#I died to chain smoker but still

[patches-rabbit]

Guess who arrived earlier than expected?? You know what that means… 😼

This is for cursing one of my best lockerless runs grrr!!!!

[taexual]

sleepwalking ● 17 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language and depictions of medical treatment (mentions of an IV, not overly descriptive), fluff (!), angst, A LOT of pent-up emotions, SLOW BURN

words: 15.5k (help)

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 17 ► looking sideways when i say i’m okay with the past, but i’m afraid of what i might say if you ask

When you regained consciousness, it took you a few more minutes to understand what was happening.

In your hazy mind, the first clear thought you could grasp was a memory: Jungkook had gotten into a fight. Instinctively, you imagined yourself standing up and finding him. Not because your job required you to—honestly, you weren’t sure what job you even had at this point, your mind hadn’t sorted itself out yet—but because you wanted to see if he was okay.

You tried to open your eyes, but the room was spinning, and you felt a little queasy from the unexpected vertigo.

You shut your eyes again and tried to focus on your other senses—as best as you could without moving—hoping that this would answer some of the new questions forming in your mind.

You did not know where you were or how you got here, but the room was warm. The lack of proper ventilation made the air feel stuffy.

You didn’t hear any background noise, so you assumed you weren’t at a hospital. But you could hear a lot of shouting in the room. You thought you discerned three different voices, but they were all talking over each other, so it was hard to tell.

You were lying on something soft but scratchy, and a heavy duvet pressed you into the bed. It felt comforting, but you were starting to sweat.

Someone’s hand was on your wrist, their fingers cold.

Reflexively, you squeezed their hand.

“Don’t move,” someone whispered right next to you. Jungkook, you realised. “We’ve called a doctor.”

Your initial reaction was relief. He was here, so he had to be okay.

Your next reaction, however, was pure panic. You didn’t need a doctor. You just needed a minute.

“We should have taken her to a hospital,” another voice argued. “I’ll never forgive you if anything happens to her.”

That had to be Luna, you were sure of it. Your eyes remained closed, but you could envision your friend with her arms crossed over her chest, regarding the boy next to you with a scorching glare.

You didn’t like this mention of a hospital.

You squeezed Jungkook’s hand again, but even as he tried to explain to Luna that you would go on a particularly bloody rampage if he took you to a hospital—he had a point and you would have felt grateful if you hadn’t been so distressed—she still wasn’t hearing him.

You opened your mouth and felt your chapped lips tighten painfully.

“No hospital, please,” you croaked in the voice of someone who had been a successful chain smoker for over fifty years.

You heard Luna whisper-yell, “you’re unbelievable, the both of you!” and you tried to open your eyes again, but nothing had changed. It still felt a bit like gravity had taken a day off as the room and everyone around you continued to float.

You heard a faint voice that you did not recognise, and from the official tone and the immediate chill you felt inside, you deduced that it was the doctor.

“I’m going to administer a very mild sedative,” he said—to whom, you weren’t sure. Your insides felt very heavy. “And set up a drip. Make sure she doesn’t move much or the catheter will—oh, see, like that. That can’t happen.”

Your muscles spasmed involuntarily. Something pricked your arm. You didn’t mind needles, but you did not like IVs. You didn’t need to be sedated.

“I don’t think—” you tried to say when you felt something cold on your arm—the doctor’s hands, presumably, in very unpleasant, squeaky latex gloves. “I don’t think I need this.”

“Can you open your eyes for me, please?” the doctor asked.

“No,” you said with what you hoped was a shake of your head. In reality, you merely wrinkled your nose. “T-that is not something I can do right now. But in a—”

“Your body needs rest,” the doctor explained. Jungkook moved closer until he was clutching your hand with both of his. “It won’t knock you out, but it will relax you, make you a little drowsy. That will likely help you fall asleep naturally. Is that all right?”

You lacked the strength to tell him that you were already very tired—or the strength to tell him that you still had things to do, so you couldn’t just sleep.

The memory of the flooding at the venue in Manchester came back to your mind and your muscles tensed again.

Really, you were about to refuse, but there was hardly anything you disliked more than inconveniencing people. They had invited a doctor for you. He was just doing his job.

“Okay,” you said in quiet defeat.

“Your friends are in the room with you,” the doctor said. You felt a cold sensation on your arm. “They will stay with you and make sure you get plenty of rest. Even after you wake up, you must spend as much time in bed as you possibly can.”

“Don’t phrase it like that,” you heard Jungkook object. “Give us a specific time, or she’ll be out of bed as soon as she wakes up.”

Silence followed. You tried to imagine what was happening. Jungkook must have looked very eager—in his exaggerated manner, which resembled desperation rather than hope. Luna probably nodded in agreement. The doctor, if he was kind enough, smiled at them patiently.

“Two days,” he finally stated. “Today and tomorrow, at the very least. If she has to walk, someone should accompany her. But don’t keep her on her feet for too long. I’ve seen the crowd of people outside this room—don’t tire her out. There should only be one or two people in the room with her, all right? Proper nutrition, sufficient sleep, and a—”

You felt yourself drifting off, and the doctor’s words faded and merged together until you were no longer sure whether you were imagining what a doctor would say in this situation, or if he was actually speaking.

When you opened your eyes again, Luna and Maggie were seated in the armchairs next to your bed. The room had stabilised, allowing you to take in your surroundings before Luna glanced up from her phone and Maggie pulled out her earpods, noticing that you were awake.

The space around you appeared to be a hotel room. Next to the bed stood a metal bar with bags of faint yellow liquid on it. A catheter was attached to your arm and an intravenous line led to it from the drip. You shivered at the sight of it.

“Oh!” Luna’s gasp drew your attention back to her. She dropped her phone on her seat and straightened up. “How are you feeling?”

Right away, Maggie jumped up and removed her earpods.

“Confused,” you spoke and immediately tried to clear your prickly throat.

Maggie leapt forward and grabbed an empty glass from the bedside table. She poured some water from one of the three bottles on the floor and handed it to you.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had water. It tasted heavenly.

“You’re in a hotel room,” Luna explained as you drank. Maggie sat down on the armrest of her friend’s chair. “In Manchester.”

The mention of the city made you glare at her, and both girls breathed a sigh of relief. At least you knew where you were in a broader sense.

“It’s 7 PM,” Luna said after checking her phone. “The band has a day off tomorrow because the concert’s been postponed—”

“Because of the flooding,” you finished, leaning forward to put the glass back on the table. “I remember, Luna. Thanks. What, um—how come I’m here?”

Luna looked at Maggie for a moment, wordlessly asking her to take over the story.

“Well, you fainted,” Maggie started. She wasn’t usually a woman of many words, and this time was no different, which you found comforting. If Maggie didn’t think it was necessary to talk for hours, then you must not have been doing that bad. “Jungkook found you.”

“Yeah,” Luna had to interject with more details—she was still irked about his decision to book a hotel room instead of a hospital room. “And then he spent half an hour describing your symptoms. It took the doctor all of one second to diagnose you with burnout and put you on a vitamin drip. He told us to keep you on bed rest and watch for any more nosebleeds or fainting spells. If they continue, you’ll need to go into urgent care.”

You wanted to ask questions—where did they find this doctor? Where was this hotel? What was happening at the venue?—but the girls were on a roll.

“Meanwhile, I wasn’t even allowed in the room,” Maggie said, returning to her chair and sitting down properly. She was upset that she had missed what Luna had just summarised for you. “The doctor told us that only one person could stay, but neither Luna, nor Jungkook agreed to leave. So, no one else could come in until you were feeling better.”

“Jungkook was the one who decided on the hotel room, by the way,” Luna remarked, seemingly glad to finally express her frustrations. “I argued. I think you should at least have a blood test done. What if you’re anaemic? But—”

“I’m not anaemic,” you finally interrupted as you settled back on the bed. The mattress quickly adjusted to the shape of your body. Closing your eyes, you had to admit that the bed was really quite comfortable. Perhaps you could stay here for a few more hours. “This has happened to me before. I’ll be fine.”

Luna sighed. Her knowledge of the last time this had happened to you came from Jungkook’s haphazard stream of thought as he tried to explain to the doctor that the two of you had been in this exact situation before—you, unconscious, and he, on the verge of losing his mind.

Honestly, for a moment, Luna thought the doctor had considered sedating Jungkook instead of you.

“I knew you were going to say that,” she muttered after a minute. “Jungkook seemed to believe you’d shoot us all dead if we took you to a hospital.”

Gratitude bubbled up in your chest, but when you saw your friend’s solemn features, you tried to soften your response.

“I wouldn’t have shot you,” you said. “I would have smothered you all with pillows."

Maggie scoffed, and Luna rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips still turned up.

“Nice to see you haven’t gained a sense of humour while you were out,” Maggie teased.

“Ha,” you responded dryly—but you were smiling, too.

Luna crossed her legs on the armchair to get more comfortable. She glanced at Maggie anxiously. The girls weren’t sure if they were tiring you out with their conversation, but you were looking up at the ceiling, not indicating that you were tired in any way, so they decided to continue.

“So, want to tell us how this happened, then?” Luna asked.

You turned your head to her. “I was hoping you’d tell me. I can’t exactly remember.”

“You fainted,” Maggie reminded you. Luna leaned over and gave her a pat on the arm, thanking her for this valuable reminder.

You smiled gently. “You mentioned that. Where’d the doctor come from?”

“Oh, Jungkook found one,” Maggie said. “There’s a clinic across the street from the venue. And this hotel is right next door.”

“Oh.”

A minute passed as you attempted to piece it all together.

You could not remember any of this, but the news that Jungkook had taken care of most things was not calming. He must have really been going out of his mind.

You were curious about where he was, but you didn’t want to ask. Your paranoid mind made you think that any question about Jungkook that was not related to Rated Riot was unnecessary and would, therefore, be misunderstood. Your friends already seemed like they were resisting a few additional comments for the sake of your health.

“So,” Luna started after a quiet minute, “how come you fainted?"

You exhaled and tried to scratch your eyebrow, but the catheter tugged painfully at your skin, and you winced instead.

You dropped your hand back down. “I-I... I guess I overestimated myself.”

Luna pushed the IV stand closer to your bed so you could have more freedom with your limbs. You nodded gratefully.

“You’re going to have to slow down,” Luna said. “It’s no longer negotiable, I’m afraid. If you don’t listen to us, we will take you to a hospital.”

It was the plural pronoun that bothered you the most, but you forced yourself to swallow your discomfort at disrupting the daily routines of your friends.

“I’ll be alright soon,” you said. “And I promise this won’t happen again.”

“It had better not,” Maggie chimed in. “And what’s with this hatred of hospitals? You don’t like that they’re full of people who want to help you feel better?”

“I don’t hate them,” you said, which wasn’t entirely true. Your experiences in hospitals included your mum crying, and you’d rather not relive that—not so soon after your brother broke his leg. “I just don’t have time for them. I’m okay.”

Luna gave you a stern look. Even Maggie, who was usually quite calm when you said you were fine, was glowering a little.

“Fine,” you conceded. “I’ll endure this drip and then I'll be okay. Thank you for being here.”

Luna made a deliberate scene of fixing the bags on the metal stand—clearly intending to emphasise the seriousness of your condition—and then lowered herself back into her armchair.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

Smiling at both of your girls—to distract them from further discussing your health—you said, “I love you.”

“We love you, too,” Maggie said. “And, babe, just so you know, it’s not just us. There was—everyone was here. The concierge nearly fainted when he saw us all in the hallway.”

Your smile quickly fell. “What do you mean, everyone?”

“We took care of it, don’t worry,” Luna interjected, sensing your growing panic. “Maggie and I talked to Seokjin, Jimin, and Namjoon, who then spoke to the rest of the staff and escorted them out. And Jungkook took care of his band.”

The panic lingered. Your job was solving crises, not causing them. You did not like this.

“He took care of them?” you repeated, swallowing.

“Well, they were very worried,” Luna explained, glancing at Maggie for help. Maggie only nodded, indicating her agreement. “And, uh, they were very loud, too. He told them to go and texted them updates every ten minutes.”

“God.” You closed your eyes and carefully tried to prop yourself up into a half-sitting position. “What updates? I was asleep.”

“That’s what he’s been texting them,” Luna explained. “Every ten minutes, on the dot. And then Taehyung texted me, asking why I kicked his best friend out of your room—which is ridiculous because I did not kick him out. But you’re my best friend, so technically, I would have had the right to kick him out if you were uncomfortable.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose with your hand and shook your head, an involuntary smile creeping onto your face at your friend’s protectiveness. “I’m comfortable. Thank you.”

“Are you going to see him?” Maggie asked.

You looked up at her. “Jungkook?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “He’s right behind the door, you know. Glued to the wall in the hallway.”

Your gaze slid down her dark blue jacket and focused on the mirror on the wall behind her. “Oh.”

“The doctor said he would need to go to the hospital, too, by the way,” Luna said, earning a surprised look from you. “He said the bandages around his head looked very threatening.”

You pressed your lips together. You’d expected that, but you still felt a fleeting twinge of disappointment—you’d covered his wounds to the best of your ability. And the bandages were honestly not the worst part of this.

“The doctor hasn’t even seen what’s underneath,” you said.

“He has now, actually,” Maggie replied. “He went to the emergency room about an hour ago to have them changed.”

You were too taken aback to properly understand her. “Jungkook did?”

“Yeah,” Luna said, pulling her phone out. Your mind tuned out her next few sentences as you struggled to come to terms with the fact that Jungkook had gone to the emergency room on his own accord. “—and he called us from the hospital. Apparently, he pestered the nurses with questions about what else we could do to help you feel better. They told him to leave, but he wanted to hear from us—in case we thought you needed anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought a heart monitor here, just in case.”

Maggie snickered—but caught the serious looks on the faces around her and covered it up with a fractured cough—while you groaned and rubbed your eyes. You wouldn’t have been surprised, either.

You exhaled. “Yeah—I-I’ll see him. If that’s okay with you?”

Both girls nodded and got up from their seats. Before they went, however, they convinced you to accept their help to complete the difficult task—as you pointed out while rolling your eyes—of walking ten steps to the bathroom, and then ten steps back to your bed. Clearly, they were taking the doctor’s orders very seriously.

“We’ll be right outside,” Luna said once you settled back in bed. “Call or text—”

“No,” you protested. “You can’t—you don’t need to stay here. You’ve already done so much.”

“We were just sitting in your room with you,” Maggie said. “It’s hardly anything. Don’t worry about us.”

“It’s not hardly anything,” you disagreed. “At least get something to eat.”

The two girls looked at each other. Maggie shrugged and then looked back at you, still doubtful. You nodded with more conviction.

“We’ll pick up some food for everyone and come back,” Luna finally decided. “Okay?”

You nodded again. “Okay. Thank you.”

As soon as the girls opened the door to your hotel room, you heard shuffling outside—as if someone had been leaning right up against the door and scrambled away before it opened.

“You may come in,” Luna told Jungkook with excessive dramatics as she and Maggie turned to wave at you again.

You gave them another nod and watched as Jungkook tentatively walked inside. He turned to close the door behind him and lingered, for an awkward moment, at the entrance.

His bandages were fresh and none of the scantily wrapped bruises were visible any longer. Perhaps they would heal in time for the concert.

Before you could express your hopes out loud, however, Jungkook took a shaky breath and approached you.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t know what I would have done if—”

“W-why are you sorry?” you cut him off, disturbed by the absolute devastation in his voice.

He was right next to your bed now, barely able to inhale. “It’s—you—you fainted—and—it was because—I shouldn’t—”

It hit you, suddenly, why he was hyperventilating so much. And the shock of this realisation was so great that you could not react immediately, and he proceeded to stutter for another few moments.

