#I had to leave the kitchen because I was cleaning and getting irrationally mad at how dirty it was

[hecate-fem]

At this point even waking up is stressing me out

[kujakumai]

cleaned up old WIP, 2800 words, AU where Yami Bakura succeeds in switching hosts in DK and Mokuba makes friends with an evil ghost. Not going to be continued but it literally would not leave my brain alone until I finished it.

Things were not going according to plan.

The plan was to take control of a soulless puppet, an easy vessel incapable of interfering with his ends. He had the vessel, had accomplished that much, but he was not expecting the pharaoh and his little friends to succeed and convince Pegasus to give everyone their souls back. So now not only was there a second person in this body he had to keep suppressed, but now he was stuck impersonating a child, smiling through an awkward reunion and then placed onto a helicopter next to a gangly high school student who was watching him like a hawk.

The spirit-that-was-no-longer-Yami-Bakura knew that he was supposed to be Mokuba, but he did not remember the tall one's name. K-something. He had a stupid jacket and hardly took his eyes off him the entire ride, as if he thought his little brother was going to disappear in a puff of smoke when he wasn't looking. Annoying. Infuriating. Luckily it did not seem he wanted to talk, or at least accepted silence. No one expects recent kidnapping victims to say much, which was a boon. A little dazed, a little quiet, a little off, and no one really found it unusual.

They dropped off the pharaoh and his friends, and finally landed at a gaudy and ostentatious house so large it took him a second to realize it was a home at all, an absurd monument to decadence with grounds full of ugly topiaries. Wealth, then. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. He could work with this. The rich kid in the stupid coat quietly held his hand the entire walk up the driveway, until they entered a foyer just as gilded and obscene as the outside had been.

No, things were not going to plan, and playing grade-schooler was awkward and an insult to his dignity, and he was farther away from the other millennium items as he ever had been. He would have to grit his teeth through it until he could figure out the next step. In the meantime, perhaps, enjoy some amenities.

Richie rich sighed, relaxed his shoulders the moment they got inside. He looked at who he thought was his little brother and gave him a small, exhausted but genuine smile. He struggled with what to say next.

"Mokuba," he said, "I have to check on a few things in my office. See what kind of damage they did. Do you want to come with me?"

"No." Finally, a chance to be out of this idiot's sight.

This answer seemed to surprise him, a twitch of skepticism. "Will you be okay by yourself?"

He nodded. Keep answers short, when you're impersonating.

His face betrayed more skepticism, concern, and the tiniest hint of disappointment. As if rich kid himself was the one who was scared to be alone in his own house. He accepted the answer, though, to the spirit's relief.

Rich kid bent down and pulled him into a tight hug and ruffled his hair. "We'll get something special for dinner, okay? And ice cream."

"I do like ice cream." This was true. Ryou Bakura almost never bought ice cream, and when he did it was the stupid healthy kind that everyone knew shouldn't even really qualify as ice cream, which was another reason he was a terrible host. That and the fact that he was startlingly pale and had the upper body strength of a limp noodle and the personality of skim milk. This would be better, even if he had to deal with the abrupt drop in height.

Rich kid headed off towards the staircase with another tired but trying-to-be-reassuring smile, and it was then that the spirit of the ring felt an annoyance in the back of his brain. A presence. A scratching, biting, flailing presence, screeching mad, which he had been suppressing for a while now but finally broke through.

get out get out get out get out give it back its MINE get out

The host, awake. What a bother. More rambunctious than Bakura, then? No matter. He could handle a child.

that was MY hug and MY headpat and MY big brother and you can't have them he's been gone for ages and they're mine not yours get out get out get out

The spirit pushed back, ignored him. Shush. He had planned to hold this body alone, and he did not intend to go back to sharing. If you're good, I might let you have it back for a little while later.

shut up go away go away go away go AWAY

And then Mokuba Kaiba did something, something the spirit was not accustomed to or expecting at all, something which Ryou Bakura had never been willing or able to do. He shoved, violently, and the spirit of the ring was ripped out of control with some amount of panic.

"SETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Why you insolent little--

Seto Kaiba was not aware of the mental turf war happening over his little brothers body. What he did see was his brother scream his name and fall down, and the whole room echoed with a metal clatter as his briefcase fell on the floor and he ran towards him.

--

The ring had been discarded unceremoniously to a side table, and not-Bakura-and-not-Mokuba-either had no choice but to wait and observe, as a pediatrician on a sudden housecall shined lights in the boy's eyes and rich kid, who the spirit had since gleaned was named Seto Kaiba, looked on in worry.

"You said you heard a voice?" The doctor asked.

"Uh-huh. I think it lives in the necklace."

"You got that thing at Pegasus's house?" Kaiba asked, in disbelief.

"I don't remember. I was just wearing it when I woke up."

"What did the voice say?" the doctor continued, professionally ignoring any talk about magic necklaces.

"Not a lot. It was kind of mean."

"I see." She turned to Kaiba. "He's fine, physically. You might want a psychologist." and Seto Kaiba made what could politely be referred to as A Face. This was not what he wanted to hear, this was news that worried and annoyed him in equal measure, and to some degree was news he had half-expected.

"He's had a rough few months. I'll look into it." and she was dismissed, and Mokuba hopped down from the counter.

"Can we order pizza?" he asked, with big pleading eyes.

Kaiba watched him with dry amusement. "Mokuba, you can have anything you want from any restaurant in a forty mile radius."

"And I want pizza. Real pizza, from somewhere that doesn't also serve caviar."

"Cheap pizza?"

He nodded very seriously. "The grossest greasiest cheapest."

"I can do that. Anything else you want?"

Mokuba's eyes lit up, and soon he was dragging Kaiba by the hand towards somewhere else in the house. "I got to this really hard level in my game I can't get past and I wanted to see if you could beat it, and I found this really cool video I wanted to show you, and I got a really good report card you never saw, and--" and months worth of pent up requests were tumbling out rapid fire, and Kaiba was smiling with affection and some amount of relief.

Loud and clingy, then, was the normal and expected behavior. The spirit of the ring made note of this, as he lie abandoned.

--

The ring was still sitting on a side table, in Mokuba's bedroom, apparently because no one knew what to with it or thought it mattered much. This was a problem. The spirit couldn't do anything without a host, and now everyone was suspicious, these stupid rich people worried too much and paid too much attention.

He was forced to sit there all night, pondering about how he was going to get out of this mess, when at one or two in the morning he observed Mokuba wake up, and rub his eyes, and hop out of bed. He did not turn the light on, but he did check the time, and reach under his bed to retrieve what appeared to be a small backpack. He took it with him as he moved quietly towards the door, and the spirit saw his chance.

Hey, kid. He was near enough to speak into his head. Maybe this wasn't a dead end.

"You!" Mokuba stopped in his tracks and looked right at the ring.

Yes, me. This could be salvaged, he thought, concocting a plan. This was a child. Play friendly ghost and imaginary friend. Surely it would not be hard to weasel himself into the good graces of a sixth grader.

Mokuba glared at the ring with suspicion. "I don't think Seto believed me when I said you could talk, but I knew it." He picked it up delicately by the string to examine.

Where on earth are you going at this time of night?

Mokuba was the current host, technically, so there was a connection, and 11 year olds are not particularly used to or adept at hiding their own thoughts, especially inside their own heads. The answer, if not in words but in abstract concept, was provided instantly as it bubbled to mind. He was going to the kitchen, as he did once or twice a week, not their personal kitchen but the house staff kitchen, where he would move a chair to stand on the counter to reach the very back of the highest shelf of the third cupboard to the left, which was where one of the cleaning staff kept a pile of chocolate so he could cheat on his diet without his wife knowing, a fact Mokuba knew through surreptitious eavesdropping. Mokuba's end was to steal just enough of it that he wouldn't be noticed, and add it to a stash of snacks and other shiny trinkets currently hidden in the bottom of a pile of legos in his closet.

...You steal food to hide in your closet? Why would a child who lived in a three-story mansion need to steal?

Mokuba was only mildly perturbed by the fact that someone had just read his mind. He was mainly curious, now. "Our dad didn't like junk food, so I always took stuff to keep around." he explained, "I guess I don't really have to anymore, 'cuz Seto will let me have whatever I want, but--" he faltered, unable to finish or give a reason.

There wasn't a reason, and Mokuba knew that. There was no need to sneak or stash or steal anymore, but he kept doing it, irrationally, for reasons that confused him, a complicated swirl of things a child could not name or understand but were very easy for the spirit to read. Fear; compulsion; habit; the illusion of safety; the sense that your life was precarious, unstable; a need to exert control over your surroundings. It was not the food or the stealing that mattered, but of the hiding, of having something they could not take away from him.

Mokuba didn't understand any of that, because he was 11 and 11 year olds don't understand why they do anything. He just knew he liked sweets and hated people telling him what to do and that having bags of chips and other people’s lost jewelry at the bottom of an old toybox made him feel better.

Can I come with you?

"No! You tried to take control of me!"

Yes, but you kicked me out, and you'd probably be able to do it again, so I would be stupid to try. I also like chocolate, you see, and it's very boring to be stuck here on your desk.

"Can you even eat? You're a necklace."

I can when I borrow a body.

"You tried to take over me so you could eat chocolate? I'm not stupid enough to believe that."

That and other things. I can't do very much at all, while stuck in the ring. No food, no sunshine, no running around. It's no fun to be without a body, which is why I am occasionally driven to steal one. Terribly sorry about that. he added, in his most pathetic-sounding tone, Please? I don't have anyone else to talk to.

Mokuba was hesitant, but clearly found the fact of his existence too interesting to ignore. "Fine." He picked up the ring and dropped it unceremoniously into his backpack, which had a dragon on it.

Not trust yet, but tolerance and curiosity. One step at a time.

You shouldn't go barefoot, you know. Socks will be quieter if you're trying not to get caught.

"I didn't ask you."

So Mokuba descended down the stairwell, in the dead quiet and dark of the Kaiba Mansion, with no flashlight because he knew it well enough to navigate blindfolded. The place was decadent in the ugly way rich people's houses were, luxury but without taste, soft carpets and gilded banisters.

Mokuba had not quite realized yet how to think at the ring, so he spoke in a low whisper. "What are you, anyway?"

A ghost. So much more complicated than that, but simple words were suitable for children.

"How'd you end up a ghost in a necklace?"

I died, and then someone put me in a necklace.

"That's not an answer." he followed up, "Do all dead people become ghosts?"

No. Just sometimes, maybe, if the way they died was especially violent or gruesome or terrible.

Mokuba frowned. He had caught on remarkably quickly to guarding his own head, but the spirit could tell he didn't like this answer.

This was delicate, but he risked a push. Was there someone you had in mind?

Mokuba said nothing. He reached the staff kitchen on the lowest floor, and opened the door, slow and careful. He was deciding whether to say anything, as he climbed up as quietly as he could and reached far into the back of the cupboard, scrabbling.

"Our dad killed himself last year. Jumped out a window." He finally said, hopping down with his spoils. He said this the same way one might dolefully report the milk had gone bad. Unfortunate but boring.

You don't sound very sad.

"Nah, he sucked. And he never liked me." he said, "Seto was really really upset though. He was pretending not to be, but I could tell." Now there were feelings there, big and weird and sad and clinging ones. For reasons the spirit could not discern, the simple phrase ‘Seto was upset’ carried with it more weight, a thousand million times more weight, than news of a father's tragic death by defenestration. "I hope he's not a ghost. I don't wanna see him again."

Probably not.

Mokuba sat down cross-legged on the kitchen floor, unwrapped candy in silver foil. "You really can't do anything from in the necklace? Like, ghost stuff? Make things float or anything?"

No. It is a bit like being trapped in a very small box.

Mokuba mulled this over for a little while. "If you wanted to borrow a body to do fun stuff, you could have just asked."

Really?

He nodded. "Not being able to eat chocolate sounds lame. It'd be mean to just leave you like that." He put one chocolate into his mouth and dumped the rest in the backpack, where they covered the ring unceremoniously. More indignities. "Not in front of my brother, though. And you have to give it back whenever I say so."

...I could agree to such a compromise. Your candy haul is impressive, by the way.

"Thanks!" He grinned, emanating genuine pride. No one had ever complimented him for stealing before.

Tragic, the work of great thieves. How the very best of it can never be bragged about, the most impressive of skills gone unnoticed by nature, how the very success of a perfect crime relies on keeping your mouth shut about it. An unappreciated art, where even mastery gains you no respect.

You don't care that this poor man has to go out and buy twice as much food to make up for what you steal?

"No, he's a jerk. One time when I was six they confiscated my gameboy, so I went to steal it back and he caught me and told my dad and I got in huge trouble. So every day for a week I snuck down here and moved his keys to a different place so he couldn't find them. They were all so mad at him for losing them all the time, and he thought he was crazy."

Why was your gameboy confiscated?

"Don't remember. I think I bit someone at school." he shrugged, "They probably deserved it, though."

Mokuba Kaiba. he said, I think you and I are going to be excellent friends.

"Okay. Do ghosts watch cartoons?"

[leeknow-bestboy]

Minsung Mermaid AU

-Where Minho is a merman with a big muscular gray tail, and is considered the fastest, best hunter in his pack.

Minho went hunting for seals one day. They do as orcas do usually, leap out of the water and snatch pray- but that day Minho did a risky jump and got just a little bit stuck.

Before he could push himself back to the sea he heard two human voices, so he hid and watched as Jisung and Seungmin climbed down big rocks to take pictures of the seals.

He could kind of understand what they were saying, but he doesn't speak fluent human, he has a heavy accent and his main tongue is in clicks and hisses.

He gets so curious, he comes to spy on them again and again.

One time it's just Jisung: he sees a baby seal and his reaction is so cute, that Minho only thinks- wow, this hunter sucks.

Can't even catch a baby seal.

So he calls to him, and Jisung gets so confused before realizing what he's seeing, because that's a whole ass merman offering him a bloodied half of a dead seal.

So he yells and runs. Minho pouts a little but whatever

Seungmin and Jisung do return after that to look for him, and Minho sees them because this is prime hunting ground he doesn't only come here for them obviously, but he hides in protest, and only comes out when it's Jisung alone again

This time he tries to talk to him but his accent is so heavy, and Jisung is scared at first but eventually he gets over himself and Minho lets him touch his tail

He thinks Jisung being scared is cute, because Minho isn't even a siren he's a merman, he doesn't eat humans- he hunts seals and fish for his pack and they share them in a civil way.

He's an intellectual and he knows he's pretty, Jisung got scared for no reason

-But also Minho has a big crush on him by now

He thinks his laughter is super pretty

When Jisung asks him if he even understands what he's saying, Minho goes *head tilt* to fuck with him but then laughs and says Yes in a really thick accent and Jisung hits him

Somehow they become boyfriends

It just happens

Their first kiss is almost an accident, only it isn't. Jisung shows Minho things on his phone, they're sitting close, and when Jisung looks up Minho's pupils are huge, he's smiling that stupid smitten smile and it almost doesn't register with Jisung that he was looking at him the entire time.

Jisung is so scared, of Minho and of liking Minho, he isn't human,

He didn't think this was a real thing that could happen at all, hadn't considered that Minho might like him too

He's just Jisung, and Minho is this mythical beauty

But then he kisses him so obviously he kisses back

He's wanted this for months already

Every time he'd climb down those damn rocks

And afterwards, they talk it all out, and Jisung is forced to face the fact that it's real

What they have is real

No matter how strange, extraordinary, even if it sounds like what fairytales are made of

They are going to see these feelings through, against the odds

Seungmin still doesn't get to see Minho, because Minho is scared of being seen. He never cared before, but if outsiders see him this time around he can't just flip a bird at them and switch to a different hunting ground, what he has with Jisung is important to him

His pack told him right away to stop fooling around with pretty human boys, because it's dangerous, and nothing is going to come of it anyway

Jisung can't breathe underwater, he can't swim, hunt or provide

They consider Minho out of his league completely. What's he doing with a human boy?

But Jisung is so beautiful, affectionate, he brushes his hair, gets the specs of sand right out

Scratches behind his ears, rubs his cheeks, kisses his nose like a cat

Gives him cuddles and hugs till Minho purrs from being so happy he doesn't know what to do

Jisung cleans his tail, picks out dirt from the bottom scales he can't reach

Every once in a while he'll bring him something good, like chicken or duck or even beef, Minho never had beef- and chocolate! he really likes it.

One day Sungie asks him to follow, and walks dangerously on the rocks along the shore. Minho swims by his side.

They walk until they can't anymore, and then Jisung points at a far house up a cliff

"I live there"

And Minho understands

Minho is too anxious to visit Jisung's home, because he's immobile out of the water,

But Jisung comes with a boat and diving gear, and Minho makes him promise he won't tell anyone before taking him to his reef.

It's a few kilometers away from the shore so Ji has to take the boat before diving but Minho guides him. He takes him home, and only his parents meet Ji

The rest of the pack must not know, or they'll get mad

He shows Jisung his collection of pearls and shiney stuff, because Minho loves everything shiney, it turns out

...Then Minho touches Ji's ear where his earrings are and Jisung knows he likes them, knows he wants some too but doesn't know how, because for mermaids, their ears get infected if they pierce them, and the smell of blood draws predators. They're slightly allergic to some metals too

When Jisung goes home, he searches and gets Minho clip-on earrings with shiney gems,

And Minho takes and accepts that as a marriage proposal, he gives Jisung back the best scale of his tail

They have no idea how they're going to, but they decided they will do it

Jisung works his ass off, Minho helps by collecting anything precious from the bottom of the sea and giving it for Jisung to sell at the market

"What will you do if he leaves you? Takes all the treasure and disappears into the land?"

"Then I'll visit the sea witch in her coven as legends go, and for whatever price she names-- I'll follow him and rip his heart out"

Jisung isn't actually aware of how hardcore Minho is being about this, them

Luckily Jisung is deeply, irreversibly and throughly in love with Minho anyway. He'll never leave

Instead he saves that money and buys them a house on a farther part of the shore, a few kilometers down where the big rocks clear a little, there's a dock, house on the dock, and Jisung works on improving it for months

He brings Seungmin to help him, Chan too

They leave half of the house submerged

There's a front door and an opening underwater that leads to a canal so Minho can swim in

The table is at the edge of the canal, it stretches out to the bed as well

There's a big underwater space under the house, almost like a cave, Jisung cleared it

Minho has his very own kitchen, while Jisung occupies the one above it

The bed is practically a futon, and on Minho's end, when he rolls off he falls right into the water

It's like a river's edge, they sleep together this way

Live together

"Did you have to jump right into bed? you're making the futon wet again"

"Problem?"

"Not really, no."

Minho finally meets Jisung's parents

One time Jisung takes him out on a wheelchair, Minho doesn't like it, he's too anxious. Jisung is anxious in crowded places too so they don't do it much after that

Only when Minho is sick or one of Jisung's friends has a big event he wants them to attend

Half of Jisung's friends don't even know what Minho is

"My husband"

"No yeah but like... What is he?"

"The love of my life?"

"You know what? fine. Okay."

