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cienie-isengardu · 3 years ago

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Lin Kuei: food

RELIGION <> ORIGINS / ARCHITECTURE <> FOOD <> FOR THE LIN KUEI <> ART <> CRYOMANCERS <> LIN KUEI SOCIETY <> MONEY & MATERIAL GOODS

The continuation of the morgianesffs-blog’s awesome list of questions about Lin Kuei. I initially divided them into smaller categories and the food will be the subject of the essay.

For the formalities, the original questions:

Food. What foods do they normally eat? What foods do they like? What foods don't they like? What foods do they absolutely love so much they'll stop what they're doing to get it?

I guess the Lin Kuei take on food may be stricte pragmatic one - they eat what is available. Preferable something that will keep them in top shape but everything will do, if necessary. Self-sufficiency and the art of survival are part of training so Lin Kuei would not have any second thoughts about eating stuff that people normally would not even think about. At the same time, there is a big chance that every adepts to some degree suffered from hunger and thirst, either as a part of punishment or test for endurance or a simply lack of skill to catch (steal) the food. I doubt the clan cares to feed warriors any fancy food, even more since the Lin Kuei headquarters (Temple / Fortress) is usually located in a harsh environment in which food is hard to grow to begin with. Because of this natural disadvantage, hunting seems like a good additional food source. It fed the clan but also gave opportunity for adepts / warriors to show their skills and gain experience (or in case of coming back with empty hands, bring them shame?). MK: Armageddon had the ice beasts marauding through the Arcika region - killing them could provide: food, furs, maybe some magic ingredients and safety.

Also, Lin Kuei knew about and used portals leading to Outworld - one of old comics, Battlewave #5, outright says the clan had a hidden passageway.

So the Lin Kuei could also get food from different realms, either by stealing the necessary stuff or as payment.. I kinda think that Lin Kuei has a system of related villages that serve the clan and satisfy the material needs like food and clothes. Maybe they pay tribute to the clan out of fear or maybe it is a more symbiotic deal?

Anyway, I don’t think the clan would spoil their people with any fancy food to keep the rigorous discipline in check - albeit the clan could put on a suitable feast in honor of a respected guest/client like Shang Tsung if the occasion required it. At the same time, I don’t think it is forbidden to taste new dishes once the warriors were on mission. Especially not on a long-term kind of job when clan members must pretend to be normal human beings.

Because of that I suspect that those warriors who work undercover in various parts of Earthrealm and/or Outworld may indulge in eating all sorts of food, from expensive to the cheapest trash food. Whatever the budget / occasion would allow them, at least. And who knows, maybe the warriors like to challenge each other to eat the weirdest possible food, as some sort of courage test? Or just for personal fun? You know, like many young people do taste the freedom once they are on their own, far away from a strict “family”?

At the same time, in times when there is not enough food, I can see the best parts or full portions being given to the most useful / essential members so the position in hierarchy may influence what and how much warrior is allowed to eat. Because let's be real here, (the old) Lin Kuei does not have a good track with empathy for weaklings.

Now, I’m gonna head into headcanon-ish territory, so keep that in mind, please.

I know it is a pretty popular joke (included even in the game itself as part of “friendship” finish moves) that Sub-Zero likes ice cream but honestly, I do think that cryomancers in fact prefer cold food over anything else.

(Human hybrid) Cryomancers are said to develop their powers as an young adults(*) and growing the freezing skills with passing time (which Bi-Han being the exception to the rule because he developed ice ability earlier than usual), so the older they get, their bodies are more and more adapted to hold the toll of cryomancer nature (like temperature dropping to negative degrees?). So getting inside them anything remotely warm sounds more like torture than feeding.

(Of course, it could be the other way, as needing the hot food to keep cryomancers from freezing from inside but the drastic temperature differences are not human-friendly. First aid in case of frostbite even cautions against heating the body too fast with too high a temperature to avoid negative effects. Which is why I’m sticking to cryomancers preferring cold food over anything warm)

The cryomancer kids may be less sensitive to the difference between temperature of their bodies and eaten food / drink - though I suspect cryomancer genes should not be dismissed even at such young age - but in all fairness, I can’t imagine Bi-Han or Kuai Liang eating anything else than raw food, preferably not touched by fire or at least deep-frozen / cold and ice-creams are both cold and can provide necessary minerals / calories to keep them going.