“This—it has nothing—this isn’t about you,” you finally said, almost as coherent as he was.

Still, he persisted, “but I—you—I was—I should have—”

“I didn’t faint because of you, Jungkook,” you said more firmly. There were several reasons why he should have felt guilty, of course, but this was definitely not one of them.

He finally stopped speaking, although the rapid process of inhaling and exhaling—which caused his shoulders to hunch and straighten from the intensity of the motions—continued for another minute.

Then he gave you a long, uncertain look. You maintained eye contact and watched as his breathing gradually slowed. You had never seen him panic so much and so suddenly—he had seemed almost perfectly fine when he came in, but it took him all of two seconds to fall apart.

Slowly, he regained control of his breathing and looked you over once more.

“Okay,” he said, shifting his weight to his other leg. “I-I don’t know if that—if it makes me feel better, but—”

“Thank you,” you said.

Lost in his own thoughts, he craned his neck towards you. “Hm?”

“Luna and Maggie told me you’re the one who found me.”

Jungkook looked briefly embarrassed.

“I explicitly asked them not to tell,” he said.

You smiled. “I’m sure this was Force majeure, so don’t blame them. And they’re my best friends anyway.”

“Clearly.” He brought his hands down his face before admitting, “I just—I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

A part of you thought he was right to assume that. You shouldn’t want to see him.

But another part of you forced you to lower your gaze and twiddle your thumbs nervously as you linked your hands on your stomach.

“No, uh, see,” you began with a nervous chuckle. “That’s, uh—that’s almost the worst part of this whole thing. My plan, really, was to avoid you.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows, then politely lowered them. He placed his hand on the back of the armchair and said, profoundly, “very mature.”

“You don’t get to judge,” you warned.

The corner of his lip quirked. “Just making an observation.”

“So, my plan was to avoid you,” you continued. “But we both know how that ended. And then I woke up here, sort of feeling like I was floating in a space station somewhere near Saturn, and you know what my first thought was?”

Jungkook thought he was floating in a space station somewhere near Saturn.

“Wh—um, what?” he asked.

“My first thought was if you were okay.”

You looked at him as you said that, and he thought he saw the rest of his life flash before his eyes—a life that, just a few days ago, he’d deemed meaningless.

Without any proper distractions, it was just him and his thoughts, and they were never good company. They hated him for losing you.

But then you fainted and now that you’ve regained consciousness, your first thought was if he was okay.

He didn’t trust his legs very much anymore.

“Can I sit?” he asked, a little breathless again.

You took a second to reply, and he interpreted it as a sign of hesitation. “You can.”

Suspicious, he asked, “will you try to leave if I sit?”

You gave him a questioning look and nudged your hand, causing the IV bags to wobble. “Does it look like I can move around with this?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You might still try.”

You snorted and shook your head. “Just sit down, Jungkook.”

He sat down.

The two of you were a peculiar sight like this. If this were a role-playing video game, there would have been exclamation marks over your heads—and if you had been approached, the list of conversation starters the player could choose would have been, simply, endless.

There was so much you wanted to say and ask each other, but the strength of your resistance was absurdly impressive.

One thought, however, overwhelmed everything, and it was very simple: how little everything else mattered compared to your health.

Jungkook took a deep breath and looked at you, taking in your tired, but ceaselessly dreamlike features.

Slowly, he found himself calming down. As long as you were here, as long as you were okay, things would work out one way or another.

“I, um—your mum called, by the way,” Jungkook said. “I have your phone. It fell out of your jacket when I—when I found you.”

Right away, you felt a surge of panic. You and your mum had a deal. She knew you were busy, so she would text sometimes, but never call. Unless something had happened.

“My—she called me?” you repeated with so much concern that Jungkook noticed the drip stand shake a little from the force of your distress. “Did you answer?”

He felt his own hands return to their almost natural trembling. “Uh, well, as it happened—I did.”

“Why did she call? What happened?”

“Well, nothing,” he said. “She said she hadn’t heard from you in a while, and she was worried.”

Mother’s intuition, she had called it when she spoke to you. When you returned to your dorm after your hospital stay six years ago, she had called you because “for some reason” she couldn’t sleep for two nights in a row. She didn’t know you were ill, of course, but it touched you, this maternal feeling that transcended all logic.

It could have been a coincidence, you supposed. Lots of things were.

“What did you say?” you asked.

“I said you had a lot of things to take care of,” Jungkook replied. “But you’d call her when you had a free moment.”

You watched him as he spoke and noticed his eyes widen momentarily, clearly taken aback by what he’d just seen in your expression. You realised you hadn’t expected him to hide this from your mum, and your surprise must have shown.

Blinking, you turned away and gripped the edge of your duvet.

“Thank you,” you said.

“I also told her you’re very stressed,” he added quieter.

“Oh—well, that—you could have kept that to yourself,” you said, less enthusiastic about his thoughtfulness. “She’s going to freak out about it.”

“Let her,” he countered. “You’re her child. She’s worried about you. You have to let people worry about you when there’s a reason to.”

You had a different opinion, of course. But instead of arguing, you chose to find out what conclusions your mum had drawn from this brief exchange. She hadn’t heard from Jungkook directly in years, even though she knew you were working together.

“What did she—was she surprised to hear from you?” you asked.

Your question made Jungkook appear as if he was trying very hard to tap dance while sitting down. He bounced his legs, tapped his feet, and occasionally scratched something under his chin, above his nose, or on the back of his neck.

“Uh, well, we’re, um, you know,” he said. You were almost ready to assume that he was hiding something else. “You and me—w-we’re working together. She wasn’t that surprised.”

“Right, but I mean—”

“I told her not to worry too much, and that you’d love to hear from her,” he finished, skilfully diverting from the topic and speaking even louder so you wouldn’t have a chance to interject with another question. “She said she’d text you, and you should call her when you have a minute. Not right now, though. You’re resting now.”

Again, you tried, “I’m just—”

“She put Kai on the phone, too,” he added. “So, I talked to him for a second. He called you an idiot.”

That took a very unusual turn, you thought in surprise. Your mum hadn’t spoken to Jungkook in years, and now she wanted to put your brother on the phone, too—you were simply confused.

“He—why’d he say that?” you asked, presently more unnerved by the name-calling than your mother’s unexpected choices.

“For forgetting to call your mum, he said. And for working too much,” Jungkook replied. “Which is precisely what I warned you about in Amsterdam, so I honestly can’t believe this happened to you again. We asked you to take it easy, so at least listen to us now, and—”

It was hard to breathe in this still room, with the force of everyone’s concern weighing you down.

Slowly, you kicked one leg out from under the duvet. “I did take it easy.”

“Right,” he said, closing his eyes and mumbling, “you never fucking take it easy.”

You heaved yourself up to your feet, holding onto the IV stand for support. “I was—”

Jungkook looked up and jumped to his feet as soon as he realised what you were doing. “Where are you going? Sit down.”

“I’m fine. I’m just—”

He blocked your way, quickly ensuring that you did not have enough space to take another step.

“See, I told you you’d do this,” he groaned, his chest pressed against yours. “Just sit down.”

You tried not to stagger backwards—which was his intention, of course—and still stood your ground. “I just want to open the window, I’m—”

“Sit down.”

Huffing in angry resignation, you sat back down.

“Okay,” he said, stepping back from the bed to give you more space. “Now lie down.”

You rolled your eyes but settled back into a horizontal position, glaring at him all the while.

“Should I roll over, too?” you bit. “Give you a paw?”

“Not unless you want to.”

You bared your teeth. “Funny.”

“Just lie down, please,” he reiterated. “And just—just rest, okay? For a little while, at least. I’ll open the window.” He saw you open your mouth and added hurriedly, “I know you can do it yourself. But let me.”

Sighing, you surrendered to the warm confines of the duvet. “Okay. Thanks.”

He crossed the room and struggled with the curtains for a moment. He could tell you were watching him, and he felt irrationally nervous—he thought that if he did something wrong, you would try to get up again. Finally, he grabbed the handle of the window, twisted it and pulled. A moment or two later, a welcome breeze finally filled the stuffy room.

Relieved to be able to breathe something other than your discomfort, you watched Jungkook return to his armchair.

“You didn’t tell me if you’re okay,” you reminded him. “How’s your eye?”

He looked confused as he lifted his hand—as if to verify if the eye in question was still there—then paused and dropped it again.

“It’s working,” he said, sitting back down next to your bed.

“And the pain?”

He shrugged. “Bearable.”

“Good,” you said, slipping your hands under the covers and resting them on your stomach. “I’m glad you took out your eyebrow piercing before the whole thing with Sid, by the way. Otherwise, we might have had even more problems.”

Jungkook didn’t want that to be your shared problem—he was determined to carry out his plan, which he boldly referred to as “Getting My Shit Together”—but at the same time, he was glad that he didn’t cause you any additional distress. Honestly, he couldn’t have cared less about his piercings right now.

“I—yeah.” He rubbed his eyebrow absentmindedly. “I hadn’t planned it like that, but it worked out, I guess.”

“Did you get any rest?” you asked then.

The question felt misplaced, and his stomach sank at the sheer wrongness of it. You were always worried about others. And he always gave you reasons to worry.

Really, while he was happy—alright, ecstatic—that you thought of him, he should have been the one asking you this.

“How, uh—how do you mean?” he returned.

“After the flight,” you said.

He looked down at the beige carpet under his boots and shook his head. He couldn’t have slept even if he wanted to—not until he was sure you weren’t on your feet, insisting you were okay.

“I don’t need rest,” he said.

But as you looked at him, it was clear that rest was exactly what he needed. Beneath the imposing bandages, his eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was pale and waxy. He was still beautiful—Maggie would have made a joke about it—but in a way that made your heart ache if you looked at him too long.

“You should go,” you said. “Get some sleep.”

Jungkook gave you a look as if you had just confessed that you enjoyed beheading people in your spare time: incredulous and slightly offended.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

This was going to turn into a childish game, you knew it. But you tapped your thumbs together and still tried.

“What if I want to be alone?” you asked.

“Then I’ll call Luna and Maggie.”

Your arched eyebrows challenged his solution.

“When I said alone,” you clarified, “I didn’t mean not with you.”

For just a split second, he looked almost relieved to hear this. Then he bit his lip and brought a hand over his knee.

“If my presence is not the problem,” he said, “then I’m staying.”

“The problem,” you argued, “is that you’re going to end up in this bed, connected to an IV, if you don’t sleep.”

“Let’s cut to the chase,” he offered. “I’m not leaving you alone. In fact, I’m staying. Unless you explicitly tell me you can’t stand to look at me anymore.”

He gave you an opening to tease, and you enjoyed building up to it as you looked down and ran your tongue over your lips.

“And, uh, you’d leave then?” you asked—taunted, really.

“Begrudgingly,” he replied, as discontented as you were amused.

You nodded. “Alright.”

He raised his eyebrows, slightly dispirited. “You’re going to tell me to go?”

“No,” you said. “Stay.”

So he stayed.

And this moment in the hotel room, as the vitamin drip dribbled quietly into the intravenous tube, did not just feel bizarre. It felt a little like a parallel universe—like you’d lost consciousness in a world where you were very angry and very stressed, and had woken up in a world where only subtle echoes of all the fervent emotions you’d once felt existed.

In this world, all that you were feeling was eclipsed by what really mattered: the people who were in this room with you and had been waiting outside of it.

But you felt another particularly prominent sentiment, which was heightened even more by Jungkook’s relentless focus on you. You did not want to name it, however. To identify it was to give it power over you, and you liked to believe that you had your heartbeat under control right now.

“It’s like—this is just like back then again,” Jungkook said suddenly. “Isn’t it?”

You exhaled, returning to the jagged, uncertain moment.

“Yeah...” you said, stretching the vowels in a frantic attempt to fill the space that would soon turn into an awkward silence. “Thank you for not taking me to a hospital this time. This really isn’t so bad.”

“It is bad,” he disagreed right away. “But I didn’t want you to have another reason to feel stressed. I thought a hotel room would relax you more than a hospital room.”

“It would,” you said. “Thanks.”

He hung his head. “Yeah.”

Not the awkward silence, not the awkward silence, not the—

“Well,” you inhaled, “at least you won’t have to study for any finals this time, right?”

You expected him to smile back at the gentle jab about him failing his exam the last time you were in the hospital. But when Jungkook looked up, he looked crestfallen somehow—almost like he was disappointed that he did not have to study for finals this time.

“Yeah, um, actually—I-I didn’t fail my exam because I didn’t study for it,” he said in a slow, contemplative tone. He wasn’t sure if he could ever admit this to you, but he figured he didn’t have much left to lose. He’d already told you so much. He might as well tell you all the rest. “I failed because your friend texted me about twenty minutes before my final, saying that you left your exam looking very disoriented. She asked if I could check on you.”

Horror descended on your face as you realised what he meant.

“You went to look for me,” you surmised painfully, “and didn’t show up to take your final.”

He nodded and you shook your head with a newfound ferocity.

“Jungkook,” you said, remembering how you reacted when he first told you he had failed—how you immediately blamed his recklessness and his friends. How you brought up all of his mistakes and thought this was another one of them.

“You passed out,” he said. “I don’t regret it.”

“I yelled at you so much!” you continued, lost in your own guilt. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“You helped me study, too,” he defended, feeling almost uncomfortable. He’d never felt your reaction was inappropriate, even under the circumstances. He had failed the exam, after all—like he’d failed several others before.

You shook your head again. “Yeah, but—”

“It’s fine,” he cut you off.

“It’s not fine!” you refuted immediately. “It was my fault you failed.”

“It wasn’t your—”

“I thought it was your friends again,” you said. “I thought they distracted you, and you didn’t study.”

There it was—this vast precipice between what you thought had happened and what had actually happened. Now that years have passed, Jungkook didn’t even know where to start.

The fact was this: you believed that every time he failed you, it was his friends’ fault—and that belief comforted him. It was so appropriate, so fitting.

And sometimes it was true, but even when it wasn’t—when it was just him, not being good enough—your assumption that it was Sid’s fault didn’t paint Jungkook as desperate; merely reckless. Not hopeless, only a little dumb. He preferred it this way.

But now he took a deep breath.

“My friends did distract me from a lot of things,” he said. “But the truth is, sometimes… I tried too hard, and I didn’t want you to know about it. I couldn’t stand the thought of trying to do something for you and then—just completely fucking everything up and letting you down. Sometimes blaming my friends was a convenient excuse.”

You frowned. “What—what are you talking about?”

“Well,” he wiped his palms on his black cargo pants and stretched out his legs, “remember when we were planning to go on holiday together and I fucked up?”

Your frown deepened.

“Hawaii?” you asked. “When you bought the tickets home for the same day we were flying there?”

“Uh…” He hadn’t realised he’d messed up several times. “No. Different holiday. When I missed the train we were supposed to take to the beach? For our summer break?”

“Oh.” You nodded. “I remember. But I saw Sid’s Instagram videos with you, drinking at his garage. I know you were—”

“Those were old videos. And he posted them at a very bad time, which, honestly,” he chuckled sadly, “it’s nothing new for Sid. He seized every opportunity to make me miserable, and I was—I relied on that sometimes. I think he wanted to start an argument between us on the train, that’s why he posted those videos. The truth is, though, I didn’t even see him that day. I missed the train because I wanted to rent out a car and surprise you.”

The quiet confusion on your face prompted him to keep going.

“I didn’t want just any car,” he explained. “I wanted the same Cadillac convertible I’d rented out for our first anniversary.”

You had fond memories of the convertible. Not of the actual drive, which was, honestly, quite painful—there were bugs and unruly strands of your hair everywhere—but of the laughter you’d shared inside.