Jisung rolls him in on a wheelchair and his tail is covered with a blanket but it is BIG. And they're like... How big are this guy's legs

Nobody has the balls to question it

Nor do they question his accent. It gets better anyway

Once in a while he'll get totally stuck on a word and just look at Jisung with these huge helpless eyes and Jisung will always know what he means right away

"Sorry I'm fore- for- foer-"

*Frustrated chirp*

"Hannie?"

"He's a foreigner"

"Yes!"

Honestly Jisung doesn't even know what Minho is doing with him, this gorgeous merman can do much better for sure, now he's stuck with some mess on two feet who stands in none of his pack's standards-

But Minho is really overjoyed with his life

He likes their cats, likes it when they try to slap his tail through the canal and get startled by the water splashing

Likes the delicious food Jisung provides him with

This man built him a home, he feeds him every day. Jisung is more than perfect

He's the one he wants and for all he cares, the entire world can "suck" Minho's fish dick

Speaking of which....

Mermaids aren't like humans, they don't enjoy sex like humans do, it's something animals do when they mate right? That's it

It's not desirable beyond the primal need to have kids, so Minho doesn't care about it

--But when Jisung needs him, he takes care of him

He's also really smug the entire time because Jisung is so vulnerable, calling his name

They have no problem with that kind of thing

Sometimes Jisung gets pouty, tries to turn things around and dominate, but Minho usually starts laughing at him because that's so cute and Minho's practically asexual anyway

He doesn't get sexually turned on by nothing

Hickies and makeouts are really nice, they feel good. That's it

Jisung gets irrationally upset Minho doesn't find him attractive sometimes, but Minho easily shuts him up calling him beautiful,

Reminding him that he loves him, they are mates, and mermaids mate for life

He is his

When they do cover the topic of kids, Minho vetos a human child, because he's scared he'll forget, he'll try to drag the kid down underwater- or they might fall into the water, he'll forget they can't swim

Mermaid babies can already work fins and lungs from the moment they are born

Jisung is unsure, so they debate it for a long time- he's scared he won't be able to be a good role model for a mermaid. Even after years with Minho there is so much he doesn't know

He can't speak his tongue, for one

He can't teach a kid how to hunt or anything

He doesn't know what a mermaid baby eats, even

Formula?

Minho says milk, if not a mermaid's, then a whale's, and that stresses Jisung impossibly MORE

But eventually they adopt a baby merman after his parents go missing:

Minho goes home in a panic and tells Jisung about it, how the pack is searching and they can't be found anywhere

Jisung tells him he can bring the baby there

After two years, they consider him theirs

Jisung is high key in love with his kid

He spoils him so much Minho is jealous,

But on the other hand, Minho taught the kid how to speak their tongue so every once in a while the kid will say something or make a sound and Jisung will be like ???????

The kid doesn't have a heavy accent like Minho in human speech, but Minho complains he has an odd accent in mermaid speech

He doesn't click his ??? right

They practice it a lot. Their home turns into a chirping clicking fest for a while

...While Minho has a slick metallic silver tail, the kid has his a deep blue with a black spot near the bottom, which is really pretty in Jisung's opinion! His scales turn darker as he ages, until they're almost black

His hair gets darker too, which Jisung knows is normal because human kids get that too.

Of course, for sure, they live happily ever after.

Thank you for listening (reading) to this incredibly long ted talk

[spidersmiceandeverythingnice]

All Emiya-san AU's are good AU's (its where my Actor Fionn lives too lol) and man there's a lot of untapped comedy gold of Shirou hearing all these stories about Diarmuid scaring away rude customers and thinking he looks super scarred up or w/e and then he meets him and it's like "??? he looks so nice?? are u sure this is the guy who nearly stabbed someones eye out???"

EHEHEHE I wrote a thing beneath the read more I looooove the Emiya Gohan AUS so much...

Everything about this situation was concerning for Shirou. It was bad enough that Archer was using Shirou’s name (the number of times he’d gotten, “Is that guy a relative of yours, Emiya-kun?” from ignorant but well-meaning classmates was starting to grate on his nerves) at his dumb part-time job (why Servants even needed part-time jobs was a mystery) and the fact that Lancer kept popping up to invite Taiga out for dinner and drinking but now, apparently, a third Servant had arrived.

The cafe’s regulars, of course, had no idea he was a Servant. Sakura and Rider had confirmed it after visiting the cafe on one of their dates, but didn’t seem to be worried. Of course, they weren’t worried. Sakura and Rider had enough power and magical energy between them to flatten the city, let alone deal with Servants. Rin also brushed off what Shirou believed was a wholly justified concern - “He’s probably just some lingering ghost from a past Grail War. Archer seems to like him fine, and he hangs out around Lancer, so what’s the big deal? If he becomes a problem, we’ll just deal with it like we always do.”

But in Shirou’s view, the Servant was already a problem. It was bad enough that the restored Servants of the Fifth Grail War could still draw upon the wild, free-flowing magic of Fuyuki’s leylines and pop up whenever they pleased - the fact that Servants from previous wars might show up too was giving him anxiety.

And this was before the rumors started.

Nobody seemed to know the guy’s name, or remember it if they saw it written down. He would pop up - always in the vicinity of the cafe - and often left behind gifts. One time, it was a bottle of wine for the manager. Another time, an antique coin for one of the waiters. He always seemed to disappear right when anyone asked for information about him, and reappear whenever something interesting happened. One time, near closing, a couple of drunk university students came in and tried to convince their waitress to leave in their car. When she refused, one of them joked about following her home.

At once, the mystery Servant walked in the door.

Another time, a middle-aged man from out of town shouted at one of the baristas until they had to run into the back to cry for the rest of their shift. On the local news the next morning, the man appeared to have been dropped at the hospital with a broken jaw and a soul full of remorse.

(Lancer actually laughed when he informed Shirou of this story.

“You were there and didn’t say anything?”

“Hey, I was the guy who had to deal with the asshole after he made our barista run off. It wasn’t a big deal, I just happened to call in a favor from a friend. Plus, he deserved it.”

And Lancer winked, like they were sharing an inside joke.)

And so on and so forth. Nobody could purge the service industry of customer horror stories, but this mystery Servant seemed to be doing his damnedest to make a dent in the problem. He was the most ghost-like of any Servant that Shriou had ever encountered.

Ayako and Kaede quickly became regulars at the cafe. Shirou thought it was hard to tell whether or not they were in love with the mystery Servant or whether or not they wanted to challenge him to a duel. It seemed to be a combination of both.

“He’s like, the toughest guy I’ve ever seen,” said Ayako, mystified. “I swear I thought he was going to tear that woman’s throat out.”

“This guy threatened a customer,” Shirou said, “and you’re happy?”

“Well, she was being rude to Yukika,” Kaede retorted, like that settled the matter. “I mean, I wasn’t counting, but I think she sent her coffee back six times before anyone said anything. She kept berating her like it was Yukika’s fault that she kept changing her mind about sugar and milk. She literally lied about what her original order was to get a free drink. It was awful.”

“But then this guy shows up,” Ayako continued the story, talking over Kaede as she continued muttering about the injustice faced by the track team’s manager. “And he clocks what’s happening, like, instantly. I dunno where the blue-haired guy was, I guess he was late for his shift or something, but he just - “

She motioned like she was trying to take up more space than her physical body allowed.

“I swear, it was like you could’ve heard a pin drop! He takes one look at Yukika and just goes up to the lady and -”

Another vague gesture like a karate chop.

“He hit this woman?” Shirou said, outraged.

“Nah, he wouldn’t hit anyone,” Kaede said, nodding sagely. “He doesn’t really need to, you know? You could just take one look at him and you know not to mess with this guy when he’s mad.”

That settled it. Shirou had to investigate on his own, since obviously no one else was going to take this seriously. It was bad that customers were mistreating the staff at Yukika’s job, but a Servant threatening humans was unacceptable.

It was time, at last, to enlist Saber’s help.

She had been living at Shirou’s house since her restoration, recovering from her injuries. Shirou hated the idea of asking her to fight again, especially when she was so clearly enjoying her life as a “normal human,” but he couldn’t afford to hold back if there was a dangerous, unknown Servant in the city. To her credit, Saber was happy to assist. She said she had been meaning to drop by and try Archer’s cooking for quite some time.

The two of them met on Sunday for lunch. Saber ordered two coffees and went into the kitchen to see Archer. Yukika wasn’t on shift today, so Shirou didn’t recognize any of the other staff. But he did notice that they all kept watching the door, as if waiting for something.

After the coffees arrived (Saber’s was left to cool on the table), the bell above the door chimed. Shirou felt the shift in the area’s magical energy before he looked up and saw the Servant himself. It was remarkably subtle, considering that it was like an icy draft passing through the cafe. You wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.

The waitstaff was suddenly all smiles.

Shirou looked up - and felt his jaw drop to the floor.

He did not look remotely threatening. The mystery Servant was, in fact, the most physically beautiful person that Shirou had ever seen in his life. Tall and muscular - his build was not dissimilar to Lancer, though he lacked Lancer’s wolfish aura - with a head of dark, thick curls. His face was elegant, from piercing, bright eyes all the way down to his perfect lips, only marred by a tiny beauty mark beneath his right eye.

Shirou had to look away, blushing despite himself. What the hell is wrong with me? He realized belatedly that he had come to this battle totally unprepared for a charm attack.

Is this guy cursed or something?

That was the only explanation. Why else did he feel like he would collapse if he looked this Servant directly in the face for too long? It wasn’t normal.

And on second glance, it appeared that Shirou wasn’t the only person taken aback. A couple on a date had paused their conversation to stare at the Servant, murmuring their appreciation in hushed tones; a middle-aged woman was holding a fork in her hand, oblivious to the fact that her cake had just splattered over her shoes. Two little kids were waving at him, apparently recognizing him from somewhere, and their parents had to hurriedly shush them because it’s rude to try and pull someone out of a conversation like that.

One of the waiters was talking to him. Shirou strained to listen, shaking himself.

“Want the usual?”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” said the Servant, in a smooth, polite voice that made Shirou hate him irrationally. Stupid, handsome guy. “Is Cu in today?”

“I think he said he’s on vacation,” the waiter replied. “But Emiya’s here if you want to talk to him.”

Shirou looked up, baffled by the fact that the unfamiliar waiter knew his name, momentarily forgetting that Archer had stolen his name as a cover-up.

The Servant noticed. Barely a glance, a flicker of the gaze in his direction.

Shirou turned back and drank deeply from his coffee, which scalded his tongue.

“Oh, I see,” said the Servant, sounding amused now. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing! I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Once the initial shock of the Servant’s appearance dissipated, everything went back to normal so fast that it was almost jarring. The middle-aged woman clicked her tongue and grabbed napkins to clean up her shoes; the couple resumed planning the rest of their day; the kids kept eating, having gotten bored with trying to get the Servant’s attention. The faint, drafty aura of magic passed and the temperature in the cafe seemed to rise back to comfortable levels. Definitely cursed, Shirou decided, frowning into his coffee cup.

“Excuse me?”

Shirou blanched. The Servant had appeared behind him, smiling patiently.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked, indicating Saber’s coffee cup.

Shirou was suddenly, oddly conflicted. Without knowing what this Servant was capable of, was it fair to expose Saber like this?

“Uh, no,” he said, uselessly. “Well, not exactly.”

The Servant waited, patiently, for him to explain. Shirou grimaced.

“My friend is a friend of the guy who cooks here,” he said, hating himself for giving it away. “She wanted to come visit him, so I’m just waiting for her to get back before we leave.”

“Really?” said the Servant, smiling. “That’s nice. You’re a friend of Emiya?”

Shirou twitched. “No. I am Emiya.”

“Oh?”

“Not related to that guy, obviously,” he muttered. “But - anyway,” Shirou blurted, suddenly noticing a distinctive piece of fly-away blonde hair emerging from the kitchen, “it’s a long story, and we’d better get going, so see you later -”

He hastily threw some money down on the table for his coffee and rushed to Saber’s side.

“What’s the matter?” she asked him, brows furrowed with concern. “I thought that you were -”

“Saber!”

Shirou winced, and then - wait a minute. How on Earth did the enemy Servant know Saber’s name!?

To his horror, a huge smile spread over Saber’s face.

“Saber, don’t!” Shirou hissed. “You have to look away! This guy’s got some kind of charm spell on him that -”

Saber only laughed and lightly pushed him aside. Though she’d scarcely used a fraction of her true strength, Shirou stumbled.

“Oh, don’t be silly, Shirou. This is an old friend of mine.”

And she crossed the cafe in order to give the Servant a huge hug. Because Saber was approximately half of the mystery Servant’s size, he was able to lift her easily and spun her in a circle. Saber laughed at this.

“I must admit I’m surprised!” she said. “I didn’t think -”

Saber seemed to become self-conscious. But the enemy Servant merely beamed.

“Think nothing of it! I had no idea you were here in the city.”

“Really? Cu and Emiya didn’t tell you?”

“They mentioned a surprise,” said the Servant, shrugging. “I suppose this must be it.”

Saber shook her head. “Of course they did. Foolish boys.”

“I must apologize - I was introducing myself to your friend.”

“Oh, yes! This is my current Master, Shirou. Shirou,” said Saber, waving to him. “This is my old friend - he was a Lancer in the previous quest for the Grail.”

“Please,” said the former Lancer, “call me Diarmuid, if you’d like.”

He gave away his True Name so casually. Who the hell is he, though? Shirou frowned as he came closer.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t realize you were one of Saber’s friends.”

“And I did not realize you were a mage,” said Diarmuid, breezily. “But no matter! Are you really leaving?” he asked Saber. “Your Master has indicated that you might have plans -”

“Nonsense!” Saber assured him, cheerful as well. “We were just sitting down. Did you order? I’ve been meaning to try Archer’s cooking for awhile, you see, so I plan to stay here for the afternoon.”

Saber and Diarmuid walked back to their table and pulled up a third chair.

Shirou bit back a groan.

It was going to be a long day.

[fearfulkittenwrites]

Safe - “Don’t. Don’t ask.”

Summary:  Jason is great at getting into awful situations. He's really bad at getting out of them. Dick is a little tired of his impulsive little brother, but comes to the rescue all the same.

Word count: 2613

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26435032

Notes: Hello! Thank you for clicking this, I hope you enjoy this work! This has been beta'd by @3ambird​, they are an amazing person and I don't know what would be of me without them making my works this much better with their sharp eyes. Thank you so much!

Also, I’d like to say that I may be a little absent because my classes are going to start up again this monday, but I’ll try my best to post at least every ten-twelve days. Don’t let that stop you from requesting stuff though! I love them, because they give me a clear direction and keep my mind from wandering away into places I don’t want to go to, ahahhaha

TW: Blood, Killing, Deaths.

Dick’s cell rang in the middle of patrol. Jason was calling. He frowns at the phone, but picks up anyway.

“Hey.” He says, sitting down on a rooftop, looking up at the stars “What’s up?”

“Hey.” Jason answers, and Dick can tell he’s struggling to breathe, as if he had run a marathon. He immediately straightens up, more alert “Are you... Can you get to my place?”

“Yes.” Dick stands up, already planning the best route to his brother’s apartment “What happened? Why didn’t you use the usual way?”

“I... I don’t want him to know.” Jason admits “It’s bad Dick. Really bad. I just need... A little help. Please.”

Dick sighs, and turns off his comm.

“I’m on my way.” He hangs up, shoving the phone back into its designated pocket.

Dick sees this kind of situation way too often with Jason. His impulsive brother would launch himself into situations he couldn’t always handle alone. Dick tried to remember that it was not his place to judge; he was just as impulsive as his little brother, but a part of him would always get irrationally mad over his actions. A small part of him, a part that he carefully buried deep inside his chest before he’d talk to his brother wanted to yell, tell him to stop behaving like a selfish child.

Swallowing these thoughts, Nightwing tapped on his brother’s window before opening it.

“Jason?” He called as he stepped into the dark apartment.

“I’m here.” Jason answered, sitting in the corner of the living room.

“I’m gonna turn on the lights, okay? I can’t see anything in here.” Dick warned as he placed a hand on the lightswitch.

“No, wait!” Jason tried to stop him, but it was just too late. Once the living room was illuminated, Dick gasped at the scene ahead of him, feeling sick.

Two corpses were laying on the ground, each in one end of the room, and Jason crouched against the wall, covered in blood. There were puddles of it under both of the bodies, and there were splashes on the walls and couch, indicating that the murders had happened inside. The stains were still a deep red. The stench of it burned into Dick’s nostrils, making him gag on the metallic smell.

“Jason, what did you do?” Dick asks as he shoves his hands inside his hair, pulling a little at the sides.

“Don’t.” Jason starts “Don’t ask.”

“Fuck man, why would you do this?” Dick kneels next to one of the bodies; a bullet wound in the middle of his forehead indicated the cause of death “Jason, what the fuck?”

“Dick, please.” Jason gets up, holding his brother’s hands with his bloodied, trembling ones “Please, man. You have to believe me. I didn’t mean to do this. I just... Shit, man. I need help.”

Their eyes met, and Dick’s anger and resentment dissipated for a second, noticing how deeply desperate his little brother was. How lost his little wing felt, covered in the blood of two strangers, face riddled with bruises and eyes so, so scared.

Slowly, he nodded at the younger man, finally understanding what this was about.

Because it wasn’t about the killings. Jason was far too used to it by now.

It was about the place. It was about it being here, where he should feel safe. And now, he didn’t feel safe anymore.

“Alright. I’ll help. But we’ll need to talk about this eventually.” Jason opened his mouth to protest, but Dick interrupted him “I don’t need it to happen tonight. I just need it to happen, and it’s going to happen, Jason.” His brother swallowed and nodded, backing off and looking at the ground “Okay. Now pull yourself back together, because we’ll need to get rid of these bodies quickly. Do you know who they were?”

“I don’t know their names... I just know that they were Roman’s hitmen.” Jason rubbed his face in distress, smearing blood all over it “Fuck, Dick, what am I gonna do now?”

“Breathe.” Dick said “Breathe, and get control over this. You can freak out once we’re done.But right  now, I really need you to cooperate with me.”

“Okay.” Jason nodded “Okay. What do you need me to do?”

“Get me trash bags and rope. We’ll tie these bodies together.”

Jason goes into his kitchen and Dick crouches down to roll up his brother’s carpet and drag the two corpses closer. Once his brother comes back, both of them cover the bodies with black trash bags and tie them up with the rope, in a nauseating dead man burrito.

“Listen, Jason, I’m gonna need to call someone else.” Jason’s eyes widen “We need to get these bodies out of here so we can dispose of them, but I’m on foot. It’s either Tim or Babs.”

“I...” He takes a deep breath “Call Tim.”

“Alright.” Dick says “Start getting cleaning supplies. And some strong ass scissors or whatever, so we can cut up and burn this carpet.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s drenched in blood and I don’t feel like spending hours cleaning it. Do you?”

“Yeah, okay, we’ll… we’ll burn it.”

Jason leaves the room again and Dick calls Tim.

“Hey. It’s me.” Jason can overhear the conversation, even if he doesn’t want to “Listen, I need help. I’m at Jason’s. Two bodies that need to be gone. Can you handle it? Thank you, Tim.” Dick turns to Jason, who had just walked back into the room “He’ll be here in ten. Let’s get started on the cleaning.”

