Simeon on the struggles of working with technology. Why is it so difficult?

Something about the angel’s holy air makes Mori very much not inclined to ask him how much the gold clasp on his cape is worth.

Quincy hates the “pretentious” and “stuck up” angel and bickers with him almost as much as he bickers with Ell. Simeon never responds to his goading, although ... he does get a bit prickly when Quincy criticizes Luke or the Celestial Realm too harshly.

Encouraged by the prospect that he can actually breathe in the (fresh-smelling) presence of Simeon, Verine enjoys his company, but is perpetually annoyed by the fact that the angel seems to pity him for his condition.

Ethan can’t hate Simeon, either. He is the sole honorable character he can find in the entire Devildom, even though he has to admit that it seems that the angel is hiding something.

Day really likes Simeon! He’s so nice and is always ready to play with him.

As a man of science, Cyrille scoffs at Simeon (and Luke’s) unfaltering belief in religion.

Luke

Kati bites him on sight. Luke just seems irritating and how dare he think himself cuter than him!

Aitachi sympathizes with Luke, for they both lament on not being taken seriously because of their age.

Luke reminds him a bit too much of a chihuahua for Noah to be too fond of him, but the little angel means well, so Noah suffers his incessant barking out of (Kind)ness.

Day is a human puppy ... and Luke is an angel chihuahua. They get along great, although Luke makes it his most important goal to Christianize Day, who seems to believe in other things!

Quincy wonders when Luke will stop talking and is constantly entertaining thoughts of hastening the day when he will. Likewise, Luke wishes the “horrible demon” would go away forever.

As a fellow angel, Ell finds Luke to be great fun. It’s strange though, Luke seems to always be expressing the opposite of what he’s feeling in typical tsundere fashion, but he never sneezes.

Sian finds Luke to be of the utmost annoyance. He’s so short (heh) and yappy and annoying!

Kirr wonders if the little angel will make a good hunting dog, but after he realizes that Luke has a lot of trouble keeping his mouth closed, he thinks better of it.

His dealings with Day cause Nine to be an excellent caretaker of Luke when Simeon is away. You just have to deal with exuberant personalities like his carefully, is all.

Ghilley and Licht give Luke “five stars” in terms of cuteness. The young angel does not approve!

Theo stays far away from Luke. Children are walking crumb-and-stain-factories and he is not going to get dirty.

Solomon

Quincy and Solomon exchange many spell incantations and curses and keep the rest of the Soul Reapers, angels, and demons in an uproar with their constant shenanigans.

When he notices that Solomon has many fortune-telling artifacts in his room, Kati rifles through them all (without permission), much to the sorcerer’s amusement, especially when Kati discovers many supposedly unpleasant things about his future.

Although Quincy and Solomon are the true troublemaking duo in terms of pranks (Satan helps, sometimes), Day and Solomon are almost equal in measure, although much of Day’s rogurey is an accident, and he never means to cause any harm!

Licht is instantly enamored by Solomon’s cape—what style! You can see the entire Milky Way embroidered on it (Cyrille instantly assures him that that is not actually the case)!

Ghilley can’t help but wonder why anyone thinks Solomon is shady. He seems to be a pretty upstanding, if chaotic, guy?

Youssef admires the humanity of Solomon. In a land of angels and demons and even Soul Reapers, it’s good to have someone so normal.

Unlike Ghilley, Ethan definitely notices that something shady is afoot when Solomon is around. Because of this, he tails the sorcerer wherever he goes, for he’d rather not a ruckus be caused.

Sian has many questions for Solomon on the status of idols in the Human World since he left it. What are the newest trends? The most popular groups? The most admired dance moves? He wants to know it all.

Barbatos

Cyrille finds the whole time-travel aspect of Barbatos’ powers intriguing and derails the butler from his duties for hours in attempts to understand the nuances of this overpowering concept.

Ethan privately thinks that he looked much better in a butler suit than the demon. What is even going on with the front of his outfit? A diligent and uncomplaining demon is Barbatos, and Ethan has to respect him for that, even if he is a position so beneath his own.

He’s so scary! D: thinks Day, even though Barbatos is nothing but kind to him.

Kirr likes the fine fare that Barbatos cooks, although he laments not being able to win “the mind game” against the butler, who he spends many hours staring coolly at.

Theo and Barbatos spend many an evening chatting about the best way to maintain the most perfect state of cleanliness.

The strong smell of detergent follows Barbatos sometimes, and Verine can never bring himself too close to the demon. However, he has to begrudgingly admit that if it weren’t for the overwhelming stench of chemicals, he would be breathing in a suffocating cloud of dust particles, so he has to thank the butler for that.

Jamie gives Barbatos many good recipes for fruit pies and Youssef can’t wait to try all the (possibly) delicious recipes that Barbatos recites to him.

Ghilley, unfortunately, finds it very difficult to sneak up on the butler, for Barbatos has seen all Ghilley’s attempts to scare him in all the timelines he has observed.

Diavolo

This bumbling idiot is the ruler of the Devildom? thinks Ethan with great distaste. However dignified Diavolo might be, Ethan cannot see past the blindingly cheerful mask he puts on and finds it most undignified.

A fellow royal! How is Louis supposed to resist striking a long-winded conversation? Diavolo entertains Louis’ pompous and overbearing self and they find each other most delightful.

Licht positively drools over Diavolo’s demon form outfit. Just how he is pulling off that much style?

Quincy finds much enjoyment in disrespecting the Prince of the Devildom to no end and is always disappointed when Diavolo responds to his insults with a tolerating smile.

The Prince of Demons and the son of the Demon Lord are titles that are essentially the bane of Ell’s existence, but he manages to be most respectful toward him, even though he is shaking in his shoes and wondering when all their interactions will come to and end.

Day lived like a king in his past life and is not even remotely fazed by the enormous amount of finery found in the Demon Lord’s Castle. He is, however, enamored with the Little D’s, who, when not insulting him, are great fun!

Diavolo’s lifestyle of luxury is basically Mori’s dream, so he takes every opportunity to make notes of the expensive furniture and ancient pieces.

Noah and Youssef like how down-to-Earth Diavolo is, despite his high position. They feel as if he has something to hide, but for the most part, he is a jolly fellow and they enjoy his company.

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yaz-the-spaz · 4 years ago

Note

So I’m new to the Ziam fandom, I’m a strong larrie but I also couldn’t help to notice that there was something between Z*yn and L*am too. Could you tell me about the tiger tattoo? I keep hearing that its an iconic Ziam tattoo and I’m a little confused. Also, do you think Ziam is still together right now in 2020 and could you explain why? I hope this isn’t a bother.

hey nonnie, welcome to this side of the fandom! and please don’t worry, you are not a bother at all, and we are always happy to have new members! please accept this adorable gif of ziam waving hello as your welcoming gift into the ziam fandom lol! 😊🌈

now onto your question about the tiger tattoo...

hooo boy, nonnie

idk if you know what you’re asking because this is a BIG life-altering question.

BIG.

...are you ready for this?

are you ready to die? are you ready to have your soul ascend from your body up to the gay ziam heavens for all eternity?

i mean it’s pretty nice up here and all but you may just wanna get your affairs in order before you continue, cause once you discover all the ways zayn javadd malik has professed his undying and eternal love for liam james payne all over his goddamn body there is no coming back.

are you absolutely sure you’re ready?

ok, here we go!

so. once upon a time way back in october 2013 zayn debuted a new tattoo of a tiger on his arm. at the time it seemed like just another tattoo in a quickly growing long list of (random) tattoos, and went by relatively untalked about among fandom (at least afaik) for a couple of years. but THEN, in early 2016 zayn followed that tattoo up with the addition of the full title of his m.o.m. album spelled out around the tiger...

seems normal, right?

first off, notice how the tiger’s tail is shaped suspiciously like an L?

well, that’s not all that’s gay i mean odd or interesting about this tattoo lol...some have also noticed that the muscles of the tiger’s back quite remarkably appear to resemble the muscles of a certain boy whose name also starts with L

(and no i’m not talking about louis lol)

but here’s where shit really gets real because guess what? you may have noticed that the letters of the ‘mine’ part are kind of shuffled in an odd/not really consecutive order to spell out the word mine in a way that’s clearly or easily readable...that’s because zayn’s extra ass arranged it specifically so that only the i, e, and m, are all directly around the L-shaped tiger tail, while the n is just off to the side like a lonely forgotten reject

by now you might be saying to yourself okay, well that’s not really all that significant to liam, and the L could just be a coincidence/not really mean anything, couldn’t it?

wrong again!

because once more, zayn ‘i live to be as extra as humanly possible about my love for liam james payne because i don’t know any other way to live’ malik made sure to put a little tail/extra line on the side of the letter ‘e’ to make it interchangeable with an upside down letter ‘a.’

now again you might be thinking i don’t know if that’s really intentional or all that meaningful. but look closely.

there is clearly an additional connected piece on that e that cannot be explained away or mistaken for just a weird blot of ink. it’s not just an error on the part of the tattoo artist (if it was i’m sure zayn would have had it fixed by now given that he’s had that tat for over 4 years at this point) and there’s also no letter ‘a’ in ‘mind of mine.’

so why is it there? and why does it just so happen to be right next to the i, the m, and the L-shaped tiger tail. why did zayn choose to arrange the letters of the word ‘mine’ in such a weird order instead of a more normal/easier to read format like the rest of the album title? and why did he choose put those exact letters all near each other? because it’s intentional. and because it’s meant to have a very particular double meaning.

if he was going for just a random order he could’ve put those letters anywhere. but he didn’t. and more than that he went out of his way to make sure that that additional piece on the e was added and distinct so that it could very clearly double as an (unnecessary) a.

there’s no way you can argue that all of those things are just coincidence or that the random letter ‘a’ means absolutely nothing lol. that tattoo was clearly meant as both an homage to the album and to liam (who the album is largely believed to be about lol). and the fact that the muscles seem to match quite closely to liam’s is a nice added bonus that just helps confirm that imo. (plus there’s also the lovely little tidbit of knowledge that the tattoo is positioned in such a way that whenever zayn wears short-sleeve shirts the ‘Liam’ part is the only part clearly on display 😏😏😏)

BUT GUESS WHAT??

THAT IS NOT EVEN WHERE ZAYN’S TATTOO DEDICATIONS ENDDDD

never mind that he already had all of us ziams sobbing ourselves to death and morphing into withered soulless husks over this tattoo after he debuted the full thing in 2016, but there’s so! many! more!

boy’s body is literally a giant ass open love letter to liam and i am NOT OKAY. (have i mentioned i hate these extra ass romantic saps with every fiber of my being? no? well i do. and you’re about to find out all the reasons why)

reason #1 - all. the. goddamn. mandala. tattoos. (there are multiple but i’m only linking to this post featuring/talking about the main one, i.e. the very first one he got cause that’s the one that kills me the most but if you wanna see the others peep my ziam tattoos tag or my zayn’s tattoos tag)

reason #2 - love & marriage poem tattoo (read all the posts in this tag starting from the bottom first for full context)

reason #3 - red wolf & bat wings chest tattoo

reason #4 - wolf leg tattoo (more background details here too)

reason #5 - liam’s silhouette leg tattoo

reason #6 - smoking lips hand tattoo (which literally matches the album art for liam’s debut single exactly and was debuted on zayn’s hand months before the single’s release - scroll down to the part where you can see the red lip pics)

reason #7 - the snake tattoo (aka the snake habitat tattoo)

reason #8 - motherfuckin 25!! idk what it means but it clearly means SOMETHING important to the both of them and it still drives me insane to this day and probably will to my dying breath 🤬

bonus - it’s not a tattoo but: zayn’s nose piercing. which along with the mandala wrist tat is literally a desi bride declaration of marriage; fun fact - tan france, a gay married british-pakistani tv personality who is part of the queer eye crew also has a mandala tat on his left hand that some have speculated may also be to symbolize his dedication to his husband)

anyway there are more tattoos of zayn’s that seem to also be related to liam (though more loosely imo) but this post is already beyonddd long enough so i figured it’s best to just stick to the main ones/most obvious ones here lol

(side note: liam also has tattoos that are clearly dedicated to zayn/his and zayn’s relationship as well, but that’s for another post and also if my recall is correct i think zayn might actually have more?? well that we know of anyway lol)

(side note 2.0: one other thing that adds to the theory of the m.o.m. tiger tattoo being a dedication to liam/liam’s name, besides the obvious lettering thing described above, is that zayn is known to have a thing for tattooing the names of his closest loved ones on his body. the only person in his immediate family whose name he doesn’t appear to have tattooed on him is trisha’s and i’d be willing to bet that’s either because she specifically asked him not to, or he does have one but it’s just in a very hidden place. but we know that he has his father’s name, grandfather’s name, and all of his sister’s names tattooed on him so when you combine that with the weird lettering of the m.o.m. tiger tat and the fact that the album was very likely about liam/closely followed the story of the beginning of his relationship with liam, it becomes even less plausible imo that that tattoo is meant to be about anything else but liam. ain’t science grand?)

(side note 3.0: zayn’s whole left arm/left sleeve of tats seems to be specifically reserved for tattoos dedicated to liam and/or related/connected to liam’s own tattoos, and there’s a couple of good posts here - x, x, x, x - that go through some of the more specific parallels between their tattoos and how certain ones seem to mirror or directly pair with each other’s)

ok i promise that’s it for the side notes lol!

lastly, to your final question, i do believe that they are still together currently, especially considering this most recent soft outing/confirmation from one of zayn’s songwriters (who is also not the first to do that either btw lol) but that is not the only reason - see my post here for some of the biggest reasons why i believe ziam remains real and strong :)

#asks #anons #ziam #ziam tattoos #zayn's tattoos #ziam declarations of love #ziam is real #ziam remains real #obvious husbands are obvious #ziam masterposts #mine #this post took me over half the goddamn day wtf #i hate my inconsistent ass tags #why am i like this

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faustinebellamy · 4 years ago

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LFRP - Faustine “Faust” Bellamy

Possessing a great joie-de-vivre, Faust walks through life with confidence and flair. A self-assured, perhaps even cocky, duelist, she revels in competition and challenge. She aims to live life to the fullest and experience any pleasure she can wring out of it.

THE BASICS –––

Name: Faustine “Faust” Bellamy

Age: 34

Nameday: 15th Sun of the Second Astral Moon

Race: Elezen, Duskwight

Gender: Female

Alignment: True Neutral

Marital Status: Independent

Server: Balmung (Crystal Datacenter)

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE –––

Hair: Her hair is a dark, dirty blonde.