“It was summer, finally warm enough outside,” Jungkook recalled. “I thought it would be a nice way to relax after studying. I even, uh—I made decorations and everything. Glittery, silver letters that said, ‘just passed our finals’. It’s a play on ‘just married’, you know? It’s a—a joke.”

Eager to understand where this was going, you remained frozen on the bed, and Jungkook felt himself waver slightly. He was glad you weren’t laughing—he dreaded you’d laugh or find any of this as embarrassing as he did—but he slid his hands under his thighs anyway, as if to warm them.

“The thing is, though,” he continued. “I didn’t take my passport with me. Because you don’t need a passport when you’re taking the fucking train, but you can’t rent a car without one, and those fucking assholes at the rental shop—anyway. I went back to my dorm to pick it up, and by the time I got back, the rental shop had closed for lunch. And I missed the train.”

Your heartbeat was steady—fast, absolutely speeding, but steady nonetheless. It hadn’t slowed since he started speaking.

Your expression, however, was almost painfully concentrated. When he looked at you, it seemed as if you were listening to a séance where a spirit was recounting their death.

You cleared your throat and tried to speak. “I thought—”

“You thought I forgot about our trip and went out with Sid,” Jungkook finished for you.

You didn’t have to confirm it, he knew. The hope that this was what you would assume was his safety blanket—this way, he didn’t have to face the fact that he could never do anything right for you, not even when he tried so hard to.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked.

You weren’t angry at him for this because he’d made it to the beach later that night, after all. He had taken the last train and barged into your cabin just after midnight. You had nearly knocked him out with a bedside lamp, assuming it was an intruder.

But you didn’t understand the point of allowing you to believe—for years—that it was Sid’s fault. Why didn’t he defend himself?

“Because—did you not hear me describe the letters I’d cut out from glittery paper?” Jungkook asked, his voice high-pitched in irritation at himself. “It’s embarrassing. I should have just met you at the train station like I said I would.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” you questioned. “Why put all this effort?”

“Because I love you,” he replied. You tugged on the IV tube again as you squirmed and unconsciously flexed your arm. “And because I saw your friends get picked up by their boyfriends in their cars. I saw those boyfriends bring them massive bouquets of roses. I saw all the grand fucking gestures that I could never do for you, because I didn’t have enough—I wasn’t—it was mortifying. I thought that you deserved the world, and all I could give you was… some fucking wildflowers before our dates.”

The corners of your lips twitched as you tried to speak, “it’s—I loved your wildflowers, though. And I never cared about anything else.”

“I know,” he said. “But I did.”

You looked down at the white duvet. “You and your gestures.”

Jungkook hummed, but did not add anything else. He was thinking—and regretting his silences. You were thinking, too—and wondering if this was the only time he allowed you to assume that his friends were at fault when they weren’t.

The room around you stilled, adapting to the atmosphere of the conversation. Even your drip quieted.

But then someone knocked on the door of the hotel room, and you and Jungkook almost lit up with relief.

“It’s us!” Luna’s voice called out just as Jungkook stood up to check who it was.

Your friends had returned with paper boxes of Thai food—enough to feed at least five people, from what you could see from your bed—and waved at you from the doorway.

A conversation followed—one that you couldn’t quite hear, except for irrelevant snippets, such as “are you sure?” and “well, okay”—and then Jungkook stepped away from the door, allowing the two girls to address you.

“Apparently, we’ll be heading back to the bus for a quick nap,” Luna said. Jungkook gave her a disapproving look that she promptly ignored. “Is that okay with you? Jungkook will stay.”

Your reflexive response was, of course, to try to dismiss their responsibility. “He doesn’t—neither of you have to stay—”

“Someone is staying,” Jungkook stated, his voice strict, final. “And I would like to be the one to do that.”

You weren’t protesting against him specifically, but as you prepared to reply, you realised it might seem that way. Your hesitant silence was a chance for Jungkook to nod at the two girls again. They nodded back, but then glanced back at you.

“Our phones are on,” Maggie said, lifting her device up for you to see. “So, you can still call or text us at any point, and we’ll rush over here right away.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows. “That certainly does not make it sound like I’m about to torture her.”

You bit back a smile on your bed while Luna said simply, “just a precaution.”

“I get it,” he said. “And I’ll personally call you if I say or do anything that’s over the line.”

Neither Luna, nor Maggie had a response to that, and you looked up to meet three pairs of expectant eyes.

“I—it’s okay,” you said to the girls. “You—yes, get some rest. We’ll be fine here. Thank you.”

“Okay. We’ll be back!” Luna promised, shooting a warning look at Jungkook, while Maggie waved her phone and called out at you, “text us!”

You wanted to give them a small wave, but the thick duvet and the persistent catheter digging into your arm made it difficult to pull your hands out, so all you managed to do was just shuffle around under the covers and nod at them.

The girls left the take-out boxes inside, waved at you again, and walked away.

Jungkook closed the door and slowly returned to his seat, his shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, and steps unsteady. He looked lost and frightened.

He didn’t want you to misunderstand his intentions. He didn’t want to stay here just to have you to himself, to apologise and to beg for your forgiveness. He wanted to stay because he couldn’t breathe when he didn’t know if you were okay.

As his hesitation hung in the air, memories of your previous hospital stay returned to you again, and you closed your eyes to shake them off.

“You should eat something,” you said.

Jungkook refused.

“When was the last time you ate anything?” you prodded.

Again, he mumbled and hummed under his breath, evading the question and sitting very still—as if he was expecting something. As if something was coming.

And you realised that something was coming. But you had to speak to bring that something here.

“So, then—w-was there anything else?” you finally asked.

Jungkook knew you were referring to the moment he’d just revealed, this deliberate misunderstanding. It was all he could think about. This was the something.

“There was,” he said with a sigh. “But I don’t—”

“Tell me about it.”

He had a lump in his throat that he couldn’t swallow—but not due to his lack of trying—and he suddenly felt like he was standing in front of a jury of his peers.

He didn’t want you to keep thinking that he hadn’t made an effort for you when he had, only it never turned out well. But he was also nervous about you learning how hard—and how impossibly much—he tried. He thought it would only highlight his shortcomings—and there were many of them.

He’d convinced himself that if you didn’t know about them, then he wasn’t letting you down. It was challenging to break out of this conviction now.

“Well—t-that Valentine’s Day,” he stammered. “Our second one—do you remember?”

You remembered right away. Despite your distaste for the commercialisation of the holiday, it still stung that Jungkook had avoided you the whole day. And for several days after that, too—although you’d assumed that to be deliberate. He’d missed Valentine’s Day and didn’t want to see you out of guilt.

“Sure,” you said.

“Well, that wasn’t Sid’s fault, either,” he said. “I know you thought we went on a drinking binge that weekend because Sid happened to conveniently go off the grid right at that time. He had a habit of—”

“But you weren’t with him?” you interjected, impatient.

“No. He was—it was nearly a Weekend at Bernie’s situation. There was some event happening at Jude’s summer house that weekend,” Jungkook said, and you tried to control yourself before you made mocking comments about the idea that people had enough money to own seasonal houses. “And Jude got so high that Sid and some of Jude’s cousins had to pretend he was just not feeling his best whenever his parents asked about him. They mimicked his voice through the door and everything.”

“So, where were you then?”

“I was—well, I—I spent that whole day—ah, no,” he stopped abruptly and brought his palms over his face, lacing his fingers over his mouth as he changed his mind. He couldn’t do this. It was awful. He was such a mess. “You know what? Maybe it’s better if you keep thinking I was at that summer house with them.”

“No,” you opposed in frustration, lunging forward to sit up. You did not listen to him drone on about Sid and Jude just to have him change his mind. “Now you have to tell me.”

Jungkook raised his head when you moved—his concern for you overwhelmed his chagrin.

“Okay, okay, don’t—lie down,” he asked, gesturing at the pillow.

You complied to get him to keep going. He took a breath.

“Just so you know,” he cautioned, “this might finally ruin my bad boy reputation.”

“You never had one.”

He clicked his tongue against his lower teeth. “Okay, ouch.”

You grinned. “Tell me. What really happened?”

He hesitated for another second, bouncing his knee up and down, up and down, and then stilling completely.

“Well, for one thing,” he began finally, “I was going to make dinner. That didn’t go well, because the communal kitchens were—well, you know. But that’s fine, I didn’t worry too much because there’s always take-out.”

You nodded. The communal kitchens in both of your dormitories were typically crowded with people or they smelled so terrible from a failed cooking experiment that it was simply wiser not to set foot in there.

“There was a great pizza place literally two blocks from your dorm,” you pointed out.

“Yeah, exactly.” He nodded in agreement. “But, um, we’d already gone out for a fancy dinner on Valentine’s Day the year before, so I wanted this year to be more… special. I don’t know. Or different, at least. So, I thought I’d cook and make you a slideshow. And—okay, you’ll have to stop smiling if you want me to continue.”

You hadn’t realised you were smiling. You pursed your lips and pulled them to each side to compose yourself.

“Sorry,” you said. “Continue.”

“Right,” he said. “So I made a PowerPoint. Added all of our pictures that I could find in my camera roll, wrote some funny captions. There were going to be at least 200 slides, I’m pretty sure you would have fallen asleep in the middle. I even recorded an acoustic Sleep Token cover to use as background music.”

You told yourself you’d stay quiet, but your disbelief was uncontrollable. “You didn’t!”

“I did,” he said, smiling, but trying not to, for the sake of the story. “It’s gone, though. I erased all traces of that night.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Well, I, uh—I didn’t want just to play you the slides on my laptop,” he said, scratching nervously at his chest over his dark grey hoodie. “I wanted something more.”

You nodded. “Of course.”

He looked away instead of acknowledging your comment.

“Then I remembered something I saw on Instagram that could have been cool. It was one of those aesthetic accounts. They had a picture of this dark, cosy room with a projector screening a film right on this white wall,” he said. “So, I thought, well, shit! I have a white wall behind my wardrobe. And the science lab downstairs has a projector.”

You didn’t like this as you stiffened on the bed, mumbling a dreading, “dear God.”

“Yeah.” He paused to lick his lips. “But it’s probably not what you think. I got the fucking projector.”

He said that with so much grandeur that you couldn’t help but raise your eyebrows—questioning if this was really something to be proud of.

He recapped the story anyway, “I took my roommate’s wrench, and it really didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to open the lab door, unscrew the projector, and bring it back up to my room.”

You shut your eyes and scrunched your nose at the step-by-step description. You wondered if there was a statute of limitations here, and if you would have been considered an accomplice now that you knew about this.

“They have security cameras, though,” you said, glancing at him again. “Don’t they?”

“They do,” Jungkook confirmed. He had a sardonic smile on his face. “Why do you think I was suspended for a month after Valentine’s Day?”

You lost him there. “Wait—they knew you stole the projector?”

“Borrowed,” he corrected. “I returned it two days later. But, yeah, uh—Minjun actually pulled some strings here. His dad went to university with the dean, so he vouched for me. Told him it was all a misunderstanding, and that it would never happen again.”

You looked away, frantically sifting through memories of the month after that particular Valentine’s Day. You remembered not seeing Jungkook for a few days after it, but you saw him fairly regularly later on. He would hang out in your dorm while you had classes, claiming not to have anything better to do.

It took you a full minute to properly recall the explanation he’d given about his suspension.

“Oh,” you said. “Minjun told me that you got suspended because you were caught completely wasted, spray-painting one of the campus buildings.”

Jungkook nodded, his eyes cast low.

“To be fair, I did spray-paint that one,” he admitted. “And I was probably wasted when I did it. But I wasn’t caught.”

You weren’t sure if “spray-painting” was a lesser offence than “stealing a projector from a laboratory” in your eyes, but you didn’t want to question Minjun’s decision now.

“Okay,” you said. “So what happened after you stole the projector?”

“Well, I took the borrowed projector up to my room and set it up,” he replied. “Everything looked great. I was going to give you the best Valentine’s Day dinner this world has ever fucking seen.”

He smacked his palms against his thighs as he spoke, showing off his determination, and you found yourself resisting a smile again. Jungkook had a certain way of telling stories—his changing smiles and small chuckles, his hand gestures and even his tone of voice always made it feel more vivid.

“But, um, I had to move the wardrobe to get a bare wall,” he continued. “And, uh, what I did not foresee was that, earlier that very same day, my roommate’s electric kettle had broken. He went out, purchased a new one. And he put the old one on top of the wardrobe to save space.” Jungkook gave you a moment to think back on this roommate. “You remember the guy, he hoarded everything, all kinds of fucking cables and wires, and—anyway. So, I started to push the wardrobe, and the fucking kettle—it fell and hit me right on the top of my head.”

A surprised gasp left your lips—a stark contrast to the easy, laid-back way he had just spoken.

Jungkook nodded in response to your reaction. “Yeah. My vision sort of darkened and I thought I heard something crack—I, uh, I did think it was my skull, not going to lie.”

He chuckled again—to minimise the impact of his words once more—but you sat up despite his inevitable protests.

“Jungkook!” you scolded. “And you didn’t tell me?!”

“Well, my skull obviously didn’t really crack.”

“I’m not so sure that it didn’t.”

“Anyway,” he stressed. “There wasn’t any blood or anything, so after a few minutes of sitting on the floor, I figured I was good to go. Then I stood up, and, uh—I don’t think you need a visual of what happened then.”

You closed your eyes.

Really, no. You did not need a visual.

About a year ago, at one of the smaller Rated Riot concerts—at a club that seemed harmless at first glance—Jungkook had climbed over to a wooden ceiling beam and swung his arms over it to brachiate across the narrow joist. The beam turned out to be heavily lacquered, and his sweaty palms slid right off, forcing him to crash onto the table below.

He gave himself a concussion, dislocated his shoulder, broke $200 worth of bottles and glasses, and frightened the living hell out of the middle-aged couple who were sitting at the table that he’d landed on.

“Yeah,” you said in your quiet hotel room. “I can imagine.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook breathed out. He recalled this exact same moment—and he knew that, once again, the cause of his injury was his own overexertion. “So, I spent the whole night in my dorm room, on the floor—because I couldn’t crawl to my bed—hoping that I wouldn’t die.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to call me?” you asked—not gently. “Or the fucking ambulance, actually?”

“No,” he replied, unfazed by your disapproving tone. “Not if it meant having to explain what I was doing before all of that happened.”

“You’re crazy,” you said, shaking your head. “You clearly got a concussion, and you didn’t do anything about it.”

“To be fair,” he said, “it’s not that I was embarrassed about it or anything. I was just—horrified that I’d let you down. It was Valentine’s Day. I wanted to give you a slideshow and a romantic fucking dinner. Not—not lie on the floor of my room, half passed out.”

You fought against a pensive sadness. It seemed unfair that this night had not gone the way he’d planned.

“W-well, what did your roommate say when he returned?” you asked instead.

Jungkook poked his cheek with his tongue. “He wasn’t very happy that I broke his old kettle.”

“You broke his—Jesus Christ.” Your hands were on your face as you fell back and buried your head into the pillows. “So, he just left you there on the floor?”

“I assume he thought I was drunk.”

“Fucking—what a—and he was valedictorian, wasn’t he? What a fucking moron,” you groaned. “I knew I should have kicked his ass while I had the chance. I never liked him.”

Jungkook felt a warm rush of comfort to hear how agitated you were getting on his behalf.

“Yeah, he didn’t like me very much, either,” he said. “But that’s um—that’s the story. I missed Valentine’s Day, almost died, and got suspended. I couldn’t possibly tell you what happened.”

“No, how could you?” you deadpanned. “Your reputation was at stake.”

He smiled. “Precisely.”

Even though you joked about this, and he was grateful that you did, both of you knew that this was not entirely about upholding some specific “bad boy” image.