Dick removed the stains from the couch quickly before cleaning the walls as Jason moped the floor to the best of his skills. When Tim arrived on the Batplane, Dick went to the roof to greet him, bringing the two bodies.

“Fuck, man.” Tim says “What did he do this time?”

“He doesn’t wanna talk about it.” Dick shoves the bodies in the small plane, grunting from the effort “Can you find out who they were and maybe make them disappear?”

“Pfft. Of course I can.” Tim answers “This is all kinda dark, but it’s not like I’m not me.”

“Yeah, right.” Dick smirks “Thank you Red Robin. Really. And, oh, maybe don’t mention this to Batman?”

“Nightwing, do you have me confused with Robin? Because I do have brains.”

Dick snorts. If anyone would be able to make him laugh in a situation like this, that would have to be Tim.

“Whatever. Thank you for the help. I’m gonna go back to cleaning.”

“Go on. Good luck.” Tim gets on the plane and flies away.

Dick quickly hops back into the apartment, and Jason had already started cutting the carpet into strips. He shoved the pieces his brother had cut inside another trash bag.

“We’ll burn those in a proper place.” Dick explains.

Once they are done with the living room, Dick directs his brother to the bathroom.

“Okay. We’re done now Jay. If you need to let it out, to... break down, go ahead, it’s okay. I’m here.”

Jason shoved his hands in his hair, overwhelmed, and he leaned on Dick and cried on his shoulder until his body went limp.

“What the fuck is wrong with me, man?” Jason cries, face buried on Dick’s neck and shoulder “Why do I... Why can’t I just be like you? Why does this keep happening?”

“Shh...” Dick ran a hand through his brother’s hair “It’ll be alright Jay. We’ll handle this.”

“How?” He steps back, searching his brother’s eyes, but Dick still has his mask on “How can we handle this? I... ‘s my apartment, Dick! They figured out where I live! I’m a failure, and a danger! To others and myself.” Jason’s eyes fall, fixated on a crack in his bathroom’s tiles “Y’know,” He starts again, whispering “When a dog kills someone... they put it down.”

“Hey, look at me.” Dick says, grabbing Jason’s shoulder “You’re not a dog, Jason. And we’re not putting you down. We’re family, okay? Not by blood, but by something stronger: choice. And I’m not giving up on you.” He squeezes his brother’s shoulder a little “So don’t you dare give up now, do you hear me?”

Jason nods, trying to regain some of his confidence.

“I just...” He sighs, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand “I don’t even know where to start.”

Dick’s expression softened, and so did his grasp on Jason’s shoulder.

“Let’s start with a shower, yeah?” He suggests.

“Yeah. That- that’s a good idea.” Jason answers, pulling off his jacket and staring at a blood stain on it “What... What about my clothes?”

“Let me worry about them.” Dick takes the jacket from his brother, waiting for the next items patiently, back turned to his brother.

Dick left with the clothes, going for Jason’s small laundry. He ran some cold water through the fabrics, getting rid of most of the stains, and used some hydrogen peroxide on the most stubborn, already dried ones. He hung the clothes up so they wouldn’t stench up the whole area, hoping that Jason wouldn’t take them as clean clothes. After that, Dick opens his communicator’s channel again, clicking on it to call for Batman.

“Batman,” He starts “I’m off for the night.”

“Nightwing, you’re not done with your patrol time yet.” Batman replies.

“I know.” Dick sighs and presses the middle of his forehead with his middle finger, stressed “Something came up.”

“What came up?”

“What usually does.”

“And what would that be?” the Bat growls.

“What do you think?” Dick rolls his eyes, trying his hardest not to say I’m stuck playing dad again because you’re too busy punching criminals in a bat suit.

The line goes silent for a while.

“Is he... Okay?” Bruce asks. And this is definitely Bruce’s voice, not Batman’s growl.

“Physically? Yeah, just a couple of bruises. Mentally? Getting there. Or at least trying to.”

Dick hears the man breathing on the other end of the line.

“And I don’t suppose you’re telling me what happened?”

“You know I won’t.” Dick answers “It’s none of your business. He’s a grown man, he’ll share it if he feels like it. Don’t go demanding answers he isn’t ready to give.”

“Nightwing...” Batman’s voice sounds almost sad through the device “If you can... Bring him home. Please.”

“I will. If he wants to.” Dick takes a deep breath, closing his eyes, tired. “I’m signing out for the night. Be safe.”

As he pulls the device from his ears, Dick wants to throw it against the wall, step on it when it falls, take one of Jason’s pistols and shoot it three times in a row. Instead, he places it on top of the washing machine, bringing his right hand to the back of his head to take a fistfull of his own hair, the strands closest to his neck, and tugging at it. Barbara’s words came to mind. “You have to stop doing that,” She had said to him once “You might just end up going prematurely bald”.

Dick had argued that that is not how balding works, plus, his biological father kept his hair for as long as he lived, so he most likely was all good on that one. He hoped.

Walking to Jason’s closet, Dick opened the last drawer on the left corner, picking up the sweatpants and t-shirt his little brother kept for him, if he ever needed to change from his Nightwing outfit to regular clothes. As he stripped, he noticed a sharp pain on the right side of his torso. There was a big, dark bruise covering that side of his ribcage. Rolling his eyes, he pulled on the comfortable clothes, annoyed at the pain as he rubbed the area harshly, not sure if that made it better or worse.

In the living room, Dick shot the kitchen door a look, trying to decide on whether or not he should try to make Jason a warm meal. He wanted to, but his tiredness and sore muscles got the best of him, deciding to settle on the couch to wait for Jason, hoping that the man wouldn’t be hungry.

It doesn’t take long for Jason to come out of the shower, hair dripping wet.

“Hey.” Dick turns his head to look at him “Do you need some ice for those bruises?”

“No.” Jason replies, groaning as he sits down next to Dick “Are you... Can you stay? Just for tonight?”

“Of course I can.” Dick answers, offering a weak smile to his brother “But... Maybe this isn’t the best idea.”

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t think that you’ll be able to sleep here, Jay.” Dick says, leaning forward a little.

“Are you... Trying to drag me back to the manor?” Jason squints as he speaks.

“No.” Dick sighs “I just... I had to offer. But it’s your choice.”

Jason stops for a moment.

“I... I would. But... I don’t think that... Bruce really wants me there.” He rubs at his eyes for a moment.

“Hey, c’mon, that’s not true at all.” Dick hugs him, resting his chin on Jason’s shoulder “Bruce wants you there. He’d be thrilled with having you back, Jay. You’re his little boy, no matter how much you grow.”

“Are you sure?” Jason whispers.

“Yes.”

“What if he... what if he finds out about... This?” He gestures towards the room “He’ll throw me out... for good.”

“He won’t.” Dick answers softly, the vibrations his voice sent through his chest helping calm Jason down as he spoke “He loves you too much.”

Jason cried again, sobbing violently until he was out of breath, gasping for air between tears. Dick hummed softly, the tune of an old lullaby he knew calmed his brother down, a hand brushing through Jason’s hair.

“C’mon, Little Wing,” Dick whispered “Let me take you home, hm? You’ll sleep better there.”

“Okay.” Jason whispered back “But... we don’t have to tell Bruce why, do we?”

“Of course we don’t Jay.” Dick rubbed his arm.

Jason sniffled, and they sat quietly for a while before the younger man got up. Dick helped him pack some clothes and other personal items, enough for a week. If Jason decided he’d stay any longer, they could always drive back to get more things. When they reached the manor, both of them went straight to Jason’s room, and Dick sat on the ground, by Jason’s side, humming lullabies he had learned from his father, mother, Alfred, Bruce, and even Jason until his brother fell asleep.

Dick went down to the cave, wanting to work more. He wouldn’t be able to go back to the streets now, as much as he wanted to. Everyone would scold him for leaving Jason alone, and he didn’t really have the heart to do so anyway, but he also knows he won’t be able to sleep yet. However, in the cave he is still useless. If they needed information or help of any sort, they’d all contact Oracle, not Nightwing.

So he settled for practicing, using the bars on the cave to let off some steam, performing difficult and elaborate flips, practicing different grips, using his core muscles as much as he could, strengthening them. He wanted to be sore when he went to bed, and he was. The extra exercise helped him fall asleep faster, and the next morning, when he felt his entire body ache, he might’ve regretted his decision, but Jason was at the breakfast table, sliding him a cream for bruises and winking at him, so he didn’t, because at the very least his little brother was safe at home.

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

It’s not scary when it’s with you

Warning: this story depicts domestic physical and mental abuse (not between Eddie and Richie though), so please don’t read this if you’re not comfortable with that. 

Summary:  Can you write a fic where instead of marrying a woman, Eddie marries a man who looks like richie, but who behaves just like Beverly's husband? I've been thinking about it a lot

A/N: I hope this is what you wanted anon, let me know what you think. Also I would just like to say that this is partially how I experienced some abuse, but I know that not everyone does in the same way so I just wanted to say. 

Sometimes, whenever Richie is gone off to do a show or get groceries, Eddie likes to think back to his past. Well, likes is a wrong word, but sometimes when Eddie can’t help but feel like he’s not doing as much as he can, like he’s not brave enough, and then it helps to think back of the place he started.

 To the person he was before getting back to Derry, and getting all his friends back, so he can see the true progress he has made.

He’s having another one of his moments, where he is toying with the edge of the blanket of his bed while staring into an empty space full off nothing, the thoughts in his mind gathering themselves ready to take him through the entire mess that he once called his life. Like usual, Eddie’s not trying to stop it from happening, he’s learned from experience that that only causes the flashbacks to more violent.

Even years later, Eddie still can’t figure out how he let himself get roped into the relationship the way he did. After suffering through all the abuse his mother put him through, he ran straight into another sort of abuse.

When he met Chris the very first day he started working at the insurance company, he wasn’t even hiding that he was kind off an asshole. He was brushing off some poor intern when he tried to hand him the wrong coffee, and Eddie was sure that he was getting more mad and mad by the second, but then he stopped as soon as he saw Eddie. He was just so fucking charming, and when he never let that side of him out again, Eddie assumed that he had a bad day, and it was a onetime occurrence.

It wasn’t, and he got a lot worse than Eddie had seen that day.

It didn’t start out with physical abuse at first either, no instead, he used mental tactics to begin with. Eddie has no idea how he could have been so stupid to walk into the same trap that his mother had spun around him before, but alas, it happened and there was no use thinking about the what if’s. He had actually been really proud of himself for daring to go into a relationship with a man, even though his mother disowned him and refused to see after he came clean about it.

He was foolish enough to think that escaping one abuse was enough for him to be happy, but he was proven wrong faster than he hit the water after jumping of the quarry cliff back in Derry, back when he was still a kid.

Chris and Eddie celebrated his mother exiting his life with champagne and strawberry’s, and Eddie will always connect those two things to new beginnings, for the next day the mental torment began.

Chris liked to critize everything Eddie did, even complaining about the way he would clean the house, despite knowing about how germophobic Eddie truly was, and seeing firsthand how meticulous Eddie scrubbed the entire place. He found it funny to place dirt in places that Eddie had just cleaned to a T, going as far as placing a dead rat in the bathtub when he knew Eddie was going to use it right after.

Eddie had shrieked loudly, sending him straight into another ‘asthma attack’ while locking himself in his bedroom  out of pure fright. If only the memories of Derry had still been with him, he would have realized that there were worse things to be afraid of. Like IT, or Chris for example.

Eddie couldn’t even explain why that scared him so much, or how hurt he felt by the ‘prank’, because when he tried to, Chris devalued his feelings, telling Eddie to stop being such a baby, and that he was overreacting.  

He should have left after that, but he was young and stupid and he didn’t have any real friends, only his coworkers at the office who were also friends with Chris, so they weren’t an option anyhow. He didn’t even have his mother at that point either, not that that was a better alternative at the time regardless.

The longer he stayed with Chris, the more he was being brainwashed into believing that he was really blowing things out of proportions, and that he should listen to whatever Chris told him, since he could do everything better himself apparently.

He would complain about every small thing, and after a while Eddie got so tired of hearing what he constantly did wrong, that he decided to try and adjust himself as best he could to fit Chris standards.

He figured Chris was right, since all he had ever heard in his life was how delicate he was, and how he needed his mom to help him with everything, which was what Chris also told him all the time. He was always told that whatever he wanted to do was wrong, he was too vulnerable for it, and the judgment of both of his mother and Chris displayed just came out of place of love.

Eddie wouldn’t be Eddie however, if he didn’t get random burst of bravery mixed in with determination coming from seemingly nowhere.

At times, he would shoot back defenses at Chris, when he was fed up with constantly being criticized, despite knowing that would only piss him off. That was when Chris hit him for the very first time.

Eddie had only dropped a plate, but when Chris started yelling at him like he set the house on fire, Eddie screamed back. He called Chris a know-it-all, who did nothing but harass him all day, and that if he could do it better he should just do it himself.

Chris saw red, looking much like he had a sunburn, and his pupils had dilated so much the green had disappeared, leaving nothing but black in it’s wake. Eddie knew he was in trouble then.

The world seemed to crash to a stop the second his palm hit the left side of Eddie’s face, leaving an angry red mark in it’s wake that tingled for days afterwards.

Eddie laughed it off to his colleagues, claiming that he had fallen unto the side of his kitchen table at home, but he didn’t know how much of them actually believed him. It’s not like it mattered anyway, none of them cared enough to look further into it.

The hotel room had been booked faster than Chris could utter an apology, with Eddie rushing to grab a few clothes that he had stashed up in a suitcase he always had on hand for when he needed to go on a last minute work trip, nearly actually falling down when he speeded towards his car.

His act of defiance hadn’t lasted long. The thing was that Eddie had been stuck without anyway to escape his boyfriend. Which was as good of an excuse as any other, but it was still true.

Chris worked as his supervisor, so wherever Eddie went to work, Chris was there too. Even Eddie’s bathroom breaks shortened at Chris’s request, and when Eddie managed to excuse himself and go,  Chris coincidently happened to be there as well when he exited the bathroom stall.

It got so bad that Eddie took a few days of work, but he was in no position to stay home, or more correctly his hotel room, then a few days, since he really needed the money.

A new job had been whipped of the table too, since they would certainly call the last place Eddie worked at, and then they would be confronted by Chris, who without doubt had no problem with lying and twisting things to make Eddie look like the bad person.

And then there was the emotional manipulation. He would buy Eddie so many expensive things, even though Eddie never asked for that, to gain his gratitude. That way, whenever he hit Eddie, or if Eddie tried to shake Chris’s words off him and didn’t listen to him, Chris could remind him of all the thing he bought for him, and make Eddie feel guilty that he was being so rude to Chris in the first place.

After five days, Eddie moved back in with Chris, continuing the cycle of mistreatment. He didn’t hurt Eddie physically often, but the threat of it hung over Eddie’s head at every moment like a thundercloud, scaring him enough to stay quiet and listen to everything Christ said to him.

Chris was visibly delighted in the way he could say anything to Eddie and get away with it, using that to his advantages at any time. The only thing Chris never did was call Eddie ‘Eds.’. For some reason, whenever Chris would call him that, he would get so irrationally mad, that Chris was worried he was losing his control over him, so he never used ‘Eds’ ever again.

It wasn’t ‘till two years later, while having dinner with the losers for the first time in 27 years, that Eddie would remember why he hated it so much when it came from Chris.

Sometimes, Eddie would grab a pillow and smashed it to the floor a few times, imagining that it was actually Chris himself. He would gain some sense of defiantment, and he would tell himself that the last day of Chris tyranny had passed. However, by the time Chris would get home and laid one hard look on Eddie, he crumbled like a sand cookie.

The day he married Chris, was arguably the worst day of his life, even worse than the day he had to go into the sewers to save Beverly, or the day he left Derry and left his friends behind too. The Party went on till one a.m. the next day, but Eddie had spend most of the night tending to his injured foot, which Chris had repeatedly stamped upon after Eddie accidently stepped on his while dancing.

Eddie couldn’t have thought of anything he wanted to do less than get married to Chris, but he was scared of the things he was capable off, so he didn’t see any other available answer than yes when Chris inevitably popped the question.

He likes to think that if he had remembered his friends, if he had recalled the summer where he threw away his placebo medicine, then he wouldn’t have gotten in a relationship with him. It’s wishful thinking, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t roam his mind on the daily.

When Mike called him, he had felt something he had not experienced in a long time.  A feeling of white hot anger stabbed him straight in the abdomen and spread throughout his entire body like a virus.

At once, he recalled so many new memories that had been locked away in the deepest part of his brain and were now unlocking themselves, sliding back into places Eddie didn’t even know things were missing.

The recollections were still vague, things like names or particular faces not having shown themselves yet, but he did know one thing, and that was that he had survived something so out of this world that he was sure it was the devil on earth, and he had fucking beaten him.

He stood tall against a monster, what kind he was still unaware off, and he was done getting pushed over by every single person in his life, that ship had sailed.

He agreed with Mike to return to Derry as fast as possible, quickly assembling the same suitcase he used to go to a hotel the first time Chris had laid a hand on him, before turning towards the stairs to run out.

However, when he did, Chris was standing in the door opening eying Eddie with as much rage as toddler did whenever their mother wouldn’t give them the candy they had asked for and they were about to throw a tantrum.

He was sporting a wicked smile on his face too, as if just the thought of Eddie leaving him was too ridiculous to even consider.

Eddie gripped his handbag firm, glancing back and forth between the door and Chris to find the fastest way to get out. He had hoped to get out without Chris noticing, but that was clearly out of the question.

When he tried to however, he was gripped tightly by the arm, forced by him to drop the bag and walk backwards to stop the pain. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Chris had asked him in that tone he got when he was about to explode on Eddie, the one that told Eddie he should think very hard about what his next words would be.

Eddie can’t remember in detail what happened after that. He got out of the house in hurry, leaving with nothing expect the luggage he already had at his disposal, and his passport and phone. He knows that at some point Chris’s fist hit him in the stomach, for there was a bruise to show for it, but it’s not as bad as it could have been, luckily.

Eddie had thrown his ring at Chris, yelling that he wanted a divorce, and when he later sat in his car calming down a bit, he was surprised he had managed to do that.

It was like his entire being had been focused on letting out all the anger and the hurt he had experienced over the years, and he was besides himself. He panicked at first, because he had absolutely nowhere to go, he didn’t remember the losers yet at that point, until he snapped out of it and tried to focus on the task at hand, which had been to drive to Derry. It had not been easy, and it wasn’t up until IT tried to kill him and the losers, that it really slipped his mind.

It was Richie that brought it up again, after they had defeated IT in it’s lair and they shared a attentive kiss outside with the sun shining upon then while the house collapsed a few meters away from them.

The slime stuck to them like glue even when Eddie tried to wipe it off, so Eddie refused to make the kiss last long, insisting that they needed to get clean first before doing it again. He watched Richie’s face go from somber, at Eddie’s first words, to absolutely ecstatic in two seconds flat.