Eyes: Hazel

Height: 72 ilm (6′0″)

Build: Among Midlanders and Miqo’te, Faustine’s 72 ilm might seem almost statuesque, but next to her fellow Elezen, she is practically petite. Like many of the race, she has a lean build with long, slender limbs. Her shoulders are somewhat broad, making her already slender neck appear even more so. Despite being Duskwight, her complexion is just rosy enough that she can reasobly pass for Wildwood or Ishgardian if she tries.

Common Accessories: Faust nearly always carries a rapier, a focus and a slender stiletto dagger. She is also fond of dark red lipstick and hats.

PERSONAL –––

Profession: Duels has become a fashion of sort among some of the young nobles in Ishgard. Spurred on by lofty notions of chivalry and long lost and romantic ideals, any dispute, however minor, quickly escalates into a pristine glove on the floor or in the snow or, in rare occasions, in the mud. That said, duels are not without a risk, and perhaps this adds to the appeal for these young nobles, desperately longing for something grander now that the Dragon War was over. While a fight to the death are rarely the goal, accidents do happen, and furthermore, the duels has been banned by the city. So to avoid damage or dishonor to their house, many a young noble hires Cavaliers, trained duelists who will do the fighting in their stead, and should it come to it, take the punishment for the duel. Faust has served as the Cavalier of Avoix Ferois for somewhere between six months and a year. Ferois is a minor noble house, but Avoix is a temperamental young man, and Faustine has fought, and won, enough duels for him to build a fair reputation for her name. Avoix of course would have preferred that it was for his name, but Faustine is just charismatic enough, just skilled enough, and most importantly, just not-Duskwight enough to be remembered herself.

Hobbies: Faustine enjoys poetry, collecting weapons (rapiers mostly, daggers, sometimes other swords), drinking wine (preferably expensive, even more preferably paid for by someone else), buying clothes (elegant, of course), reading, enjoying art, and anything that can catch her intense, but fleeting, attention.

Languages: Common

Residence: She currently lives in Ishgard.

Birthplace: A small Duskwight colony in Galmorran ruins. She considers herself Galmorran, and while she often takes advantage of the fact that she can pass for a Wildwood, she is generally proud of her heritage.

Patron Deity: Faust has come to revere Halone.

RELATIONSHIPS –––

Spouse: None, to anyone’s knowledge.

Children: “Don’t make me laugh.”

Parents: Faust has not spoken to her parents in years.

Siblings: Same as above. Any siblings she has, she does not currently have any contact to.

Other Relatives: It’s a pretty safe bet that if Faust has any family, she does not currently have any contact with them

Pets: She has a Chocobo named Vetinari.

TRAITS –––

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between / Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION –––

Smoking Habit: She will occasionally smoke a pipe, but primarily in social settings

Drugs: Rarely. She doesn’t have any particular interest most of the time, but she enjoys new experiences and may try them just for the novelty.

Alcohol: Occasionally. She rarely gets outright drunk, but she does enjoy good wine, and occasionally other spirits. She also enjoys occasionally less good ones. (She *does* tend to get very philosophical when drinking).

RP HOOKS –––

En Garde: Faust is a duelist first and foremost. As mentioned above, she has spent the last year or so dueling for nobles in Ishgard. She’s competitive and always excited for a challenge. Rivalries, sparring partners, former mentors, former adversaries, there are no shortage in ways other characters with any kind of dueling experience could know her.

Steel and Snow: While the young nobles using “Cavaliers” to do their duels for them is my own headcanon, you are more than welcome to use it! If your character may have been involved in these duels in one way or another, it’s likely they would know Faustine.

Wounds Inflicted by Reason: Faust enjoys poetry, art and philosophy, and will often attend poetry readings or symposiums. Those well versed in creative circles, especially in Gridania or Ishgard, may know her (or know of her).

I Embrace my Rival: Faust enjoys rivalry, both friendly and less friendly, and not just when it comes to fencing. She can be cocky, and not everyone takes to her that well. Anyone interested in a rivalry of any kind, friendly, playful, bitter, let me know!

Taking the Red: Faust is a Red Mage, though she is not as practiced with it as she is with fencing. She may have a connection with other Red Mages who she studied with, or bonded with, over the years.

Social Butterfly: She enjoys company, especially if you can show her a new experience or have something interesting to talk about. Interested in interacting? We can work something out!

CONTACT INFORMATION –––

You can contact me here, either through this blog, or through my main blog, @mymistymornings.

I have Discord, but prefer chatting here first before giving it out. You can of course also find Faust in game, on Balmung, the name is Faustine Bellamy.

Notes ––– Always happy to meet and interact with new people! If you’re interested in establishing a connection to Faustine, hit me up. Even if you’re not up for roleplaying or interacting directly, I’m also excited to just share. Tag me in memes and I will be more than happy to reciprocate!

@mooglemeet, @crystalxivrp, @balmungrp, @ffxiv-crystal-rp

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #rp #lfrp crystal #lfrp balmung #elezen #red mage #duelist #ishgard #gridania

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

Text

White Noise (What an Awful Sound) Ch.2 (Crystal/Gigi) - Meta

A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed the first chapter! I’ve been having a lot of fun writing it. Please leave any feedback/opinions/suggests you have, I love reading what people think about my work! :)

“Gigi, breakfast is ready!” The sound of her mother’s voice woke Gigi up. She rolled over to check the time on her phone, 9 am. Ugh, who the hell wakes up this early on a Sunday? Her parents must really be laying into the new “suburban” lifestyle. Breakfast together early every morning, family dinners. Oh maybe they’ll even have movie night! Gigi ignored all the texts she’d received from her friends back home while she was asleep, rolling herself out of bed and walking to the bathroom. She rummaged around in the box labeled “Gigi’s Toiletries” in her mom’s beautiful cursive. Pulling out her face wash and moisturizer before turning to the sink where her toothbrush rested from the night before.

Once back in her room Gigi picked out an outfit for the day. Scanning through the clothes she’d already put away in her closet, she decided on a long, pale green skirt that had a small slit revealing some of her left leg and just a cropped white shirt. Gigi gave herself a quick once over before rushing downstairs.

“My god, would you look at that. Sleeping Beauty has finally joined the rest of the living.” Gigi’s dad said. He was sitting at their dining table sipping coffee out of a mug and scrolling on his phone. Gigi was willing to bet all of her savings he was looking at Facebook. These damn 40’s somethings, always on their goddamn phones. Just shameful.

“There’s so evidence to prove I’m not sleep walking right now.’’ She said, taking a seat next to her father.

“You washed your face, brushed your teeth, and got dressed.” Gigi’s mother replied, poking her head out of the kitchen.

“Right…so what’s for breakfast?” She eyed her father’s plate but he had already eaten what was on it.

“Cereal for you since you decided to take so long.”

“Paul stop it,” Her mom hit his arm playfully before putting a plate of waffles in front of Gigi, “apparently, your father’s version of unpacking the kitchen is only taking out the waffle iron.”

“Hate to say it but I’m not surprised.” Gigi said.

“I am shocked and appalled by how little you two think of me, really. Just wow.” He replied, feigning hurt. Gigi’s dad stood from the table, taking his plate into the kitchen and placing it in the sink. He whispered a small ‘thank you’ before pulling Gigi’s mom in for a kiss. The teen just ignored her parents, public displays of affection were normal in their house. Gigi had a theory that her father was so affectionate to make up for how much time he spent at work back in LA, always hugging, kissing, or holding her mother’s hand just to let her know he’s still there.

“Anyway, Gigi honey, your father and I need to go to the store and get some things for the house. Do you want to come with us?” Gigi just shook her head, she could use this time to unpack her room some more. “Okay, well we should be home before 4. Please don’t forget, we’re going over to have dinner with the Methyd’s at 5.”

“I will be ready, promise.”

Her parents made their way out the front door, her mom yelling something about wearing a jacket if she left the house. Please, like Gigi was gonna leave the house. Where would she go? To hang out with all her friends here in Missouri? No Gigi was going to go back upstairs and unpack her room. She hated living out of boxes, even if it had only been a day. Back home she waited until the very last second to pack up all her things. Nicky, her best friend, had told her to ‘stop stalling and pack your shit already’ to which Gigi argued that she hadn’t been. Now she was willing to admit Nicky had been right. Just because she refused to throw some random crap she’d had all her life into a box didn’t change the fact that the ‘For Sale’ sign outside her house was real. But now Gigi was ready to settle into her new room.

About an hour later Gigi had made good progress on her room. She’d just finished organizing her books when she heard a crash followed by a lot of expletives that she was glad her parents weren’t around to hear. Gigi walked over to her window, trying to see what was going on. She chuckled to herself as she watched Crystal struggle with an easel on her porch. “Oh my god she’s losing a fight to a fucking easel.” Gigi said, slipping on a pair of white sandals before running downstairs and out the front door. She made her away across the street, still smiling at the sight.

“Want some help?” She asked, finally reaching the other girl.

“Jesus, fuck. You were not supposed to see this.” Crystal laughed. She ran a hand through her curls before looking up at Gigi, a fake pout painted across her face. She is way too adorable for her own good, holy shit.

“Well, too bad.” Gigi said. She bent over and started picking all the art supplies that, she guessed, had been knocked over during the struggle.

“I can’t get it to stand up. I don’t know what’s wrong, it was fine up in my room.” Crystal sighed, giving up and letting it drop to the floor. Gigi nodded.

“Okay, well how many times did you let it do that?” She joked.

“I-I may have dropped it three times while dragging it down the stairs, yeah.”

“I think I may know what your problem is.” She said.

“Wow, you know I am so glad Missouri has someone of your intelligence level living in it now. If it wasn’t for you I would still be fighting for my life against that thing.” Crystal pointed in disgust towards where the easel lay on the porch. Gigi just laughed in response. A silence fell over the girls. To Gigi’s surprise, for one of the only few times in her life, it wasn’t an awkward silence. Crystal wasn’t expecting a response from her, instead she turned her attention to focus on organizing her paints.

“Uh, okay, I, um, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out today?” Gigi shifted in her spot, running a hand awkwardly through her hair. Crystal raised her eyebrows and smiled.

“Actually, I’m just not entirely sure I can handle a full day with you,” Crystal said. Gigi’s eyebrows furrowed, “I mean you just have such an overpowering personality.”

“Right, yeah, I’ve heard that about myself many times.” Gigi nodded in relief. Just as she finished talking Crystal phone vibrated, she pulled it out of her back pocket to check the notification.

“Well Ms. Gigi Goode, you’re in luck. My friend Lux just asked me to go thrifting with her. Wanna come?” Crystal stood up and walked closer to Gigi. She bit her lip while waiting for the brunette’s response.

“Oh um, yeah sure. I’d love to.” Gigi said. In that moment she was positive she would’ve said yes no matter what Crystal invited her to.

Crystal ran inside to grab the keys to her car and say bye to her mom before dashing back to Gigi and grabbing her hand, “Okay let’s go.” She pulled Gigi toward her car, her skin burning where they’d made contact. Crystal’s car was very old and a horrendous mustard color but she loved it because it got her away from her parents. She was the only one in her friend group with a car, which meant all her friends loved it too. Gigi had to admit, Crystal was not a very good driver. She was always just a little bit too far over the speed limit for comfort and drove with her left leg up on the seat. They drove in silence, well Gigi was silent. Crystal couldn’t help but sing along to every song that came on as they made their way in town to the thrift store. Crystal’s taste in music was definitely different from Gigi’s, playing songs from King Princess, Cage the Elephant, and Hozier, whereas Gigi was more of a pop girl. She basically played Dua Lipa on repeat 24/7. Sitting so close to Crystal while Cherry Wine played throughout the car made Gigi feel overwhelmed, she tried to slow her breath as she stared down at where their hands both rested on the console. She resisted the urge to intertwine their fingers together, missing the feeling from earlier. She studied the other girl’s fingers, the way they dance ever so slightly to the music, the chipped purple nail polish she wore. She had rings on almost all of her fingers.

“You okay?” Crystal asked, glancing at Gigi out of the corner of her eye. She looked like she was going to be sick. But as soon as Crystal spoke Gigi snapped out of it, smiling and peeling her eyes away from their hands to look up at Crystal.

“Yeah, just uh- never mind.” Gigi stopped herself from saying something stupid. She felt foolish, she hadn’t even known this girl for 24 hours and she already had the urge to profess her love to her. She didn’t even know if Crystal was gay. Well, actually that’s not true, she listened to King Princess and Lana Del Rey. The girl was definitely some flavor of gay. Plus nobody that dressed like that was straight.

“What? No, tell me!” Crystal pouted.

“It’s nothing. Just your music makes me feel like I’m in a coming-of-age movie or something.” Gigi said. She tried to fight off the blush creeping across her cheeks. Crystal just laughed, making Gigi regret she said it.

“I like to listen to this kind of music when alone or like painting. It makes me feel calm and inspired. Or like I’m gonna be the next great sapphic artist,” Well, shit, there it was. The confirmation Gigi needed to insure her gaydar wasn’t completely broken. She swallowed hard, not wanting to show any reaction. “I just need to find my muse.” Now it was Crystal who was stealing glances at their hands, moving her hand just close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from Gigi’s. Missing that same heat when she reluctantly pulled her hand away so she could pull into a parking spot.

The girls made their way into the small shop that was filled with very loud clothes. The way Crystal dressed suddenly all made sense. There were only three other people in the shop, they were all standing together loudly talking about how horrendous the huge bubble gum pink dress in front of them was.

“Oh thank fuck, finally. Crystal you have to try this on!” One of them said, grabbing the dress off the rack and running up to Crystal. She stopped and gave Gigi a confused, but welcoming look. The girl looked so much like a fairy, Gigi had to suppress the urge to ask her how Tinker Bell was.

“Hi, I’m Daya.” Another girl, the tallest in the group, came up to them and put her hand out for Gigi to shake.

“Gigi,” She said, taking her hand. Gigi couldn’t help but notice how pretty they all were. What the hell is in the Missouri water?

“That’s Lux,” Crystal said pointing to the small blonde who was being swallowed by all the fabric of the dress she was holding, “and that’s Daegan.” Crystal pointed to the girl who was standing next to Daya.

“I really like your hair.” Gigi said, looking at Daegan’s bright pink hair. She wished she could pull off a color like that but alas she was destined to have boring brown hair for the rest of her life.

“Oh, my god thank you.” Daegan said, “I like her, Crystal can we keep her?” She made puppy dog eyes toward the girl who just laughed.

“Excuse me, hello?!” Lux huffed from under the dress, “Can we get back to Crys trying this on please.” She whined.