You’d already witnessed this side of him – the side that felt anxious and dreaded the thought of not being good enough. Of not meeting expectations. Of letting others down.

In fact, now that you thought about it, your first proper conversation during this tour had been about this very issue.

“The time I was arrested,” Jungkook said, his shaky voice interrupting your thoughts, “that was—it might have been another one of those times.”

“What?” you asked, perplexed again. “How—I was at the police station with you—the officers—”

“I don’t remember a lot of details,” he interrupted. “So, I’m—I’m not really sure. But, uh, apparently, that night we didn’t just spray-paint a building. Or spit at the officers, allegedly, while we ran from them. The police assumed Minjun and I were the “drunk and disorderly” call that they received an hour before they found us.”

Your memories of that night were hazy, too—mostly because you refused to go over the details in your mind. All you could remember was Jungkook calling you from the precinct and asking—in the most resigned voice you’ve ever heard—if you could come pick him up. The story that you were given when you arrived at the police station only came back to your memory in fragments: property damage. Assault of police officers. Resisting arrest.

“You weren’t?” you asked.

“No,” Jungkook said. “We had some drinks at a bar outside of town, and Sid started harassing some bikers across the street. Someone called the police. Jude said he even punched someone there, I don’t know. Minjun and I were already back in the city at that time. I asked him to come with me to keep watch. I wanted to spray-paint these song lyrics for you—”

Your head jerked as your surprise prevented you from shaking it properly. “Wait—you—what? What lyrics?”

“It’s—well, you know what lyrics,” he replied, timid suddenly. “There was only one song we listened to all the time.”

You remembered.

It’s you and me ‘til the end of time.

You swallowed, breathless, and almost completely weightless as you clutched the duvet tighter in an attempt to ground yourself.

“The building I chose was downtown,” Jungkook continued. “Right across the street from the park where we had our first—well, our first date. I wanted that place to have something—something that we both loved. To commemorate all that we had, I don’t know. I haven’t been a very good boyfriend to you at the time, and I wanted to redeem that.”

The unexpected tightness in your stomach worried you for a second, but the sedative must not have fully worn off yet, because you took a deep breath and felt your body wind down a little. The room continued to blur behind Jungkook, but you suspected that your condition or medication had little to do with that.

“And, uh,” you tried to ask, “the police found you there?”

Jungkook nodded.

“I think Sid guided them to us,” he said. “It never made sense to me why the police would even go there. No one patrolled those streets, what was the point? Not to mention, it was dark, we were dressed in black, and—honestly, it wasn’t our first time with graffiti. But what happened was, I got a text from Sid, saying that someone at the bar had called the cops on him. And not five minutes later, he and Jude both showed up downtown, and we heard sirens.”

“So, what did you do?” you asked—uncertain, suddenly, if you’d actually asked him this before. You had talked to one police officer that night and had accepted everything he told you as the truth.

“Well, Minjun and I ran, of course,” Jungkook said.

“And the other two?”

“I can’t remember the exact sequence of—I was—I was drunk,” he said, giving you an apologetic look. He wanted to share the whole story with you, but he wasn’t sure if he knew it himself. “I remember Sid and Jude shouting at us that they would hold the cops back while we ran—and I didn’t even—we didn’t even think that there was anything weird about that. Minjun and I just ran.”

You felt your memories frantically rearrange themselves after every word that he said. Your head had turned into a disorderly, confused mess.

“The, um—the spitting, then?” you asked.

“That had to be Sid and Jude,” Jungkook speculated. “But I guess I might have done that, too. I, uh—I want you to have the full story, so I won’t deny things that I can’t even remember. I’m thinking about it now, and I don’t know which moments were really Minjun and me, and which were actually Sid and Jude. We were all very drunk, and nobody at the police station believed a word we were saying anyway.”

You nodded, urging him to continue, and he did—grateful and a little scared that you were listening to him so intently.

“Minjun and I got a good head start,” he spoke. “I don’t know what Sid and Jude meant by saying they’d hold the police back, because three officers still chased after us. But they were always at least five metres behind—I could tell from the distant sound of their shoes. I remember feeling so disconnected from my feet as I ran, I could sense I was going to trip. I don’t—honestly, I’m not saying this to defend myself—but I don’t know how I would have managed to look at the cops over my shoulder, spit at them from five metres away, and keep running without breaking my neck or falling over.”

“Hmm—yeah. I don’t know, either,” you said, turning away from him. You understood that it was important for him to clear his conscience, especially if he had been held accountable for something he didn’t even do, but you had other questions. “I’m confused about something else, though. If you and Minjun were being chased while Sid and Jude stayed back, why weren’t they brought into the station?”

All Jungkook did was raise his head and give you a look.

“Right,” you realised. “Of course. Money.”

He looked back down and nodded.

Exhaling, you studied the ceiling tiles for a few seconds before admitting, “I’ve always had a feeling that Sid had set you up.”

“Yeah,” he replied with surprising calmness. “I think so, too.”

You ran your fingers over your hair and pulled a strand from the back of your head to toy with it as you tried to think.

In every conversation that you’ve had about Sid using Jungkook as a scapegoat, Jungkook had either insisted that you were misunderstanding, or he simply fell silent (to avoid arguments, you assumed, and not necessarily to indicate his agreement with you).

This felt very new and particularly unusual. He wasn’t feeding into your dislike for his friends. He was doing something else now, but you were hesitant to draw conclusions about what it might be.

He had claimed he was done with Sid right after their fight, but after enduring his insufferable friends for years, you weren’t ready to believe that you wouldn’t have to see Sid’s nauseating mug again.

“But, anyway,” Jungkook said after a quiet minute. “Minjun and I apologised. Minjun paid bail. We signed something—I don’t even know what that was. And I went home with you. That’s the, um—the whole story as I remember it.”

You simmered in your cluttered mind for a moment longer, attempting to form a thought that you could voice. But all you could manage was a question. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“Would it have made a difference?” he asked. “I was still caught. You had to come and pick me up.”

“At least I—it would have—okay. I don’t know,” you finished lamely. This was a ‘what if’ that you didn’t have the strength to consider.

He hadn’t lied to you, though, you realised—and you weren’t sure how that made you feel. He allowed you to make assumptions that his friends were to blame, and he went along with it. That wasn’t worse than outright lying to you, but it wasn’t much better, either—it still put an unnecessary strain on your relationship.

Logically then, knowing the whole truth about what was happening with him might have made a significant difference. He had good intentions—yet he did not use them to defend himself.

You felt a little sorry that he only told you now, when you couldn’t go back and see what would have happened if you’d known about this all along.

But you realised you did not feel angry. You couldn’t find a specific point in his revelations that you could point at and say, “this is the one. This will be the reason why I can’t stand to look at you anymore.”

You couldn’t say that his choice to be silent made sense, but you knew him. And you understood why he made that choice. The way you saw it, this was partially his friends’ fault anyway.

All on his own, Jungkook wouldn’t have felt this uncertain, this insecure to admit to you that he loved you and that he wanted to show that to you in unorthodox ways—a lot of which didn’t work out.

“So, you just…” you spoke up again. “You were okay with me assuming that you were out with friends every night? That you chose them over us repeatedly?”

Jungkook sighed. If there was anything he’d learned over the past few days, it was that communication was not his strong suit. But now he’d reached a point of no return. He had to talk.

“Honestly, I thought it was a better alternative,” he said. “I thought I was a miserable try-hard. And I realised after our conversation in Amsterdam that, well... this is part of the reason why I didn't—why I assumed that you broke up with me because you didn’t love me anymore. And not because I kept fucking up.”

Your breaths were shallow as you listened to him.

“I think that it turned against me, this unnecessary secrecy,” Jungkook continued. “I wanted to be the best for you, and when I couldn’t be, Sid became a great excuse. But in my head—for me, he didn’t seem to have that big of a presence in our relationship. But of course, after I blamed my own mistakes on Sid, too, they built up. And, in the end, I think what happened was that…”

He faltered and you finished his sentence for him, “I started to see that all the reasons why something went wrong in our relationship were Sid. Sid. Sid. Sid.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I made you think that if I was given a choice, I’d choose my friends over you. Which I wouldn’t! But, um—I had a very poor way of showing that. Have, actually. Still do. I’m sorry.”

“Hmm.” You turned away. “Do you—you know what else I think this is?”

He looked at you. “What?”

“Sid’s influence,” you said. “You were so scared that he would think you’re hopeless or pathetic that you couldn’t even talk about the things that you did—the things that you wanted to do for me. You thought you were a ‘try-hard’ because your friends convinced you that you were.”

Jungkook felt stunned and a little nauseous.

He didn’t know if this was something he’d implied in his endless attempts to apologise for the bet, but you articulated everything he had struggled to convey.

He was trying to prove to Sid that he wasn’t pathetic—and he was doing it long before Sid suggested the bet. He was doing it every time he went out with his friends. He was doing it every time he allowed you to blame these friends after he missed your dates—just so he wouldn’t have to admit how much he tried to make these dates special, and how miserably he’d failed at that.

Eventually, he began to accept that he was truly pitiful for being so stubbornly in love with you. He hated their pity. He wanted to change it. Make it not so.

But the aftermath of the bet made him realise that all he really did, was prove that he was pathetic—he wanted to get you back in any desperate way possible.

He was okay with that now.

He was okay with being so in love with you that he couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t focus on anything else. Couldn’t stay where he was, repeating the same mistakes, going round and round, because he needed to grow. Needed to become someone who deserved you.

He was okay with it because being pitiful meant being in love with you, and he would never try to fight against that.

And you knew all these things about him. You knew everything.

He didn’t really understand how the world worked and he didn’t know if destiny played favourites. But he remembered writing a line in one of Rated Riot’s earlier songs—you weren't made for me, that much is true / but I was made for you—and he was once again confronted with the weight of this realisation.

He loved you. He’s always been yours so completely and wholeheartedly that you read him without looking at him.

He liked to think he knew you well—but that was extremely presumptuous of him. You were a universe within a universe. Really, it was you who knew him in ways he didn’t know himself.

“I—you’re right,” he said, running his tongue over his chapped lips. “I shouldn’t have given a fuck about what they thought, but I did. And I don’t—I, um—I don’t want this to seem like I am an angel for telling you about all that. No, I fucked up. Many times. We went binge-drinking, drag-racing, we skipped classes, failed tests, spray-painted buildings—”

“Stole projectors,” you interjected.

“—stole projectors,” he repeated reluctantly. “It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, while I only pretended to fuck up. No. I took you for granted many times, I know I did. And I’m—I’ll always be sorry about that. But I’m—I’ve kicked him out. Sid. I’m done. Truly done this time. And I don’t even care if Jude stays.”

The way his voice broke off at the last sentence sounded like he cared a little, but you recognised the determination in his eyes when you looked at him. He’d made a decision.

“And Minjun?” you asked.

Jungkook inhaled. “Minjun… said he’d stay.”

“Good,” you said.

“Good—yeah?” he asked, evidently surprised. “You think so?”

Minjun had constantly looked like a kicked puppy when you were in the room. Now that you understood why, you thought you liked him a little more for it.

“Yeah,” you said. “I think he’s the only one of your friends worth keeping.”

“I’m starting to see that, too,” he admitted. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

You looked down. With half of the vitamin drip gone now, you felt your body start to return to you—and, automatically, the surreal haze inside this hotel room began to clear. You were no longer floating somewhere on the ceiling and only pretending that you were perfectly fine.

You were coming back to yourself. And the return was rugged and painful.

 “You, um—you keep apologising to me like—like you’re obligated to respond to me,” you said. Jungkook didn’t know if you realised it, but your voice changed when you spoke to him as his manager and not as someone he’d known and loved for over seven years. “I’m your manager, but these things—you can—I shouldn’t tell you how to live your life. That’s not my—”

“I want it to be, though,” he cut you off with a sudden boldness that he hadn’t realised he still had in him. “I-I mean, I don’t want you to worry about me like that ever again, but I—I want you to think about me. Sometimes, you’re the only person who truly does.”

You shook your head—not to rid yourself of the responsibility, but to remind him, yet again, that he had people who wanted what was best for him.

And, honestly, he knew he did. He just wanted you.

“You have your grandma,” you said.

“Yeah, of course,” he said, nodding distractedly. “But, um, you know.”

“And you’re loved by thousands,” you continued. “They all want you to stay safe.”

He smiled—appreciative but oddly apologetic.

“I’m grateful for that,” he said. “It’s just that—I want you to be the one who wants that for me. I’ve only ever loved you, I’ve never—never been in a relationship with anyone who wasn’t you. And I don’t want to be, so the next thing that you say better not be about me finding someone else, because—”

“You have been in other relationships, though,” you said despite his warning. You didn't know if this was really true, but you ploughed ahead anyway—just to say something. “I don’t know how long or short, but Sid always bragged about your double dates whenever he called me to pick you up, so—”

“The double dates,” Jungkook said, “meant that Sid was on a date with two girls at the same time. And I was there for decoration.”

You scoffed. “I hardly imagine that to be possible, considering Sid looks like a sewer rat on a good day.”

Jungkook wanted to argue, but he was too amused by this image.

“And, um—what do I look like?” he asked.

You blinked, taken aback by the question, then quickly turned away to gaze out the window instead. “You look… you know what you look like.”

“No,” he said, fully grinning now. “Now that you mention it, I realise I actually have no idea what I look like.”

“There’s a mirror on the wall right behind you.”

“It’s like I’m blind, I don’t know what’s—”

“You’re ridiculous,” you groaned, your face warm. “You look nice. Move on.”

“Oh! That’s high praise coming from you.” He made an effort to bow. “Thank you.”

“Fuck off,” you retorted because you couldn’t smack him on the shoulder. Instead, you motioned with your hand, urging him to keep going. “Sid couldn’t get a date with a personality worse than his looks. Not if you were there.”

“I’m sure the expensive restaurant worked in his favour,” Jungkook remarked.

You threw your head back, realising the significance of money yet again. “Ah.”

“In any case, I don’t care,” he said. He cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat. “I never wanted to be with anyone who wasn’t you anyway. Which—as you’ll be happy to point out—sounds silly because when Sid was in a good mood, he was very dedicated to making sure neither of us left the club alone.”

You shrugged one of your shoulders, trying to come off as casual. “Well, since you brought it up.”

“Yeah, well.” He sighed, not running away from this, because, frankly, there was nowhere to run. “And you’re, uh—you’re my manager. You know what I’ve been doing after hours anyway.”

“Hmm.”

You didn’t have a better response, because there was something that Luna had said to you the other day that would not leave your mind alone.

He had the option to keep the bet a secret from you.

This evening had been filled with these options.

It would have been easy not to mention his miserable attempts at grand gestures or the people who were there after you. But he was bringing up everything—every little detail from your relationship and after it—and you sat expressionless on the bed, not knowing what to make of any of it.

“I meant what I said, though,” Jungkook said, leaning forward again. He felt restless; as if he could jump out of his skin if he tried hard enough. “You’re the only meaningful relationship I’ve had. It wasn’t fair for me to pretend to be interested in a second date with someone else, when I constantly caught myself thinking about if I’d ever see you again. Or when I’d see you again, after we started to work together.”

Your eyes were focused on the sheets of the bed, but he still didn’t dare to look at you.

“I didn’t want to believe that I could still be in love with you after all this time,” he said. “But—well, the evidence is against me.”

“W-why’d you go with Sid then?” you asked—quickly. Before he said something else that you didn’t know how to respond to. “Clubbing and on these dates?”

He clenched his jaw. “Well, you said it. I was trying to prove to him that I wasn’t pathetic. That I wasn’t in love with you anymore.”