They skipped the quarry, opting to go get clean in Richie’s bathroom, considering Bowers blood was all over Eddie’s, and spent some time just between the two of them. When Eddie unknowingly pulled of his shirt, Richie had gasped, staring at the dark blue bruise that had formed on the place Chris’s fist had landed.

Up until that point, Eddie had done a good job hiding what happened after he left Derry, and the years of assault he suffered from, but now the cat was out of the bag and Eddie was so tired of having to hide his emotions from people, that he promptly bursted into tears.

Richie, the sweetheart that he is, even if Eddie will never say that to his face, had rushed to his side immediately, doing everything he could to stop Eddie from crying, pulling him as close as possible but still so that he wouldn’t hurt Eddie.

With his lips pressed to Eddie’s forehead, rocking them gently back and forth,  he began whispering reassurances, varying from how he would never hurt Eddie, to how he would make sure never else ever could. He later took it upon himself to tend to Eddie’s wound every night until it was healed, showing the soft and patient side of him mostly Eddie got to see.

Richie remained as loving as he did the first week he and Eddie got together. People often said that couples lose their romantic side the longer they are seeing each other , but the opposite was true for Richie and him.

He still woke up at least once a week to Richie bringing him breakfast in bed, or when he forget his lunch at the new job he worked at and Richie would prepare him a lunch and bring it to him shamelessly walking through the office.

One of his coworkers joked that Richie was like a lapdog, and he was ready to do anything for Eddie like a dog would do anything to catch a ball that was thrown. Richie proudly proclaimed this to be the truth.

‘Hey Eds?’ A voice suddenly pulls him out of his thoughts, Eddie turning around to see Richie carrying a coffee in his one hand, and a tea in the other.

Contrary to Eddie, Richie absolutely hates coffee, and he limited Eddie’s intake to one a day, since Eddie had a reputation of going a little overboard with it. If he drinks too much off the warm beverage he tends to get hyperactive to the point where he is running around like he’s a twenty-year old college student, and his hyperactive mind cannot keep up with everything that’s happening.

And that, that stupid little thing is what caused Eddie to truly realize how in love with Richie he really was. He obviously knew that he loved Richie, and he wanted to live with him or else he would be somewhere else right now, but the fact that Richie actually cared about his wellbeing, that small sign of caring someone in a way that is healthy, made Eddie understand what it felt like to be truly loved.  

Richie smiles gently at him, placing the two cups at the edge of the coffee table where Richie sometimes writes his material on, stepping forward slowly and with careful steps. He not scared of scaring Eddie finally, but even that took a long time, and he still doesn’t want to risk it.

At first, Richie flat out refused to bicker with him the way that they always did. Eddie can recall every single word of his speech in great detail.

‘Listen, Eds. I just got this with you, this whole relationship thing, and I don’t want to lose that. I love you, and I’m not too keen on things changing between us either, but the last thing I ever plan on doing is hurting you or scaring you and I don’t know when you find our bickering funny and when you’re genuinely scared. Until I do, I’m not going to bicker with you at all. You’re just going to have to survive without your mom jokes for a while. A shit okay, I’m going to stop bickering with you starting now.’

It was all meant lovingly, even Eddie knew that, but Richie glossed over the fact that Eddie wanted nothing more but to feel normal with someone. He was treated as a kid all his life, and now that he finally managed to break free from everything holding him back in life, for real this time, he was going to remain as hardheaded as he wants to be. And he wanted their interaction to include as much bickering as he damn well pleased.

He told Richie as much, who had then considered his feelings, and slowly reintroduced their bickering comments like they had never really left.

‘Oh fuck off asshole. Be a man and be convinced you’re right so I can prove to you how wrong you really are.’

With cautions. If Richie so much as saw what he thought might be a flinch, he dropped everything and let the subject die down along with their bickering.

Eddie’s path to healing had been anything but easy of course, and Richie wasn’t wrong, sometimes Eddie would get frightened over nothing, and he would be so disappointed at himself at those times.

Back at the Jade The Orient, when the losers talked about marriage, and Eddie had refused to say disclaim anything about his, Richie yelled ‘fuck you’ loudly, and it didn’t scare Eddie at all. He knows that Richie is not like that, that Richie is one big goofball who literally couldn’t hurt a fly. The insults he throws at Eddie are filled with poorly concealed affection, and the way he absolutely glows when he makes Eddie laugh makes the day appear a tad brighter.

Still, sometimes Richie will make a joke about fucking his mom, and Eddie would respond with the most fiery response he could come up with on the spot, he’ll freeze and wait for the hurt that he knows Richie won’t fire, but he still expects none the less. At those times Richie will give Eddie some space if he needs it, and if he doesn’t, he spends the whole night whispering to Eddie how much he loves him, and how brave he is.

Progress isn’t linear, but it still sucks sometimes.

Richie knows the signs of a ‘bad head day’, he calls them, where Eddie’s head fills up with bad memories and insecurities he tries to get rid of but most of the time can’t. When Eddie has days like this, Richie proceeds with caution, not wanting to make a sudden move and send Eddie even further into his head, even though Eddie always feels a bit better after laying eyes on Richie.

‘How are you doing? Can I help?’

Richie sits next to him on the bed, unclenching Eddie’s fist from the bedsheets and clutching them in his own, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb.  Eddie shakes his head while looking over at Richie, since there really isn’t anything that he can do, and the moments are not as bad as they used to be anyway.

He places his head on one of Richie’s broad shoulders, using it to pillow his head and letting out a content sigh. An arm is placed behind his back, Richie’s arm twisting as best it can to rub into the lower area, the place Eddie complains about having pain the most.

‘You know, the last time I did this with someone was with your mom.’

Eddie laughed, his entire frame shaking with it as he lightly shoved him with his shoulder. It makes Richie happy, to know that Eddie is comfortable enough around him to be able to do that without flinching afterwards. He’s so

‘Brave, you’re brave Eds. The bravest man I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.’

He noses at the top of Eddie’s head, happy that he’s there and that Richie can help him in whatever way he can.  

‘Shut up’, Eddie complains, but he can’t help the pride fizzling over him at the words.

‘No it’s true. I mean who can say they survived a killer clown, a horrible mother, and a piece of shit and still didn’t let any of it bother him?’

‘Me I guess.’

‘Not you guess, you know.’

His body bent in an awkward position to do so, Richie places a kiss atop his nose, joyful when it pulls a giggle out of Eddie.

‘I don’t want to think about that. All that matters is that we’re here, and we’re together. You’re the best part of my life Rich. I hope you know that. With you, I realize that I don’t have to be scared anymore.’

To hide the tears burning in his eyes wanting to come out, Richie presses Eddie a little closer, slotting their lips together in a passionate kiss. Eddie’s lips were soft and warm, reciprocating with as much enthusiasm as he was receiving, the both of them poring their heart and soul into it. When Richie pulls away, he presses Eddie a little closer to his chest, nearly missing what Eddie says next.

‘And I also hope that you know that if you ever tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it to my dying breath.’

‘oh, I’m counting on it.’  

[vikingpoteto]

we don’t have to dance (to the beat of their songs)

Chapter 5 on AO3

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Relationships:  (Gen) Tim Drake & Jason Todd

Tags: Battle for the Cowl, Alternate Canon, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Neglect, Domestic Fluff, Canon is not valid I am, and I want them to be friends goddamnit

Summary: In the middle of their battle, Jason asks Tim to leave the nest and be his Robin. Tim decides it's not a bad idea, after all.

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Jason Todd is many things. A street rat. A literature nerd. A former hero. A crime-lord. Dealing with anger issues. Ignoring a whole lot of other issues. But he isn’t an idiot. And, while he’s been bamboozled more times he can count, he realizes Tim Drake is a bigger conundrum than he anticipated. He isn’t about to be fooled again.

He thought he had Tim figured out. Rich kid. Too smart for his own good. Smug beyond repair. No regard for his own well-being. Incapable of holding grudges. He thought the kid couldn’t surprise him, not in a way that mattered, until that first night.

That’s when he starts taking note of the small things.

Saturday is uneventful. Jason wishes he could say he forgets he isn’t living alone anymore, but, even though Tim makes little to no noise as he sleeps the morning away, Jason is painfully aware that he has a roommate. He can’t focus on his book, he can’t focus on the absurdly detailed report Tim made him. He definitely can’t focus on anything else after Tim flies down the stairs like a speedster, blurts out something that could’ve been good morning and disappears in the kitchen. Jason heads to his room, assuming the kid is getting himself breakfast, and he tries to take a nap. He fails.

After giving up and heading downstairs to make dinner, he finds the kitchen as clean as he left — did Tim do the dishes? Did he eat at all? — and he can barely hear faint noises downstairs. He makes a mental note to fix the sound proofness of his walls as he climbs down.

In his Office, like Jason calls it, he finds Tim wearing headphones. The music is loud enough that Jason can clearly hear muffled heavy metal. The computer is half dismantled, half loading something somehow, and Tim is carefully tinkering with the suit Jason gave him.

Instead of throwing something at him like he wants to, Jason walks into his field of view and waves at his face. Tim takes off the headphones.

“The fuck you doing?” Jason asks.

“Fixing stuff. I know you love Jane Austen, but do you have to use the same software she used to write?”

Jason punches him in the shoulder. He regrets it instantly and curses at himself inwardly. Tim, however, doesn’t even flinch. He snickers as though that was the reaction he expected.

Huh. Jason files that away for later analysis.

He gets Tim to suit up and they head out for the night.

They don’t go together per se, as Red Hood is still laying low, planting the seeds subtly so no one notices until he’s ready to make an entrance. He gets intel. Ruins the plan of a very misguided small dealer. And finally saves a pair of prostitutes from a harasser. He wears nothing but a domino mask all night, because there are only a few key players that must know Red Hood is back. He smiles at the girls after he’s done and they get excited asking him if he’s the Red Hood. He takes off without answering.

Red Hood has always been popular with prostitutes, as weird as that sounds. What can Jason say? The girls that worked near the street he grew up in were the nicest people he knew; he has a soft spot for them.

He meets up with Tim near the end of the night and he finds that Tim’s spoken reports are a lot briefer than his written ones: he stopped some muggings. Probably broke the kneecaps of some creep near the park. Confirmed intel he got from his research. He actually saved a cat stuck on a tree too, which makes Jason roll his eyes. They go back to Jason’s place without further ado.

Sunday is more of the same, except Jason manages to actually sleep. That is, until the sound of a hammer wakes him up.

He finds Tim in his living room dismantling an old television he got from God knows where. The shouting match that follows should make things more awkward, but instead it makes them easier.

Turns out Tim doesn’t mind exchanging insults or having dusty pillows thrown at him, and Jason feels more at ease by the time they swallow cold sandwiches and head out.

He has this unreasonable pang of anxiety when Tim vanishes into the shadows, but he shakes it off. The Red Robin suit is getting better everyday and, thanks to the cowl, Tim looks older and more menacing than he actually is, meaning no one is going to fuck with him.

It’s fine. They have a plan. It’s working. There are rumors that Hood is back, though nothing but whispers. Enough to stir his territory without getting unwanted attention from the better neighborhoods.

It isn’t until Monday at around 1pm that the other shoe drops. Jason wakes up scratching his belly and walks past Tim on the way to the kitchen.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Tim mumbles.

“Fuck off, Replacement,” he says back.

The kid is fucking with something that smells like oil on the kitchen table. Jason thinks to himself he should have words with him about it… after his morning tea. Morning tea at 1pm, but still.

He’s boiling water and staring blankly at Tim when he realizes: it’s Monday.

“Wait, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Tim stares at him. Back at the myriad of circuits spread around the table. Then back at Jason

“Wrist computer,” he says.

“No, here !”

“The kitchen?”

“Home! You’re, like, 17, right? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

Tim stares at him as though he’s grown a second head. “Jason. I don’t know how to tell you this, but I stopped going to school after my father died again and I traveled abroad to work with an organization of murderers.”

“That was a fucking month ago. You get a month of skipped classes, your dad died. Now that you’re here, you can go back.”

His chin actually drops and Jason is greeted by the sight of a nearly white chewed gum threatening to fall from Tim’s open mouth.

“I’m not going back to high school. Are you insane?”

“Are you insane? Of course you’re going back to school. Don’t you have, I don’t know, friends or a girlfriend or… whatever!”

“No, I don’t?” Tim scowls. “You want me to go to school so I can date? Why don’t you go to school?”

“Everyone thinks I’m dead.”

“Oh, heck off, you don’t get to pull the death card with me,” Tim rolls his eyes. “It works with Dick and Bruce, but I’m immune.”

“The fact that you still say heck off means you definitely should be at school around people your age. Get some bullies. It builds character.”

Tim’s pale cheeks go crimson and Jason has to bite back a grin. Knowing that Tim blushes like that opens so many teasing opportunities.

“Shut up, I got used to it because Alfred got mad at us for cursing! And I don’t need school to get bullied, I have you right here.”

Jason decides to test a theory. It’s a wicked idea, but Jason isn’t known for fighting fair.

“Tim. I ain’t raising an uneducated goblin.”

“I’m seventeen ! You’re not fucking raising me! You’re like a muscular child sharing a place with a slightly smaller child!”

“If you don’t go back to school, the deal is off. I’m not keeping you around.”

And, just like that, Tim closes his mouth and all the color drains from his face. Jason expected this. He doesn’t feel great about it.

“Y-you… Dick will notice if I start going back to school,” he tries. “This is against the plan. Batman will know we’re working together.”

“No. He’ll know you’re back in town. Make an excuse. I know you’re great at it.”

“This will affect my productivity. I won’t be able to upgrade your gear as fast and I’ll have to sleep more. This is-”

“Non-negotiable. School or no partnership.”

Jason knows it’s too late for him. It might be too late for Tim, too. But not late enough that Jason will let him give up. Tim may never have a normal life - the fact that he’s working with his almost murderer more than proves it. Jason selfishly wants to make sure he has at least a little normality.

This is about Jason, not Tim. Jason doesn’t think he can live with another deadman walking.

“Fine,” Tim says, like he’s agreeing to a death sentence. “I’m going back to school tomorrow. You happy?”

“Hella,” Jason says.  He turns back to his tea. “And Tim? I’ll know if you’re skipping and I’ll kill you if you do.”

Tim starts listing a colorful collection of insults a lot worse than heck off. Jason grins at him and Tim, in his teenage rage, doesn’t seem to notice that the smile doesn’t reach Jason’s eyes.

So Jason's theory is confirmed. Tim Drake doesn’t care about attempts on his life. He isn’t afraid to fight an armed man. He isn’t afraid of having a familiar person taking a swing at him, so Jason doesn’t think that he has issues with physical abuse.

Nothing freaks him out as much as someone critiquing his work, though. And not in the asshole way, that would be way too easy. As cocky as he is, Tim doesn’t look like the type to think he can do no wrong. He wouldn’t get irrationally angry over someone pointing out he can do better. He does, however, flip out at the mere possibility that he’s done something wrong and didn’t own up to it already.

Jason thought he knew Tim until he jokingly complained about him sleeping on the job and saw genuine horror in his eyes. Horror like never before, not even when Jason beat him and tried to leave him for dead. Hell, at that point the kid said he was a better Robin right before passing out.

Who did this to him, Jason wonders? Who convinced Tim that the worst he can be isn’t a high school dropout or even a dead boy, but a person who messes up?  His biological parents? Bruce? Is Tim even aware of it?

Jason doesn’t know, and he isn't sure what to do about it. Can he do something about it? He remembers far too well, thinking Bruce brought him in because he wanted another Robin. How every time he made Bruce laugh, or solved a case, it felt like a victory. How every time he got scolded, he expected Bruce to send him back to where he came from. He remembers having that fear confirmed when he heard from Talia that he’d been replaced.

Is there really something to be done?

Despite a good deal of complaining about work hours, Tim starts going to school. Jason hounds him to make sure he isn’t lying and he’s pretty sure he’ll have to keep checking regularly, because, if he learned anything about Tim, is that the kid is scarily patient and spiteful.

He stalks him all the way to school on the first day, making it painfully obvious that he’s there even if Tim puts a lot of effort into pretending he can’t see him. He pops at Tim’s classroom window and waves cheerfully as Tim flips the bird at him. Waking up early was hell, but Jason finds it ridiculously fun to make Tim annoyed.

On Friday, Jason decides to pick Tim up after class just to keep him on his toes… then he almost crashes his motorcycle into a lamppost when he sees a fancy car and a familiar man leaning against it.

Dick Grayson.

Despite the fun distractions Jason came up with, his whole damn body still remembers the beating he took. He wonders if Dick took as long to recover after that night.

His fake second death would be really short-lived but, lucky for him, Dick is preoccupied with something else. Jason parks around the corner. His height wouldn’t allow him to hide among the flux of rich kids walking out of school looking for their chauffeurs, but he has to come closer.

Well, time to get those stealthy muscles to work.

Ironically, it was Dick who taught him that the best hiding spot was in plain sight, and that’s how he casually walks behind the sports car and heads towards a beaten phone booth.

Dick doesn’t notice him.

Whether it was thanks to Jason’s skills or the fact that the older man looks like he’s having an internal anxiety attack, Jason may never find out. He does, however, hear it when Tim’s voice lets out a long word that definitely isn’t heck . He risks taking a peek at the duo and sees Dick smiling. He looks tired.

“Timbo,” he greets.

“Don’t call me that,” Tim groans. He would’ve sounded like your everyday grumpy teenager, but there’s too much tension in his jaw.

“Welcome back,” Dick says. “Were you planning on telling anyone you’re around?”

“I’m assuming you don’t mind, since you kept paying for my school. I was also checking to see how long it’d take you to find out.”

Jason almost snorts. Who knew the kid had it in him? Furthermore, it’s impressive how Tim methodically and deliberately hid all signs of displeasure. He looks earnestly happy to see Dick and he almost makes his barb sound like friendly banter.

“Timmy, you were gone for almost two months. Where were you?”

“I was pursuing a lead. It didn’t pan out. So I’m back.”

Dick is quiet after that. Jason assumes he knows damn well Tim isn’t one to give up just like that. At the same time, Jason can see Dick assessing the differences between the kid in front of him and the kid he last saw.

“Let’s go home. We need to talk,” he says finally.

“Sorry, I can’t. I’m heading to a friend’s house so we can do homework together. I have a lot to catch up.”

“Tim…”

“You were right, Dick.” Tim smiles softly. “Damian needs you now. I don’t.”

Dick flinches. “I didn’t mean…”

“I know,” he chuckles. “Let me rephrase that: I’m fine. You know, when you first asked me to help Bruce, I planned on staying for a few months. A year, tops. I was always supposed to go back to my normal life.”

“Timmy, you’re family,” Dick pleads. “Your normal life doesn’t include going home?”

Tim’s expression is empty of emotion when he replies: “I need space now. I’m not going back, Dick. I’m sorry. I have a place to stay. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“ Where are you staying? Do you need help setting up anything or…”

“I’ll text you the address later. Right now I really need to go, though.”

Dick presses his lips into a tight line. He hesitates before reaching out to hug him. Surprisingly to Jason, Tim allows it and even hugs him back, even if not as tightly as Dick does.