“Holy shit, yeah babe you have to try it on.” Daya said pushing past Gigi and taking the dress from Lux. Gigi felt her heart drop into her stomach. Babe? Crystal had a girlfriend? Not just that but a fucking hot girlfriend? Ugh the homophobia of it all. Gigi just walked over to the nearest rack and started looking through all the clothes, trying to ignore the giggles coming from Crystal as Daya pushed her into a dressing room.

A few minutes later Crystal emerged from the dressing room, pulling the thick velvet curtain back dramatically. She walked confidently out into the middle of the store and spun around for all her friends to see.

“You’ve never looked better.” Daegan said as she pulled her phone out to take a video of Crystal dancing around like an idiot. Crystal curtsied and let out a ‘thank you’ in a horrible British accent.

“I think we found your prom dress!” Lux added jumping up and down like a little kid. Crystal made a disgusted face.

“I’m not going to prom, and even if I was, I would never wear a dress.” She put a finger in her mouth and pretended to throw up.

“Ugh not this again. Crystal Elizabeth Methyd you’re going to prom, you have to,” Daya crossed her arms and stared sternly at Crystal for a few seconds before giving up and turning to Gigi, “Tell her she has to go to prom.”

Gigi looked between the girls confused. What kind of power did they think she had over Crystal? They’d just met, you couldn’t even classify them as friends yet. Shouldn’t Daya be the one to convince Crystal, she’s the one that’s her girlfriend here not Gigi. “I-I’ve never been to prom before but I’m sure it’s really fun. My mom says everyone should go to at least one of their proms.”

Crystal rolled her eyes, “Your mom sounds like mine.” Why couldn’t her friends just leave it alone? She already told them a million times she wasn’t going, although the thought of seeing Gigi in a prom dress did intrigue her. Crystal turned around and walked back into the dressing room.

The girls stayed in the shop for a couple of hours, trying on ugly hats and way too big sunglasses, before Lux declared that they had to leave because she was hungry. Crystal bought three button up shirts, that Daegan said looked something her dad would wear, and a bright turquoise and pink windbreaker that Gigi’s mom definitely would have owned in the 90’s.

They all climbed into Crystal’s car, Daegan complaining that making her sit in the back was transphobia. Crystal just ignored her and opened the passenger door for Gigi. She felt awkward in the front, shouldn’t Daya be sitting here so they could hold hands or something? Gigi ignored her thoughts, enjoying the way Crystal’s perfume smelled.

Being in the car with Crystal’s friends was very different than being with just Crystal. Daegan immediately stole the AUX to play Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, and Nicki Minaj while Lux complained that she wanted to listen to Grimes. Crystal just ignored them trying to focus on driving with all the yelling going on around her.

They had finally calmed down, Lux accepting that there was no chance in hell Daegan was changing the music for her, until the question of where to eat came up. Daya voted for Taco Bell while Daegan complained that they had Taco Bell last time. Lux suggested Chick Fil A before being shut down by Crystal, reminding her that they no longer supported the restaurant because of their anti-lgbtq beliefs. Lux rolled her eyes while Daegan joked that the only reason she ate there was because their hatred for her existence made it fun.

“What about pizza?” Gigi offered. Before anyone could protest Crystal said yes, giving everyone in the back seat a stern look. They all murmured reluctant okay’s before changing the subject to gossip about someone from school.

They finally pulled into a small pizza place with picnic tables scattered out front and a burnt out sign that read ‘The Big Slice’. Daya and Lux grabbed a picnic table while Crystal and Daegan went in to order, Gigi opted to stay outside and wait for them to come back.

It was kind of awkward without Crystal there and Gigi found herself racking her brain for something to say. The other girls hadn’t said anything since they sat down either, instead staring at their phones.

“Uh, so uh Daya how long have y-you and Crystal been dating?” Gigi asked, nervously looking between her and Lux.

Daya choked back a laugh, “What? Crys and I aren’t dating. Ew that would be like dating my sister.”

“Oh I’m sorry, I-I just heard you call her babe and assumed.” She couldn’t help but feel relieved, hoping her face didn’t show it. Lux busted out laughing at the idea of Crystal and Daya together and couldn’t stop.

“I call everyone babe, don’t worry.” Daya assured her. Gigi swallowed, oh god could she tell that Gigi liked Crystal. She thought she had been discreet when she looked at her but apparently not.

“Oh I’m no-” She started to protest.

“What’s so funny?” Daegen asked as she and Crystal made their way to the table. She sat in between Daya and Lux while Crystal planted herself right next to Gigi.

“S-she,” Lux tried to get out, pointing at Gigi, “she thought you two were dating.” Daegen joined in and after a couple of seconds Daya found herself laughing too. Gigi tried to laugh but it just came out as an awkward chuckle. The only one who wasn’t laughing was Crystal. She wore a horrified expression, her eyes bouncing between Gigi and Daya. “Why, why, uh um why would you think that?” Crystal’s eyebrows furrowed as she turned attention completely to Gigi. But she just shrugged and said it didn’t matter.

The conversation was forgotten as soon as the waitress brought out the pizza and everyone was too busy stuffing their faces to talk about how bad of a couple Crystal and Daya would make.

As time passed it became easier for Gigi to be around Crystal’s friends, she actually enjoyed how loud they all were. With everyone else fighting to talk over each other no one really noticed Gigi’s lack of input. Thank god, she used to hate how her friends back home would always try to pull her into the conversation. Why couldn’t they understand if she had something to say she would goddamn say it.

“Oh shit. It’s almost 4. My parents are gonna be home soon and I promised I would be there to get ready for tonight.” Gigi said looking down at her phone. She started to stand up from the table.

“Oh okay, I’ll uh drive you home.” Crystal said, standing up too.

“You don’t have to, I can just walk or uh call a lyft or something.” Gigi said, secretly hoping Crystal would insist.

“Excuse me, what about us?” Lux whined.

“Also what’s tonight?” Daya asked.

“Huh? Oh Gigi and her parents are coming over for dinner.” Crystal mumbled, knowing there was bound to be teasing from her friends. They all raised their eyebrows but before any of them could say anything inappropriate Crystal pushed Gigi toward her car. Crystal yelled at them to find their own way home.

“I hate you, bitch!” Daegen shouted at Crystal. She just put up her middle finger and held it up as she climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Don’t let her make you listen to One Direction Gigi!” Daya added before Gigi closed her door, unable to hear them anymore. She couldn’t help but laugh.

The drive was quiet, but this time it wasn’t a comfortable silence. Both of them wanting to say something but too afraid to say it. Crystal put on the same music from before, calm love songs that made Gigi feel like she never wanted them to stop driving.

“Why did you think I was dating Daya?” Crystal asked abruptly, pulling Gigi out of her daydream.

Gigi’s eyebrows furrowed, “What?” God why was she bringing this up again? Gigi never wanted to think about that again.

“C’mon I wanna know,” Crystal pouted, “please!” She begged, turning to look at Gigi.

“It’s nothing, I uh, heard her call you babe and I just assumed,” She shrugged trying to look anywhere but at Crystal.

Crystal didn’t respond, instead they just fell back into uncomfortable silence. Gigi tried to come up with something to say. God the one person she actually wanted to talk to and she couldn’t come up a single fucking thing to say.

“This doesn’t sound like One Direction.” Gigi said.

“Yeah I uh, I only bring that out with people I like,” Crystal shot her a devilish smile, “sorry.”

“You’re such an ass, oh my god.” Gigi laughed, hitting Crystal lightly on her shoulder. She watched as Crystal picked up her phone and unlocked it, quickly changing the song to ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ making Gigi laugh even more. “That’s more like it.”

Crystal finally pulled into her driveway, reluctantly putting the car in park. Gigi lingered in the passenger’s seat, not wanting to miss the heat from Crystal’s body. She slowly unbuckled her seat belt, grabbing the handle to the car door.

“So uh, I’ll see you tonight, yeah?” Crystal asked, unbuckling her own seat belt.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m looking forward to it.” Gigi pulled herself out of the car.

She was halfway down Crystal’s driveway when she heard her name. Gigi spun around to face her, “Yeah?”

“I had fun, uh with you,” She stopped as if she was searching for a difficult word, “today. I had fun with you today.” She ran a hand awkwardly through her hair.

Gigi chuckled, “I had fun with you too, Crystal.”

“Okay, good.” Crystal spun around and stumbled cheerfully up the stairs of her porch, turning around to wave at Gigi one last time before disappearing into her house.

Gigi continued walking back to her own house, smiling the entire way.

#rpdr fanfiction #crystal methyd #gigi goode #daya betty #daegen michelle #lux kween #crygi #high school au #lesbian au #slow burn #white noise (what an awful sound)#meta #s12 #concrit welcome

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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Apropos of nothing other than fuyunoakegata making me think of it with that last post, I’ve gotten enough new followers lately that its worth a refresher slash introduction on one of my personal pet themes: that of the word ‘broken’ in regards to trauma/abuse/rape victims and survivors.

Again, nothing to do with them for using the word, but rather just an awareness of the many ways the word is used in those contexts in our society, and my personal opinion that a lot of those ways are very limited and could use some expansion beyond how we typically see these things talked about.

So the below excerpt is just one I think sums up my take on it all pretty well, and as such is a cornerstone viewpoint for a lot of the stuff I regularly express and/or circle back to, as well as being the scene I think I’ve probably gotten the most feedback/reactions to over the years out of pretty much anything I’ve written. Its YJ-verse, Dick and Dinah, utilizing the Tarantula storyline and the not-at-all-uncommon baby-in-the-aftermath trope, but stands fairly well on its own and doesn’t require any context or give any spoilers beyond that.

****

In the end, it was Dick who finally broke the newly fallen quiet.

"Does Batman know yet?"

Batman, not Bruce. Dinah shook her head. They're one and the same, she wanted to remind him, wanted to shake him, wanted to scream in Bruce's face every time she'd watch him insist on the distinction over the past ten years.

"He's waiting back at Mt. Justice," she said. "But no, he doesn't know yet. He knows something is wrong, but I convinced him to let me come alone and speak with you first."

Dick snorted. "At least he actually listens to you."

"I think this makes the third time in the fifteen years I've known him," Dinah said wryly. "Don't go thinking I'm special. He only listened because I convinced him barreling in here would only make things worse. And the last thing your father has ever wanted to do is make things worse for you. He manages it sometimes anyway, but it's never his intent."

Not that intent matters, or is any kind of excuse for the harm or damage one actually causes, Dinah reflected. And normally it wasn't a line of thinking she'd ever open a door to at all, but with the past two years worth of tension between Dick and his father still a major source of the young man's turmoil, she figured it was worth it to see if Dick would seize the opportunity to defend Bruce. Lord knows Dick could hold a grudge against his father like no one's business, but anyone else trying it in his presence was usually a nonstarter.

To her disappointment - but not her surprise - Dick ignored the bait and instead just grunted. He stared at the floor, face alternately pale and purple under the neon glow that washed through the window via a strip club's signage across the street.

"I wouldn't have broken, you know," Dick said, never looking up. His lips twisted beneath the words, as if they tasted like something sour. "If he came too. I didn't...I don't want him here, not now, or yet, I mean. But it's not like. It wouldn't have broken me or whatever you're thinking. That's all I mean."

"I didn't say that it would, Dick," Dinah said carefully. But not so carefully as to lay credence to the idea she thought he was fragile. Not an easy line to traverse. Where's a tightrope walker when you need one? Oh, right. Crumpled up on the floor of his unlit apartment, afraid to even look at his own baby. Things were off to a promising start. "It's not either or. You're not broken just because you're not alright and you're not alright just because you're not broken. There's room for space in between."

She sighed and cast around the cramped apartment, dragging a chair from the kitchen table to settle down in front of him. The room was such a far cry from the opulence of Wayne Manor. She knew Dick had never been one to buy into the trappings of his father's wealthy lifestyle. She and Ollie frequently attended the same functions as the Waynes, and she'd smothered many a giggle at Dick and Jason's antics as the two reveled in shocking the Gotham elite with loud and pointed reminders of their impoverished 'low class' backgrounds. Still, looking around, she couldn't help but wondering how much of Dick's apartment and its placement was purely a result of not caring about things like wealth and status, and how much of it was a deliberate rejection of those things, of Bruce? Did it even matter? Or was she just stalling?

"You know, I've never really liked when people use that word," she mused. The baby in her arms stirred restlessly, his nose wrinkling. God. As a general rule, she preferred waiting until children were teenagers before interacting with them. She wasn't big on babies, usually - most people who cooed over their shrunken little faces and called them the most beautiful things they'd ever seen were just lying, in her opinion. But this one was a charmer. Or maybe he wasn't, and she was just already hopelessly attached because Reasons. Crap. Of all the times for a maternal bone to materialize.

"Broken. What does that even mean, really? It's just a description of a physical state, but people often use it like a judgment. As though it describes what someone is, instead of simply what state they're in at a particular moment. You can break something and then put it back together so you can never tell the difference, so what does it mean that it was broken? Why does it matter?"

Dick shifted for the first time since she'd entered the apartment. She might not be Batman caliber, but her own reflexes were nothing to sneeze at. Still, the suddenness of his movements were unexpected enough to catch her offguard as he reached over to the side and snatched up one of the escrima sticks he carried as part of his Nightwing ensemble. A slim but sturdy shaft of polished black wood about a foot long in length, it made a hell of a crack when he held it in both hands and brought it down over one knee, hard and fast enough to snap it in two. He tossed the two broken pieces onto the hardwood floor. One rolled over to rest against her foot.

"Can't fix that with crazy glue."

Dinah smoothed her features into careful non-reaction as she bent and reached down to pick up the broken stick, still cradling the infant in one arm as she rolled the shattered weapon in her other palm.

"No, I suppose not. But I bet you I could find a hundred other uses for this piece right here. Plenty of other things you could do with it, or things you could build with it. Use it as the foundation to make something else entirely, or even just carve it, turn it into a work of art, something beautiful. And whatever you end up with, could you describe it as broken? Yes, it wouldn't be your escrima stick anymore, doesn't do the same thing, have the same purpose, maybe what it was is broken. But what it is? What you make of it? Would that be broken?"

Dick jutted his jaw out, mulish, stubborn. A mirror of the expression she'd last glimpsed under Batman's cowl, not even an hour ago. They couldn't be more alike if they were blood. "I know what you're doing," he said.

"What's that?"

"Exactly what I should have known you'd do before I told Artemis she could send Wally to get you. Knew it was a mistake the second he left. I don't need a shrink right now, Canary."

She shrugged. "Good, because I'm done trying to be your therapist. I realized what a waste it was, on my way over here. I never caught a whiff of this brewing under your surface this past year, so obviously our sessions have just been a waste of both our time. I forgot that arrogant smart people make the worst patients."