So yeah, I can totally see Bi-Han and Kuai Liang buying dozens of ice-cream boxes for breakfast, dinner and supper like it was the normal thing in the world. And probably keeping various deep-frozen foods in the fridge and eating it raw. To Tomas, Sektor or Cyrax’s horror, whoever was unlucky to be stuck with cryomancers on an undercover mission. Okay, I lied. Bi-Han would probably just send others to do the shopping so he would not need to deal with annoying people.

Bi-Han and Kuai Liang are capable of eating and drinking hot food because they were forced to learn that. That is why Kuai Liang was capable of brewing tea and why he used such a ceremony as a sign of good will toward Hanzo Hasashi even though drinking hot tea is, by nature, painful.

As for taste, I think both Bi-Han and Kua Liang like plain flavors. Especially Bi-Han with his minimalistic nature. Kuai Liang seems more willing to taste different food and drink under Smoke’s challenge or suggestion. Ice creams may be the exception but less because cryomancers care for taste in itself and more because they are okay to eat any flavor as long as it is cold and available. Otherwise, they may just freeze various liquids (water, milk, juice) and eat them as ice creams. Something that actually could be pretty frustrating for other warriors if they left a carton of milk out of sight for a moment only to find Bi-Han or Kuai Liang freezing it and eating its content with a spoon. Because of that, the idea of coffee or tea with milk could be problematic (controversial) matter. Bi-Han accepts only Hydro’s need for milk added to coffee or tea - once Hydro gets it, the rest of milk is a fair game. And Cyrax seems to be bold enough to guard any open carton of milk or juice and keep it out of reach of Bi-Han, especially if he was the one responsible for shopping.

(Also, if Bi-Han even decided to smuggle the outside food for young Kuai Liang, I think it wouldn’t be anything sweet. More like frozen french fries just to tell his little brother how earthrealm people eat it heated up. Just imagine the shock and outrage of little Kuai Liang at the human stupidity!)

Comics!Hydro, as a close companion of Bi-Han is the most used to weird cryomancers eating habits. Because of water-related powers, Hydro likes everything liquid or with liquid consistency - soups, broths, jogurths, smoothies, everything will do. Somehow not really into meat. Also, the one advantage of such power is that Hydro can feed on water if necessary.

In contrast to cryomancers, I imagine Tomas actually likes deeply fried or smoked stuff. Because without a fire there is no smoke and I like to think Enenra draws energy from fire / heat. Except the moments when Tomas is triggered by something from his past - then the smell or taste of burnt / burning meat (skin, hair) disgust him completely. May actually not like ice creams. Otherwise, he likes Czech food or in general, Central European / Central Eastern European cuisine because its taste is one of few things he remembers from his previous life. This is Tomas’ comfort food.

For me, Sektor with his obsessive behaviour is the one that tries to balance his food and reject the idea of eating anything for fun or out of curiosity. He wants to be in perfect shape and does not care for taste at all. To some degree, he also worries about how the foreign food will affect his strength, weight or body shape when on a long-term mission. The same as Bi-Han, Sektor is the last person that should be sent on shopping. However in case of the older Sub-Zero the problem lies in his abrasive nature and how he doesn’t conform to social norms (thus standing out too much) while Sektor won’t buy anything unless he reads the whole ingredients list and all additional information put on the package. Which means a shopping trip that takes like 10 minutes at best for other warriors usually takes Sektor around two hours, at least. You send him alone to shop for food and you are going to be hungry for the next few hours.

Considering how Cyrax is the most normal (balanced) Lin Kuei, he probably has the most healthy approach to food. Will eat anything that looks good, including fast foods ‘cause why not, it is cheap, edible and takeaway. And trust Cyrax to convince Sektor to eat that damn food too (the trick is to not let Sektor read what is - or is not - inside his meal). I don’t think Cyrax has a favorite kind of food because he doesn't like to limit himself. The same as Smoke, he may miss cuisine from his homeland but the general idea is to enjoy small pleasures like eating good food with companions.