Jason didn’t realize that. The whole time, he thought Tim needed his older brother and Dick was painfully blind to it. It never occurred to him how Dick also needed Tim. He wonders if Dick felt lost when Tim went away, or if he realized how messed up it was to rely on a teenager.

And Jason’s file on Wayne drama keeps growing thicker.

“Come over for dinner tomorrow?” Dick tries again. “Alfie misses you.”

“And annoy Damian in the process? I’d love to.” Tim deadpans.

Dick finally pulls away from the hug. “He’s made a lot of progress. You’d be surprised.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t remember I punched him before I left.”

“Tim. Dinner?”

“Why would I say no to free food?” Tim gives him a crooked smile.

Dick moves as though it’s painful to let Tim go. He retreats to his car as slowly as it’s humanly possible, like he expects Tim to change his mind and join him. Tim smiles and waves until Dick vanishes around the corner. His look turns hollow, but none of the kids walking past him seems to notice it. Not even when Tim calls out:

“You can come out now. He’s really gone.”

Jason pretends not to hear two girls letting out startled little squeals when he leaves his hiding spot.

“That was cold blooded, Replacement,” Jason says, stretching his hand to Tim. “I knew you were a liar, but that was impressive.”

Without blinking, Tim takes out a tracker from the collar of his shirt and another from his hair. He hands both to Jason. “I didn’t lie, mostly,” he says. “I did plan on leaving after Bruce got better. Or at least when we found a better replacement. That didn’t work like I expected.”

Jason doesn’t say anything as he casually crushes one of the trackers under his boot and places the other on a random kid passing by. He knows how magical it feels to be Robin. He doesn’t think he could quit out of free will. He still remembers the addicting adrenaline that makes you feel like you’re really a bird soaring across the sky.

Until you’re not.

He notices it when Tim looks down at his own feet. Without thinking, he reaches for Tim’s head and messes up his hair.

“C’mon. I got the parts you asked. You can finish tinkering your suit tonight.”

They take the night off. It’s too risky going patrolling the night Dick found out about Tim’s return. Instead, they sit in the living room and Jason turns on the TV while Tim finishes adjusting the suit. The documentary about fish only keeps Jason’s attention for about five minutes before he notices Tim is butchering his cowl. Of course they start bickering.

The new mask isn’t quite a domino. It still has a nose guard similar to a bird’s beak that creates the illusion that Tim’s nose is more aquiline rather than a small snub, which is good to hide one’s identity. Still, Jason thinks going out without head protection is fucking stupid and Tim goes on a rant about looking like he’s wearing a condom on his head. Jason didn’t say anything when Tim replaced the old bandoliers with yellow ones with more compartments. The condom head thing hurts, though, and he ends up beating the shit out of Tim with a couch pillow.

A good deal of screaming and kicking each other later, they return to the task of redesigning. Tim replaces the RR in the middle of his chest with a bird-like symbol that hides a panic button. He switches the black gloves for sleeker red ones, although the middle finger and indicator are black. Jason thinks Tim is trying to make it more dramatic when he flips the bird (heh. Robin flipping bird) but Tim punches Jason’s shoulder and says the new gloves allow him to use his wrist pad more easily.

Jason hits him when he notices he weakened some of the defenses, and they bicker some more before Tim gives in and puts the shin guards and knee protectors back.

The cowl and the cape are gone, much to Jason’s annoyance, and he says Tim’ll look stupid. Tim calls him a knock-off Iron Man. Jason tries to smother him to death with a pillow when Tim doesn’t stop laughing.

It’s the most fun Jason had in… God, how long? He doesn’t remember the last time he could just joke back and forth like this. It doesn’t do good to your reputation as a crime lord if you give the drug dealers a noogie. Tim, on the other hand? Tim gets at least five noogies a day because he’s a dumbass.

It isn’t until they head to their rooms, later that night, that Jason realizes he hasn’t thought about his fight with Dick at all since they started working on the suit. He would've never guessed Tim’s presence wouldn’t be a bitter reminder of everything Jason lost, but rather than a good distraction.

Another week goes by before the suit is finished.

Jason swallows his pride and admits (to himself, at least) that getting rid of the cape was a smart move when he and Tim stand next to each other in full uniform. Tim’s new outfit doesn’t look out of place near Jason’s bulletproof vest and leather jacket. They’re a lot less dramatic than the Bats, and Jason likes that. They’re their own team, not one of them .

“Comms?” Jason asks.

“Tested and protected. Even Oracle would have to manually tinker with them to get into our frequency.”

“And you decided your field name yet?”

Tim hesitates. “I… Red Robin is fine.”

Jason nods. “Plan?”

“Break into Black Mask’s warehouse through the vent, plant…”

“Red Robin,” he cuts off. “Plan.”

Tim sighs. “Make Roman our bitch.”

“Atta boy. Let’s go.”

It’s an operation as simple as it is petty: Black Mask thought he could take over one of Hood’s warehouses. Jason was going to prove him wrong. It wasn’t a key hideout, but it was a relatively safe place if you were in the business of laundering money — discreet, easy to access without being noticed by the pigs, with most of the sewers around it hadn’t been blown up, which was always a plus. Hood was almost sure Roman took it just to show that he could and turned it into a drug warehouse to spite Hood. The fact that he disliked drugs wasn’t exactly a secret, after all. Szazs probably was involved in the process, Jason was sure.

In the end, Tim convinced him the stealthy approach was better. Just get in, ruin the whole operation and, by the time Black Mask realized it, he had lost a ton of money. Poetic justice and all that.

Jason complained about the plan being boring, but, as they get on their bikes to head out, he feels almost jittery. He doesn’t know if it’s just the thrill of being on the field again after so long — sue him, he’s an adrenaline junkie — or the prospect of the petty revenge. Either way, Red Hood grins under the helmet and, almost as though he can see his expression — or as though he’s feeling the same — Red Robin smirks back.

Just like that, they take off into the night. The wind howls past them as Hood leads the race, fast enough that it seems like he’s riding aimlessly. It doesn’t mean he isn’t choosing the way methodically. He knows he’s picking the right streets, the dark ones in which the dark red leather merges perfectly with the shadows. They rush past buildings with closed windows, sure that no one is stupid enough to glance at the two suspiscious riders.

Red Hood makes a sharp turn that would’ve made a less experienced driver fall into the asphalt. He hears Red Robin whooping excitedly behind him and he can’t help but laugh.

When they’re just a few blocks from the warehouse, they stop. At this point, Hood almost considers throwing the plan away — crashing the motorcycle into the place would make for an excellent entrance — but, as though reading his thoughts, Red Robin gives him a pointed look before getting off his bike.

“You’re such a wet blanket,” Hood says, even though no words were truly exchanged before that.

“And you’re a drama queen,” Red Robin retorts. And he grapples up to the nearest rooftop before Hood can give him a noogie for that.

Lighter and more agile, Red leads the way now and Hood is happy to be his shadow until they reach the strategic spot they picked — the two story building next door.

“Thank god this place didn’t crumble,” Hood comments absently. “The other buildings are too far for a clear view.”

Red gives him a strange look. “I checked whether it was still standing while we were planning the attack. Do you not verify the surroundings when you’re making strategies?”

“I like to leave room for improvisation; I’m not a stick in the mud like you.”

Red rolls his eyes under the mask as he reaches for the binoculars in his belt. Hood does the same. There shouldn’t be a lot of activity tonight if their intel is correct, and it looks like it is. They can’t see the inside of the warehouse — which is why Red Hood liked the place so much, damn it  — but they can still see the roof as clearly as they can see the vent they chose to… Hood freezes.

“Hey Hood?” Red Robin calls.

Jason pulls a face under the hood. “Yes?”

“Remember our plan to lay low so Batman doesn’t notice us?”

“Hmm.”

“Remember how I wanted to check on the rogues and you told me to stop being a stick in the mud?” He hisses.

“No one likes a bitching vigilante, Red.”

“Freaking Poison Ivy is here.” Red Robin gestures widely at the roof of the warehouse, as though Red Hood can’t see the green lady trying to get in through the very same vent they planned on using.

“See, that’s the beauty of crime fighting. You make a plan. The plan goes wrong. You throw the plan away.”

“Oh my freaking God,” he groans, “this is Young Justice all over again, but worse.”

Despite the complaining, they seem to be in agreement about what to do next: they take their grapple guns and shoot at Ivy’s blindspot. Red Robin is already getting his rebreather to filter whatever toxins they’re about to face.

The boys land almost silently all things considered. Without thinking, Hood points at  the other side of the roof and crosses an X in front of his lips, before closing a fist. Red Robin nods and sprints without a question.

For the second time, Jason freezes. The instructions were clear — take the other side, we’re going for a surprise attack after cornering her — but they shouldn’t have been. He didn’t realize he kept using those gestures to give orders, because he hadn’t had anyone working this close to him in literal years. He didn’t realize he still remembered the whole language — ASL, but also specific gestures that only made sense among Bats — until he had Red Robin following his orders. Something in his stomach feels heavy.

“... Hood ? Do you copy? ” Says a hushed voice in his ear.

Shit. Get it together, Jason.

He presses the comm button. “Listening.”

On the other side of the line, Red Robin sighs. “ Oh thank god, I thought the comms were suddenly fried. I’m in position. ”

Shit . “Hang on,” he says. He finally starts moving, extra careful not to make any noise.

“ You good, man?” Red asks, and Hood can practically see the confused furrow of his brow.

“Yeah, yeah, be quiet before Ivy hears us.”

He finally gets close enough to see her — she’s unscrewing the air vent cover to get in, even though she could probably just get a giant peach to roll over the place or something. It looks like Red Hood and Red Robin weren’t the only ones trying to be stealthy tonight.

He takes one step closer, and many things happen at the same time: the metal roof creaks under his boot. Ivy goes stiff for half a second. Then Jason is doing a backflip to avoid being bombarded with freaking thorns? When the hell did Ivy add a machine gun of thorns to her arsenal?

“Red Hood?” She stands, frowning. “Huh. I heard you were dead.”

“I get that a lot,” he says.

He reaches for his guns as Ivy waves her hand gracefully. Red Hood watches, with mild disgust, as what he thought was a weird belt snakes its way up Ivy’s torso until she has two venus flytraps settle on her shoulders.

“Fucking gross,” he says.

“I get that a lot,” she quips.

When he shoots at her, she’s ready. A branch grows fast enough to take the bullet for her and, before he realizes, she’s already inside his personal space. Hood dodges a punch in the throat but she keeps advancing. She knows better than letting him keep her at shooting range.

Welp, brute force it is then.

Hood puts his gun away at the same time he dodges a kick to the face. He takes a swing. One of Ivy’s pet plants almost bites his fist and he barely has time to retreat before the pesky thing takes a piece out of his glove.

“Huh. My sixth grade teacher told me those things are only lethal to flies,” he huffs.

Ivy grins. “My children are special.”

She presses and attacks again, and this time Hood lets her. When her knee hits his stomach, he grabs her by the calf and uses her own momentum against her. She barely weighs anything when he throws her hard at the ground, her back hitting metal and her pained groan muffled by the loud clang. He cringes. So much for stealth.

He makes to kick her before she recovers her wits, but apparently plants are more resistant than they seem. Hood feels his foot stuck to something and he curses when he looks down and sees thick vines holding him back. Shit, why didn’t he consider she had traps prepared around her?

“That was kinda rude, Hood,” she grins, slowly sitting up. “But I’m not mad. I might even give you a little kiss.”

By then, his resistance is futile and he wishes he hadn’t put his guns away so fast, because the vines quickly wrap around his whole damn body and he can’t even shoot the b —

A flying staff hits her on the side of the head.

“ACK!” Ivy shrieks, falling to the side.

“What are you doing, Hood?” Red Robin hisses, pressing a batarang into Red Hood’s hands.

“The hell?” Ivy groans, now looking dizzy. “I thought you worked alone.”

“I’m the intern. They call me Red Robin.”

And he stands over her, looking all heroic and ready to fight. Ivy, however, stays where she is, gaping at him.

“Bullshit. You’re regular Robin,” she says. “I thought you died. We all did when we saw the smaller Robin.”

Hood snorts.

The kid deflates a bit.  “How the hell do you know who I am?”

“You’re Harley’s favorite Robin,” she says simply. “She got really grumpy when we heard there’s a new Robin again.”

“I’m Harley’s — Wait, you guys have favorite Robins?”

“Of course we do. Mine’s the girl one. She didn’t die, did she?”

That’s one of the most surreal conversations Red Hood ever witnessed and he’s leading an unusual second life. Fortunately, Ivy is distracted enough — or at least hurt enough — that she doesn’t intervene while he cuts himself free.

“What are you doing here, Dr. Isley?” Red Robin asks. “Are you aware that this place is Black Mask’s?”

She scowls at him. “Are you aware that Sionis is a misogynistic jerk and he’s doing a lot of damage to the environment in this stupid warehouse? I’m going to take this thing down.”

“Hey, fuck off, this place was mine before Sionis stepped in,” Hood protests.

“I don’t care if you’re his landlord.” She gives him a scathing look. “I want him out.”

“This is great then!” Red Robin smiles. “We also want him out. And we have eco friendly plans for the place after Black Mask is out of the equation.”

Ivy gapes at Red Robin as though he started speaking a foreign language out of the blue. Red Hood is thankful for his helmet because he’s sure his expression isn’t much better.

“Are you suggesting we team up with Poison Ivy?”

“Why not?” Red Robin smiles as if he’s suggesting they should have burgers later. “The enemy of my enemy, right? Plus, I used to give her a free pass here and there because sometimes she’s right, you know?”

“Huh. So that’s why you’re Harls’ favorite.”

Red Robin shrugs again and stretches his hand to her. “Friends for the night?”

To Red Hood’s utter shock, she hesitates for less than a second before taking the kid’s hand and letting him pull her back to her feet.

“Just tonight, though,” she says.

If anyone told Jason tonight he’d be working with no one other than the Poison Ivy to take down one of Black Mask’s drug labs, he’d call them insane.

Nonetheless, he watches as Ivy throws caution to the wind — there’s no way the people inside didn’t hear their little scuffle — and uses one of their sentient plants to rip off an entrance on the metal roof. Right before jumping in, however, Red Robin squeezes his shoulder.

“What was that?” he whispers low enough that Ivy won’t hear them. “You were off. That wasn’t like you.”

Hood shrugs his hand away. “We’ll talk about this later. Come on, we can’t let Ivy have all the fun.”

They can already hear the screaming inside, so Red has no option other than compliance. Time to crash the party, he was looking forward to this.

And it’s fun. Having Tim around is fun. Watching a bunch of crooks run terrified of a plant lady is fun. Rounding up his former employees — those traitors — and watching their comically horrified faces upon realizing he isn’t dead is fun.

So much fun he completely misses the fact that there was someone else tailing Ivy. No one sees it when a young boy clad in bright colors rushes away from the place. Robin doesn’t know what to make out of what he witnessed tonight.

[bts-d-onut]

My boyfriend is Kim SeokJin (pt. 3)

pt. 1 , pt. 2

(photo from pinterest)

Plot: You were Jungkook’s older sister who came back to Korea after finding out your younger brother was causing trouble. Kookie finds protection from the group’s eldest. And surprisingly, your long distance boyfriend. Pairing: SeokJin x Jeon! Reader Contains: the curtain of truth slowly unveiling. contains more sibling moments with kook tho. BUT JIN IS STILL HEERE

***

The whole car ride to your house was quiet. No one spoke a word. You and your brother just sat there in uncomfortable silence.

To say that Jungkook was nervous would be an understatement. He was terrified. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what you were thinking. All he knew is that you were mad and he'd probably die tonight. He kept thinking about Jin and you. Jin loves you. He used to say 'Jin-hyung loves his girlfriend so much.' But now it's 'Jin-hyung loves my noona so much. So much he'd tear up in public if she left him'.

The older boy did do that earlier.

~~ "He's one of my friends, noona."

No one said anything again. For several consecutive times this day, silence just seems to win every conversation. They waited for you reaction but you only looked at Jin and Jungkook, back and forth. The boys were expecting you not to notice it.

That is until you scoffed loudly.

"What is this? A joke?" Your voice turned unbelievably cold that anyone who heard you would feel chills crawl down their spine.

"Do you mean to say that---" You looked at Jungkook then at Jin. "You--You're a part of a gang. You're a part of a gang and you lied to me? Moreover, you dragged my brother in this?"

"(Name)---" Jin reached his hands out to hold your shoulders, an attempt to calm you down but you shook his hands off the moment it touched your shoulders. Taken back by this, he frowned. He was hurt by your actions and is slowly starting to get annoyed. But you didn't stop, you couldn't. Your heart is the one controlling your mouth right now.

"No, no. This must be just some kind of hilarious joke, SeokJin!" You have a habit of calling someone by their first name when pissed off, Jungkook knew that and it scared him that you did that to Jin. He looked at his hyung, surprised to see that he hasn't said anything or stopped you at all. He looked calm, he let you talk your heart. But this scared your brother even more, knowing that Jin usually doesn't let anyone speak whatever without knowing anything.

"Noona, listen. We can explain--"

"Right here? Right now? Do you want to make a scene?" You said. Every time you speak, anyone who has something to say just shuts their mouth. "We're...We're going home now, Guk."

You turned away, eyes burning. You were ready to leave until Jin grabs your wrist. He was annoyed that you just started saying things even if you knew nothing, yes, but he can't let you leave.

"Love, please, just...just let us explain." Jin's voice cracked and his eyes started to tear up. He didn't want to hear you say you're leaving him after this. He didn't want to hear it in any situation. He needed you to know the truth.

Your gasp was not heard, much to your relief. But seeing the tears that rolled down Jin's cheeks almost made you want to surrender.

"I'm a little too tired for explanation right now, Jin. I might...I might say things I don't mean. I might irrationally decide to do something and I don't want that. Let me rest. We'll talk soon."

He didn't move, his grip on your hand stayed.

"Jin."

Giving in with what you want, Jin slowly let go of your hand, slightly hesitating when it was just your fingers he was holding but you pulled your hand away before he could say anything again.

You started walking away with Jungkook following you. He was occasionally throwing worried glances back at his friends who decided to go home too. ~~

"We're here." You said and exited the car. Jungkook stayed quiet and helped with your things.

You entered the house and your aunt greeted you with a smile, saying that dinner will be served and Se Gi will come home soon. You smiled back at her and told her that you'll just put your bags in your old room.

"Okay. Be quick! The room is clean, I had Jungkook clean it earlier."

You nodded and went upstairs with Jungkook behind you carrying your bags. You arrived in front of the door and entered the room.

A wave of nostalgia came to you as you looked around. The room was almost the same as when you were using it before. The colors, the pictures on the walls, the books.

Jungkook sets your bags down and looked at you.

"You were the one who cleaned the room?" You asked.

"Yes..."

... ...

"I missed you, noona." From the crack you heard in his voice, you knew he was crying. For now, you'll forget about what happened earlier. You turned around and held his face in your hands, smiling.

"Look at you. You're supposed to be a big boy now. Why the hell are you crying like a six year old?" Jungkook removed your hands from his face and went on to hug you. He buried his face on your shoulder, soaking your shirt with his tears.