That was enough to jolt a noticeable reaction out of him. Finally. It was a calculated gamble, one she already regretted as a swift flicker of hurt winged across his face, half-glimpsed and vanished as quickly as it came. It was a little harder for him to banish his gaping mouth. "Yeah, not your usual session starter," he agreed, in only the barest facsimile of his usual clever humor. But it was a start. "So I'm arrogant, now?"

"You always have been," Dinah said gently, trying to soften the blow of her harsh words. She quirked her lips in a half smile. "Just like your father. Difference is, you actually bother with social interaction and you're charming, so you can get away with it where he can't. And Dick...I'm not saying it as an insult. Or that it's a bad thing. I think you and Bruce are arrogant in certain ways, yes. I think you have to be. To do what you both do."

"You're both human, no superpowers, no magic, not even advanced technology giving you an edge. And yet you not only hold your own amidst heroes who have all those advantages and more, you take charge. You lead. You inspire. Mere confidence isn't enough to allow you to do that. You need something that goes beyond that, something that can only be called arrogance, because it's such a bone deep certainty that you can do all the things you profess you can do, that you are the right people to fight the battles you fight, that it's above questioning. There are a million and one reasons you both shouldn't be able to do the things you both do, and if there was even a second you doubted that you could, you probably wouldn't be able to. When you leap off ten story buildings with just a grapple line and your acrobatics to bring you safely to the ground, it's because you believe, no, you know, that you can defy gravity. Even though for seven billion other humans, gravity can't be defied. Dick, I'm an Olympic level gymnast. You don't see me leaping off ten story buildings if I can help it because I know I'm good, yes, but that doesn't mean I know in a battle of me vs gravity, I'm always going to win. You do. You know that. You believe that. And that is arrogance, yes. But it also happens to be justified, in your case."

He mulled that over, not looking thrilled, but at least looking engaged now, and she breathed a bit easier. Good. Engaged she could work with. It was a start. "Okay. Fine. So what about that makes me a terrible patient?"

"I never said terrible," she protested lightly. "I said the worst."

He glared.

She relented. "It's like Superman's invulnerability. Most of the time, that's exactly what he needs to keep him safe. It's all he needs. But in some specific, rare instances, even if it's only 1% of the time, the very thing that makes him so hard to hurt, makes him hard to help. All it takes is that one bullet that can pierce his skin, either because it's Kryptonite, or it's enchanted, or something else....and suddenly, that same invulnerability that keeps him safe 99% of the time is the very thing making it so hard to operate on him, to cut into him and dig out the one bullet that made it past his defenses. Dick, answer me this. What's the first thing you do when you're confronted with a problem?"

"I assess the situation and determine a course of action, I guess," he frowned. "Why?"

"Because when the problem is you, when it's something that's happened to you or something involving your behavior, the kinds of things that a therapist is meant to help you with, you do exactly that. You assess the situation, you assess yourself, your own behavior, and you come to a conclusion. Which means by the time you ever arrive at my doorstep for a session, you've already diagnosed yourself. You've made up your mind. That arrogance that gives you the strength, the certainty, the conviction you need to tackle every other obstacle you face without hesitation, it has you equally convinced that the conclusion you've already drawn about what's wrong with you or your behavior, it must be true. That you've got it already figured out. And so instead of our sessions being about me helping to guide you to a conclusion or helping you find the inconsistencies in your own logic or reasoning - that's not what you're actually there for. Because you're sure you already have the answer, and so instead of looking for it, you're really just looking for it to be validated."

She gave him a moment to absorb that, drawing a breath before continuing.

"And here's where you being so damn smart becomes a problem - because you're brilliant, Dick, just like Bruce is, you know how to read people, you know how to manipulate people, you can do it without even having to think about it. And so instead of telling me what you need to say, you tell me what you think I want to hear. And we get further and further away from actually helping you as you steer our sessions towards the conclusions you've made because of what's bothering you....instead of towards the conclusions you'd draw if you were ready to face it."

Dick leaped to his feet, face flushed in the moonlight. He stepped forward, aborted that when it drew him closer to her and the baby, features twisting in a heart-wrenching moment of agony for the briefest instant before he stepped away again. Carefully breathing in, making a visible effort to drop his voice despite his obvious agitation. Good. Awareness of his surroundings. Thinking beyond the moment to consequences of each action. Engaging more and more with his surroundings. She'd piss him off to Hell and back if that's what it took. Be angry, Dick. Rage. Scream. Yell. Hurt.

"So what?" He asked with a sharp, acidic laugh. He paced, arms buried in his armpits, hunched over, eyes on his boots as he wandered in circles. Pent up, restless energy. All the frenetic motion of Robin, of Nightwing, of a bird made for flying yet still stuck on the ground.

"You think I don't know what's bothering me? You think...I freak out a little and Wally runs to you and tells you something and you come back and find me all freaked out on the floor and you've got it all figured out from there, from just that, but you think I can't figure it out on my own? I'm brilliant, you said, but you think I'm all messed up because I can't face it, I can't see it even when its right in front of me?"

"That's not what I'm saying Dick," Dinah tried, but he just laughed again. Jabbed a hand towards the baby in her arms, took it back halfway.

"I know what happened, Canary," he bit out. "I was there. I don't need you to hold my hand and walk me through it so I can face it. Yeah, okay, I get it. I was raped. Tarantula raped me. I can say it. I'm not - I'm not in denial. I've been doing this since I was ten, I'm not...I know the statistics, I know it's not any different just because I'm a guy. I get that men can get raped, that they can be raped by women, that there's no other word for what happened to me. That it wasn't my fault, that I was in shock, that I can't be blamed for her taking advantage of me in that state. I know all that okay? It's not a fucking revelation to me, I don't need anyone's help to fucking face that!"

"Then what's the problem, Dick?" Dinah asked softly when he ran out of steam, or breath or both. His hair was wild in disarray, his stance a contradiction of defensiveness and a pending attack. His chest heaved like a bellows even though he'd yet to raise his voice past a low-pitched hiss. "If you know all that already, where's the problem? What are you having trouble with here? What reason does someone who's already faced all that have for hiding it from his friends and family for a year?"

"There's no problem, that's my whole point," Dick insisted, throwing his arms wide. "Fine, I freaked out for a minute because I just found out my rapist had my fucking baby, and I thought it was over and done with but....jesus. I'm not...it's not because I can't deal with what happened. God, nothing even happened! It was barely anything. I barely even remember it I was so out of it, and then it was over. She didn't hurt me, its not like it was painful or I was drugged or it left me damaged or something, okay? I told you, I've been doing this for ten years. I've SEEN victims okay, real victims, women and even men who are so fucking traumatized by what some sicko did to them they can barely get out of bed in the morning. I've seen victims left beaten and bloody by their attackers, who've...it was nothing like that, okay?"

Dinah nodded. "And that. That right there. That's exactly what I'm talking about."

Dick blinked and rocked back on his heels. Blindsided by her calm and her seeming non sequitur. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you misdiagnosed," she said with a helpless shrug. "You've been so busy reacting to what you thought was your problem, what you were convinced must be bothering you - whether or not you were able to admit that you were raped, that you could be raped even though you're a man, let alone an accomplished fighter able to protect himself - that you left yourself wide open to something else entirely. Tell me. What do you know about Impostor Syndrome?"

"It's a term sometimes used to describe over-achievers who have trouble internalizing their accomplishments. Perfectionists who think they're frauds because they don't know how to take credit for their own achievements and say its because of luck or timing or something other people did," Dick frowned, puzzling through both the question and the aim of it. He raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't sound like something that applies to someone as arrogant as me."

"Don't be a little shit, Dick," Dinah said with small smirk. "And you're right, I don't think any of that applies to you. However, it's also used in another capacity, to describe trauma survivors who are unable to internalize their own trauma. Who deflect from it, or mitigate it, treat it as less than it is on the basis that it wasn't as bad as what's happened to someone else. It's especially common in trauma survivors who are noted for being especially empathetic or who have caregiver personality types. People who are so used to self-identifying as someone whose role or purpose is in helping others, that they find themselves unable to identify as traumatized because it might shift the focus to themselves instead of people they feel need it more. Does that behavior sound a little more familiar?"

Dick hesitated, eyes on the floor and darting every which way as though looking for escape from a trap.

"It should," she pressed on. "Considering you've been doing that for a long time, much longer than just this past year. Pretty much as long as I've known you, in fact."

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you do whenever someone brings up your parents or their deaths?" Dinah asked softly. He flinched. Ducked his head to the side. Jaw tightened again. "You say it was a long time ago. Or that at least you have Bruce now. Or that you wish other orphaned kids could be as lucky as you ended up. Always shying away from the idea that you might need sympathy or comfort because of what happened to your parents and pointing instead to everyone else who needs it more. And it only got worse when Bruce adopted Jason."

"Don't -" Dick warned. His head snapped back up, fire in his eyes, but she refused to be deterred. Not when she finally had his full attention.

"You never allowed anyone to dwell on any of your myriad traumas once Jason came along. Not just your parents, but what happened with Two-Face, the first time you faced the Joker, nothing. You'd always deflect, always shift things back around to Jason. And what a hard life he'd had. So much harder than you, you insisted. At least your parents loved you. At least they didn't abuse you like Jason's father abused him, or were a drug addict like his mother was. Someone mentioned the time you spent in a juvenile detention center as an eight year old, all because some racist bitch of a social worker didn't like that you were Romani, and your response was that at least you didn't have to live on the streets like Jason did before he met Bruce."

"This has nothing to do with Jason!" Dick ground out, heated.

"It's not about Jason, Dick. It's about you. Because your brother had a hard life, yes. It's true. He suffered terrible traumas before Bruce found him and adopted him. And not a single one of those things are made less true, or invalidated or in any way threatened just because terrible things happened to you too. So why do you insist your pain was less than his? That yours didn't matter just because his existed?"

"It's not the same thing," Dick insisted stubbornly. "You can't compare what happened to my parents to the twelve years of shit Jason had to live through."

"I'm not though, Dick. You are. You're the only one saying one must be worse than the other. All I'm saying is both existed."

She sighed. "Trauma isn't a scale to be measured on. It doesn't require a minimum threshold, and it doesn't have a ranking order. It's not about how much harm was caused or how much damage someone did, because at the end of the day, trauma is transformation."

"What do you mean?"

Dinah held up his broken escrima stick, still cradled in her hand. "Trauma is force that causes change. It's not about the act of damaging. It's about what's left behind once the damage is done. I could break this stick into two pieces. It would take a certain amount of force, a certain amount of damage. And once that was done, we'd be left with two pieces here instead of this one. But then give me another stick the same size, same dimensions, only this one is made of metal. I could break that in two as well. But it would require a whole different kind of force, a whole different order of damage. But in the end, once it was done, we'd still be left with two pieces of that too, instead of the one we started with."

"Two different sticks,” Dinah continued. “Two different traumas. Two different applications of force. And the only thing in common is in the end....both sticks would be transformed. Neither would be what they were originally. Not less. Not more. But different. Changed by the trauma they endured. You want to quantify that trauma? You probably could. It'd be arbitrary, but you could do it. You could calculate the force used, define parameters for the damage it caused. But what would that mean? What's the outcome? What happens because you decided one trauma was greater than the other? How does that alter the fact, the reality, that in the end, the survivors of those two different traumas are changed? Something different from what they started as?"

"But it is different," Dick insisted. He looked confused though, rather than forceful. "Context matters. The situations matter."

"Yes, they do," Dinah agreed. "But it's a question of focus, not degree. Which trauma was worse only really matters when you're focused on the trauma. When you're looking at what the trauma leaves behind though? When you focus on the survivors? All that really matters is...how are they different? How were they changed?"

"Dick, you only started getting angry and frustrated when you compared what you went through to what other rape victims you've seen over the years have gone through. What they went through is terrible, yes. It doesn't mean what happened to you wasn't terrible as well. You said you weren't hurt, it wasn't painful, she didn't damage you physically. That doesn't matter though. Because rape isn't about any of those things. It's not about pain, it's not about how much it hurt. Rape is about theft."

He flinched at that, taking a step back.

"Rape is theft,” Dinah pressed forward. “It's betrayal. It's someone taking something they have no right to, something precious, something that can't be taken back. It's taking away someone's right to choose who they share their body with, its using someone's body against them, against their wishes. That's what Tarantula did to you. Whether it hurt or not, whether you remember it fuzzily or in full detail...she took something from you, something you can't get back, and in doing so, she changed you forever."

He shook his head, eyes back on the ground. Denial but not denial. Acceptance but not acceptance. She forged on.

"And the thing is, you're right. You haven't been in denial about what happened. You know that she raped you, that that's what it is. What you haven't faced though is that it's not about how much that hurt you. It's about how much it changed you. Because you're different now, aren't you? And you're smart enough that you figured that out as soon as it happened, that you're not the same anymore, because I'm willing to bet everything looks different to you now. Because you lost something you didn't even know you could lose until it was gone. A sense of security you took for granted, that something like this could never happen to you, except now you know that it can, and it did. We're all made up of our experiences and your experiences now include something they didn't before, something big, something that left a sizable impact, and the be all and end of it all is that you've changed, and you know that....and you keep looking for an answer as to why. Why is everything so different now? Why are you so different?”

She sighed softly.

“And the problem is the only answer you have for that, you decided wasn't good enough for you. Because it wasn't as bad as it could have been. As bad as what happened to other people. And so you've trapped yourself because you know something's different but the thing that caused it, the thing that changed you....it wasn't big enough to explain this change, you decided. You didn't suffer enough, it didn't hurt enough, and so it's not a good enough reason for you to not be who you used to be. And so you keep finding the flaw in yourself, deciding that it must be that you're weak, that everything unsettling you, upsetting you, it's not because what Tarantula did warrants those changes, it's because you can't cut it. That's what you've been telling yourself, haven't you? You're not a survivor, because you don't think there was anything for you to survive. You're not traumatized because the trauma doesn't count. You didn't suffer enough, so that can't excuse all the turmoil you feel."

Dick paced restlessly, all that frenetic energy he always carried with him ratcheted up in intensity until Dinah was half convinced he was going to shake himself to pieces if he didn't find an outlet soon. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite ready to stop.

"All those other victims you described seeing over the years. When you helped them, did you tell them you were sorry for what they went through?"

Dick paused and raised haggard eyes. "Of course I did. Why?"

"Why did you?" Dinah asked, arching a brow. "You didn't do anything to them. You weren't apologizing for something you caused. So what did it mean, to tell them you were sorry?"