Also, Cyrax is the only one that should be trusted with a shopping list if the Lin Kuei group for some reason ends in a shopping centre. A shopping list and the control over the trolley.

(Frost, like Bi-Han and Kuai Liang is all about cold / frozen food)

(*) From Mythologies Sub-Zero: “Sub-Zero learned of his ability as a young adult [...]. The ability to harness the element of cold is one that takes years of practice. It's full potential realized only by those who've mastered it at the latest stages of life. Sub-Zero's skills have the ability to develop much faster than those of the other Lin Kuei.” The fact that Bi-Han A) learned of his ability as a young adult and those B) develop much faster than usual at least suggest most modern cryomancers get their ice powers rather as grown up.

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moviemunchies · 3 years ago

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This is a movie that took me a while for me to figure out how I felt about it.

My end verdict: I think this movie’s good, but there is one major change to the story they made that does really bother me. And I understand why they made it, I just think it’s not a great way to adapt the story. At least, for that part.

Anyhow.

So The Green Knight is an adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a medieval poem by an anonymous author that became the thing Gawain was most famous for in Arthurian literature. A Green Knight comes to Camelot to play a little game and take a hit, with the condition that in a year the person who did it has to come to his place, the Green Chapel, and take the same hit. And the first hit Gawain does on the Green Knight is a beheading blow...which the Green Knight just gets up from.

The original story emphasizes how this quest tests Gawain’s honor. The movie goes the same route, but instead of focusing on honor in general, it zeroes in on courage as the virtue which Gawain must exhibit in order to finish his quest. Not just courage to face certain death, but also the courage to do the right thing, the courage to stand by loved ones. I think it mostly works, although I think the castle sequence gets short-shifted because of it. That sequence is sort of THE key part of the story in the original poem, whereas here it’s another one of the tests. It’s still an important one, but you wouldn’t think it’s the most important one from the film’s presentation. Because the film is more focused on courage than other parts of honor I understand why, and admittedly I don’t know how to accurately adapt that part of the story to film in a way that doesn’t get boring or repetitive; but I am still fairly disappointed by this aspect of the movie.

Also this movie has a somewhat ambiguous ending? If you wanted to see the end of the story from the original, you’re going to be out of luck. In fact I’m just going to say: if you wanted a strict adaptation of the poem, then you’re going to run into problems with this movie. It takes the premise and, while it does allude very heavily to parts of the story, even bits that you probably don’t remember (St. Winnifred’s well for instance), the movie does a bit of its own thing.

And I really like the ending. I couldn’t tell you why, even if I wanted to (which I don’t because I’m avoiding spoilers), but I wanted to say that I really liked it.

[Also stick around to the very end for a something.]

Visuals in this movie are great? There’s a lot of talk about how surreal and dreamlike much of this movie feels, and that’s all true. The giants who appear (this isn’t a spoiler it’s in the trailers) don’t look like stereotypical fantasy versions of giants, for instance. But also the effects look really good? A lot of it is practical effects like the prosthetics on the Green Knight himself. And that’s important. I wouldn’t say it looks realistic--you’re looking at some crazy shiz here--but it doesn’t look fake.

I do wonder how someone who isn’t very familiar with Arthuriana would take this movie? This movie doesn’t bother to stop and explain a lot. There’s plenty that you can work out; Arthur clearly states that Gawain is his nephew (or rather, that he’s his sister’s son), but we don’t get her name (traditionally Morgause, though like in many versions this movie combines her with Morgan le Fay). I don’t know if Arthur and Guinevere are even named in the movie. Merlin is in the movie in a small role but again, he’s never named. A24 released this helpful video to give you a clue, and Arthurian nerds won’t have a problem. I don’t know how everyone else will fair though.