"You're crying too." The two of you laughed. You both stayed like that for a few minutes until your aunt called you down for dinner.

"Let's go? I'm hungry." Jungkook agreed and you wiped the tears off your face before going down to the kitchen.

Your aunt was there with an envelope in hand. Jungkook took his seat and you sat beside him.

"What's that, auntie?" You asked.

"I...I didn't want to take it." Your aunt started crying, handing you the envelope. "But they threatened me."

You were about to take it but Jungkook beat you to it and ripped open the envelope. Inside was a picture and a note. The picture was taken earlier, at the aiport. You, and the whole Bangtan were there. The note read:

What a beautiful girl. Which one of you fuckers own her?

"Jungkook." You called his attention, quickly taking it away from the note in his hands. "Jungkook, do you have an idea who gave that?"

"...no...but maybe Jin-hyung and the others do. Noona. You can't stay here tonight."

"What? What do you mean I can't stay here tonight? Jungkook--" You looked at him incredulously. But instead of explaining what was happening, Jungkook ran upstairs and took your things. "Jeon Jungkook! What is happening?! Is this because of your gang?!" You stopped him and grabbed a hold of your bag.

The two of you played a little tug of war but Jungkook was much stronger than you.

"Noona. It's for your safety."

"Tell me. Is it because of your gang?"

He stopped. "Noona. It's not just some gang. It's the mafia. We're not just some group of young boys starting a fight out of nowhere just for fun. I owe Jin-hyung and the others my life that's why I joined."

"I don't understand anything, Guk! First, I thought you were just in some gang and now you're telling me you're in the mafia and that you almost died and Jin and the others saved you?!" You were confused and you absolutely have no idea how things happened. You were dying to know the details so you can understand.

"Noona. Jin-hyung will keep you safe, so don't worry for now. I'll call him to get you."

"Kook."

"Noona, please."

You didn't say anything anymore. You watched and listened as Jungkook calls Jin and tells him about the situation. The two of you went back to your aunt. You looked at her and watched her and Kook talk.

"It seems that auntie knows more than I do." You said. Your aunt's eyes widens and she looks at you.

"(Name), I know I'm supposed to be the one who should push Jungkookie away from this kind of life but you have to understand that...there was no option to choose from. He has to...to protect us." She said sincerely. Everything that they're saying doesn't make sense but at the same time it somehow does.

"Then..." You paused, thinking if you should break what you promised to Se Gi. "...then why is it that Se Gi said a different thing. He said Jungkook's been causing trouble, since I left."

They froze. Jungkook's jaw visibly clenched and his brows furrowed. Your aunt gasped.

"It's true that they got in trouble a lot of times, yes. But it was...it all started with my son. I...You could say it was my son's fault that he got in this situation, dear."

Instead of clearing your head from worries and questions, what your aunt said just added to it.

"Hyung's here." The sound of the car's horn was heard from outside your house.  "Let's go." You gingerly followed Jungkook outside to see a black Lamborghini with one of its windows rolled down to reveal a seemingly distraught Jin. Jungkook opened the trunk of the car and put your bags inside.

"Get in now, noona. I'll see you tomorrow." He says and opens the car door to the passenger seat next to Jin. Although you were still hesitating, you got inside the car and Jin started to drive away. You watched Jungkook pull a gun from his jacket and stayed outside your house. You frowned, the feeling of uneasiness and danger filled your chest.

'Something bad is going to happen.' You thought. 'A fight? God, I still can't believe they're involved in the, what? Mafia? What's going to happen then?' You shook your head, getting rid of the thoughts you didn't wanna see.

"(Name)..." Jin called to you. Since the scene at the airport, you haven't really had the chance to savor the fact that you finally saw your boyfriend personally again. After the first 2 months in your relationship, he has to go back to Korea. It would be a lie if you say that you weren't scared when he left. You weren't used to a long distance relationship, you told yourself a long time ago that you can never have that kind of relationship. But he made it possible.

~ "Jin...I--I don't know...I just.."

"Are you scared?" He asked, voice so soft that you felt like crying already.

"Yes..." Your reply sounded like a whisper, a helpless whisper. Your hands played with the hem of the jacket you asked from Jin, so you can still remember his scent.

"(Name)," He let go of the bag he's holding to hold your hands and with a smile, he says,"We'll be fine. I promise. We'll make it possible." He lifted a hand to caress your cheeks as you started to tear up.

"Hug me again? I'll miss cuddling with you." You requested, to which he gladly complied. You wrapped your arms around his torso tightly, deeply inhaling his scent for the last time until you see him again. Jin chuckled, playing with your hair and kissing the top of your head softly.

Letting go reluctantly, you looked up at him. He has a smile on his face but you knew it was hard for him too. So with all the courage and confidence you have left, you pulled him by the collar of his shirt, just enough not to bump your face to his, you placed a kiss on his lips. He smiles and kisses back, slipping a hand to hold you by the waist.

You both pulled away just as you heard the speakers say that the flight back to Korea will leave soon.

"You should go. Give me a call  immediately when you arrive, okay?"

"Of course, princess." ~~

"(Name)..."

You hummed in response, looking at the car window beside you and not at him. Jin noticed this and contemplated whether he should continue or not. Sighing, he decided not to, instead, he'd let you say what's on your mind. He has to hear what you have to say before he explains everything.

"What are you thinking right now?"

"...a lot. A lot of things, Jin. It hit me so hard and I still haven't gotten up." You answered. "I wanted to hear the explanation tomorrow once I've finally rested and cleared up my mind but...things that were hidden from me starts coming one by one. And it's just...I don't understand a thing, it's like I'm being pushed around because I don't know shit."

Guilt is eating Jin alive as he listened to you speak. All he wanted was to keep the happy life with you, with no worries about what could happen because of who he is. He was enjoying his time with you when Namjoon called him to go back.

"Jin, why didn't you tell me?"

"I can't."

"Why can't you?"

"...because I don't know how to. I can't tell you everything without being sure that you won't leave after finding out the truth."

You didn't reply. You were thinking of what to say.

"What truth?"

"Your cousin put Jungkook's life in danger a lot of times, (Name). And we were always there, as his friends, to save him."

This time, you looked at him when he said that.

"He challenged several people and made Jungkook face them. After losing the fight, the people your cousin challenged will fear him and do what he wants. It's usually Jimin and Taehyung who helps Jungkook get out of the fight since they go to the same school. Jungkook asked us to teach him defend himself."

Your eyes widened.

"It wasn't long before that cousin of yours made his biggest mistake. He stupidly challenged a member of a mafia from our rival group. Jungkook could handle a few highschoolers and college students. But it was the mafia. He would have been finished if the boys didn't come. This time, Jungkook didn't ask for normal lessons, he wanted to learn how to use a gun and a knife properly."

"When...when did this happen?" You asked, despite the shock, you were determined to know.

"When I went back to Korea. That's why I had to leave. I had to take care of business regarding what happened."

I finished this yesterday and I wanted to post it right away but the our wifi network is being a bitch.

The truth is slowly being revealed. My, my~ someone turns out to be a liar.

-Donut

[gay-kurapika]

God I thought I was being fake happy well enough that no one would notice but I failed and my dad asked me what was wrong because I “look sad” and I had to leave and go cry in my room again. This isn’t shaping up to be a good day. Also I’m irrationally mad at my brother and I want to just not talk to him at all today and that’s not going to fly. I know this sucks to say, but while I love my brother, I don’t like him as a person. He stresses me out, and he can be really mean. He just has no tact at all and he always thinks the way he does things is the only right way and that his opinions are the only ones that matter. And it’s really about stupid small stuff but it grates on my nerves and I’m already upset so like every little thing is making it worse. Like he doesn’t think cats should be indoor only and he keeps telling me to let my cat outside and he’s being such a dick about it, he literally interrupted me when I pointed out the statistics on how outdoor cats live shorter lives and are bad for the local ecosystem, especially bird and rodent populations, and he keeps pointing out that my cat is kind of chubby but like some of it is natural, she’s legitimately just a big cat I don’t overfeed her, but like it makes me mad when he calls her fat. My brother is also like a germaphobe neat freak and I am like…the opposite of that, and his loud complaints about even the smallest mess or smell piss me tf off. He’s done it a few times as he’s staying with my parents right now, and I think that’s really rude considering my mom is cooking and cleaning for him. I haven’t seen him offer to clean up after a meal or do the dishes yet, which my sister and I do every time. An example of how rude he can get with this is last year on Thanksgiving we went to my grandmother’s house and he loudly complained about how disgusting their hand soap dispenser in the kitchen looked and how they must never wash their hands so the food must be disgusting and contaminated, and my grandmother was really embarrassed and sad. And like I’m sure she did wash her hands, most people don’t flip out about a small amount of dried soap at the tip of a hand soap dispenser, or you know maybe she washed her hands in the bathroom before she started cooking? He always makes it like a public display when he’s unhappy about something and it irritates the fuck out of me, especially since it’s not like he offers to help.

[brittababbles]

Frank castle x reader studying for her MCAT imagine? super cute n fluffy- I love your writing!

Do No Harm – Frank Castle x Reader.

Author’s Note: Thank you for the request, Anon. Though Iwouldn’t honestly think of Frank Castle as anything close to cute and fluffy, Ithink this turned out okay. Thanks to Kaptest.com for providing the practiceMCAT questions. I’m considering taking the LSAT, not the MCAT, so I had no ideawhat was involved (I only got 1 out of the 4 provided questions right… oops). Alsopulled a couple of the more technical quotes from the Grey’s Anatomy (the book,not the show). Frank Castle belongs to Marvel…or Netflix… actually I don’t knowwho he belongs to at the moment but he does not belong to me.

“In anattempt to develop a vaccine for pneumonia, Fred Griffith performed a series ofexperiments in 1928 using mice and two strains of the pneumococcus bacteria: avirulent encapsulated strain and a nonvirulent unencapsulated strain. Theencapsulated strain was called the “smooth strain” because the colonieslooked smooth on a culture plate due to their polysaccharide capsules, whereasthe unencapsulated strain was denoted as the “rough strain” due tothe irregularity of its…”

Somewherein the middle of the paragraph you felt your brain start crying.  

Fouryears of pre-med. This was what it was all leading up to. A test.

Maybeyou should have rethought your plans to be a doctor.

It wasthree weeks to your MCATs. You’d been studying since nine weeks out. You’dtaken every available free test prep, and then invested what little was left ofyour pathetic waitress’s paycheck into all the proper test preps you couldfind. At this point you could probably say you were about as prepared as youcould be.

Thatdidn’t negate your test anxiety.

So youwere re-studying all your notes from the last four years. At least you weretrying to. It was slowly becoming evident that there wasn’t a way to cram fouryears of education into three weeks of time. Doing so was impossible.

A loudthump from the other side of the apartment startled you out of your thoughts.

Youcould honestly say that your mad attempt at studying wasn’t the most impossible thing in your life.

Thetypical clatter associated with Frank’s arrival in your apartment met yourears. You could visualize how he’d leave the larger parts of his portable armoryby the door. How he’d put his smaller guns on the counter. How he’d shrug outof his jacket and leave it over the back of the sofa. You heard a gurgle as thecoffee pot turned on and the muted thuds of a cupboard door opening andclosing. You could imagine the way his nose wrinkled slightly at the scent ofthe dark roast coffee you’d kept in the apartment since he’d started stoppingby. You could hear the heavy footfalls of his boots as he walked down thehallway toward your open bedroom door.

“Studyingagain, beautiful?”

Hisscent filled the room immediately. Gunpowder and black coffee and a little bitof blood. It clashed so magnificently with the softness of the smell of yourlife: flowery fabric softener and pulpless orange juice and crisp, glossytextbook pages.  

Hepaused in the doorway and looked at you with what could only be fondness. Youcouldn’t imagine why. You were in sweats and an ill-fitted henley. Your hairwas twisted up messily in a knot on the top of your head. Your glasses hadmanaged to slide down your nose, which had been buried in the textbooks thatwere scattered across your bed. Sitting cross legged amongst four years ofendless studying and stress, tears and sleepless nights, you couldn’t imaginethat you looked anything close to beautiful.

Youturned and looked at him. In any other context than this, he would probably bea terrifying sight. The skill spray painted across the body armor on his chestwas easily the brightest part of his ensemble. Everything else he was wearingwas black. He was leaning against the door frame, head cocked to one side,eying you speculatively and smiling gently. You felt your shoulders physicallydrop, not realizing they’d been inching toward your ears all night.

“I’mnever going to pass this test,” you sighed.

A deepchuckle emanated from his chest.

“You’rethe smartest person I know,” he said, “Of course you’ll pass it.”

He tooka few steps closer and the smell of blood got stronger. Strong enough for you torealize it wasn’t residual – it was fresh.

Youlooked up into his face. Little black dots speckled his face. Black, yourealized, only because of the dim light of your lamp.

“Youkilled someone tonight, didn’t you?” you asked.

What surprised you more than his respondingnod was the fact that you didn’t feel anything about this. It felt like any ofthe facts you’d been reading all night. “All the tissues and organs of thebody originate from a microscopic structure (the fertilized ovum), which consists of a softjelly-like material enclosed in a membrane and containing a vesicle or smallspherical body inside which are one or more denser spots.” “Frank Castle killed someone tonight.” The twothings were failing to look any different in the light of your bedside lamp asyou gazed up at the Punisher and sighed.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” you grumbled, climbing off the bed andtaking his hand, leading him to the kitchen.

For a few minutes, the steady drip of the coffee maker was covered bythe running of water out of the tap as you wet down a dishtowel and wiped theblood off Frank’s face. You had to stand on tiptoe to reach his forehead. Themotions were familiar, but the numbness you were feeling was not.

“You look exhausted,” he commented.

You wiped the last of the blood from behind his left ear and threw thetowel in the sink.

“Yeah,” you muttered.

You paced listlessly to the sofa and collapsed into the cushions,leaning back against the leather jacket that stunk of gunpowder. You closedyour eyes and huffed out a defeated sigh.

A faint sizzling sound from the kitchen told you that Frank had pulledthe coffee pot without turning the machine off while it was still dripping. Hisneed for caffeine would have amused you a better time.

“You want me to quiz you?” he asked, attempting to reestablish thetypical ritual of his visits.

But tonight you were hardly in the mood.

“What’s the point?” you answered, not opening your eyes.

There was what from Frank qualified as a stunned pause, followed byapproaching heavy footfalls. You opened your eyes to see him, standing behindyou and looking down at you. His face was upside down from your perspective.

“What was that?” he asked

“What’s the point!” you growled, suddenly angry.

You hopped to your feet and paced in front of the coffee table. Frankwatched, his expression blank.

“Are you really that worried about the test?” he asked, soundingsurprised.

“No!” you shouted at him.

He frowned at you.

“Yes,” you admitted, “But that’s not what I’m saying.”

Frank’s expression remained skeptical.

“You lost me there, beautiful.”

You threw yourself back onto the sofa, still irrationally irate.

“I mean… let’s assume for a moment that I pass this test. That I getinto a great medical school and a fantastic residency program and everythingI’ve ever wanted happens and at the end of it I’m a doctor. Great. Then what? Iput Band-Aids on the bullet holes in this city?” you scoffed.

“Yes,” Frank said simply.

You turned and gave him a look, unabashedly disgusted with this answer.

“Why? What good will that do?”

Frank heaved a sigh and came around the sofa. He put his mug of coffeedown on the table with a clunk before pulling your hands out of your lap andholding them in his, your palms facing up. You glared at your knees, refusinghis attempt at eye contact.

“Look at me, [your name].” he said.

You broke eye contact with your knees and scowled at him.

“These hands,” he said, gently shaking them up and down for emphasis,“Can do so much more than I could ever do with those.”

He jerked his head toward the artillery by the door. You glanced at it,then returned your gaze to his face, puzzled now.

“If you save one kid from dying a death he doesn’t deserve, then you’vedone more than I could to save this city,” he said.

His expression was sincere, and his voice was warmer than you’d everheard it. Frank had never been what you’d call particularly talkative, andhaving him suddenly express so much interest in your future was honestly a bitstartling.

“You’re brilliant,” he continued, “and you’re smart. And you’reambitious. And you’re kind, [yourname]. This city needs more people like you than it does like me. If it doesn’thave that, it isn’t worth saving.”

You simply stared at him, unable to think of what to say to all this.

“You are gonna take that test.And you are gonna get into a greatmedical school. And you are gonna putBand-Aids on the bullet holes of the world and you’ll save it one Band-Aid at atime, if you have to. You’re better than me, [your name]. You’re better thanany person I’ve ever met. You need todo this.”

You didn’t realize you were crying, but your face felt wet. Frankmanaged a twisted sort of half smile and reached behind you, pulling a tissueout of the pocket of his coat. You raised your eyebrows at him when he offeredit to you.

“Gets a little messy out there sometimes,” he said with a shrug.

You smiled weakly and took the tissue from him.

“Thanks, Frank,” you muttered.

“Yeah,” he answered tersely.

You both sat in awkward silence for a moment as you wiped the tears fromyour face.

“Have you eaten today?” he finally asked.

You thought for a moment.

“I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”

“You have any food in here?” he asked.

“I think there’s some eggs in the fridge,” you responded.

He stood up at that.

“Go get a book. After we eat, I’ll quiz you. You’re gonna pass that testif I have to threaten the guys giving it.”

You managed a weak laugh and stood, feeling slightly wobbly from yourunexpected crying spell. You turned to head back down the hall as Frank movedto the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.

“Hey, [your name],” he called.

You looked back at him over your shoulder.

“You’re gonna be great,” he said, that twisted smile back in place.

You managed a smile in return, then trotted back to your bedroom.

You looked over the mess of books scattered across the bed, wonderingwhich of them would need the most studying at this point. Passing over organicchemistry and physics, you picked up your copy of Grey’s Anatomy. You opened itto the inside of the front cover. Scribbled in the top corner, in your messyhandwriting, was a note you’d written to yourself four years ago.

DO NO HARM

You stared at it for a moment, then snapped the book shut and tucked itunder your arm. With a deep sigh, you headed back out to the living room, wherethe smell of cooking eggs and gunpowder filled the air.

[mvssmallow]

Cloudy With A Chance

Part 18: …of October sky.

Masterlist

It’s October. People probably think he’s mad but he can always feel a change in the air when it’s October. Or maybe it’s not as crazy as it sounds. October was the first thing he knew after he was born. He knows it’s different compared to all the other months.

October with it’s mild sky and intermittent sunshine, when leaves are turning shades of earth and trees are looking lonely. It doesn’t have the sharp sting of December’s Winter nor does it have the carefree warmth of June’s Summer. It’s not as optimistic as March’s Spring but he finds all that optimism overbearing after awhile anyway.

October just is. October lets him lay low and be who he wants to be. It lets him start to steal more of Jiwon’s clothes to wear underneath his jacket, like a hug he can walk around with when he goes and does errands by himself. Maybe it’s pathetic, he’s sure it is, but it’s nice having Jiwon so close to him, even if it’s just through an old t-shirt.