"I don't know. It's just...it's what you do. It's a comfort."

"Why though? What about it makes it a comfort?"

"I don't know, it just is. It lets them know somebody cares, I guess," Dick raged. "What are you getting at? You have all the answers, you tell me!"

"Think it through, Dick," Dinah said, firm. "They don't know you. You're a stranger to them. What does it mean for a stranger to tell a victim they're sorry, that they care. What does it matter? What does it do for them?"

Dick stared at her. His face wide and open and searching as he hunted for answers in the shadows of his room, of his own mind. He looked like he'd run a marathon, his body limp and exhausted seeming, like he was only remaining upright by the barest of threads.

"When I tell someone I'm sorry for what happened to them. I don't know. It tells them I see them, I guess," he said hesitantly. She nodded, encouraging him to go on. "That I see what they've been through. That I'm sorry they went through it."

He focused his eyes on hers, with a little more clarity this time. "I tell them...they survived, I guess. That what happened to them...it didn't just happen, it wasn't supposed to happen. But it did. It mattered. What happened to them mattered."

"Yes," Dinah agreed softly. "And every victim you've ever helped, as Robin or as Nightwing, every survivor you've told 'I'm sorry this happened to you' - every time one of them looks in the mirror and recognizes that they aren't the person they were before it happened, that they've changed...they can hold on to that memory of you saying you're sorry. And they know. It happened. It mattered. It is the reason they're different. It is the reason they changed."

Dinah hesitated, and then she said: "I'm sorry it happened to you, Dick. I'm sorry it changed you. I'm sorry that you can't go back to the way things were. I can't tell you it will get better with time. You aren't injured. This isn't a wound that will scar over if you just leave it alone long enough. You can't heal a transformation. But you can decide what you change into. You can decide who you become, even if its not what you were. It'll still be you. A whole you. A complete you. Just a different you. Just like you became someone different after your parents died. I never knew you before that changed you. But that didn't make the you I met any less worth knowing."

He sobbed. Just once, like it was ripped out of him. A tangled, tormented wreck of a sound, his face contorted in a rictus of misery beneath eyes that glistened with a watery sheen, reflecting the wan illumination. It was all he allowed himself, before he found his usual iron control and slammed the gates shut, expression going blank, but it was enough. It was a beginning.

#rape tw

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anhed-nia · 4 years ago

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BLOGTOBER PRE-GAME 9/30/2020: 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE/CONFESSIONAL (2019)

Spoiler alert. Or whatever. It’s not going to matter, you don’t care.

So, I've been away for a minute. Just about any reason to be away from Tumblr is probably a good reason, but I have an especially good one. I'm finally working on a "real" writing project, which demands, and deserves, all of my attention. My social media abstinence isn't just a matter of time management, though. Once I had a long term obligation on my plate, I became very aware of how the short term satisfaction I get from posting mindless rants was eating away at the fuel I have available for sustained efforts. When I wind myself up with a 500-1000 word blog post, it generates a lot of electricity, but I blow it all as soon as I experience the catharsis of posting it, and I'm further pacified by ego-stroking likes and reblogs. Not to sound like a sanctimonious luddite--I mean, I'm still here, after all!--but it turns out that the staying focused on the long haul has been surprisingly revivifying. In fact, I haven't been talking about my big fancy project for the same reason; I don't want to lose any of the juice I've been storing up by wasting it on the shallow pleasure of describing it. Also such things should probably be somewhat confidential until they're approaching the publishing stage, but I digress! There is an actual reason I'm saying all this, that has more to do with this blog.

(Don’t get all excited, I’m not doing EVIL ED right now, I just need a relatable image.)

As I got deeper into my experience of "real" film writing, I started to reflect on the meaning of my personal writing. Like, the point of it. I tend to write in a sweaty, compulsive, sadomasochistic haze, in which I'm sometimes hyperbolically generous, and sometimes--perhaps more often, unfortunately--as nasty as humanly possible. Sometimes the movies deserve it, when they're lazy, pretentious, or otherwise demonstrate an open contempt for the audience aka ME. Often, though, I'm just creating an opportunity to vent my generalized rage and frustration. That can be very entertaining for myself and (hopefully) my teensy-but-devoted readership, but lately I've asked myself whether there isn't some negative tradeoff for all this amusement. In this phase of my life, it's reasonable to assume I'll make more and more friends and acquaintances who create things I don't always care for, but I don't necessarily think they deserve to be abused for it. As much as I have a right to say whatever I want, technically, I'd be embarrassed if I were caught just jacking myself off by making fun of their work in public. And more to the point, I don't necessarily want to contribute to the growing atmosphere in which people feel more afraid to try and fail, because the public so commonly misidentifies sarcasm and mean-spiritedness as intelligence and superiority, and that form of petty darkness spreads across the internet a lot faster than a movie can reach a wider audience. After all, I'm in the process of potentially turning myself into one of those well-meaning failures right now. I could stand to be a little more deliberate about how I speak, and about what, in general.

My father is an art critic, and once in an extra petulant moment, teenage-me asked him in an accusative tone what he thought the point of his profession was. He replied calmly that he wouldn't publish any comment that he didn't think the artist could make use of somehow. I don't know if he always stuck to that policy, but the thought sure stuck with me.

So anyway, over the last few months I've been giving myself a bit of an attitude adjustment, through a combination of personal reflection, and hard work on something meaningful/not for the internet. I've been feeling all proud of myself and shit, but today reminded me that any path to enlightenment is always marked by setbacks, doubt, and temptation. For today, in complete innocence (or at least a melange of innocence and ignorance, as I very much invite this type of problem), I managed to watch TWO (2) movies about an academic film-cum-psychology project, focused on a gang of college buddies who inevitably reveal what bad people they are under the unique conditions of the project, and then the project turns out to be run NOT by its presumed-dead originator, but by the originator's even-crazier lover. It's amazing how particular something can be, and still be utterly obvious and cliche. In my defense, I really tried to turn the second movie off, because it was...just instantly terrible, but the seed of suspicion had taken root--is this randomly selected movie ACTUALLY EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE PREVIOUS MOVIE?--and I just had to find out if this could be true. I suffered, deliberately, for another hour and a half, to confirm my awful hunch. I don't know how I would have felt if I had turned out to be wrong (better? worse?), but I don't have to worry about that now. Now I just have to worry about my overpowering impulse to be as ugly as possible about what I have personally subjected myself to.

(The completely deceptive poster for our not at all witchy or eerie opening feature.)

In need of a passable time-waster this afternoon, I put on 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE. Released in March of 2019, Caitlin Koller's claustrophobic black comedy feels oddly like a product of 2020. A group of estranged, middle-aged college pals of the BIG CHILL ilk--which one of the characters calls out, out loud, just so ya know--come together for a fallen comrade's funeral, only to find themselves trapped in his widow's increasingly creepy cabin in the woods. Said comrade was driven to suicide by the failure of a psychological experiment he conducted that plunged its subject into madness, and if you don't realize right away that the obnoxious and unstable cast are the new subjects of their not-quite-dead friend's renewed project, then you're firing a lot slower than 24 frames per second. The dialog is often decent, aiding a handful of funny, natural performances...but it's hard to forget that you're just waiting for the conspicuously crazy widow to reveal that the "unexplained events" in and around the cabin are part of a controlled attempt to get the guests to devolve into their worst selves, which isn't such a difficult task considering the undesirable state they all arrive in.

It just made me ask myself, what was the point of this? Why do people make movies that are entirely predicated on the shock of the twist, knowing that if the twist isn't so shocking--or is baldly obvious from the start--then the whole experience just falls apart? Why not hedge your bets with a little more depth, or purpose, or style, or really anything more reliable than a smug attempt to prove that your script is smarter than your audience? Even if you do manage to pull off this dubious accomplishment, it reduces your movie to something like the experience of having somebody jump out of a closet and scream in your ear to "get" you. I've always felt concerned that if somebody ever tries to "get" me like that, I might just automatically punch them in the face. But anyway, whatever shred of good will this movie could have accrued with its plucky performances is blown away by the final insult, when the cops arrive to clean up the inevitable bloody mess. The responding officers are hilariously unimpressed and unsurprised by the byzantine scheme that has resulted in a shocking act of violence, because the cabin's "guest book", which our heroes all filled out, was actually the signatory page of a complicated waiver form granting full permission to the hosts to, like, do whatever the hell they want to everybody. Presumably this shit just goes on all the time, leading the local law to shrug off anything that happens to or because of the dumbassed lab rats who frequent the cabin? I dunno. I mean, what can I say? ACAB, I guess!

At the time, I managed to resist the urge to take to the internet and decry the crimes of this lame-o party joke. I really don't like the sensation that a movie is just trying to trick me into thinking something that isn't true. But, this isn't, like, an affront to cinema. People make annoying, below average movies all the time, and maybe you kinda have to, if you eventually want to make better movies. I imagine myself in the shoes of the people who actually put some elbow grease into this production, having to wade through the rantings of internet ghouls like myself while they're trying to see how their efforts are paying off. Making a movie is probably a lot harder than I think it is.

But that's part of the point I'm heading toward. I'm always amazed by people's willingness to pour huge amounts of energy and capital into something to which there is ultimately very little point. I mean, I have bad, unoriginal, boring ideas every single day of my life. But I almost never DO any of them. I have a hard enough time convincing myself to just get out of bed in the morning, let alone devote blood, sweat, and money to deliver unto the world material evidence of my personal mediocrity. I can't imagine thinking it would be worth it, for myself or the unfortunate people who are subjected to my project, to actually execute on my bad ideas. I'm being judgmental, but honestly, I don't even know if my attitude makes me better or worse than someone who accomplishes the task of completing and selling a movie that's mainly a waste of time. Movies are so complicated, and realizing them requires the consensus of so many people, that it's sort of incredible that there are people capable of making one that doesn't have a powerfully compelling motivation behind it. People who are able to do such a thing obviously have something that I don't, and it isn't just "consideration for the audience."

So, I could probably stand to be more forgiving--or just, less eager to absolutely flay someone alive on my dumb little blog because they so opened themselves up to my arsenal of elaborate insults. But like...not all the time. Sometimes, a movie really fucking asks for it, and in revealing itself to me, it has effectively signed a waiver giving me patent freedom to do whatever I want to it. CONFESSIONAL is the latest movie to give me such a gift. After the final credit rolled in 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE, I looked for a little palate cleanser. As little as I like movies that put their single egg in the motheaten basket of a "shocking twist", I also have a problem with what I identify as canned theater. Not that I think all movies have to be lavish productions, but I think they should try to do something that is natively cinematic. It's very rare that I'm impressed by anything that is literally all talk. So, I went in search of some more familiar form of trash to help me recallibrate, and trash is definitely what I got.

(Me crying over my own bad decisions.)

To be fair, I kind of should have known that I was in for a challenging experience. The 2019 found footage thriller CONFESSIONAL is more or less based on the "confessional" part of sleazy reality TV shows, isolating each cast member in a soundproof stall so they can spill the rotten contents of their guts. Unfortunately, I spotted a review suggesting that the movie succeeded, against all odds, at remaining visually dynamic despite the unchanging scenery, and I was intrigued. The reviewer was correct, impressively; the monotony of the coffin-like environment with its dark foam walls was the least of my concerns. Other problems superseded that threat, immediately. The plot concerns a group of college pals who come together to remember a recently deceased friend--a filmmaker who expired mysteriously while completing a psychology-tinged project in which she recorded all of her friends' most shameful personal secrets. Now, somebody else has taken over the project...someone who "has never been identified", according to an early title card in this movie-within-a-movie (EVEN THOUGH THIS PERSON WILL BE EXPLICITLY IDENTIFIED AT THE END OF THE MOVIE SO LIKE WHY), but who seems likely to be the decedent's ex-lover...who continues to expose their subjects' most shameful secrets on film. I mean, what the fuck? Did I somehow manage to pick a second movie with almost the exact same plot??? I couldn't believe it. I didn't know if I could take it. My prospects only got worse when the cast showed up and started talking. I tried to turn the movie off. I backed out and walked away from it, twice. But I couldn't leave it alone. I had to know if it was really the same movie.

CONFESSIONAL concerns characters who are contemporaneously in college, which actually goes a long way to making everything worse. Each of these walking cliches is connected in some way to Amelia, a film student whose mysterious death has created a campus scandal, leaving shattered hearts and lives in its wake. The living have each received a blackmail-flavored invitation to speak about the deceased in a tiny "confessional booth" somewhere on campus, where, predictably, they find themselves locked in until they confess whatever they know about Amelia, and their classmates. I don't know why practically every single movie about young people has to be so miserable, but this is one of those. I assume that it has something to do with the fact that youth is simultaneously so desired and so ignored. People in their teens and early 20s are so sexually coveted, yet so easily dismissed as individuals, that we wind up with all this media that panders to them relentlessly (or at least, panders to the legions of ticket-buying perverts who enjoy watching them prance around), without almost any consideration of how they actually think and act, and look. Movies like FAT GIRL and WELCOME TO THE DOLL HOUSE may be accused of their own form of pandering, a venal form of voyeuristic schadenfreude, but at least they reflect something of the awkwardness, isolation, and incompleteness of adolescence; something more than the dissociated, pornographic fantasies of adults who have long since forgotten what it was like to be powerless and ignored, or desired by people who don't even like you.

Not that CONFESSIONAL is supposed to be a work of grim realism, but it is most definitely rooted in a fantasy about college life that makes its contrived, message-y plot a lot harder to take. With almost the sole exception of "the nerdy one", every single character looks like a Bratz doll, oozing an exaggerated indecency that belies the movie's pretentious insistence on addressing the sex & gender Issues of the Day. What you get is a really good example of what happens when millennial characters are modeled, not on any actual millennials, but on other forms of marketing that are aimed at millennials, which are themselves just based on other preexisting youth-targeted commercials, et al ad nauseam. Even setting aside the deliriously slutty wardrobe choices, makeup appears to have been laid on with a trowel, coating each actor in a thick creamy layer of spackle that only makes any scars, pits, or other evidence of individuality look utterly bizarre. Accordingly, everybody preens, pouts, and generally behaves as if they're about to take off their clothes, which might be a huge relief given the profusion of chafing, cheapo mesh and straps they're laboring under.