“But why did you care so much about what he thought?” you pushed, and there was a hint of hurt in your voice. Jungkook felt his heart leap over several beats as it pounded against his ribs. “Why did his opinion matter to you more than mine?”

He exhaled so deeply that it was almost a miracle his lungs hadn’t collapsed. His insides were burning with regret. With an urge to turn back time. An urge to make things right.

“Because I was—I was a fucking idiot. For years before I met you, I thought Sid had everything I wanted,” he said—which was equally as simple as it was unfair, and, in retrospect, stupid. “The freedom, the audacity to do whatever the fuck he pleased. No consequences, ever.”

You remembered him saying the same thing to you on the bridge in Stockholm and felt yourself shiver as though the wind from that night had followed you all the way here.

“And the way he treated me when I was single was different, too,” Jungkook continued. “I was single, I was in a band, and it finally felt like he approved of me, like we were actually friends. Like we were equals. And I cared about that so fucking much. It felt like I finally had everything that he had, and I was just—blind.”

“But you didn’t,” you said. “You didn’t have what he has. I don’t think you ever will.”

Jungkook was surprised to realise that hearing this did not sting.

He agreed.

“Yeah,” he said. “I actually—I had so much more than Sid would ever have, because I had you. And that’s—that’s probably why he dragged me around with him. He was determined to make me truly lose you like he always made me lose everything. And I let him—I helped him make that come true. I can’t—I’m not much better than him. I want to believe I am, but I’m—I made the bet.”

You remembered thinking that Jungkook and Sid could never be equals, because Sid always needed Jungkook to have less. And now that you heard Jungkook come to a similar conclusion on his own, you thought you felt the room shift a little.

“Yeah,” you said, distracted. “T-that—the bet was fucked up.”

“I know. I’m—I’m sorry,” he said. “I just—I want you to know that I meant everything I had said. All of it. And I understand why you don’t want to believe me. I, uh—I know your family history. But I’ve got mine, too. My grandpa is almost eighty. He’s only ever loved one person his whole life. So did my dad. So will I. It’s just—regardless of what’s going to happen, you’re—I’ll always love you.”

You cleared your throat once, then once more—louder.

Jungkook was about ready to get up, alarmed suddenly, but you quieted and looked around. He caught a glimpse of your eyes as you scanned the room and he realised—in a paradoxical sense of relief—that you were frightened.

Not angry. Not refusing to believe him. Not disappointed or frustrated.

Just scared.

“It’s uh—it’s really late,” you said, looking back at the window. “Isn’t it? The sky’s completely dark.”

He swallowed. You didn’t want to talk about this. And you shouldn’t. You needed rest.

“Yeah, uh… do you want me to close the curtains?” he asked, swallowing all that was still left unsaid.

It was impossible anyway, he supposed, to pour seven years of misguided decisions into one conversation. He was just relieved you hadn’t asked him to leave.

“No,” you said. “Keep them open. I want to see the sky.”

He’d hoped you would say that, and he felt an almost forgotten lightness in his chest when you did. Lots of things had changed over the past few days, but a lot of things hadn’t—including your love for the night.

“A lot of stars tonight,” he said meaningfully. He was glad he had accidentally picked a hotel room with a view of boring back alleys: there were no lights to cover up the stars now.

“Yeah,” you agreed, much calmer. “They’re beautiful.”

There was a quote in a book his grandmother had once read to him: “are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?”

He remembered feeling oddly wistful when he heard it. He imagined the night sky behind his closed eyes and he felt as though he was lacking something crucial—something that would come, but not yet.

He remembered watching the way you watched the stars back in Tilburg—hours before it all fell apart.

The night sky had always reminded him of you—really, even before he met you.

“I could open the window wider,” he suggested.

You closed your eyes.

“Could you?” you asked quietly.

“Yeah.” He stood up and approached the window, pulling the frame until he saw the ends of the curtains lift off the floor. “A distinct smell, isn’t it? The night.”

“It is,” you agreed.

It probably shouldn’t have been possible at this point, but as he turned around and traced your features with his gaze, he thought he fell in love with you a little more at this moment.

“We, um, we have this song,” he found himself saying as he returned to the armchair next to your bed. This song had been buzzing in his head nearly the whole night tonight. You could feel his nervousness as he mumbled, “ah, you probably know it already, it’s so obvious. And I told you in Oslo—okay, anyway. We have this song. It’s a B-side on our second single.”

“Cursed,” you said, recalling the title easily enough because this was your mum’s favourite song.

You always thought that the single—“Haunting,” which was their second title track and the very first Rated Riot song that you’d heard—overshadowed “Cursed.” Perhaps unfairly.

“Yeah.” Jungkook nodded. “Who, um—who do you think inspired it?”

Swallowing, you willed your thoughts to clear, so you wouldn’t have to think about the lyrics, but could not do it.

You remembered the entire chorus with perfect clarity, as though you were listening to Rated Riot perform the song in concert right now—Taehyung heavy on the bass and Jungkook yelling out the lyrics with his whole body leaning over the edge of the stage towards the audience.

You’re for the stars and for the moon to see /

You weren’t made for me /

You’re for the night and for the day to breathe /

You’re everything they want to be /

You're the enchantment that makes planets turn /

You’re more than the entire world /

You weren’t made for me, that much is true /

But I was made for you.

“I have no idea,” you said finally. You hoped, against all odds, this was a song that Yoongi wrote when he was drunk—those tended to be very emotional. “Was this the, um, absinthe one?”

Jungkook snickered humourlessly and shook his head.

“Don’t do this to me,” he asked, looking down for a moment—just until he could count the four loose threads in the carpet. Then he returned his gaze to you.

“It was you,” he said. “Your love for the night sky. I know it’s your favourite thing in the world.”

He said that and suddenly your chest was filled with them—with these stars that you loved to watch and he loved to sing about.

“W-well, that’s—you’re, um,” you struggled, “you’re not wrong about that, I guess.”

“It’s a song about my favourite thing in the world, too,” he added.

“W-what’s that?”

He had a sad smile on his face. “You.”

Your stomach tightened again and you squeezed your eyes shut—a feeble attempt to get away from this situation and from all the thoughts that your head could no longer contain.

“Not tonight,” you whispered. “I can’t—I don’t want to talk about us or about—about anything else tonight.”

“Okay,” he agreed immediately. “We won’t talk about it.”

“Okay,” you echoed, even though his laid-back response did not relax you.

You sensed longing in his words, and anguish. He would have done anything you asked him to—and this power scared you. You didn’t want it. You just wanted—

Exhaling loudly to drown out your thoughts, you turned to a side and glanced at the bandages on his face.

“Tomorrow, we will have to—we’ll have to figure out what to do with your eye,” you said.

Jungkook had not fully returned to this planet yet. “My eye?”

“Yes,” you said, giving him a longer look—as if to check if you hadn’t dreamt him—and then closing your eyes again. “Your black eye.”

He reached up to touch the bandages, perpetually confused about his injuries. “Oh—what do you mean, what to do with it?”

“Well, it’d probably be weird to cut it out, so we’ll have to cover it up.”

“Hmm.” He smiled at the ease in your voice. If everything else was lost, he hoped that he would at least get to keep your banter. “Okay.”

“I’ll think of something,” you promised as the gentle night wind brushed a strand of hair away from your face and fluttered your tired eyelashes.

“Thank you,” Jungkook said in a hush—his courage had finally abandoned him. “I’m sorry that this is another thing that you have to—”

“No,” you cut him off. “It’s not that bad.”

You tried to turn your head towards him, but lying here with your eyes closed felt very pleasant. You thought you’d felt revitalised before, you thought your body had started to feel more like it belonged to you again, but that had been momentary. You couldn’t keep your eyes open long enough to properly look at him.

“Do you mind if I… keep my eyes closed for a minute?” you asked.

“Do you mind if I stay here?” he responded.

“You—”

“Actually, I don’t care,” he decided. “I’m staying.”

You forced yourself to look at him. “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.”

“You always say you’re fine,” he reminded you. “Look at where we are now.”

“It was a one-time thing. Look at this.” Lethargically, you raised your arm with the catheter. “I’m being pumped full of vitamins. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he said. “I want to believe that. Really, I do, but you have to stop. You can’t keep going like this. I-I mean—”

You shook your head against the pillow. “Jungkook, this is really nothing.”

“I have a hard time believing that when you’re connected to a—”

“It’s—”

“Look, just—” he took a breath and extended his hands, “—p-please—please don’t let this happen again. Please look after yourself. I can’t lose you.”

He knew he might have to keep working with you without ever calling you his again. He’d have to learn how to deal with that.

But he could never deal with being here without you.

“Okay,” you said, your eyelids heavy. “Okay, I’ll be careful.”

“I’m going to need a promise here,” he said, reaching out his hand.

You chuckled weakly and extended your hand to gently graze his palm with the tips of your fingers. “I promise.”

He leaned in closer to fully grasp your hand in his, and saw the gentle—likely unconscious—smile on your lips as you squeezed his fingers. His chest filled with a warmth so big and powerful that, reasonably, there had to be no space left for his heart there anymore.

And yet something kept beating. He felt his own pulse reverberate against your fingers as he clutched your hand in his.

You’d be alright.

You hadn’t foreseen how calming the gentle dripping of the IV would be. You’d only meant to rest your eyes for a quick moment. You didn’t realise you had dozed off.

Only when your mind sobered up sometime in the early morning hours—you based the time solely on the colour of the sky outside—did you force your eyes open and concluded, with a painful jolt of your exhausted muscles, that you’d fallen asleep.

You looked around and for a moment, the dark, strange room filled your exhausted mind with terror. Then you noticed Jungkook sleeping in the chair next to you, and you felt yourself calm down.

Thank God he was here.

Blinking suddenly, you parted your lips as if preparing to argue with your own thoughts.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. He had a performance tomorrow. And a bandaged black eye that you still hadn’t figured out how to hide.

“I can tell you’re overthinking from all the way over here,” Jungkook said, his voice drowsy, eyes half-open. He must have heard the rustling of your covers and woken up. “Go to sleep.”

“What time is it?” you asked.

He was too tired to note the urgency in your voice as he mumbled, “sleeping time.”

“Jungkook, I’m serious,” you said. Finally, he caught your alarmed tone and his eyes shot open. “What time is it?”

He straightened in his seat and regarded you for a minute while he searched for his phone somewhere on the armchair. You didn’t appear to be in pain, but the emergency in your eyes threw him off.

“It’s three-twenty,” he said after a brief moment of blindness from the bright screen of his phone.

“Shit.” You looked around in the darkness, not sure when you had last seen your phone. You couldn’t remember Jungkook mentioning that he’d picked it up when he found you, and you hadn’t asked for it back. “I have to—”

“No,” he said, getting to his feet.

“No,” you argued back. “I need—”

He leaned over your bed and took hold of your hands right as you tried to throw off your duvet and sit up. You tried to evade him, but Jungkook proved he’d known you long enough to guess every move you were going to make—in complete darkness.

“No,” he said again, struggling with your relentless dedication to flail your limbs around until you stood up. “Lie down, please. I don’t know what you think you must do at three in the morning, but I promise you, it can wait. It’ll be done. I’ll do everything to make sure everything is okay.”

You stopped resisting his hold and allowed him to gently guide you back onto the mattress. He only let go of you when your head hit the pillows.

“You can’t be here. You need rest,” you insisted as he pulled the duvet over you, tucking it under your sides until you were firmly cocooned inside. You couldn’t tell if he did that for your comfort or to make sure you couldn’t escape this bed.

“So do you,” he countered.

“I'm fine—”

“No—for once, just... please stop saying that,” he asked, his eyes bright, but his voice completely spent. “You’re not fine. You’re getting a vitamin drip because you fainted. You need to sleep.”

You kept your eyes on his for another minute, trying to adjust to the thick darkness, so you could make out his silhouette as he towered over your bed. He was watching you and waiting.

“Okay,” you gave in. “I'll sleep.”

“I’ll be here,” he said, finally sitting back down.

You knew that wasn’t right. He needed to get proper rest. He shouldn’t have kept watch over you.

“Okay,” was all you said despite everything. “Thank you.”

He mumbled something unintelligible in response and you didn’t dare to ask him to repeat it. The room gave space to the night as your conversation wound down.

You could hear a faint screech of a lost bird outside the hotel window. Bugs were singing somewhere in the distance, too. And, as you drifted off, you thought you heard Jungkook whisper a weary “I love you.”

chapter title credits: bad omens, “the grey”

prev ○ next

[lazycats-stuff]

Hey, I was wondering if you could do the Batfam with a Teen Former black Widow ( sorry English isn't my first language)

Sure can do! Such a cool idea.

Summary: (Y/N) is a former Black Widow.

Warnings: mentions of the training, killings, is this a character study?,

(Y/N) woke up with a gasp. Another nightmare. Another night of remembering people he has killed. And another night of listening to Dreykov and Madame B.

Another night of near breakage. (Y/N) sighed, removing the covers. He sat up and went to his cupboard to retrieve the cigarettes he stashed. Alfred and some other members were against him smoking, but he wasn't even chain smoker.

He only smoked when he was really stressed out. Or when he couldn't really sleep and was plagued with nightmares. It was still weird for (Y/N) to have a supposed normal life.

More so, with Batman and the Robins.

He took the pack and the lighter next to it and opened the window. He climbed out and sat down on the roof. It was a chilly autumn night and the chill of the air felt great against (Y/N)'s overheated skin.

He took a cigarette, putting it between his lips and lighting it. He used his left hand to guard the flame. Taking a drag, his eyes wondered over the darkness. He squinted at the dark, exhaling the smoke out.

He has killed Dreykov and he destroyed the Red Room. He got rid of the person who nearly broke him. He got rid of the symbol that he carried.

But it is still something that is heavy on him. The Black Widow symbol and the Black Widow moniker is something that he will carry to his grave.

He took a long drag, closing his eyes. (Y/N) still remembers the training. Ballet, acrobatics... Weapons and martial arts... (Y/N) exhaled, opening his eyes.

He was thankful that he killed Dreykov. He couldn't lie and he had to honest. It was... A bittersweet moment. He got his revenge, he got the revenge for the regiment and training he went through... But Dreykov never faced justice for what he did to all of them. And by justice, he meant going in front of a judge, jury and the executioner.

He always like the sound of it. Judge, jury and the executioner. That's what he turned into when he killed Dreykov. He judged him, he gave him the decision and he executed him.

Well that is irony.

(Y/N) chuckled quietly, letting the smoke out. It was fitting.

Dreykov's best soldier, one of the most feared assassins in Russia, the weapon that both Madam B and Dreykov had created. Although nearly broken, he persevered.

He survived.

Only 1 in 20 children survive the brutal regiment and (Y/N) rose out of those other 19 children.

He closed his eyes once more. He recently got into ballet. Ballet is something that was ingrained into him, something that is, well, was used to make them unbreakable. Repat, repeat and repeat.

But despite it all, his passion returned. Bruce was supportive of it and said that if it makes him feel better, he should go for it.

(Y/N) finished up the cigarette and climbed back into his room. He didn't expect to find Bruce, sitting on his bed.

" Hi. " (Y/N) said, making Bruce chuckle.

" I'm not going to say anything about your smoking. " Bruce said, making (Y/N) nod.

" I'm here to talk to you about... Well, I'm going to be blunt. I think you need to go to therapy. Before you say anything, " Bruce said, raising his hand, " I know. But she is loyal and she will take your conversations to the grave. " Bruce said.

" I know. But the Black Widow part of me died when you freed me from the brainwashing. Sure, I will carry the name and the symbol to the grave, but that part of me died. I burnt that part of me. " (Y/N) said, looking at Bruce before looking away.