This is their first October together and he’s lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little bit irrationally anxious about it. He wants Jiwon to love October. He needs this to be good.

“How’s the book going?” Jiwon asks, fingers running through his hair as they sit on the couch watching late night Evangelion re-runs.

“It’s okay.” He sighs. “It’s a lot of research.”

“Are you ever gonna tell me anything about it? Or let me read it?”

He snuggles closer into Jiwon’s chest. “No. It’s not ready. And you haven’t won a mic night yet. You know the rules.”

Jiwon groans dramatically above him. “Seriously? But that might take months! Come on.”

He slides his hands under the soft fabric of Jiwon’s hoody and lets his fingers catch on the bumps and ridges of defined muscle. “Well, if you want to read it so badly, you should try to win the next one then. I told you, you’re better than him, it shouldn’t be hard.”

Jiwon chuckles softly. “Better than who? Mino?”

“Yeah. He’s too controlled and too handsome or something. It’s okay if you like that kind of thing.” He says with a slack shrug.

The fingers in his hair freezes for a beat. It always makes him smile, the way Jiwon reacts to some things and pretends it doesn’t affect him.

“You think he’s too handsome?” Jiwon asks casually.

“Well, he’s not ugly. Who cares what he is anyway. He’s not my type. He’s too clean or something. I’m not into that sort of thing.”

There’s a reflective hum. “Oh really? What’s your type then?”

“Dirty. Messy. Shreds everything I buy. Doesn’t let me touch his car stereo. And always forgets to turn the dryer on.”

“That’s weirdly specific, Hanbin. I don’t know anyone like that.”

His fingernails drag across Jiwon’s abdomen and he can feel the muscles flexing in response. “Hmm, I don’t either. Guess I’ll settle for you until he comes along.”

“Thanks, I feel so much better about myself now.” Jiwon says flatly. “Aren’t you going to ask me what my type is?”

“Okay, what is your type?”

“Not you.”

He bursts out laughing and turns over to hit Jiwon in the chest. “Rude!”

Jiwon lets out his dorky wheezy laugh as he dodges the punches. “Yeah I love guys who are really ugly, really dumb and bad at doing laundry. Know where I can find one of those?”

“Maybe on sale at the boyfriend store?”

Jiwon’s face turns serious then, smile softening and fingers brushing strands of hair away from his face. “Actually, if we’re being honest, I didn’t even know I had a type but I knew it was going to be you by the time we got to that cafe.”

He lays down with his chin resting on Jiwon’s chest and eyes him skeptically. “What?! Don’t lie. How could you possibly know? We met for like 15 minutes.”

“I’m not lying! I knew. I knew it’d be you.”

He stares at Jiwon’s face, trying to look for something that might be insincere or the start of a joke but Jiwon doesn’t back down and just stares right back.

“No way.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “No way you could’ve known we’d end up like this. No way.”

“Well, I didn’t know we’d end up exactly like this. But I knew it was going to be you.”

And right there, standing in the forefront of his mind, is the same insecure teenage that never even got a date in high school. He doesn’t want to ask but he knows the kid inside needs him to make sure. “Do you….still know?”

“Yeah, of course I still know….” Jiwon says defensively before trailing off.

He watches as Jiwon’s mouth opens and closes without anything coming out. It’s not because of a lack of thoughts. It’s because there’s too many.

“Don’t say it.” He cuts in, fingers sliding into one of Jiwon’s waiting hands. “Whatever you’re going to say. Just….save it for later. Okay?”

He rests back down, cheek against Jiwon’s rib cage, listening to the fast heartbeat underneath as his own thunders in his ears.

“Yeah…okay.” Jiwon replies, confused but not protesting.

Evangelion gets ignored for the rest of the night. He watches the pictures and hears the sounds but the only thing he can think about is if he’s really ready for the next phase of his life. He’s spent so long dwelling on the past that he feels totally unprepared for the future.

There was so much to think about all of the sudden. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep after that but he remembers arms carrying him to bed, tucking him into the sheets and a soft voice telling him to dream.

****

October 5th.

“HANBIN?!!!”

“WHAT?!!”

“HAVE YOU SEEN MY LUCKY BOXERS?”

He rummages through their drawers in a panic, like a storm blowing right through the streets of Hanbin’s neat town but this a DEFCON 1 situation. He can’t do a mic night without his lucky boxers.

A hand grabs his wrists. “Jiwon. Stop. You’re just messing up the drawers. Go shower. I’ll find them.”

“It’s the purple ones with the-”

“…yellow killer bees. I know.” Hanbin gives him a dimple grin as he kneels down on to pick up all the socks and clothes that littered their floor.

It’s always the smallest things that hit him right in the gut. The way Hanbin folds his t-shirts or writes him random notes or how he always seems to know exactly where everything is. Things that he almost takes for granted on his bad days but thanks God for on the good ones.

“Jiwon?”

“Huh?”

“Go shower. I’ll find them okay?”

By the time he’s done and wrestled with his hair, their bedroom is empty and the tornado of clothes has been tidied away. On their bed, he finds his lucky purple boxers folded next to a pair of jeans, his white shirt ironed and hanging from the wardrobe door handle. He could really go through the rest of his life sustained by all the small things.

Hanbin is sitting on the couch in their small living room, eating an apple and scrolling through something on his phone, hair slicked up to one side and dressed in a black jacket and black jeans that he didn’t even know Hanbin owned. Now that he’s working on his book from home, he hasn’t seen Hanbin dressed up in awhile. It still takes his breath away. Like his brain keeps wiping the memory so they have to re-live the moment like it’s the first time, every time.

“Hey.”

Hanbin looks up, apple hanging from his mouth as he types out a message using both hands. He looks ridiculous but somehow, still the most beautiful thing in any room, anywhere in the world.

“Youlooknice.” Hanbin mumbles around the apple in his mouth.

He shakes his head. The irony. “You look nicer.”

Hanbin pockets his phone, nibbles on the rest of the apple core and walks over to him. He’s seen Hanbin plenty of times. Every day for the past few months. But the way that thin frame walks towards him, all shy confidence with tight jeans and collar bones peeking out from the deep v-cut of his white t-shirt, still makes his stomach drop and his heart race out of time.

There’s a sweet and sticky kiss pressed against his lips but it’s gone before he’s had time to respond or demand more. As Hanbin walks into the kitchen to throw away the apple core, there’s a ghost of that cologne that always reminds him of the ocean for some reason. It’s ridiculous, he knows. The ocean smells like salt. The only other thing that reminds him of salt is the taste of Hanbin’s skin, especially down his neck. Maybe it’s not so crazy.

And then his mind does that thing that he sometimes loves and hates. It takes the smallest hint of a spark and roars into a fire, engulfing him with all the images he remembers from That Morning In Bed spliced together with all the dirty things that they haven’t even done yet.

He’s completely inside of his head as they ride the train to the club. Mental images of skin and hip bones and that pouty mouth he loves so much. He’s restless, frustrated and he knows it annoys Hanbin whenever he has to readjust himself. He’s grateful that his jeans are at least baggy enough to hide how hard he is. His hand searches out for something to touch, settling over Hanbin’s knee, where the rips in his jeans are large enough for his fingers to slide in and out.

It’s not until they’re stepping onto the platform and walking to the venue that Hanbin suddenly sighs loudly.

“Oh my god. What’s up with you? Are you actually high or just nervous?”

He forces himself out of his head. “What? Neither! I’m just thinking about stuff. I’m allowed think about stuff sometimes okay?!”

Hanbin stops walking and looks sternly at him. “Like what?”

He feels the warmth creeping up his neck. “Like….uh, rap stuff.”

There’s a exasperated groan and he really wishes he didn’t find that hot when Hanbin is clearly just annoyed at him for being a bad liar.

“What’s it gonna take?”

“For what?”

“For you to focus? You’re on stage in 2 hours. You can’t go like this. You look all spaced out.  So what’s it gonna take?”

He bites his bottom lip and raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t know what he looks like but all Hanbin does is glare at him for a few seconds before rolling his eyes.

“You are so predictable.”

And that’s how he finds himself sitting on a wooden crate in the dark alley behind the club, jeans undone, soft hair between his fingers and Hanbin’s hot mouth between his legs.

He wants to say that getting blown right before mic night might not really help but then again, only an idiot would put a stop to something like this.

The bass thumps in the background, drowning out most of the sounds they’re making but he doesn’t need sound, not when he has sight. And really, if he died right then, he’d die happy.

It’s not long before he feels the familiar tight tension building, like waves of electricity rolling closer and closer every time Hanbin swallows him down into that wet heat.

Without warning Hanbin looks up at him with those big dark eyes that are soft and adoring one minute then dangerous and wild the next. It catches him off guard, something vaguely passing as fear makes his hair stand on end, and he knows Hanbin must see the surprise on his face because there’s a wicked smile and the light scrape of sharp teeth over the underside of his cock.

It’s enough to push him right over the edge. He leans back too fast, head colliding with the wall behind them and cums with a loud groan, fingers pulling Hanbin’s head forward by his hair to keep that mouth exactly where he needs it.

He can feel the startled surprise as Hanbin’s throat gags around him. He tries not to but he can’t help fucking into that soft pliant mouth, riding out the high and chasing the heat as Hanbin swallows everything down with a long satisfied hum.

Once he stops seeing stars, his body collapses against the wall, completely blissed out and only vaguely registering Hanbin’s fingers tidying him up. He opens his eyes just in time to see Hanbin wiping his mouth like a cat. He loves watching him do that.

It’s the same every time they do this. He feels invincible afterwards. Like a champion boxer ready for a KO in the ring. Like the luckiest guy on earth. Ready to destroy everyone in the club, if it means seeing Hanbin’s wicked smile again. If only his legs would work….

Fingers comb through his hair in some attempt to fix it. It’s gentle for a few seconds before there’s a sharp tug pulling his face forward until it’s inches away from Hanbin and his sharp teeth.

“You better fucking win tonight.” There’s a snarl in Hanbin’s voice, sharpness in his tone and all it does is send a jolt of electricity down his spine and shocks any remaining lethargy out of him.

“Okay.” He says obediently.

Anything.

I’ll do anything you want me to.

There’s a laugh then, the dimpley one that he hates for its manipulative effect. “Come on, let’s go get a drink. My jaw hurts.”

They walk back slowly to the club. His fingers unable to stop touching something, anything, attached to Hanbin’s body. He knows he’s pushing it but he doesn’t unhook his fingers from Hanbin’s jeans as he pushes them through the crowd. More surprisingly, Hanbin doesn’t complain and just holds onto the back of his jacket.

They find June and Yoyo at the bar, bickering about something as usual.

“Dude, your hair.” June motions to Hanbin’s head with a laugh. “You look like you just-”

Yoyo elbows him sharply and clears his throat. The blush that colours Hanbin’s cheeks gives them away.

“Oh….Jesus. Disgusting.” June gags in the background. “Don’t tell me you guys just fucked before you got here.”

“WHAT?! NO!” Hanbin splutters out, caught off guard by June’s bluntness. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t care if everybody knows.

Yoyo scrunches up his nose. “Was it on the train? Because that’s so …unsanitary.”

“Ahh, I really need a drink now.” He announces, ignoring the questioning stares from his friends and dragging Hanbin to the other side of the bar.

“It’s not that obvious is it?”

“What?”

“My hair. Is it obvious that-”

“-you just blew a guy in an alley way behind a club? Yeah it’s obvious.” He chuckles apologetically. “Sorry.”

Hanbin touches his swollen lips gingerly but makes no motion to fix his messy hair. He reaches across and tries to help but his hand gets pushed away.

Oh. Weird.

He’s learnt a lot of things about Hanbin at this point but right at that very minute, he gets an inkling of what might become his new favourite thing.

“Actually, I’m not sorry.” He says, leaning in with his lips barely touching Hanbin’s ear. “You look so hot like this. And you like it don’t you? You like people guessing who you’ve been with and what you just did.”

He sees something hungry and unhinged flashing across those dark eyes and he knows he right. It stirs the animal inside him, the one that’s only just gone back to sleep.

“But they can’t have you, can they baby? Because you’re mine. I want them all to know you’re mine.”

Those lips open to say something but the bartender comes over with their drinks then and he leans back, leaving Hanbin opened-mouthed, mid-thought and staring at him with the kind of intensity that is destined to get him committing crimes and walking through fire one day.

He pushes the glass of gin over. “Drink this. And stop looking at me like that. You’re gonna get me hard again.” He says with a laugh. “Then we’ll be in a whole lot of trouble.”

He watches Hanbin down the entire glass like a shot and lick his lips wet. He can feel it, the angry frustration humming around Hanbin’s body, like a lightning rod or live wire that’s just been cut. This was going to be a long night.

*****

3 drinks in and he’s still so restless. Nervous-excited energy causing him to bounce his legs up and down to the point where Jiwon’s hands clamp down on his thighs to stop him moving.

At quarter to 9, Jiwon takes off his jacket and rolls up his shirt sleeves. That doesn’t help either and things just go from bad to worse. He leans right into Jiwon’s space without really meaning to, head resting on a broad shoulder and fingers already finding the skin of Jiwon’s smooth back.

4 drinks in and Jiwon slowly loses the rest of his restraint. Calloused fingers are jammed underneath the holes of his jeans, drawing some kind of pattern across his leg. He knows what they must look like now. He can see it in the surprised and curious faces of fans and rappers who come over to their couch to meet Jiwon. If there was any doubt last time, there probably wouldn’t be by the time this night is over.

And he knows.

He knows he needs to worry about rumours spreading and his parents finding out but by the time his 4th drink arrives, those concerns just make less and less sense. If he stops, he gets less Jiwon. But if he keeps going, he gets more. And he definitely wants more.

It’s maths.

It’s logical.

So why should he stop?

He plays with Jiwon’s fingers as they bicker with June and Yoyo about cars and tattoos and how subconsciously possessive Jiwon gets whenever someone looks in his direction. He doesn’t remember a time when he felt this happy, this carefree, this drunk…..

“Honestly, cut this shit out.” June says with a grimace. “That last guy didn’t even do anything. Are you gonna get pissed off at every guy who looks at him?” 

All it does is make Jiwon’s hand tighten across his thigh. 

“Urghhh. Get a fucking room.” June groans. 

“I would. But I gotta perform soon.” Jiwon replies with a poke of his tongue. It makes him giggle like an idiot.

“Aww, it’s kinda adorable.” Yoyo says, nodding in that happy way he does when he’s had one drink too many. “You both look so dopey. Good luck with the hangover tomorrow though.” 

They look across at each other. They do look dopey. At least Jiwon does, with his big bunny grin and ugly laugh. He wonders if he looks the same. He definitely feels dopey.

At 9:30pm, the rappers get called and he frowns when Jiwon’s body stands up.

“Babe, it’s time.” Jiwon says with a smile, trying to tug his fingers free. “You gonna let me go?”

He shakes his head and his thoughts just slosh around all bathed in the warm glow of citrus alcohol.

“Fuck, you are so cute right now.” Jiwon kneels in front of him and kisses his fingers. “I promise I’ll come back.”

“After you destroy all those guys?”

“Yeah, after I destroy all those guys.”

He relunctantly lets go and watches as Jiwon leaves, disappears and re-emerges on the stage as Bobby. He watches as rappers come and fall. Even Mino gets caught out by the slower backing track coming through the speakers. But that slack bassline and the too-fast-too-slow-trap-beat is as unpredictable as Bobby. It takes a certain kind of crazy to ride that kind of rhythm.

It’s our kind of crazy.

He lets Bobby get eaten up by the crowd that loves him, calls his name, touches his face and shakes his hands. They can have Bobby. Just leave him Jiwon.

They make out all the way home on the train. It’s past 1am. There’s 16 drinks between them, a winners check in Jiwon’s back pocket and hands on skin everywhere. He doesn’t care who sees it. If this is how October is going to play out, he wants it to be October forever.

[the-minavi]

Dream

Three years ago, I was prescribed an antidepressant, Venlafaxine.  The medicine did terrible things to me, including giving me hallucinations and awful nightmares if I was late on a dose.  At the time I wrote down all the nightmares but I’ve lost most of them.  Today I found one that I remembered having emailed to a friend.  Reading it now, three years later, has been a trip and I thought I would share it with you all.

WARNING: This is very violent!

The dream started with my parents.  They weren't actually my mom and dad but in the dream they were my parents.  We lived in this sort of strangely shaped house that was by this nasty swampy water that was all covered in algae and led out to the ocean.  The water was dark and scared me.  Over time I noticed that my parents were fighting more and more over less and less reasonable things.  They would scream at each other and then they started getting violent.  One day someone came over to the house and my father flew into a rage at him for 'trespassing' and killed him.  My mother and father started fighting over this- not over my father killing him but over what to do with the body.  It got violent again and that's when I realized that there was something wrong.  There was some sort of disease that was making people go insane and violent.  I slipped into the dark scary water just as I saw my mother kill my father by bashing him over the head with something and pushing him down the stairs.

As I swam out to the ocean I had to go through the algae covered part of the water and I realized what I hadn't known before.  Under the algae were bodies.  Hundreds of them.  Some of them were nothing but skeletons and some were more recently dead.  Cold, white and bloated, floating just below the surface of the water.  The only way I could get to the ocean was to push my way through the mass of bodies, feeling their limbs and hair against me. 

Eventually I made it to the ocean and I just kept swimming.  As I went, I realized that there were other people swimming.  One guy was pretty close to me and he explained that they all had seen the disease sweep across the world, driving people into mad frenzies.  We were the immune ones and we'd all escaped into the ocean to get away.  He was nice and he paced himself to my swimming so I wouldn't be alone.  There were a lot of us, I could see us dotting the horizon any way I looked, but we were still just a tiny percentage of the human population. It was a long, hard swim.  It felt like it would never end.  Some people couldn't keep up.  At one point I met an Asian woman who was struggling through the water with a newborn girl on her back.  She begged me to take her daughter because she wasn't going to make it, so I took the baby just as she sunk beneath the cold waves and I carried her on my back as I continued to swim.

Finally we came to land.  I don't know if it was an island or a continent or what, but there were people there.  My guy friend and I arrived and trudged up onto the beach, exhausted, but before we could rest the people there told us that we had to meet 'The Old Man'.  They guided us back past the beach and into the forest where we found a little cabin with two rooms.  In the first room was a table and behind the table sat a very old man.  His skin was almost gray and he had no hair other than a long mustache.  His eyes were narrow and his face was covered in wrinkles.  He looked at me and said that I was clean.  Then he looked at my friend and calmly said that, "He's a cranky one."

Immediately the people who had brought us here were on alert, backing up from my friend and tensing, some unsheathing knives that they carried in their belts. 

 One of them grabbed me and pushed me back behind them so I stumbled into the other room, which was the Old Man's bedroom.  I could barely see over their heads, but my friend looked around and then his face grew hard and he pulled a pistol out of his pocket and said that we were all insane and that we had to be put down like the animals that we were.  The Old Man looked him very calmly in the eye and told him to kill himself.  Without another word my friend put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.  That's when I learned that not all people who got the disease went irrationally crazy.  Some of them just went insane and murderous but stayed smart enough to hide it.  Only the Old Man could tell, by looking them in the eyes.