So, ok, not every movie can have a great costume department, but the dialog here is a perfect match for the disastrous aesthetic decisions. Actually, this is the real reason I almost walked out on CONFESSIONAL. If I may ramble briefly, without substantiating any of my broad-ranging claims: Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s, horror cinema seemed to suffer a degenerative slide away from genuine thrills and chills, and into a version of the genre that is best characterized as the Slutty Halloween Costume approach. Any sense of existential dread, revulsion, or bodily vulnerability was widely replaced by a cutesy, Hot Topic-y preference for fast fashion and sex appeal, in which bloodshed more facilitated an informal wet teeshirt contest than any real fear induction. Horror's new mall goth look came with an equally shallow, boring verbal affectation: a sullen, sleazy, tooth-sucking sarcasm, that ushered in a new era in which, instead of making fun of the scummy coked-out dialog in porno movies, we now expect everybody to just talk like that, because it's hot. There's probably a line to be drawn between this unfortunate development, and the boneheaded real-world trend of identifying "sarcasm" as an important personal selling point on dating sites, but I won't try to prove that here. For now, I will just say that as soon as I heard the CONFESSIONAL characters start to speak, with their sneering, insinuating tones, with the vocal fry, with the head wagging, the jutting jaws, the smoldering gazes, the juvenile dragging-out of horny grownup words like de-bauch-er-y...I almost lost my nerve. Listening to these little creeps hissing and spitting for 84 minutes is a lot like being hit on by some barfly who continues to bludgeon you with his hot breath and corny lines without ever noticing that you've thrown up into your pint.

Uh, anyway. So what actually happens in the movie. Why would anyone ever allow someone to record video of them revealing the ugliest, most embarrassing parts of themselves? Especially a kid, for whom popularity and reputation are often a matter of life or death--literally and specifically, in the case of this story. The flimsy reason is that the late filmmaker, Amelia, was the most awesomest girl ever. Everybody loved her, because she was so sweet, and so smart, and so cool, and so nice, and so deep, and so original, and so talented, and so sexy, and just like, the bestest most perfectest girl in the whole wide world. N.B. "The greatest of all time" is, perhaps counter-intuitively, a really bad quality that makes for really shitty, boring characters. For better or worse, Amelia is rarely on screen (and when she is, she's no Laura Palmer, frankly), so it's up to the viewer to just sort of imagine a type of person who could make you act against your best interests on account of you just like them so much. After all, so many of the characters were obsessed with her in some way, that it's like they're here to help you clap your hands and believe in this seductive, compelling part of the movie, that just isn't actually there on the screen. The anonymous antihero behind the confessional booth scheme slowly extracts from each character the selfish, destructive behavior that in some way contributed to the tragic loss of the most amazing person of all time--and part of the result is, if not a very interesting excuse for Amelia's death, then a story so wacky that I really wish they had centered the movie on it, instead of on the tawdry soap opera we're locked into. Even if that imaginary movie had been really bad, and it probably would have been, at it would at least have been entertaining.

Part of what leads up to the death of Amelia is the existence of a secret school fight club, led by a stereotypically sleazy gender studies major, named Major, who is out to prove men's inherent superiority. The club is called CFB, or Cock Fights Back, which is somehow a garbled pun relating to cock fights, and Trump's famous line of "locker room talk": "grab'em by the pussy" > "pussy grabs back" > "cock fights back". CFB is different from your ordinary fight club in that the fights are always between girls and boys, and the boys are always blindfolded, in order to prove that a fully-abled female is no match for even a handicapped male. To complicate things, a new designer amphetamine is gaining popularity on campus, called "odds-on", meaning that it makes you the odds-on favorite in your CFB fight. As awkward as that is, it also seems that men are never the guaranteed winners of these fights, which makes you wonder why Major insists on continuing to host them. As much as I would have preferred to watch a stupid movie about this stupid idea, I'm stuck instead with a movie in which Major is such an aggressive MRA because he's secretly gay, and he thinks that hating women is a great way to hide that...as if that isn't what we all openly suspect about aggro MRAs. Secret gayness is a big part of this movie, involving multiple characters, although it amounts to very little other than the perpetuation of some stale, harmful cliches about how unfulfilled homosexual urges lead to suicide, sexual abuse, and murder. CONFESSIONAL is just as reliant on this grim vision of gay life, as it is on its weirdly obtuse discussion of drug addiction, for the suffocating sense of self-importance that it uses to try to elevate itself above its porn-y trappings. None of the movie's hot button issues are given any real thought, but are only dragged through the mud to create the illusion that there's a point to all this, thus relieving the film of any sense of innocence that could have made its condescending sleaziness forgivable.

Admittedly, I can't really remember all the details of the film's tortured intrigue anymore, even though I basically just saw it. A lot of its meandering revelations just left me thinking, "Why did I need to know that? Why should I care?" I do know that about half way through this ordeal, I became really anxious about whether it would turn out that CONFESSIONAL did NOT have exactly the same plot as 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE after all, and I put myself through all this for nothing. But no, I was right to begin with. The wonderful Amelia's ethically dubious film project has been picked up by the unhinged lesbian character who loved her so much she wanted to become her, and killing Amelia and usurping her confessional project was apparently the best way of doing that. I guess exposing all the dark, violent secrets of all these tangentially involved characters was just an added bonus, or whatever. Ultimately, this ugly, ignorant PSA about something-or-other only deals itself further damage by relying so heavily on the potential of its clumsy twist to blow your mind, which it does not at all.

So that was it, that's how I burned a whole afternoon allowing my mind to implode-not-explode under the ponderous force of TWO (2) movies about exactly the same exhausted cliche that is still being peddled by certain pretentious assholes as fresh and exciting, and beyond the capacity of the audience to anticipate. There's probably a whole slew of other movies that employ this overly familiar "surprise", but I don't have it in me to dig them out of my long-suffering brain. Feel free to contribute in the comments. For now, I must prepare myself for the ordeal of Blogtober, during which I will *hopefully* choose my screening selections and words more thoughtfully than I have in previous years, when this blog was motivated by just as much abject misanthropy as these movies, which do nothing but willfully insult the audience's intelligence. Maybe today's detour into degradation will help me go forth toward more additive experiences, having purged several lungfuls of meaningless venom from my system, and this season will bring with it more interesting, provocative posts than the last. Or maybe not! In any case, I promise to keep trying my hardest to make it funny.

PS I actually love both FAT GIRL and WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. I’m “just saying”.

#blogtober #2020 #confessional #2019 #30 miles from nowhere #horror #thriller #black comedy #found footage #brad t gottfred #jennifer wolfe #jennifer bosworth #caitlin koller

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dhwty-writes · 4 years ago

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Chapter 8 - Waiting for a Wayward Witcher

After receiving a few comments about the progression of Geralt's and Jaskier's relationship already I feel like this is a good time to tell you that this won't be a short fic. I already said that there's no way this will be done in under 10 chapters. By the looks of it now we're rather talking 35+ More content for you, yay!

Thanks @persony-pepper for betaing this fic!

Summary: Geralt is away on a contract and Jaskier is not worrying, thank you very much. It still is hard to take care of a small child who does not excel at the same task.

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Part 1 | Part 8 | Part 10

Jaskier prided himself on his many virtues: he was a master poet, the most famous bard of the Continent and had been invited to play at lowly taverns and royal courts alike. He had graduated summa cum laude from Oxenfurt Academy as a Master of the Seven Liberal Arts and had won no less than ten different bardic tournaments, three of them several times and one — on a very memorable occasion — twice in a row. He had specialised in talking himself in and out of every possible and impossible situation one could think of; he could tune his lute along to Geralt's grunts, and could track his witcher down with scarcely more than a rumour about one white-haired individual in the area.

Nevertheless, while all those talents were surely nice, they were not what was really important. His most useful ability was, without a doubt, not worrying about a person whose profession consisted of risking his life while fighting deadly monsters.

That was a rule: Jaskier did not worry about Geralt of Rivia. He could not. 'I must not. That way madness lies,' he knew. He had done so, in the very beginning. Alright, more than just in the very beginning. It had taken the astonishing number of fifty-two sleepless nights, four twisted ankles, one broken arm (and being abandoned in the middle of nowhere thereafter) and three near-death experiences for him to stop worrying and start staying put when Geralt told him to.

So, naturally, as someone who was not worrying about Geralt, he sat on his windowsill early the next morning, with a terrible headache that came with the dehydration after a day spent crying.

Naturally, the viscount watched the witcher leave the South Wing at the crack of dawn and make his way to the stables.

Naturally, he bundled up in his cloak and stepped outside to the battlements to watch him disappear along the road. 'Just to make sure,' he told himself. To make sure what exactly he didn't know either - it was highly improbable that Geralt lost his way before riding out of his view or that he was attacked or- or- Still, it calmed his nerves to wait before returning to his study, shunning his breakfast as he found himself inexplicably unable to eat.

Jaskier wasn't worried. He couldn't be. He just had to trust in Geralt’s abilities and in him staying true to his word and returning in five days time.

He had scarcely time to read through the names on the new letters piling up on his desk, before he was interrupted by an undignified howl.

Janina stormed into his study with swirling skirts, throwing the doors open with such a force that the ugly vase began swaying on its pedestal. Jakub followed closely behind, distracted from his attempt to keep Janina out by trying to keep the vase from falling. "Julian Pankratz," his sister poked her finger into his chest, "where is my horse?"

"Uh-," Jaskier said eloquently and pleadingly looked to Jakub for help.

"The witcher claimed that you have given him free choice from the stables," his servant answered. "So, he chose Dancer."

"Right," Jaskier said. 'Fuck,' Jaskier thought. "That is true."

"I beg your pardon?" Janina gasped and Jaskier waved at Jakub to signal for him to go. There was nothing he could do about Janina's raging but pour himself a drink and take it. For a while at least, before the shouting began to grate on his nerves too much.

"Are you quite done yet?" Jaskier slammed down his goblet forcefully, the liquor sloshing over the sides. 'When have I taken to drinking this early?' he wondered.

"No," Janina hissed, "I am not!" 'Ah,' he thought. 'Since I am forced to suffer my family again,' he concluded.

He sauntered back to the armchair in the far corner of his study, collapsing onto it. "Wake me when you are, will you?"

She followed him with large steps. "Listen to me, will you?" she replied in the same voice and he rolled his eyes behind his closed lids. "He had no right to take Dancer, that mutant-!"

"Ah, ah, ah!" Jaskier held up one hand to shut her up. "You lost the bet. Not a word against him, you promised."

"But these are surely extenuating circumstances!"

He sat up and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "I didn't know, alright!" he exclaimed and looked up again. "I didn't think he'd even consider to take Dancer or any other of our horses when given the whole stable to choose from! I thought he'd take one of the guards' horses. Marin's maybe, or Titan, they know combat at least."

She crossed her arms. "Well, have him come back."

Jaskier wrinkled his nose. "No. I won't," he decided. Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely unhappy with Geralt out of Lettenhove for a few days. Maybe that would give their simmering tempers time to calm down a bit.

"Why?" she scoffed. "Is it because of your silly fight?"

His expression went blank. "No." He had no desire to let her know just how close to home she had hit.

"You're acting childish, Julian. And you can't lie for shit. You were right to chastise him, for he acted foolishly. But he'll never respect you if you don't follow through."

"I don't need him to respect me!" he shouted before he could stop himself.

"No?" Janina smirked. 'Fuck.' She always knew how to get a rise out of him. "Then why are you indulging in this power play of yours at all?"

"I'm not-" he faltered, choking on his own words. 'I don't know,' he realised appalled. "Fuck off, Janina."

"Get my horse back, Julian," she retorted stubbornly.

"He'll bring her back in five days’ time," he answered and gulped. His voice was scarcely more than a whisper when he added: "He promised me."

Janina clicked her tongue in disapproval and shook her head. "You're a fool, Julian Pankratz," she said softly. "A bloody soft-hearted fool and an idiot, too."

He smiled sadly. "If the best education on the continent and two decades on the Path couldn't make me learn, none of your insults ever will."

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "I pity you, little brother."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Pity me all you want," he answered tiredly, "just don't do it in my presence."

A wave of relief washed over him when she finally left. He didn't want Janina's pity, he didn't want Geralt's respect. Truth be told he didn't know what he wanted.

No, that was not quite right. He knew exactly what he wanted. It was just nothing he could have, as always. He was used to that by now: the unrelenting bite of longing gnawing at his heart, his soul, every fibre of his very being. Not that that made it any easier.

As a boy, he had longed to escape Lettenhove, to exchange the cold empty hallways of his ancestral home for the time-honoured halls of Oxenfurt Academy, filled to the brim with books and scrolls and knowledge — a place of legends and lore, of stories and secrets, of wisdom and wishes; a place to love and learn and live.

He had soon learned that exchanging one gilded cage for another one did not make him free. That was what he longed for next: freedom, and fame, thereafter, and always fortune. He had been fortunate to stumble upon a witcher not long later, a brooding stranger who became his closest companion, his most trusted friend.

It had been fine for the first few years. His insatiable need to move, to sing, to compose, to do something was almost satisfied, save for the winters, of course, when he and Geralt went their separate ways.

But together, with him, he had dared to dream that his desire was sated. And then the day had dawned when being Geralt's friend wasn't enough anymore, and Jaskier went back to longing. Longing for what he couldn't have, for Geralt didn't fall for fumbling bards who inconvenienced him, not when the most powerful mage to ever grace a court was right there.

Still, he had longed. Still, he had hoped. And that was the key difference. There had always been hope. A small hope, truth be told, and growing slimmer with every time Geralt fell in bed and in love with another person that wasn't him. Not that he was much different, granted, but that was another point entirely. The point here was that there had always been hope, despite everything.

Now? Now there was no hope left. For what he longed for was for everything to go back to normal. What he longed for was to reverse the clock, to go back to before the mountain, and to prove himself to Geralt. He longed for them to never scale the blasted thing, for Geralt to never send him away, to wipe away the tarnish that thrice-damned day had left on their relationship, broken beyond repair.

'You're a fool, Jaskier,' he told himself over and over again, 'you're a fool for wishing for what never can be.'

A loud crash interrupted his musings and distracted him from the very polite yet very insulting letter he was penning - an activity that quickly became his favourite pastime. He shuddered at the realisation that he thought of anything as terribly tedious, tiring, and as trite as writing letters as a pastime of all things. And yet, here he was.

"Jakub?" he called in the hopes his servant would answer him. "Is that you?"

His manservant stuck his head through the door. "Not me, my lord. I heard it, too."

Jaskier sighed and pushed himself up from his desk. His mind was still reeling from the words buzzing around inside and not in the pleasant way that came with composing until his fingertips bled from the lute strings. He took a moment to steady himself and walked over to the door. "There are a few finished letters on my desk," he instructed his servant. "See to it that they are delivered to my insufferable neighbours."

He quickly moved out of the way to let him pass and bowed obediently. "At once, my lord."