" I appreciate the thought, but I burnt it. When I destroyed the Red Room I burnt the Black Widow part. " (Y/N) said more securely, looking Bruce directly in the eyes.

" Alright. If you ever change your mind, just let me know. " Bruce said.

(Y/N) nodded, but he knew he didn't need it. He had his family. Jason, Dick, Tim and Damian.

His brothers.

Even Alfred was there.

He knew that with their help, he will heal.

[socialfilter]

personal headcanons about sadie and abigail because I can (and because I can’t stop thinking about it):

• sadie’s security company eventually extends to a coffee company. she sends abigail coffee on a monthly basis.

• I like to believe sadie’s personality is a mixture of Ellen from The Quick and The Dead (1995) and Idgie from Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) - AKA that girl is stubborn as sin.

• abigail is not a morning person (unless coffee is wafted under her nose)

• sadie 100% visited abigail when she had her little girl (i have a wip about this that i shall not abandon)

• abigail writes to sadie every few months or so but feels they’re very boring because her life doesn’t change much. sadie loves them (and doesn’t correct any spelling mistakes)

• abigail, like her son, becomes an avid reader - but she loves the pictures of a herbology book.

• sadie, despite what some people might think, is quite the woman of culture. she can speak a few phrases of most of the languages found in the saint denis market and regularly converses in conversation down there.

• abigail, surprisingly, knows some louisiana french (I have this fun little hc she’s from like, the Deep South before her parents died - and her language faded as she grew up)

• abigail names her baby girl ‘elizabeth’. john wanted to add a middle name but abigail didn’t want her to grow up with a fancy name so people didn’t get ‘fancy’ ideas. still, her middle name is informally like her mother’s. elizabeth roberts marston.

•abigail braids sadie’s hair in the mornings. when it comes to the blood on sadie’s clothes, that’s sadie’s job.

• for her birthday, sadie buys abigail a set of clothes like her own. abigail loves them.

• abigail is the only one that knows sadie has nightmares about the night at adler’s ranch. she comforts her every time.

• sadie and abigail visit the ruins of the ranch once. when sadie discovers that jake has no grave, abigail gifts sadie a flower in a locket - something she can keep with her forever.

• on the ride to copperhead landing, sadie has to ask abigail to stop crying because she can’t bear the sound of it. it breaks her heart. still, she remembers their early time in colter and comforts her the best she can.

• if john had died on that train, sadie would’ve looked after abigail and jack and gone with them anywhere - no questions asked.

• I absolutely love to think that abigail and sadie have this inevitably doomed kind of love. sadie knows she can’t have abigail but loves her anyway. she’d do anything for her, even when she knows it’ll break her heart. abigail knows she loves sadie but knows her heart belongs to john - still, forcing her to decide upsets her greatly. this is always going to be ‘one of those things’ and they’ll have to leave it in the past or in another life, where it belongs.

• sadie returns to the ranch after john’s death. it’s been years and abigail is mostly bedridden with illness and grief, but sadie stays until she passes. when jack buries her, she never returns.

• abigail convinced sadie to play the harmonica while she plays the piano. it happens only once in their time together.

• sadie teaches abigail how to ride horses like a true cowboy (and takes her to relay races)

• abigail is secretly a smoker. sadie is not so secret.

• I like to think sadie and charles keep in touch.

• abigail and sadie don’t often talk about their past in the gang. the memories they recall the most are ones of the night in colter and of their dear friend, arthur.

• when john returns to copperhead landing, sadie only cries when she learns of arthur’s death.

• abigail only keeps in touch with sadie and mary-beth from the old gang. she occasionally hears from tilly but nowhere near as often.

• sadie once spends an entire book tour as mary-beth’s appointed bodyguard.

• sadie eventually, after hanging up her gun as a bounty hunter, becomes a dealer in horses and transport goods.

• abigail is ridiculously good at making daisy chains. tilly and mary-beth taught her.

• the clothes that sadie wears at abigail’s wedding are abigail’s (surely this one is just canon).

• when sadie returns from hanging dog ranch, abigail is the first to see her and helps her wash the blood off in the nearby stream. sadie refuses to talk about it. abigail already knows.

• sadie and abigail have that kind of relationship where they can just say a million things with just their eyes.

• “I will protect her” sadie vs “touch her and I’ll kill you” abigail

• “I will protect her” abigail vs “touch her and I’ll kill you” sadie

• sadie isn’t a big fan of poetry - however she will list off things she’s read for abigail’s sake. abigail loves it.

• john is extremely aware of his wife’s affection for sadie. he doesn’t blame her and he’s smart enough to know not to stand in her way. still, sadie respects his boundaries.

• let me remind you this is what you wanted! sadie vs you were all I wanted! abigail

• sadie is not a natural mother. like john, her relationship with jack is a little awkward, but the feeling is there. it’s more of a tentative friendship rather than a guiding one.

• in more intimate moments, abigail draws illustrations she remembers on sadie’s skin. plants, animals, herbs. anything she can think of. she loves counting sadie’s freckles.

• sadie has a poncho made by abigail. it’s blue.

• ‘young and beautiful’ is from abigail to sadie like,,,,heavenly.

• ‘poison and wine’ = angsty but heartbreaking goodbye sadigail

this is all I can think of…for a part one? I don’t know. discuss.

(I need to make them a playlist)

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Gamzee Makara from Homestuck vs Maeglin Lómion from The Silmarillion/The Fall Of Gondolin

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Gamzee Makara:

LOVE: - "Okay, so Gamzee is such a divisive character that I even hesitated on choosing "love". Sad clown with an absentee father raised in a fascist dictatorship. Was mind controlled into killing his friends and then mind controlled during a toxic relationship (or two). Suffers from addiction so fandom likes to go "Oh, how scary his withdraws are. Clearly being drugged up was the only thing keeping this THIRTEEN YEAR OLD from murdering his friends (who largely ignored him, insulted him, demeaned him and acted like they wanted nothing to do with him). Having one such friend gently touch his face didn't cure him of his issues (or the mind control) so obviously he is an irredeemable monster and an abuser. This is genetic." I know you've gotten tons of Vriska, so basically insert any of Vriska's apologists' points here." - "Gamzee is a complex character who is used as a puppet both by the other villains of Homestuck and by the arthur. Once someone takes a deeper look at him they might find a tragic character who had lots of chances where he could have gotten onto a better path but those chances were not able to be given or taken. On the flip side Gamzee suffers from some poor writing that leaves aspects of the character to based off poor stereotypes, he also lacks chances to show his internal character as thr story goes on and is treated like a tool by the story. He also killed some fan favorite characters and has a version of himself (homestuck is a multi timeline story) that abused a different fan favorite character." - "I know Vriska is the obvious pick for controversial HS blorbo, but consider: He is the world's shittiest boy. No one knows why he does the things he does he might just be a murderclown but he might be mind controlled or something no one knows and people have really strong opinions on him based on what they believe. He makes me very sad because I did think he was a cool character before he snapped." - "He was written so poorly 💔" - "when i was 12 i had a crush on him i was like a gamzee apologist and i was probably right i dont remember homestuck. i used to listen to icp and think wowww this is just like my clwon boyfriend and giggle and blush and kick my legs and i still do that with my fake boyfriend but hes not gamzee and its not icp and im not 12 but he kind of sounds like gamzee but thats because hes a smoker and he wouldnt listen to icp he likes techno. anyway i used to get so sad when people said they didnt like him because of the killings and i brought him up to my old therapist a couple times thats kind of funny looking back but i would do it again (but not with gamzee. with my fake chain smoker boyfriend who likes techno). anyway anyway my mom listens icp because her old friend from highschool who died was a juggalo and whenever i hear her listen to it i think about gamzee so i havent forgot about him yet. hes wasnt my favorite character thouhg my favorite character was the gemini one (i also had a crush on him when i was 12 i tried to lucid dream to see him once) (it didnt work). ok love you bye." - "-Funny clown -Cares about his friends -Absent parental figure :( -Did some murder but it wasn't his fault really he didn't have all of his mental faculties (see next point) -Got brainwashed by a universe-destroying god that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time through the form of a rapping marionette -The author(s) fucking hates him for some reason and retconned his previous characterization to make him a one-dimensional shitty villain and used canon text to make fun of fans who like him and no I'm not exaggerating -If I don't make him my blorbo who will"

Maeglin Lómion:

LOVE: - "LISTEN okay so he DID betray the city of Gondolin to the guy who literally invented evil, and that DID result in it getting destroyed and a whole bunch of people dying or being taken prisoner (which is probably worse in this instance), and also he DID attempt to throw his cousin's seven-year-old son off the city walls to his death during the attack. BUT. I love him. Also, and more substantially, a) he didn't go out of his way to betray the city, he was taken prisoner and threatened into it, b) he had an incredibly painful history with Gondolin involving both his parents' violent deaths happening like ten minutes after he arrived there, and he was legally not allowed to leave, and c) he was SO YOUNG (only 180! that's hardly anything for an elf!) and he is SO ANGSTY and INTERESTINGLY GOTH and SELF-HATING and I LOVE him. So." - "First of all he was LITERALLY CURSED TWICE OVER so there was NO WAY he was coming to a good end okay. Sure he had a crush on his cousin but he canonically didn't say anything and she only knew because she read his mind and he wasn't able to hide it from her. He had a major éowyn moment (iconic) and was trapped in cage after cage all his life and tbh after what he saw in the Nirnaeth I'm NOT surprised he voted to stay instead of go. Or just told the king what he wanted to hear. Anyway the POINT is that breaking under mental torment to morgoth, whose force and victory he'd seen firsthand, is NOT a moral failing, and idril started conspiring against him before he'd actually done anything wrong. The attempted murder was, admittedly, not great though. But he didn't even SUCCEED like c'mon he just got homoerotically yeeted from a cliff about it. In conclusion: maeglin did nothing wrong except all the things he did wrong, and the version in which he's most openly evil is also the one where both the narrative and the other elves are racist to him so like they had it coming"

[kiwi-the-servamp-addict]

I recently redrew my subclass ocs! Every. Single. One.

So here's all of em

oh also some of the Svs have outfit changes or little things added on or like bits of redesign

also warning:there's gonna be mentions of death and ways people die so just a fair warning

here's Nyx, Kuro's subclass! They died in the Trojan war as a bystander (why was Kuro in Greece?... I don't know man...) so now they kinda go and do their own thing but they go to bother Kuro every once in a while. They often travel during the day by wearing tons of white (for less sun absorption) and covering all of their skin. They also have a bad habit of talking without thinking.

next is Amira who's Hugh's subclass! She died in a car "accident" shortly after her kid passed away. She's quite motherly towards the people around her and her bag contains anything you could possibly imagine.

Then it's CeeCee! (Fun fact I've drawn her 4 years in a row) she died because she was in a witch trial [she rejected a girl {this was prior to CeeCees transition} and the girl accused her of witchcraft] and she's very attached to JeJe and is all over him half of the time. [Mikuni is jealous... Little does he know JeJe has no interest in women {hc} and CeeCee has a gf]

Then there's Irene who's Freya's subclass! She died in a war because she crossed dressed to get in and died on the battle field [forgot to give her an animal motif...] due to her injuries she has to wear hearing aids and she freaks out about loud noises and paints to cope

Next is Jonathan! He died because he got drunk one night and might've accidentally outed himself... So... He was murdered... He also likes to cook a lot and he owns an immortal puppy (don't ask I can't handle him losing a dog.) named Diablo! He's also a massive hopeless romantic.

Now there's Anita (pink) and Catherine (red) ! They're Ildio's subclasses! Anita died because she was a lady of the night and a client made her uncomfortable w his requests so she refused and he killed her. Now she's kind of hostile to really anyone new around her. She's also a massive chain smoker-

Catherine was arranged to be married to a mentally and physically abusive man who killed the actual love of her life. So on her wedding day she shot herself and now enjoys praying on people for blood so- but she's a lot nicer than Anita.

This is Lilian she's Lily's subclass and honestly looks like a ghost Victorian child. My friend suggested making a character albino but I might have made her too white.... But I thought it was interesting and made her stand out more so I kept it. She died due to starvation and neglect form her parents. Her older sister who was only about a year or two older was doing her best to keep her alive but there was only so much she could do. Now the two live in the mansion and her sister works there and is still alive.

Lastly we have Wisteria who's Tsubaki's subclass! They died by oding shortly after their family was brutally murdered. Now they kinda people watch for fun and flirt with Tsubaki for shits and giggles and is purely here now for the ride.

And ways this concludes my redesigns on my ocs and redesigns on some of the Svs (let's be real it's like almost all of them)

this was actually really fun to do! Maybe I'll get around to drawing the eves... One day...

[thebramblewood]

BOLD THE FACTS

The Rules are simple! Tag people and name a character you want to know more about! If you want to let the person you tagged decide who to showcase, then don’t name a character and they can pick somebody. Easy! The person who is tagged will then bold the remarks below which apply to their character &, if they want to, include a picture with their reply!

Thank you to @igotsnothing for another tag. I love doing this one. Gonna step outside my story universe and give answers for Bonnie this time! Here's a preview of the not too distant future for you.

[ PERSONAL ]

$ Financial: wealthy / moderate (she has the ranch, so that's obviously worth something, but the financial situation is a bit wobbly at the moment) / poor / in poverty

✚ Medical: fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged / non applicable

✪ Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / unsure / other

✔ Education: qualified (she has a biology degree!) / unqualified / studying / other

✖ Criminal Record: yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but not caught yet / yes, but charges were dismissed

[ FAMILY ]

◒ Children: had a child or children / has no children / wants children

◑ Relationship with Family: close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) (it's fraught, y'all) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased

◔ Affiliation: orphaned / adopted (parents died young, raised by grandparents) / disowned /raised by birth parent / not applicable

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES ]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between

♦ disorganized / organized / in between

♦ close minded / open-minded / in between

♦ calm / anxious / in between

♦ disagreeable / agreeable / in between

♦ cautious / reckless / in between

♦ patient / impatient / in between

♦ outspoken / reserved / in between

♦ leader / follower / in between

♦ empathetic / vicious bastard / in between

♦ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

♦ traditional / modern / in between

♦ hard-working / lazy / in between

♦ cultured / uncultured / in between / unknown

♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown

♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown

[ BELIEFS ]

★ Faith: monotheist / polytheist / atheist / agnostic

☆ Belief in Ghosts or Spirits: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✮ Belief in an Afterlife: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✯ Belief in Reincarnation: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

❃ Belief in Aliens: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✧ Religious: orthodox / liberal / in between / not religious (I'll be honest, I very rarely think about religion when it comes to Sims. But I can see her being raised in a kind of regionally ingrained, small town style Christianity and still believing in God but not really making it a part of her everyday life and generally disliking organized religion.)

❀ Philosophical: yes / no

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual

❥ Sex: sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable / naive and clueless

♥ Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable / naive and clueless / romance suspicious

❣ Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced/ curious

⚧ Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

⚧ Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all (she’s open to anything and anyone but very much drawn to pretty ladies in particular)

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills: excellent / good (if there's anything her idiot older brother was good for, it was teaching her how to fight) / moderate / poor / none

≡ Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✍ Artistic Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✂ Technical Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / Alcoholic

☁ Smoking: tried it / trying to quit / quit / never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / Chain-smoker

✿ Recreational Drugs: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / addict

✌ Medicinal Drugs: never / no longer needs medication / some medication needed / frequently / to excess

☻ Unhealthy Food: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / binge eater

$ Splurge Spending: never / sometimes / frequently / shopaholic

♣ Gambling: never (she's always tried to live a very straight and narrow lifestyle because she's supposed to be the "responsible" one) / rarely / sometimes / frequently / compulsive gambler

Gonna tag @femrebelle, @swiftviolets, @bloomingkyras, @helloavocadooo, and @cowplant-snacks, but if it's not your thing, don't worry! I always lose track of who likes to do these things and who's already done which ones!