We all settled in that area- the clean ones and I, with the baby girl who I adopted as my daughter.  She was an adorable, round-faced little thing with thick black hair and shiny big eyes.  I called her Bei Bei because I never learned her name but I thought her mother was Chinese and I thought that I'd heard somewhere that it was a Chinese name that was endearing and I wanted her to have some tie to her heritage. 

People built homes.  Most of them stayed very close to the Old Man.  I didn't.  I went down the beach.  It was a couple hours walk away from the old man that I found this narrow sort of inlet from the ocean that had a river flowing out into it.  It was a little swampy like my old home but not as scary and it had these big, fat trees growing up out of the water.  I found one that had died, out in the middle of the inlet, and I climbed up about twenty feet and cut it off so it was flat (I don't know where the tools came from, but I had some).  Then I built a platform on top of that and, over time, it became a full fledged house.  I had a rope ladder that I could climb up and then if someone approached who I didn't want to get in, I could pull up the ladder.  It was a tiny house.  There was a bed that Bei Bei and I shared and there was a little kitchen where we made food.  It was crude but there was a counter and a little stone fireplace that I'd built into a bit of a stove with a chimney made of rocks so that it wouldn't fill the house with smoke.  One one side there was a hatch that led up to a little platform where I made fishing lines and tied them to a railing so that when I came home at the end of the day there would sometimes be fish on my line that I could cook for dinner.

There was another woman who built her home near me.  She had a young son, three or four, that she'd managed to bring over with her.  We decided to stay close since we were the only ones with little children.  She became my good friend but she wasn't as good at building a house as me and had a couple of failed attempts to mimic my tree house over the water before she gave up and built a more normal house on land.  Her first attempts generally collapsed at a critical point which was very dangerous because if you fell below the surface of the water, the crocodiles would get you.  The water was full of them and they were big and you could see their shadows as you moved out to my house.  I had a nice little flat-bottomed boat I made and as long as we stayed in the boat, we were safe.  I liked the crocodiles because they kept anyone else from getting to my house.

Time passed and we would often go and visit the rest of what had become a village.  When Bei Bei was five or six we visited and found that the village was in an uproar because someone had gone crazy and killed someone else before killing themselves.  That's when we learned that even though we thought we were immune, the people here could still somehow get the disease.  After that, we visited the village far less frequently.  

We still had to go, though, because while we were mostly self-sufficient (with our fish and our vegetation gathering around the river) there were some things that people in the village made that we couldn't.  We would bring fish and trade with them because our river had different fish than they had and they were very sweet and delicious.  Usually either my friend or I would go and the other would watch the children so we didn't have to expose them to the villagers.  When I went, I made my friend and her son go to my house, which I felt was safer.   One time I went to the village and a man came up to talk to me.  We'd talked a lot in the past because he was also from Missoula, so we'd reminisce about our hometown, even though we'd never known each other then.  This time we were chatting and he casually says, "I'm getting worried about Missoula.  The parks are going to hell and now they've outlawed smoking."  It was just so casual and normal but I felt this terrible chill down my spine and in the pit of my stomach because it was obviously delusional.  We weren't in Missoula and there sure as hell weren't any cigarettes on our island.  I tried to politely get away from him, telling him I had to go ask the Old Man something but he started to get angry with me and wouldn't leave.  He grabbed my arm and suddenly he had a pistol and he told me that I was damned right we were going to see the Old Man and we were going to tell him that he needed to make some changes to the city!  He dragged me to the house.  I think people saw what was happening but they were scared, either of being hurt by him or catching the disease, and they backed away.  We got to the Old Man's cabin and he hauled me in.  The Old Man was still sitting behind his table, looking the same as always.  The diseased man pushed me to the table, gun pointed at my back, and screamed at me to tell him!  Tell the Old Man what we think of this f*ing city!!

Trembling and trying with my eyes to tell the Old Man that this wasn't me, I wasn't crazy, I was just trying to do what I had to to survive, I stutteringly told him that Missoula had gone downhill and the parks needed to be looked after and cigarettes shouldn't be banned.  The Old Man calmly listened and then turned to the man and told him to kill himself.

He did and I ran back the entire way to my home, only stopping long enough to wash his blood off of me.

More years passed.  Sometimes I would take my little flat-bottomed boat up the river to explore a little and see if I could find more and better foods to bring back to my friend and our children.  I never brought Bei Bei with me.  Keeping her safe was too important for me.

As I came to a very wide spot in the river, farther than I'd ever been before, I found a little house squatted down on a little islet in the middle of the water.  I didn't think anyone lived so far away from the main village.  I called out to see if anyone was there and I drew my little boat up to the islet.  Nobody answered.  I was nervous.  I was afraid that the residents might be dead or something and I knew I had to check, but I was frightened of what I might find.  I drew my long knife that I had used to kill more than one diseased person who had come to my house since the Missoula man incident.  If I didn't kill them, they would kill me and Bei Bei.  I fed their bodies to the crocodiles.  I had become hardened to it.

I stepped into the squat little house.  It was dark inside and it took me some time to let my eyes adjust to the light but when they did I realized that there were bones all over the floor.  There were desecrated and torn up corpses and blood everywhere.  And it wasn't just a haphazard heap.  I could recognize furniture made from the bodies of people in various states of decay.  On the wall were skeletons and they were fashioned into poses.  In one place by the door were skulls that had been posed into 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'.  At the back of the room, on top of what looked like a big fireplace made of skulls, were some women's heads.  They weren't skulls.  They had been killed recently enough that I could recognize some of them as village women, even when they were gray or blue and their eyes were bulging out.  At first glance I thought they'd been posed into 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' too, but then I realized that they were mounted in front of the torsos of dead men- no heads, just their chests and arms with their bodies hacked off somewhere around their navels.  And the men's arms and been brought around the women's heads so that each woman had both fists of one of the men stuffed into her mouth.  For some reason I thought that that part had probably happened before they were killed.

I was horrified and sick from it all but I'd become so hardened to death and the need to survive that all I could think was that I had to get out of there before the resident came back.  I turned to go but realized I was too late, he was already there.  Standing next to my little boat and staring at me with big, wide eyes that were completely manic in his wrinkled face, was the Old Man.  His lips were pulled back in a terrifying smile that showed some of his missing teeth.  He was sort of... loose.  Like he was standing tall but his arms, legs and head were sort of slack.  Like a marionette in the hands of an inexperienced puppeteer.  

He came at me and I don't remember all that happened but when I left in my little boat, he was laying on the floor of his hell house with a severely broken leg and a large gash through his belly, courtesy of my knife. 

I came home and I held my little Bei Bei and told her we were never going to the village again.  We were going to just stay in our little area where it was safe.

More years passed.  Bei Bei grew into a young teenager.  More diseased tried to come after us, but I killed them all and fed them to the crocodiles.  I think the crocodiles knew not to come after me or Bei Bei because then they wouldn't get so many meals.  They didn't watch us like they used to and kind of let us go about our business.

One day I was in the house with Bei Bei when she said that one of the lines was tugging.  I went to pull up the fish and it was extremely heavy.  I was confused and concerned that I might have accidentally hooked a crocodile.  I kept pulling, expecting the line to snap, but it didn't and it didn't move like there was something alive on the end.  Eventually I got it up and realized that it was my friend's mailbox.  She had made this little post box with a flag and everything as a sort of joke to put in front of her house.  Obviously it served no real purpose but sometimes the kids would leave little presents for each other to find in there.  She treasured that little post box and would never willingly let anything happen to it.  I looked down in the water and recognized other debris from her home.  Then I heard Bei Bei talking to someone and realized that my friend had come into the house with her.

Panic was choking me.  I came into the house and tried to act natural because I knew that the best way to set off one of the diseased was to let them know that you knew they were insane.  My friend was talking normally, telling Bei Bei about something her son had done, but she was moving wrong.  It was very subtle so unless you were looking for it, you might not notice, but in a way she had that broken marionette limpness to her movements.  Before I could get between her and my daughter, she was in my little kitchen, with her hand gripped around one of my knives.  Bei Bei realized what was going on then and pressed herself up against the wall, looking terrified but wisely keeping silent.  Don't set her off.  Just don't set her off.

I tried to reason with her, speaking very softly and slowly.  She was our friend.  She'd watched Bei Bei grow up.  She was an aunt to the girl.  She didn't want to hurt Bei Bei.  Put the knife down.  It's ok.  It's ok.

My friend turned her head halfway to look at me through the fall of her wet hair.  She must have swum through the crocodile infested water to get to us.  In that one eye that was cocked at me I saw both the terrifying madness that I'd seen in the Old Man's eyes at his house on the islet but also a heartbreaking sorrow and struggle.  I wondered if the diseased were really completely gone from their minds or if they knew what they were doing and couldn't stop themselves?  Before I could consider this more, my friend screamed and slammed her head on my little counter.  The knife in her hand had been set just right so that it went right through that horrible, wrenching eye.

We didn't feed her body to the crocodiles.  We buried it by her home.  Her son told us that he was going into the forest.  He was so lost and sad.  I told him he could stay with us but he said he couldn't do that.  He didn't want to risk going insane and hurting Bei Bei.

My daughter was devastated by this.  Not only was he her best and only friend, he was also the only person on the island (maybe left alive in the whole world) who was her age.  I think that she thought maybe they would be together, when they were older.

After that, Bei Bei was listless.  She would do what she had to to survive and keep food in our stomachs, but she wasn't the vibrant, playful girl she had been.  I didn't know how to help her.  Who could be happy in a world like this.

One night it was storming.  Bei Bei and I were cuddled on the bed because it was very cold.  We had windows that were just slits that could let the light in and a thick, heavy door, the better to protect us from the diseased, but it also made it difficult for the little house to be a warm and comforting place, even with a fire in the stove.

There came a heavy pounding on the door.  SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!

I hid Bei Bei under the bed- she had a knife of her own now- and looked out the slit of a window.  It was dark and the rain was driving.  I only saw a glimpse of his silhouette in a flash of lightning, but I recognized the form standing outside the door.  Nobody else was that thin or stood like that.  Like a marionette with broken strings.  "You should have made sure I was dead," I heard him say.  His voice was soft, like snake scales rustling over leaves, but I somehow heard him through the storm.  I quickly moved to start barring the door.  We had boards that we kept next to the door and the hatch up to the fishing platform that we could use to add extra security to the entrance in case a diseased got past our crocodiles.  

"Fortunately, I have some tricks up my sleeve from the war," I heard him say.  Slime and sandpaper.  He could do it, I knew.  He could find a way to get in.  This time either I had to kill him or he would kill both of us.

Thankfully, that's when my husband woke me up.

[twoidgits-oneassbutt]

TITLE: Unfinished Business RATING: PG13 (gen) CHARACTERS: John, Sam and Dean DISCLAIMER: Kripke owns them, I just like to hurt them a little. NOTES: 1650 words. Written for the jeffathon prompt #15 – “John and Dean (or Sam) post Something Wicked, mending fences.” This is actually set as a tag for Dead Man’s Blood. I did try to get some fence-mending done. But you know John. “Dad knew this was unfinished business for me. And he sent me here to finish it.” (Dean – Something Wicked) He wakes up late. He doesn’t sleep this late; hasn’t since – it’s been so long that he can’t remember since when. Definitely before Sammy took off for college, maybe before he was even in high school. He remembers back then there were nights he’d come off a hunt so tired he wasn’t sure how the hell he’d gotten home without wrapping the Impala round a tree. Dean would shove him lightly in the direction of his bed, and he’d be so tired he wouldn’t even bother to argue. He’d wake next morning to the scent of coffee, and the sound of cartoons – Sam’s preferred routine for an unsupervised morning. Dean would be out back, weight training, or settled at the kitchen table, cleaning the guns for him. Should have known right back then that Sam was going to be trouble. The bitter scent of coffee brings him to full consciousness. He cracks one eye open, sees Sam at the rickety motel table, stripping a handgun with careful, practiced moves. He wonders vaguely if maybe the world might be ending some time soon. “Hey.” He scratches at the stubble on his chin. “Time’s it?” Sam looks up at him from under those bangs that want cutting so badly John’s fingers itch to reach for scissors. “Quarter after eight.” Sam flicks a rag towards the nightstand. “Coffee’s there, if you want it.” “You should have woken me.” John doesn’t mean to make it a reprimand, but he knows that’s how it sounds. It was like this between them for so long that he falls into the familiar pattern without thinking. He waits for Sam’s typical smartass retort, the one that used to make him grind his teeth till his jaw ached, curl his fingers into unwilling fists. “Seems like you needed the sleep.” There’s no animosity in Sam’s tone; just soft, half-regretful amusement. John sits up and rubs his hand over his eyes. When he lifts it away, the sky still hasn’t fallen. He swings his legs out of bed, tries to remember taking off his shoes. It’s been a few years since Dean’s had to put him to bed. He leans over and lifts his coffee, sees an empty polystyrene cup on the nightstand. “Where’s your brother?” “He’s working on the car.” Sam’s face tightens, not exactly a frown, but his mouth quirks down a little. “Been up since before dawn.” There’s no mistaking the disapproval in Sam’s tone now. John sighs deeply, and takes another hit off his coffee. He watches Sam finish with the gun, his hands steady; skillful, but the movements unhurried. It’s like watching Dean, he realizes. “We killed that Shtriga.” John blinks, caught off guard by the non-sequitur. Sam’s mad about something, but John expected it to be the car. He hadn’t meant to go off on Dean about the state of the Impala, but the reprimand was out of him before he could stop it. Sam sets the gun down carefully, folds the rag in two. “You know, those coordinates you kicked us? Fitchburg, Wisconsin? It was the same Shtriga, the one from Fort Douglas. Dean got it. John nods slowly. “Figured he would.” Sam sits back in the chair, tilts his chin up and folds his arms across his chest in accusation. John recognizes himself in Sam’s disapproving body language. “So, how does that work, exactly?” “Excuse me?” John still isn’t quite sure what Sam’s getting at. “It wasn’t enough that he blamed himself for what happened, you had to rub his nose in it? Here, look how you screwed up; now go clean up your mess.” Sam mimics his drill sergeant voice perfectly. ‘It – it wasn’t like that.” John rubs his hand over his eyes. “I sent you boys after it, because I knew Dean needed to finish it himself. Get some closure.” It sounds weak, even to his own ears. “Really? Ever wonder why he might have needed that closure?” Sam’s voice is low, but there’s no mistaking the quiet scorn in his tone. “Sam.” John shakes his head helplessly. “Don’t.” He’s not sure if it’s a warning or a plea. “Just – don’t.” “He said the exact same thing.” Sam leans forward now, resting his hands on his knees. “Jesus, Dad, do you have any idea what that did to him? He’s still beating himself up over something that happened sixteen years ago.” John closes his eyes, sees the Shtriga bent over Sammy, sees the shotgun steady in Dean’s grip, even though it’s too big to fit against his shoulder. He sees his own shame and guilt reflected in Dean’s remorse. “Sam, this has nothing to do with you,” he lies. “I’m not going to discuss it.” But Sam won’t be put off. “Yeah, Dad, you are. Because, you know what? It wasn’t Dean who left us alone in that motel room for three days.” He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t need to. John knows he’s right. “He was just a kid. All it would have taken was one word from you, one word to let him off the hook, and you couldn’t even give him that.” Sam looks up at him. “Was it worth it?” John has no answer for that. “You got what you needed. The perfect little soldier, jumping to attention every time you snapped your fingers.” Sam shakes his head solemnly. “Shame on you, Dad. Shame on you.” It would be easier if Sam were yelling at him, the way he always used to, squaring up to him, toe to toe. John knew the rules of engagement then, how the scenario would play out. He doesn’t know how to react to this quiet accusation from his son. Worst thing is, he can’t honestly deny it. Somewhere, deep in the part of himself he doesn’t like to examine too closely, John knows Sam is right. He’d known how guilty Dean felt about the Shtriga. And as bad as he felt about doing it, he’d used that guilt, guessing that Dean would never willingly disobey an order again. “Sammy.” John can barely meet his eyes. “I knew I screwed up. I was angry at myself for leaving the two of you alone, and I didn’t mean to, but I ended up yelling at Dean.” “You do that a lot.” Sam says very softly. “Something – somebody – makes you mad, and you take it out on Dean.” This is about the car, then. John nods unwillingly. “Guess I do.” He bunches his hand into a fist on his thigh. “I don’t mean to.” It’s not much of an excuse, really. “I know, Dad.” There’s understanding in Sam’s voice, but not forgiveness. “But I’m not the one you need to be telling this to.” Sam directs his gaze to the door, then back at John, his eyebrows raised a little. John sighs, and thinks Sam would probably have made one hell of a prosecutor. *~*~*~* The Impala is gleaming. Dean must have washed her first; the rays of early morning sunshine bounce off the roof and windshield at odd unexpected angles, glinting like jet and diamond. The telltale worn spots have already been treated; John can smell the faint odour of touch-up paint. Now, the wax lies open beside the car, and Dean is polishing the hood with careful, sweeping strokes. “Hey.” John stands a little way off, feels the warmth of the sun on his face and arms. Dean’s hand stills as he looks over at John, and he smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s nervous, for god’s sake. He looks back at Dean, seeing him properly for the first time since they met up again. He’s tired, the beginnings of dark circles smudged under his eyes, his freckles stark under the last of his summer tan. John wonders if he’s been sleeping okay. He’d ask, but it would come out as criticism. “You getting enough sleep?” Dean would hear only the reproach in the query, rather than the concern that prompted it. He jams his fists into his pockets, hunching his shoulders a little as he nods over to the Chevy. “She’s looking good.” There’s disbelief in Dean’s face for a moment, then he looks down at the car, shrugs in embarrassment. “Guess I let things get away from me. Won’t happen again.” John hears the shame in Dean’s quiet admission and he hates himself a little more. He wants to apologize to his son for sniping at him so unreasonably, for blaming him irrationally, but he can’t find the words. He steps up to the car, puts his hand on the hood, feels reflected sunshine warm under his palm. “You want some help?” He makes it an offer, not an order, and Dean’s brow furrows. “I’m nearly done. Another half-hour, tops.” John sighs softly. “I wasn’t criticizing, Dean. Just thought maybe I could help.” “Oh. Right.” Dean scratches at the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry.” John bites back another deeper sigh at Dean’s apology. “It’s okay.” He pats the car gently. “You did a good job, son.” He doesn’t just mean the car, and Dean flushes, looks away, clearly unsure of how to respond to the unexpected compliment. “Um, okay. I mean - thanks.” “You finish up here, then we’re leaving, okay?” “Yes, sir.” Dean straightens automatically, infinitely more at ease with the implied order than he was with John’s praise. “Right. I’ll go tell your brother to hustle.” John tries to smile, but doesn't quite manage it. “Yes, sir.” Dean nods curtly, then leans over the hood again to complete his self-inflicted penance. This, then, is the language of their relationship, admonishment and obedience. It’s become second nature to John; and he realizes he doesn’t know how to talk to Dean without falling back into old familiar patterns. And John recognizes their origins with shame, can trace them to a motel room in Fort Douglas sixteen years before.