"I'll go and check the damage," he said, throwing his arms open widely to emphasise the inconvenience of such a task.

Truthfully, he was glad for the distraction the commotion offered him - he had quite enough of letters and reports and inventory stocks and suchlike. 'Janina is right to pity me,' he thought grimly, 'for I will be doing this until my death.' The thought made him want to retch.

Even worse: this winter, he might be able to elude a fair share of invitations and propositions alike, but it wouldn't stay like that. He gave it a year or maybe two — probably way less — before he would find himself contrived to marry and wasn't that a dreary thought?

Suddenly, the idea of leaving Lettenhove to Janina and going to the court in Tretogor didn't seem too bad. But then again, he'd be roped into all kinds of intrigues, even more perilous than this one, and Dijkstra would have a much better handle at him. He really didn't need that.

He pushed the door to his rooms open, only to find them empty. "Weird," he said to himself and walked back out again. He tried his mother's old rooms next, but they were deserted, too. 'Third time's the charm,' he told himself and opened the door to his nursery.

"Ah," he said, a smile on his face before he could even try to resist, "who do we have here?"

"Jaskier!" Ciri turned back to him with a large smile on her face.

She attempted to stand up from where she was sitting on the floor but he firmly sat her down again. "What are you doing here?" he chided softly. "Wera surely told you that you need to rest."

"She did! But it was dreadfully boring in my room and you said I could come here whenever I want, so I did."

" ‘So I did’, huh? I fear I must limit your access to these rooms retroactively. You may not come here when doing so imperils your health." He sat down on the thick rug beside her.

"You're no fun at all!" she pouted and he chuckled softly.

"Hey," he said and tapped her on the nose, "that's my line." She stuck her tongue out at him. "How are you feeling after yesterday's mishap?" he asked a bit more seriously.

"I'm fine," she insisted, "I don't need anyone to mother me, I told Geralt as much already."

"Did you now?" He raised a sceptical eyebrow at her. "Did he listen?"

"He's not here now, is he?" she replied drily and Jaskier nodded appreciatively.

"Did he talk to you before he left?"

She looked at him funnily. "Of course, he did. Geralt would never leave me without a word."

"Of course, he wouldn't," he said bitterly. 'Get a grip, Jaskier,' he told himself. 'You're pathetic, to be jealous of a child.'

"Did he talk to you before he left?" she countered and he bit down hard on his tongue to keep a straight face. 'No reason to inconvenience her with all of that.'

"He did," he answered, "of sorts, I guess. He asked my leave to go on the hunt."

"And you gave it to him?"

"He's not here now, is he?" he mimicked in her voice.

"Hmm," Ciri sounded, and Jaskier chuckled before reaching over to muss her hair. Now that she did talk to him, witnessing those little Geraltisms she had picked up were adorable. A bright smile spread on her face, the serious conversation apparently forgotten. "Will you tell me a story, Jaskier?"

"Of course," he replied without thinking and moved to get his puppets. "What kind of story would you like to hear?"

"Have you ever seen a dragon?" she asked with childish innocence in her voice, not noticing how he froze, pain piercing his chest.

"I have," he answered with a shaky voice. "It was..." 'Painful,' his brain supplied. 'The worst day of my life.' Instead, he opted for: "...beautiful."

"Tell me about it," she pleaded and how could he resist her?

His hands trembled as he pulled the puppets from the box. "Once upon a time," he said sadly, "in a faraway land there was a brave Knight, as valiant as there has ever been. He was travelling the Continent with his merry company, a motley crew of a Fool, a Kelpie and a Demigod when they met the King of the Mountain, robbed of his crown. He promised the Knight the hand of his daughter, a beautiful Princess, if he could return his throne to him. And so, the Knight set out to slay the dragon." Ciri gasped in shock and Jaskier smiled softly, settling into the familiar rhythm of telling a story: "Don't worry, darling girl, for the Knight was no ordinary Knight. This is the story of the Knight who was taught to save dragons..."

He talked without really knowing what he was doing; it was relaxing to shut his brain off and just talk. In the end, a Beggar they had met on their way to the Dragon's lair revealed himself as the Dragon, the Demigod flew on its back to his home among the stars after he had a few moments to linger on the Fool's tragic death. The Knight brought the King a dragon’s tooth as proof of his victory and married the Princess. “They lived happily ever after,” he concluded. “And if they are not dead, then they still live today.”

Ciri was silent for a long time. Then, she asked: "Did you fight yesterday? You and Geralt?"

"Yes," he answered reluctantly, mentally steeling himself for the question that would inevitably follow.

It still hit him like a witcher's fist to his gut: "Is that why he left?"

"I-" his voice broke. How was he supposed to answer that? He would have opted for the truth, but gods, he didn't even know what that was. "I am sure it was not inconsequential to his decision," he answered diplomatically.

"But did you make up before he left?"

He looked down at the puppets in his lap. "No," he confessed, "we didn't make up."

"Why not?" she scrunched her nose. "My nursemaid told me that I always have to make up before I part ways with those I fight with, even if it's just for the night. And even if it's their fault."

"Ciri, we didn't even make up for our last fight," he said agonised, guilt coursing through his veins. "It's just not that easy."

"Hmm," she made. A very displeased sound, differing from the other Cirisms; those usually meant that she didn't know what to say. "What did you fight about?"

He passed his hand through her knotted hair and began disentangling the strands. "You, sweetheart," he said lost in thought. When he felt her tense beneath his fingers he quickly added: "Don't you dare think it's your fault."

"But-" she began, but he quickly interrupted her: "No, Ciri," he said firmly. "We're the adults and none of our mistakes are your wrongdoing." He chewed on his lip, painfully remembering his own childhood. "Whatever there is between Geralt and me, it should not trouble you or impair your relationships with either of us. We're old enough to solve this ourselves." He began braiding her hair with soft fingers. "We're here to protect you, little princess, not the other way around. Alas, Geralt's and my idea of your protection take very different shapes."

Ciri straightened her back. "Geralt is teaching me to protect myself!" she said proudly.

"I know," he answered. "And I would rather not have you in that tight spot at all." He tied the braid off with a leather band — he still carried one around his wrist even one and a half years after parting ways with Geralt — and kissed her on the crown of her hair. "What would you say to pear fritters?" he asked nonchalantly.

"With cinnamon?" she asked.

He snorted offended. "Of course, what do you take me for? An uncultured swine?"

"In that case," she grinned at him widely, "I would say that I'm hungry."

He smirked mischievously and turned his back to her to give her a piggyback ride to the kitchens. "Geralt will kill me if he learns that your diet consists mostly of sweets while he's gone."

He swayed only slightly as he stood and grimaced as he found that despite walking nigh twenty years beside Geralt across the continent, he could now scarcely carry Ciri without panting heavily. "He will," she agreed and closed her arms around his shoulders tightly.

"But he's not here now, is he?" they said in unison.

After that first day, time flew. They settled into a somewhat familiar rhythm, Ciri's lessons with Geralt replaced with a very different kind of education that taught her the might of the pen rather than the sword. She spent most of the time lounging lazily in his study while he told her about the regional politics that shaped the landscape of Redania and taught her valuable lessons about the power of secrets. To his surprise, she was almost as eager to learn the fine art of insulting with the prettiest compliments as she was to learn how to batter her opponents with swords.

To his even bigger surprise he found himself enjoying his shared time with Ciri; even the most boring tasks he barely could talk himself into normally, seemed almost amusing now that he got to explain it to her. And she listened eagerly, apparently intent on accumulating as much information as possible in those short hours they had each day.

In the afternoons he still brought Ciri to spend time with his sisters — while his mornings were greatly entertaining, they were rather unproductive as he had to admit. She didn't seem to mind too much, though. Ciri enjoyed watching Józefa work on the great family tapestry she was weaving and sometimes Janina could even talk her into doing some needlework, if she bribed her enough.

Some days into Geralt's absence Jaskier even found her chatting with his elder sister quietly when he joined them for dinner. He didn't dare ask but was informed by Jakub on the next day that apparently Janina had found her way into Ciri's trust by collaborating with Józefa and expanding on his lessons — both of them had quite a lot of insight to offer themselves.

He hadn't even noticed the days pass until he brought Ciri to lunch with his sisters and Janina noted: "I trust my horse will be returned to me by sundown."

He silently — and loudly, too, later on — cursed her for her words. For the rest of the afternoon Jaskier couldn't seem to focus on anything. He constantly caught himself traipsing around his study, sneaking glances out of the window in hopes of seeing a familiar hulking figure in the courtyard.

And then the afternoon gave way to evening, red sunset light filtering into his rooms — 'Red like rubies,' he had to remind himself, 'not blood, surely not blood.' — and Ciri burst through the doors, limping and panting and wincing. "He hasn't returned," she announced anxiously.

Jaskier took a deep shuddering breath, reminding himself of his greatest virtue and forced himself to stop the damned pacing — for Ciri's sake if not his own. "There's still time," he assured her, though his words didn't sound very convincing in his ears either.

"It's getting dark!"

"He's a witcher, Ciri. He can see just fine in the dark."

"But Dancer cannot," she told him.

"No, but Geralt will not ride her in that case. Believe me Ciri, I've seen him do it a hundred times before."

"What if something has happened to him? What if-"

"Shh..." he told her and quickly embraced her tightly. "You mustn't think of that, my dear darling girl. It will only drive you mad." 'Trust me,' he thought, 'I know.'

She tensed even more. "How did you manage to do that for sixteen years?"

A shuddering laugh escaped him. 'Nothing child appropriate,' he thought, 'I sang until my voice forsook me, drank until I couldn't think straight and fucked until I couldn't walk straight. Don't try it, it only leads to misery.' Instead he said: "I can't seem to remember. But you are in luck, little princess, there is nothing quite like Anna's pumpkin tarts to nurse a broken heart." He leaned down to her. "And I just saw her make some this morning."

Half an hour later they were both nursing a stomach ache besides their throbbing hearts and Jaskier tucked Ciri into bed. "He will return before morning," she whispered, "right?"

He gulped. 'Don't do that to me, child,' he begged silently. 'Don't force me to make a promise I cannot hope to keep.' For if he was honest with himself — and that he owed them both — he knew that he couldn't keep it. "He will return," he said instead. That at least, he was sure of. 'I hope,' he added silently as he closed the door behind him.

Marin was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs to the South Wing. "My lord," he said solemnly and offered him a fur-lined cloak with a humble bow.

"What-" he began but faltered at the knowing look on his face. With a silent nod he accepted the warm garment and pulled it tight around his shoulders.

"You won't be disturbed, my lord, if you do not wish so," the captain of his guard said quietly. "Though I do advise you not to wait up for too long."

A pained grimace twisted his face and he walked to the stairs leading to the battlements. "I thank you for your concern, Marin," he answered, "though how I spend my nights is my business and mine alone."

He had already climbed the first few steps when he heard Marin's voice behind him again: "A counsel from a soldier, then, my lord?"

He halted and waved his hand as a sign for him to continue.

"It's always the young ones who suffer most. It's them we need our strength for, not ourselves." There was the tiniest of pauses as if he was waiting for a response. "Do not light the torches. They will blind you to the night."

He nodded slowly. "Marin?"

"My lord?"

"Come and fetch me before it gets too late, will you?" With that he hurried up the stairs, catching the last rays of the setting sun before darkness nestled itself into the world around him.

He didn't know how much time of staring into the empty night had passed before Marin joined him on the rampart. He felt like falling asleep on his feet when the captain of the guard informed him quietly: "It's time for the second watch."

He would have liked to stay, he really would but he knew it was no use. Morning would come soon and Ciri would surely wake at dawn. And then he'd need his strength. 'Alright,' he conceded as he settled in for the night, 'maybe I am a bit worried.'

After that fifth day, time didn't seem to pass at all anymore. The days were dripping by ever so slowly, him and Ciri both sitting on the window ledge in his study, neither of them able to focus on anything but the growing concern that wormed itself into their minds and consumed their hearts. It had started raining, too, as if the sky was mocking their worries. He would have laughed if the situation wasn’t that dire. Even the most trustworthy road grew treacherous in the rain, he knew from experience, and the roads to Saltwall were anything but that. It was agony. It was torture. He was at his wits' end.

Oh, how he wished a shrieking Janina to be his biggest problem again.

Because now, he was sitting in the oriel window with a sniffling Ciri in his lap, watching the sun set on the ninth day after Geralt had left and the witcher was still nowhere in sight.

"Jaskier-," she whined and he felt his heart break even more.

He hugged her closer. "I know, Ciri. I know." He gently pecked her on the cheek. "I know it's hard," he said quietly, "but you have to try and sleep."

She nodded weakly and let him carry her to bed. He tucked her in and swept the hair out of her face one last time. "Will you watch?" she asked as her eyes drifted shut.

"Of course I will," he croaked, unable to resist. He kissed the little girl on the forehead and slipped out the door.

He waited for a long time in the oriel above the gatehouse, his racing thoughts and nightmarish imagination his only company. He cursed his fantasy for providing him with half a thousand ways for Geralt to be lying dead in a ditch, and he cursed his virtue for abandoning him in his darkest hour. It had taken all but five sleepless nights, one little girl with a twisted ankle and innumerable unresolved disagreements for him to start worrying about Geralt again.

He hated it, every part of it. The helplessness, the fear, the anger, the guilt. The guilt most of all. ‘If we had just talked,’ he told himself, ‘if I had just forgiven him. If I had just forced him to stay. If I had just not abandoned him.’

And he wanted to hate Geralt. Hate him for everything he had done to him, everything he was still doing to him and now to Ciri, too. He really did. But try as he might, he couldn’t. That made him even angrier. That made him feel even guiltier.

It was almost morning when he finally abandoned his futile watch and returned to his chambers. When Jakub came to wake him shortly after, Jaskier was already dressed. 'He hasn't told me to stay put,' he told himself to calm his nerves. Taking two steps at a time he rushed down into the courtyard. "Wiktor," he commanded, "ready my horse."

Jaskier had waited long enough.

#of witchers bards and broken hearts #OWBABH #My writing #geraskier #geralt of rivia #Jaskier #cirilla #geraskier fanfiction #geralt x jaskier #geralt/jaskier

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years ago

Text

The Wrath of the Scapegoat

[Seattle musical]

Prompt: No more tackle hugs! You’ll break my neck or worse, yours!

Word count: 2987

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

The bundle of red had come out of nowhere.