[hannahwatcheshorror]

SAW VI (2009)

SAW VI is the office edition (and no I do not mean The Office), this film takes nearly all of its victims from the same office building (and they are all in their little business suits and such). The theme is very cohesive but overall the movie is weak, especially when compared to the films that came before it. It still ties in the SAW storyline in a nice way but isn’t nearly as fun or exciting as the other installments. 

⭐⭐⭐

The office in question is a health insurance office that is very cut throat in their policies (what insurance company these days isn’t?). Their dogged refusal to insure the seriously ill cost many their lives which is why they are all chosen for this movie's game. Hoffman and Jill Tuck are the Jigsaw stand-ins for this movie and they are using instructions from a box that John Kramer left Jill in SAW V. This is supposedly John’s final game, his last will and testament. The game begins with the head of the office in chains and what appears to be his family (mother and son) in a cage somewhere far away (there is also a reporter opposite them).

The Boss's first challenge is just to hold his own against a smoker, no problem there, but then he is presented with choosing between a healthy young man or an older woman. This is normally an easy choice for him considering the older woman is statistically more likely to die sooner but when faced with actually picking who lives and who dies he chooses the woman to live because she has a family who would miss her. This is just about the only redeeming thing he does. Next he attempts to lead a coworker through a steam maze but it ends in a fight and she dies (this is lucky for the main dude though because the key to her vest was inside of him, yikes).

Next he finds his nasty workers (the ones who find all the sick people to kick out) strapped to a playground's merry-go-round only it has a shotgun pointed at it. He can pick two people to save and the rest get shot point blank. This was a rough scene especially for our last victim who demanded the boss look him in the eyes when he was being murdered. That was the second decent thing that man did.

While the game is afoot, Hoffman is discovered but only by three cops and he disposes of them quickly and easily. He has to leave and miss part of the game though and during that time Jill comes in and does some sneaky business, like dropping the note off that Hoffman left for Amanda way back in SAW III that linked her to when John and Jill lost their baby. Turns out it was really Hoffman that made Amanda shoot the doc which triggered her getting shot and her failing her test (and losing her life).

Finally the game is over, (right?) the boss man gets to the “family” room and runs towards… the reporter? Turns out the reporter is his sister, the mother and son are a family he fucked over by not insuring the father so the dad died. And guess who gets to decide Mr. Boss Man's fate? The Mother won’t flip the kill switch but that child had hate in his heart and no dad there to quell it so he killed that man dead. And last but certainly not least, our own Hoffman was made to wear a bear trap headpiece from like from SAW (original) as his test. He barely passed.

[hauntedandmurdered]

memento mori - A Hannibal Lecter & Clarice Starling fanfiction

teaser:

When Krendler woke up again, it took him a few seconds to figure out what had happened to him in the first place. He was mutilated below the waist, that much his clouded mind could still perceive. By now, however, his physical performance had reached such a limit that he could no longer focus his blurred field of vision. As a result, he was no longer able to judge whether it was dark or bright. One could almost say that he no more lived, but merely existed. He was vegetating like a deer that had been shot and was being watched as it died an agonising death. That was precisely how he felt.

Somewhere in the distance, voices were thundering at him, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. It took too much strength to keep his eyes open. So he let the darkness swallow him up again. He was probably as neglected as a homeless person who had to be swept off the street. Hence, he bet he reeked of piss and filth for miles around.

“Ready for another sip of your broth, Paul?”, an inhumane voice whispered to his ear.

Krendler couldn’t tell if that voice was familiar or not. Broth didn’t sound all too bad, did it? Attempting to nod, he snorted like a slobbering pooch.

“Clarice? Our friend’s a tiny bit thirsty. Let’s provide him something to drink.”

Clarice. Krendler didn’t know a person called Clarice.

“I can’t remember to have invited a lady called Clarice home”, he croaked, then his body was shaken by a coughing attack.

“Don't worry, Paul. Everything is going as it should”, someone answered.

“Fine”, he hummed. “Fine.”

Then his head fell forwards because he could no longer balance its weight. When a straw was pushed between his lips, he began to suck on it. Damn, the liquid he ingested tasted disgusting. He couldn't think of anyone who would drink something like that voluntarily. His idea of broth was far from that. Be that as it may, he and this booze just didn't seem to be compatible.

“Food...may I...have some food?”

“Sorry, the remains of your liver were eaten up by some boars last night.”

“I see. I see”, Krendler softened his tone, leaning his head back with his eyes shut close. White dots were dancing like splendid stars in the black mist that surrounded him. “No food, then.”

“Exactly, Paul”, a velvety smooth voice stirred in the dark. “Memento Mori.”

Next, fatigue caught up with him and he was carried away by a dreamless sleep.

“Good morning, Paul. How are you feeling?”

“Who's Paul, man?”

“That's a really good question. Who is this man who thinks he can take whatever and however much he likes? Who is the man who assumes that the whole world is his oyster? Who is the man who dares to touch a woman against her will? And I especially wonder who this man is who expected to get away scot-free after all his sins?”

“Sounds like he's a rotten asshole, doesn't it?”

“You're absolutely right, Paul. I couldn't have said it better myself. How do you propose to deal with this man? How would you hold him accountable for all his actions?”

“I...I don't know.”

“I would fuck his mind until he literally begs me to let him die.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Doesn't it? Thank you for your candour and advice, Paul. I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

He was woken up with a bucket of water that was emptied over him. A tremor seized his body.

“Starling? Are you still here?”

“I am, Mr Krendler”, she answered monotonously like a robot. He had not the slightest idea whether she was standing in front of or behind him. Maybe she wasn't there at all and his mind was just playing tricks on him. Maybe everything he had experienced down here was just a hallucination.

„What time is it?“, he whimpered. He sounded like a chain smoker who had lost the colour of his voice through years of nicotine addiction.

„Time to regret.“

[noodlecupcakes]

Character Traits

I was tagged by the wonderful @josephseedismyfather, thank you for tagging me, I always appreciate it <3

Gonna do Tabby and Alex, of course

[ PERSONAL ]

$ Financial: wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty (when Joseph finds her she'd been living out of her car prior)

✚ Medical: fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged / non applicable

✪ Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / unsure / other (Considering she doesn't really have a job when Joseph finds her, Im marking it as other)

✔ Education: qualified (Technically she didnt get her nursing degree but she still has lots of helpful medical knowledge) / unqualified / studying / other

✖ Criminal Record: yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but not caught yet / yes, but charges were dismissed

[ FAMILY]

◒ Children: had a child or children (eventually has four with Joseph) / has no children / wants children

◑ Relationship with Family: close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased (her sister died from a heroin overdose during college)

◔ Affiliation: orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parents / not applicable

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES ]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between

♦ disorganized / organized / in between

♦ close minded / open-minded / in between

♦ calm / anxious / in between

♦ disagreeable / agreeable / in between

♦ cautious / reckless / in between

♦ patient / impatient / in between

♦ outspoken / reserved / in between

♦ leader / follower / in between

♦ empathetic / vicious bastard / in between

♦ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

♦ traditional / modern / in between

♦ hard-working / lazy / in between

♦ cultured / uncultured / in between / unknown

♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown

♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown

[ BELIEFS ]

★ Faith: monotheist / polytheist / atheist / agnostic / satanist

☆ Belief in Ghosts or Spirits: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✮ Belief in an Afterlife: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✯ Belief in Reincarnation: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

❃ Belief in Aliens: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✧ Religious: orthodox / liberal / in between / not religious

❀ Philosophical: yes / no

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual

❥ Sex: sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable / naive and clueless

♥ Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable / naive and clueless / romance suspicious

❣ Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious

⚧ Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

⚧ Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills: excellent / good / moderate (Tabby might look innocent but she can take and give some punches, she can withstand torture and she can kill a person if pushed to do so) / poor / none

≡ Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✍ Artistic Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✂ Technical Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently (binge drinker) / Alcoholic

☁ Smoking: tried it / trying to quit / quit / never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / Chain-smoker

✿ Recreational Drugs: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / addict / ex addict (Tabitha used to take dugs in college, specifically LSD but eventually got clean after losing her sister and being disowned)

✌ Medicinal Drugs: never / no longer needs medication / some medication needed / frequently / to excess

☻ Unhealthy Food: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / binge eater

$ Splurge Spending: never / sometimes / frequently / shopaholic

♣ Gambling: never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / compulsive gamble

[ PERSONAL ]

$ Financial: wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty

✚ Medical: fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged / non applicable

✪ Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / unsure / other

✔ Education: qualified / unqualified / studying / other

✖ Criminal Record: yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes (Went to jail in her early twenties for assault charges after starting a bar brawl) / no / has committed crimes, but not caught yet (Halfway through the fic she is on the run from the cops and laying low/evading them) / yes, but charges were dismissed

[ FAMILY]

◒ Children: had a child or children / has no children / wants children / does not want children

◑ Relationship with Family: close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased / unknown (Her mother was a prostitute, she does not know if she has siblings and frankly she doesn't want to know nor does she care)

◔ Affiliation: orphaned (She got taken away from her mother at a young age and she does not know who her father is, nor does she care or want to know) / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parents / not applicable

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES ]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between

♦ disorganized / organized / in between

♦ close minded / open-minded / in between

♦ calm / anxious / in between

♦ disagreeable / agreeable / in between

♦ cautious / reckless / in between

♦ patient / impatient / in between

♦ outspoken / reserved / in between

♦ leader / follower / in between

♦ empathetic / vicious bastard / in between

♦ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

♦ traditional / modern / in between

♦ hard-working / lazy / in between

♦ cultured / uncultured / in between / unknown

♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown

♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown

[ BELIEFS ]

★ Faith: monotheist / polytheist / atheist / agnostic / satanist

☆ Belief in Ghosts or Spirits: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✮ Belief in an Afterlife: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✯ Belief in Reincarnation: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

❃ Belief in Aliens: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✧ Religious: orthodox / liberal / in between / not religious

❀ Philosophical: yes / no

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual

❥ Sex: sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable / naive and clueless

♥ Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable / naive and clueless / romance suspicious

❣ Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious

⚧ Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all (but favors female)

⚧ Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all (but favors female)

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

≡ Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✍ Artistic Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✂ Technical Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / Alcoholic

☁ Smoking: tried it / trying to quit / quit / never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / Chain-smoker

✿ Recreational Drugs: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / addict

✌ Medicinal Drugs: never / no longer needs medication / some medication needed / frequently / to excess

☻ Unhealthy Food: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / binge eater

$ Splurge Spending: never / sometimes / frequently / shopaholic

♣ Gambling: never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / compulsive gamble

I tag: @3llisarts, @g0dspeeed, @cassietrn and @la-grosse-patate

[ninhaoma-ya]

Chapter 1077 — Should have noticed sooner

I've read two different translations of the current chapter and it will be very interesting to see the official version on Sunday!

On with the show.

The cover story is still great. I wonder if Caesar and Judge will just shrug off their fight and go on their merry, war-criminal way?

Sentomaru is a great guy. I like him. But he's also a real asset; loyal, quick-thinking and strong. Still standing, even after facing both seraphims and CP0.

And if that isn't some heavy foreshadowing (especially when you remember all nearby marine ships are heading in this direction as well) I don't know what is. But this might also be the incident that breaks the marines? If Vegapunk is viewed as a person who wants to do good for the world and since he thus far also has been staunchly on the marines' side, attacking him and Egghead might be enough for people on the fence, like Smoker and Tashigi, to break off once and for all.

And we get confirmation that Kaido and King were kept on Punk Hazard! And that the seraphims are part lunarian. Nice little showcase of Shaka's logic, as well.

Yes, Zoro, you really should have noticed sooner. When even Luffy agrees… It’s a good thing that he’s pretty.

I do hope they get to share this information soon with the others who are having a bad, very horrible, incredibly dangerous day indeed.

Brook just reattaching his head is so on form. And shocked-face is always funny, even when it's a cloud.

But Sanji turns up — he left with Stussy and Jinbei, right? What’s happened to them?

Short recap of who's with who:

Brook, Nami, Edison – under attack

Robin, Chopper, Atlas – no info

Sanji, Jinbei, Stussy – separated

Usopp, Franky, York, Lilith – down

Pythagoras – down

Shaka – down

Stella – captured

It’s logical that Vegapunk would have worked on a weapon against Devil Fruit users (and, conveniently, against the seraphim). Hope the others get to use it as well, sooner rather than later…

Ooo, so when this is used against Luffy (as I suspect it will), does that mean he’ll be stronger against Blackbeard’s attacks since they sap people’s fruit powers?

But back to the fight at hand!

a) you idiots

b) will Franky turn to stone or not? The others are instant, he’s just part?

c) who will be able to fight her? Nami loves children, Robin would probably also hesitate, she’s still a little girl so Sanji’s probably out, somehow I don’t see Luffy hurting a child either…

…it’s Zoro, isn’t it? He doesn’t care about cutesy stuff or looks in general from what we’ve seen, just power levels.

However, she’s probably not enough of a fight for him, so he might just go "nah".

THE MYSTERY DEEPENS!

And that last page was shockingly brutal. I assume Shaka's not really dead, since no-one dies in One Piece, unless it's a flashback and none of the other satellites have gone down either.

But who is the mystery shooter-cum-shadow? I assume it's the same person who's been disabling all the security systems and attacking Pythagoras but is it:

a) One person who has been working for months, or

b) A couple of people, one who has been here for longer and one recently arrived?

The Stella doesn't appear to recognise the person behind Shaka, so probably not another Vegapunk. It's also not someone they've interacted with, since they share their consciousness and someone would have seen something. Moreover, Shaka sounds surprised at the CP-people being there, as was the Stella in the previous chapter so it probably isn't anyone of the Vegapunks (shared consciousness, once again).

Is it an Elder Star? They're the only ones above Vegapunk in the chain of command, after all. Or is it a Vegapunk working in collaboration with someone outside who's now arrived?

We haven't seen the other seraphims, but since S-Snake and S-Hawk were on Amazon Lily not too long ago, I assume S-Bird and S-Beard and S-Seal are on other missions, capturing other pirates.

The whodunnit is captivating! Good tension, a lot of possible suspects, misdirections galore.

And that title… it keeps mocking me and I'm sure we'll get back to it when we know who the saboteur is!

Great chapter. I give it a heart of stone and nerves of steel, to weather the coming suspense.

[mahvaladara]

Bold The Facts

The rules are simple! Tag people and name a character you want to know more about! If you want to let the person you tagged decide who to showcase, then don’t name a character and they can pick somebody. Easy! The person who is tagged will then bold the remarks below which apply to their character &, if they want to, include a picture with their reply!

Thank you for the tag! @lunelfy

Time for a character I have only shown twice now. Myra Lorenn (Sullyvan)

[ PERSONAL]

$ Financial: wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty (his mom and grandfather are pretty wealthy so he has never struggled for money one day of his life) ✚ Medical: fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged / non applicable (he is very active and is a professional athlete, so). ✪ Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / unsure / other (Grandpa is the Sage of Pratical and the Director of the Von Haunt Academy and his mother is the Sage of Mischief and the leader of the Faba Society).

✔ Education: qualified / unqualified / studying / other (still studying. Due to being a professional athlete he's a little behind his sister, but he works very hard to keep up)

✖ Criminal Record: yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but not caught yet / yes, but charges were dismissed

[ FAMILY]

◒ Children: had a child or children / has no children / wants children

◑ Relationship with Family: close with sibling(s) (he loves his twin sister, the two of them get along very well)/ not close with sibling(s) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased / it's complicated

◔ Affiliation: orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parent / not applicable / runaway (He was raised by his mom and grandpa. Knows his dad was a criminal who died from his own action)

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between / intro-extovert?