I am very frustrated by thought pieces on the movie written by people who aren’t remotely familiar with the source material? “This version makes Gawain into Arthur’s nephew.” Yes, chuckmuffin, Gawain is usually Arthur’s nephew in Arthurian stories. “I’m surprised at the emphasis on medieval religion, what with Gawain carrying a shield with Virgin Mary!” That’s also in the original poem, nitwit. And it’s fine if you aren’t familiar with the source material, but then don’t pretend that you are. It’s not hard.

[It reminds me of a video I saw on the American Gods show that said “The show made Shadow Moon into a brown mixed race man to make it relevant to today’s world!” and, uh, again, that’s something straight out of the original novel. Neil once said he imagined Shadow looking something like The Rock.]

Also I was apprehensive about this movie going in, because many reviews only told me three things: the movie’s weird, it’s different than the original story, and an awful lot of critics liked checking out Dev Patel’s body. Which is less than helpful in determining whether I would like the movie.

But I think it’s a good movie. I think it’s worth seeing. I disliked a couple aspects of the movie, but there are some parts of the film I really enjoyed and thought were done well. It’s one of those movies that I’m sure is going to spawn a bunch of crappy academic papers that no one in their right mind would read unless it was assigned, so be on the lookout for those. This movie though… I don’t know if it’s going to be the savior of the fantasy genre as some critics are crowing, but it’s good and interesting and I think you should see it if you’re up to it.

#Movie Munchies #The Green Knight #Dev Patel

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spencers-renaissance · 4 years ago

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Mayhem

Summary: Imagine that scene in S4E1 when Derek is driving the ambulance loaded with a bomb about to explode, except it's Spencer on the other end of the phone and they finally get their shit together.

Tags: canon divergence, spencer is the tech analyst, death-bed love confessions, getting together, mutual pining, insecure spencer, angst with a happy ending, fluff

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid

Word Count: 4.2k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

A Gift For: @habs252117 — anybody can request fics in my ask box :)

A quick recap as this follows S4E1 which is technically a follow-on from the last ep of S3:

The BAU was called to the NY field office to investigate a series of random shootings in the city, often on subways and shit. They realise that this is actually a terror cell practicing for their big attack, and as this fic starts, they believe that the shootings were all in locations they planned to bomb in order to test 911 response times. Kate Joyner is Hotch's old friend, the blonde English one from Scotland Yard and Lisa is Lisa Bartleby, the NY field office tech analyst assigned to help Penelope in the show, Spencer in the fic.

The case had been stressful enough from the beginning. Spencer doesn’t often get to join the team in the field, usually staying in his computer den back in Quantico, so he’d initially been quite excited: he’d get to spend more time with Derek, plus visit New York, which he’s always had a strange sort of affinity for, as well as see his team in action. But then he’s working with equipment that isn’t his and they slowly piece together just how complicated this terrorism ring is and things seem more… bleak rather than exciting.

They’d all been starting to make their way back to the hotel when the news of the bombing hit the networks, and Spencer’s heart is in his mouth as he rushes back to his post, meeting Lisa Bartleby with harried nods of acknowledgement. Almost as soon as he’s settled at his desk the phone starts ringing.

“Spencer,” Rossi greets as soon as he picks up, “you’ve seen the news?”

“Yes, I— do you know where anyone is? What should I do?” he asks, feeling the panic settle on his chest, his stomach clenching in fear he doesn’t dare try and address.

“I’m here with Penelope, she’ll handle the media,” Rossi says, and Spencer realises that he can hear her low, steady voice she always employs in moments of extreme stress in the background of the call. “I need you to call homeland security and direct them to every site of the recent shootings. Tell them to pour troops in. If our profile is right we’re looking at eight suicide bombers who are about to hit every one of those locations.”

“Actually, if we’re correct, there’ll be sixteen suicide bombers,” Spencer realises with a start. “We predicted they’ll hit the second wave of first responders, too.”

Their conversation is interrupted by the news reporting that the bomb was inside a black SUV near the Federal Plaza and Spencer is pretty sure his entire body stops for a moment: cells stop replicating, blood stops flowing, hair and nails stop growing. This is his family. And he doesn’t know where any of them are, spread across an unfamiliar, dangerous city.

“Right, Spencer, do you have eyes on the Plaza?” Rossi asks, controlled urgency colouring his voice as he tries to keep himself and everyone else as calm as possible.