Miss Gardener stepped out of her office for what she swore was only two seconds, prepared to go refill her giant metal water bottle (what? it’s a coach thing! you wouldn’t understand unless you have to monitor dozens of athletes in the heat- she needs water, too, damnit!) and then get back to paperwork (YES she DID do paperwork even though she was a coach. her teaching career wasn’t all about sports!), but then a firestorm of crimson fabric came barreling through the locker room corridor and slammed directly into her arms. If it weren’t for her profession being a coach and the muscles she’s gained from having such a job, she definitely would have fallen right onto her rear.

She also nearly drop kicked the assailant, but then she noticed that the flash of red she had thought was the red of a bloody banshee, was actually the red of the trademark sweater that was always worn by her favorite student.

“Carrie!” She exclaimed. Her teal water bottle flew from her hands with a tremendous bang that rang in her ears, and she was sure that the floor had been dented upon impact. “What have I told you?! No more tackle hugs! You’ll break my neck or worse, yours!”

Despite her light scolding, she couldn’t help but smile to herself. She loved that Carrie felt comfortable enough with her to throw her full body weight into her arms, seeing as she had started out flinching and squirming away when she so much as raised her hand to blow her whistle. She would take being winded and having all her internal organs ruptured from the momentum of a teenage girl embracing around her stomach at full force than having all her guts intact and no gleeful daughter-figure to hug her.

Carrie mumbled something in response, but it was muffled by the aqua blue windbreaker her face was smothered against. Miss Gardener chuckled and stroked back unruly locks of thick brown hair.

“I was just going to get some water,” Miss Gardener told her red-swathed koala. “Care to join me or would you like to head inside and start your homework?”

She tried to smother her smile, but the giddiness just kept bubbling up inside of her like a ruptured oil well. Inky globs of glee spewed within her, coating her brain with endorphins that made her want to hug this girl and never let her go. She had never considered herself motherly up until she met Carrie White, and now she couldn’t imagine her life without the daily office visits with the junior. These visits became a ritual of sorts, starting after a particularly rough day for Carrie near the beginning of the year, and turning into a permanent cycle of her skipping the cafeteria to eat lunch in Miss Gardener’s office whenever she could sneak past the hall monitors.

But right now, unless it was squashed all over Miss Gardener’s windbreaker, Carrie had no food with her.

It was always worrying when Carrie didn’t eat. She was already as light as is, and the way her clothes sort of dangled from her frame didn’t help, either. Miss Gardener had been helping her eat more often, making a sort of challenge out of lunch (“if you eat your entire apple, i’ll excuse you from the mile on Monday” or “eat your sandwich and i’ll let you pick whatever game we play on Friday”) because forcing the girl to eat would make her no better than her demanding mother. Some days Carrie obliged to her bets, other days she simply couldn’t. Miss Gardener is never mad or disappointed with her when she couldn’t; she likes that she tries. She understands that it’s hard for Carrie sometimes. And, in return, Carrie will give her a grateful look that simultaneously melt and break Miss Gardener’s heart,

But, at that moment, there was something else that was worrying. Miss Gardener ran her fingers across Carrie’s head and realized that her hair was wet. She lifted her hand and saw that it had droplets of some kind of light brown residue cascading briskly down her skin. There were chunks of /something/ caught in her brown tangles, too.

“Carrie?”

There was a tiny whimper in reply. Miss Gardener felt a motherly instinct flare up inside of her and she leaned Carrie back to cup her cheeks, only to hold a face that was slick with drizzles of chocolate milk, spaghetti residue, and tears.

“Carrie!” Miss Gardener cried in shock. “Oh, Carrie, what happened?” But Carrie didn’t have to tell her- she could already assume, and that made rage bubble inside of her. Still, the words that came out of Carrie’s mouth hit her like a punch to the gut with an iron gauntlet.

“A-at lunch,” Carrie stammered, sniffling. “Th-these kids, th-they-” A glob of chunky tomato sauce fell from the crown of her head and spattered against her button nose, staining the collar and bodice of her yellow flannel shirt on the rest of the way down. With a voice that’s thick with humiliation and misery, she croaked, “They dumped their lunch on me.”

Miss Gardener felt an overwhelming tidal wave of fury crash over her, and it must have been visible on her face because Carrie flinched back and cast a dismayed look at the reddish stain on the front of her windbreaker. Miss Gardener looked at it, then back at Carrie, and then tenderly cupped her messy cheeks.

“Oh, my poor girl,” She murmured. “I am so sorry, honey. Are you okay? Did they hurt you at all?”

Carrie shook her head, but Miss Gardener still checked her for any fresh wounds. Carrie was a master at hiding injuries thanks to living with a mother who didn’t trust hospitals, so scanning her body became like a game of I Spy. Luckily, though, there were no fresh shiners or scrapes or cuts, just old scabs and bruises and a welt on her wrist from Norma “accidentally” dropping a baseball bat on her four days ago. But the spaghetti sauce she’s dripping with is dark enough to look like gore, and the noodles dangle limply like loose intestines from her frame.

“I’m okay,” Carrie whispered, voice wavering.

“Come on,” Miss Gardener took her hand and led her inside her office, abandoning her water bottle for the moment. She sat the girl on the small sofa and retrieved a rag she wets with hot water and a change of gym clothes, seeing as Carrie’s were ruined by spaghetti and milk, and turning up to her next classes completely stained wouldn’t help her at all.

“I-I’m really sorry, Miss Gardener,” Carrie whispered. She’s sitting stiffly on the couch, back arched, nails dug into the cushions beneath her. A warm stream of chocolate milk oozes down into her right eye and she cringes in a way that makes her look like she’s about to be ill. Miss Gardener dragged the trash can over just in case.

“It’s alright, honey,” Miss Gardener assured her. “You aren’t a nuisance, I promise. You aren’t bothering me.”

Carrie hadn’t said that she was any of those things, but it was written all over her messy face that she was thinking that she was. She looked down, shifting her knees anxiously. She jolted backwards when the wet rag was brought to her face.

“S-sorry,” She stammered.

“Shh, it’s alright.” Miss Gardener said. She gently wiped the dripping mess of chocolate milk and spaghetti sauce off of Carrie’s cheeks and nose and forehead until she no longer looked like an abstract art piece created by Pablo Picasso. But without the layer of lunch grime, the sadness in Carrie’s eyes became more apparent and glowed in shades of hazel and green-grey. Miss Gardener frowned. “Carrie? Are you okay?”

Stupid question- of course the poor girl wasn’t okay. She just got God knows how many trays of lunch dumped onto her.

“I-I was just sitting there,” Carrie whispered. “I wasn’t even doing anything to them! A-and then they c-came up behind me and--” She whimpered, wringing her fingers into white-knuckled fists in her flannel. Her clenched hands quivered with mounting anger. “And they dumped their shit on me! When I was I was just sitting there! It’s just-- it’s not fair!! And I just want to rip their heads off or throw food on THEM!”

Miss Gardener was impressed- she’s never seen Carrie lose her temper like this. She’ll admit that she didn’t think the girl had it in her, but here she was, quaking with rage and face glowing red. Angry tears poured down her cheeks.

After a moment, Carrie started to look a little less pissed off and she blinked as if she had just come out of a trance. She looked down at her tightly balled fists as if they were drenched in the blood of the students who had bullied her and fearfully shook them out until they looked like her own hands again. She swallowed thickly and looked up at Miss Gardener fearfully.

“I-I’m sorry,” She whispered. “I-I didn’t mean to…” She trailed off, looking away. It seemed she thought that getting mad was the same as what those kids had done to her.

“Don’t apologize, sweetheart,” Miss Gardener said. “You deserve to get a little angry. What those kids did to you was horrible.” She paused. “Carrie...have you ever tried boxing before?”

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

“Miss Gardener, I don’t see how this is going to help me.” Carrie said. She gave the bulky red boxing gloves on her hands a look of visible distaste. Not being able to use her fingers made her a little nervous- what if someone snuck up on her and attacked her and she couldn’t grab the nearest doorknob to flee?

“Hush,” Miss Gardener said and Carrie shut her mouth instantly. “Just trust me.”

Carrie doesn’t seem too convinced, but she nodded and looked forward at the thick punching bag dangling in front of her. She tilted her head, nose twitching like an intimidated rabbit’s. The weight room’s permanent smell of sweat invaded her senses.

“Now,” Miss Gardener smiled. “Hit it.”

“This?” Carrie pointed at the punching bag- or at least, she tried to. You couldn’t really tell with the damn gloves on her hands.

“Yes.”

“But won’t it hurt?”

“That’s what the gloves are for, sweetheart,” Miss Gardener said patiently.

“Oh.” Carrie said. “Okay. Well…” She hit the punching bag and watched it jostle ever so slightly on its chain.

“Come on,” Miss Gardener encouraged. “You can do better than that. Get mad!”

“Get mad?” Carrie echoed, tilting her head like a confused puppy.

“You’re angry, Carrie. You’re upset over what happened at lunch. Let all those emotions out. Don’t keep them bottled up in you- it’s not good for you.” Miss Gardener said. “Come on, sweetheart. Get mad!”

“Get mad,” Carrie said to herself. “Get mad. Get mad. Get mad!” She drew her arm back and sent it flying at the punching bag, causing it to rock treacherously on its chain.

“There we go!” Miss Gardener cheered.

Carrie threw another punch.

And another.

Bam bam bam

The punches against the bag sound like gunshots in the still, quiet school weight room. Sweat soon sprung to Carrie’s brow and poured down her face, making her gym shirt and basketball shorts cling to her skin. Every muscle in her arms started to strain and ache, but she ignored the pain. The adrenaline is making it bearable, all the beautiful chemicals coursing through her veins as she hits and even kicks the hanging bag over and over again.

Bam bam bam

That and the anger.

Bam bam bam

She watched her red mitts slam against the leather through narrowed eyes, imagining that they were coated in the blood of all her bullies.

It all makes her so angry. Her mother. Her treatment at school. Her life. Who she is.

Seventeen long years of being the good Christian girl. Of turning the other cheek. Of enduring and bearing. Of being patient and understanding and letting things go, always letting things go.

It gets old. So fucking old.

Bam bam bam

As she jabbed and knocked the bag back and forth, watching it swing wildly from its chain, she imagined what would happen if she didn’t have this gym, this bag, Miss Gardener, as a shock absorber for when this happened. When she exploded.

She imagined storming into the school and screaming her head off at the inconsiderate teachers, the rude students. She’s a smart kid, dammit! She’s been in school as long as everyone else, and she’s very good at it. No more questioning her, no more arguing or trying to make her look foolish, no more bullying.

Bam bam bam

She imagined setting fire to the cafeteria, not caring about how much money it would cost to fix it. Just to hear the crackles of flames, just to watch the people scramble, just to be the chaos instead of the shield against it.

Bam bam bam

She imagined stalking into her homeroom, kicking the door open like she would sometimes try to do with the prayer closet. She would watch class jump in surprise and fear, not just staring at her like she’s her mother’s trained puppy.

Bam bam bam

She imagined punching Chris in the face, hearing the crack of her nose. Better than any of the bullshit Christian music her mother makes her listen to.

And then, relishing it, she imagined dunking her into water until she couldn’t breathe, she imagined stealing Helen’s clothes and leaving her stranded naked in a bathroom stall for hours, she imagined tripping Norma in the hallway and have her break her jaw on the way down, she imagined putting a snake in Sue’s shoe and would watch her howl and foam at the mouth when it pumped her full of venom.

Who’s the boss now? Who’s the tough one, who doesn’t take shit, who doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want, ever?

She imagined growling into all of their ears as she tore into all of them and didn’t care how much of a devil it made her.

How do you like me now?

Being strong, and bold, and standing up, taking what she wants when she wants it, for the first time in her goddamn life.

Bam bam ba- AAAAAAAHHH!!!!!

The thing that overcame the sound of punching gloves slamming against a punching bag was just a noise, one that had been boiling up in Carrie’s chest for hours; long before she had gotten lunch dumped over her head, or walked into school, or even started school at all.

Carrie didn’t yell a whole lot, never had. She’d always had the tendency to quietly brood when her temper ran high or her spirits low, something that had helped facilitate her transformation over the years of torment and torture. So in reality, the noise that was escaping her right now was one she’d been holding back for a very long time.

It sounded stupid. But it felt good.

So she kept doing it.

Swinging her fists like a whirlwind, Carrie went after the poor punching bag, not caring whether she hit it or not as long as she was the stronger one, and she yelled the entire time. Intimidating or not, effective or not, when a sound was being uttered over and over by a teenage girl who’s been living the closest thing to Hell that could exist on God’s green earth, a teenage girl with wild eyes, a mangy body, and a lifetime worth of pain...

It was a goddamn battle-cry.

A heavy, rageful, awkward hit to the top of the bag sends the chain breaking from the ceiling, and all three hundred pounds of sand crash to the ground, rattling the floor upon impact.

Carrie jumped back, crying out in surprise. She stared down at her fists, feeling bruises blooming over her knuckles even with the gloves on, and began to weep. Because she will never do any of that stuff she imagines.

She never does that.

She never defends herself or stands up for herself or fights back.

She only endures and endures and endures like a good little girl, like Mama wants, like how Mama made her.

It's what's best for her. What's best for everyone.

Carrie collapsed to her knees on the dulled tile floor, holding her trembling mitts up against her damp hair, heaving in and out as her heart pounds frantically, trying to break out of her rib cage. Miss Gardener rushed down to her side and she fell into her arms, sobbing.

“You did so good, baby girl,” Miss Gardener told her, rubbing her back comfortingly. Carrie wiggled her way completely into her coach’s lap and curled up there, crying harder. “So, so good. Doesn’t it feel good to get everything out?”

Through painful sobs and burning heaves for air and acidic tears, Carrie nodded honestly. Because it did feel good, even if it hurt. Or maybe she’s just grown to like the pain.

“I-I broke it,” Carrie choked out, then instantly gasped for air afterwards. Her lungs stung intensely in her chest. She looked at the ruined punching bag guiltily. How did she do that?

“It’s okay.” Miss Gardener stroked her sweaty hair. “We have other ones. Don’t worry about it.”

“My hands hurt,” Carrie mumbled, suddenly weak and dizzy with exhaustion. “But...I like this...wanna do more of it…”

“That can be arranged.” Miss Gardener said, smiling slightly.

“Yay,” Carrie whispered. She nuzzled her head under Miss Gardener’s chin and closed her eyes. With a shaky breath, she released the tension on her muscles and relaxed.

One day, she told herself. One day she would get her revenge. But for now, she can rest easy in the arms of the only person who has ever given a shit about her in her entire life.

#carrie #carrie the musical #seattle carrie #carrie white #rita desjardin #lin gardener #because they changed her damn name again #lin? lynn? linn? idk #carrie fanfiction

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