♦ disorganized / organized / in between

♦ close minded / open-minded / in between

♦ calm / anxious / in between

♦ disagreeable / agreeable / in between

♦ cautious / reckless / in between

♦ patient / impatient / in between

♦ outspoken / reserved / in between

♦ leader / follower / in between

♦ empathetic / vicious bastard / in between

♦ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

♦ traditional / modern / in between

♦ hard-working / lazy / in between

♦ cultured /uncultured / in between / unknown

♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown

♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown

[ BELIEFS]

★ Faith: monotheist / polytheist / atheist / agnostic

☆ Belief in Ghosts or Spirits: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✮ Belief in an Afterlife: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✯ Belief in Reincarnation: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

❃ Belief in Aliens: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✧ Religious: orthodox / liberal / in between / non religious

❀ Philosophical: yes / no / sometimes

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual

❥ Sex: sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favourable

♥ Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favourable / naive and clueless / romance suspicious

❣ Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious

⚧ Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none yet / all

⚧ Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all / varies

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

≡ Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✍ Artistic Skills: excellent / good / moderate (he can play the harmonica. Why? he just does) / poor / none

✂ Technical Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / Alcoholic

☁ Smoking: tried it / trying to quit / quit / never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / chain-smoker

✿ Recreational Drugs: never / special occasions (has smoked weed with some of the other guys) / sometimes / frequently / addict

✌ Medicinal Drugs: never / no longer needs medication / some medication needed / frequently / to excess

☻ Unhealthy Food: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / binge eater / um, blood a/o arcane magic

$ Splurge Spending: never / sometimes / frequently / shopaholic

♣ Gambling: never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / compulsive gambler

[bunnygirl678]

I just realized today is my late granny's birthday, so y'all are gonna get some fun facts about her

she was born in the 1910s (she was already almost 80 by the time i was born, so most of this is either from her stories or stories from various relatives)

she was half native american, her father was a wealthy merchant who fell in love, this was not super normal for the time so for my granny's protection he paid off the records keeper to change her birth cert.

her father was wealthy as i mentioned so she lived a posh life, (until the money ran out), when she was 17 she drove a fancy car into a ditch and she didn't drive again for the rest of her life (she may have been drunk) again this was the early 1900s

She was married to 7 or 8 different men (the number is fuzzy)

She had between 14-24 pregnancies, 13 of those made it to adulthood, the youngest of which is my father

my favorite photo of her is her two oldest daughters holding their babies and her holding my father, my father has nieces and nephews that are in fact older than him, they sarcastically call him uncle

she got into a bar fight and ended up hooking one of the guys in the holding cell up with her oldest daughter (they were married for 60ish years before he passed, great guy, he was older than my mother's father lmao)

her and my grandfather (and possibly some other relatives) used to go to ummmm those shows that are x rated, peep shows, i think they're called,

she firmly believed in fairies, (perfect timing with the whole walrus thing) and most things supernatural, a lot of my family has carried that on, myself included (maybe not fairies but ghosts and some other stuff like El Chupacabra)

she was an expert seamstress, all the grandkids have cool dolls she made us, still have mine

She and my grandfather were divorced and remarried 3 different times, they died married

ironically both my grandparents were raised wealthy but all of the money dried up before they were adults (i'm talking generational wealth)

She was very pious, church was important, but she also wasn't judgmental, had no problem with her gay grandkids (again this is hearsay she was extremely old by the time i knew her)

she drank a glass of whiskey a night (sometimes more lmao), she took it neat, lived to be in her 90s! she didn't smoke but my grandfather was a notorious chain smoker, he was in his late 80s when he died (2 months after her)

Extra fun fact, my grandfather was a code breaker during ww2, he wouldn't speak around this certain part of houston where there are a bunch of phone lines and power lines, like he would just go silent, when asked about it he'd say classified soooooo idk, he also believed in aliens something that rubbed off on a bunch of us, he had 2 kids with granny, and adopted one of hers who didn't find out she was adopted by him until his funeral, she thought he was her bio dad

ALSO they both died in a house that is still owned by family, i have 100% heard them talking in the room they died in, the dogs (new ones that weren't around for them i was a teen when they died) refuse to go in that room, and other people have reported hearing them or seeing things in the room

[johndonneswife]

2 months ago i found this letter my grandma wrote me when i was away at summer camp in 2005. i didn’t even know i had this stashed away somewhere. i shoved it into my desk as soon as i saw who it was from and finally mustered up the strength to read it a few days ago. i think this is the only thing she ever wrote me. now that i’ve let myself have this i can’t stop myself from reading it over and over again. it’s very on brand for her - always, always wanting me to be safe and careful, ‘have fun’ always an afterthought. i miss her. i can’t believe how much i miss her. i dream about her almost every night. i’m angry and i’m sad. i wish she had been able to do more, or that i had been able to do more for her. she was a high school dropout, a child bride, married at 16 with 5 kids before she was 25. her husband was an abusive alcoholic who had a heart attack and made her a widow when she was only 40. she had 15 siblings and they were so poor that when she was 10 her parents sent her to a catholic orphanage / children’s home upstate, where she was abused and neglected. she never got enough love or attention and didn’t learn to express love herself until she had grandchildren - and love she did, freely, especially later in life. she loved us all so much. she lived next door to me and i saw her every single day until i moved away from my hometown. she cried so much when i told her i was leaving. she watched a lot of shitty tv and had some questionable political views. she was an asthmatic chain smoker and that’s what ended up killing her in the end. i hate that she didn’t try harder to quit. i feel angry, and then i feel guilty for being angry, and then i remember she’s dead anyway so it doesn’t really matter how i feel. she taught me how to ride a bike and protected me from my mother. all of my ‘first day of school’ pictures were taken at her house. i put on makeup for the first time in her house. i cooked my first meals in her house. i got locked in the bathroom in her house when i was 5 and was claustrophobic for years afterwards. i loved being around her. she’s still the first person i want to talk to when i have something going on. i still try to call her before i remember i can’t do that anymore. i feel like i failed her. growing up, i wanted so badly to be rich and famous so i could buy her everything she never had. i wanted to be on tv and i wanted her to watch me every night. she was so proud of me for finishing school and for moving away. she loved to swim but never owned a bathing suit; she swam in a t-shirt and shorts every time. she was super sensitive to smells and hated when i wore perfume; she would have dramatic fake coughing fits when i walked in the door. we watched charlotte’s web together probably over 100 times. i would sing that sad and beautiful debbie reynolds song for her. i played it in the hospital room when she was on hospice and we all cried. she answered the phone the same exact way each time, would close her eyes when we drove over bridges because she was always afraid they would collapse, and she made sure to give each of us $100 in our stockings on christmas morning even though she definitely could not afford it. she kept everything i ever made for her in her ‘memory box’ and going through it after she died was like unearthing my own personal time capsule. doodles i did in 3rd grade. random seasonal coloring book pages. a necklace i made when i was 4. a dollar i gave her ‘for atlantic city.’ she loved me so much. so much. i spent my entire life by her side and was right at her side when she died. i miss her so much i am desperate. i want her here with me. what do i do? do i go to the church she hated? buy a ouija board? hire a psychic? i just want to see her again. what do you do with your grief besides letting it rot in the pit of your stomach? how do you keep living?

[eruverse]

Finally after 638682 years I have published a new fic!! I want to write more short fics/ficlets as they suit my writing style more.

Pairing: Mongolia/Turkey

Rating: T

Summary: And yet it's this simple and fleeting moment that draws the heart true.

The pipe is an unmatched beauty of interwoven pattern, carved in utmost care by what was undoubtedly one of the best artisans of their age. Mongolia runs his fingers over every dip and rise of it, admiring the ways in which the humble ivory base is elevated to excellence. Turkey peers at him with obvious interest as he leans against the parapet of a rooftop overlooking the city, smiling contentedly as if a generous ruler toward his beloved subject.

“Do you like the pipe? I will give it to you.”

Mongolia raises one eyebrow and fights the urge to sigh at his cheekiness. “Yeah, no. How expensive is this precisely? Where did you acquire it from? This must be a very valuable antique.”

Turkey shrugs elegantly. “How would I know. It was already in my possession. Either it was gifted to me by one of my very many guests and allies, or it was one of the war spoils. I had a lot from my neighbors, as you undoubtedly know.”

Curious, Mongolia inspects the pipe again to glean any semblance of historical background from it. His mind is drawing up a blank. “How about that. Perhaps Persia.”

Turkey chuckles. “Mayhaps. I delivered his ass to him so many times, after all. Now now, he’s not important. Where is the tobacco you gave me?”

Mongolia presses the jar into his waiting hand; with how careless Turkey could be with his possessions, he is in fact protecting it so the wooden container wouldn’t fall on its butt and chip itself. All the more so because he handcrafted it himself; he invented the unique design, chose the best wood and cut it, carved it with simple but tasteful patterns, and painted it to perfection. With all of Turkey’s carelessness with inanimate objects, however, he is never unappreciative about any gift; he cherishes the thoughtful attention as much as the value in the material itself. That Mongolia likes the pleasure in Turkey’s face is the reason why he gifts him many of his handicrafts. 

Turkey unfastens the jar to scoop some of the tobacco up, and fills the pipe still held in Mongolia’s careful hand with it. That, and Turkey’s expectant gaze tells Mongolia that he means for him to have the smoke. He starts: “Oh.”

Turkey raises one eyebrow at that (though he can’t do it the way Mongolia does). “What is it? Have you stopped smoking for good?”

Mongolia doesn’t even take the time to think. “I’ve cut it by a lot, but never fully stopped.” He went from being a chain smoker who burnt through two to three packs a day to just one or two cigarettes when he feels really, really stressed, which isn’t actually that common an occurrence. In fact Mongolia smokes more often around friends instead; it is a means for social bonding for him just like a bowl of vodka and a playful wrestling. The same pattern would often apply whenever Turkey visits him, where they would enjoy exotic brands of tobacco together. Never rushing, always relishing.

Sharing a pipe, however, is new. 

“This is most perfect for savoring, after all.” Turkey drawls, and Mongolia agrees. He tamps down into the bowl to flatten the leaves, prompting Mongolia to give it a test go after he is done. When all is good, Turkey produces a match and lights it with deft fingers; the first blazing burn between them quickly dies into a soft glow, almost too weak perhaps — and yet it’s this simple and fleeting moment that draws the heart true. These light touches to be relished in and nurtured, just like the finest carving from the hands of the most skilled artist. 

The first heady smoke in his mouth feels just like a deep kiss; his tobacco in Turkey’s pipe, mingling and working harmoniously together. He has half a mind to inhale it straight to his lungs, but it burns so good for him not to savor it right on his tongue and palate. He passes the pipe to Turkey after he’s enjoyed his round, only to closely watch the man’s enticing lips close around the mouthpiece and draw in a new kiss. He wonders then what kind of tobacco Turkey usually smokes at home, how it would taste. He gets just a hint of it every now and then whenever they have their way with each other, but Turkey is a man who only smokes leisurely and not as an addict. And perhaps, like him also, he prefers to smoke with others. 

They continue to nurture that gentle ember between them. At one particular moment Mongolia would draw the smoke further up his lungs as he gazes closely into Turkey’s captivating eyes, and Turkey would plant a small kiss on the pipe’s mouthpiece while he slips one leg under Mongolia’s. They would speak and laugh about all kinds of nothing inbetween, but never with the ember set aside unattended. And never would it die out; Mongolia and Turkey would lean closer into each other as the sun dips further and the sky of Ulaanbaatar grows dim, with their soft ember glowing brighter and ever hotter. It has grown from a weak spark that passes between them and into an all-encompassing fire that soars up from their bellies. 

The last of dried leaves finally turned into ash as the daylight leaves the city. 

Turkey sets the pipe aside without looking as his eyes have settled on Mongolia’s, easy but feverish. Mongolia, too, can only think of the man before him and the heat blossoming between them. 

He smirks. “So, what now?”

Turkey steps closer into his embrace, wrapping one arm around Mongolia’s thick waist. Mongolia is tempted to pinch his ass at that, but instead settles at pressing their hips flush and crossing one leg over Turkey’s.

Turkey whispers before capturing Mongolia’s lips in a searing kiss: “As always, we can’t be full just with appetizers.”

[abuddyforeveryseason]

This is the Buddy for October 5th. Funny, eh? That's cause it's a trace, the original's a still from a show, see:

It's Scrubs! It was a fun show. I love comedies like that. See, in this scene, J.D. is about to kiss his girlfriend Danni, and he's not looking forward to it because she smokes so much, it's like kissing a giant cigarette. I can't say I don't relate, kissing a heavy smoker is like licking an ashtray.

The thing is... they did kiss a lot when they started dating, and it never bothered him before. Did she manage to hide the smoking before their first break-up? Or, is it more likely that she only started smoking some moment after the break-up? You see, in between those events, Danni's brother Ben died. And after that episode, Danni started being portrayed as a chain-smoking, drinking, self-destructive trouble girl.

So, a lot of fans have that theory that Danni's just lashing out at the world after Ben's death. The writers say that's not the case, though.

I listen to some podcasts that complain about fan theories, and I disagree, I think they're often pretty interesting (but if I stopped listening just because I disagree about one thing, I wouldn't be allowed to read, watch or listen to anything). In Scrubs' case, the fan theory matches the plot and works better than the 'official' explanation. That gets me thinking about the idea of Death of the Author in fiction.

Death of the Author isn't so much about fan theories as it is about interpreting works of fiction in a way the author didn't intend. There are lots of different levels of applying it to a work. Let's take a Shakespeare play for example, since those are often subject to different interpretations:

In All's Well That Ends Well, Bertram, the Viscount of Roussillon, rejects a marriage proposal from the beautiful and intelligent Helena. He also has a close friendship with the effeminate Parolles. Once he finds out Parolles is a coward, and Helena managed to trick him into giving her his ring, he marries Helena.

Some of the different interpretations of the story can be:

Bertram rejects Helena because she's of a lower class (that's the 'official' explanation).

Bertram is secretly in love with Parolles, i.e., he's secretly gay or bisexual.

Bertram is gay or bi, but he himself doesn't even realize it, which is why he's so conflicted about marrying Helena.

Shakespeare (or the story's original writer) based Bertram on a real person, and this person was gay or bi, with or without the writer's knowledge.

There's some other reason, lost within the folds of time, for Bertram to reject Helena - possibly a cultural reference that only made sense in the early performances, or some aspect of Elizabethan England culture we aren't aware of.

There is no reason for Bertram to reject Helena, other than for the plot to work. If that's the case, the writer's more of a hack than anything else.

I don't exactly believe any of those theories 100%, because there really isn't a way to know. But the idea of Death of The Author is that it doesn't really matter what's the real story, but rather what makes the most sense reading it. On one hand, that sounds seriously unfair for the writer, who might have wanted to make a point, but on the other hand, if he didn't want people to have opinions about his story, he shouldn't have published it.

So, looking at the different interpretations up there, I could say 'one is true, the others make sense, although unintentionally'. It's one thing to say a writer made a character be secretly gay, and a whole different thing to say the character's secretly gay without even the writer being aware of it. But it does happen. A writer puts on the page what he sees in the real world, after all. If a real person has a secret the writer isn't privy to, can't we say a character based on this real person might have the same secret?

Although that doesn't really apply to the Scrubs example. That case's much clearer - writers wanted to retool a character, because they wanted something that was a better fit for the actress, and because her function as a character changed (they wanted a 'bad girlfriend' character so J.D. was even less happy.) But the fan theory is more interesting, so, why exactly is is wrong to go with it?