“Uh— yes, I’ve got like three hundred cameras there,” he says, glancing at Lisa, the NY field office’s contribution to his technological complex, as they jump into action, “give me a minute.”

“I’m here with Penelope, but I don’t know where anyone else is,” Rossi says, and for the first time Spencer can hear the panic rising in his voice. It’s quickly suppressed, but it’s there, and it does nothing to help him calm down. “Find them.”

He instructs Lisa to find every camera feed 20 blocks out concentrically from 26 Federal Plaza before fiddling with his headset, taking a deep breath, and, naturally, trying Derek first. His name has been circling round Spencer’s head like a prayer ever since they heard that it was potentially one of their own hit by the bomb, and the knot in his chest starts to unravel when he picks up the phone.

“Yeah, I’m still here,” Derek says, sounding impatient and stressed, but Spencer doesn’t mind. He’s alive. He’s okay.

“Thank God,” Spencer breathes. He keeps him on the line while he tries Emily, who sounds just as anxious when she picks up. He doesn’t mind though, he’s keeping a tally of everyone he knows is safe and it’s the only thing making him any less panicked. When JJ doesn’t pick up, the knot tightens a little and he tries to ignore the little string of ‘no no no’s dancing through his mind.

He hears Emily’s distressed exhale and closes his eyes for a second before forcing himself to get his head back in the game. The phone goes dead mid-JJ’s voicemail message, and then Emily drops off the call, Derek following, and that’s it. He’s lost contact with his team, JJ and Hotch still unaccounted for. Before he can actually lose his head, Lisa is calling him over, and he finally has eyes on the bombing.

He has to watch the man he sees as a father projected through the air by the blast from the bomb, and all he can hear for a solid five seconds is the fear buzzing in the static electricity around his ear.

⭐️

Derek arrives at the site of the explosion riled up in a way he hasn’t been for a long time, his only consolation being that he knows Spencer is safe. God, you can definitely count on working a terrorist attack in New York City to accentuate your crippling crush on a coworker; a subtle burn has settled itself across Derek’s chest, the urge to hold and protect Spencer far too distracting for the circumstances.

He reports immediately to Captain Warner but before he’s even able to identify himself, he hears Hotch shouting desperately for help and he slips immediately into rescue mode.

“Hey! This area’s restricted,” an ESU shouts at him, as soon as he dashes for the barrier, and he forces the blinding anger flaring in his stomach to simmer down as he turns to the Captain again.

“That’s my boss down there,” he shouts, making himself as intimidating as possible.

“I have my orders,” the Captain replies simply, eyes hard and unrelenting.

“I don’t give a damn what your orders are.” He’s finding it increasingly hard to restrain his anger as he hears Hotch shout again, turning to look hopelessly down the road at him.

“Look, I get it agent,” Warner attempts to placate him, “but we’ve been told by you that responders are the targets. So until the blast site is cleared, no-one goes in.”

Derek spins around to face him again. “You’re Marine Corps, right?” By the look on Warner’s face, he’s found his way in. “Right?”

“Please, go back to the marshaling point,” he replies, the fight draining out of him.

“I’m not doing it,” Derek yells stubbornly, furiously. “I’m not just gonna let my man lay down there like that.” Conveniently, Hotch’s miserable call comes down the road again and Derek meets the Captain’s eyes with a hard gaze. “Never leave a man behind. You do remember that, don’t you?”

“Help us!” Hotch screams again. “We’re here! Please!”

Derek glares at the Captain, and sprints as fast as he can towards Hotch as soon as he nods his okay. His boss is clearly disoriented and in a state of obvious distress but he doesn’t look terribly injured. Kate, on the other hand, is clearly a different story, and any hope Derek has for her survival melts away as Hotch explains her arterial bleed and he has to tell him that they can’t expect an ambulance any time soon. He tries to tell the kid crouching down by Kate to leave, but he seems reluctant.

Derek doesn’t have the headspace to analyse why until he’s finally got him to run off and Spencer’s ringing him to tell him that he’s the bomber.

⭐️

As soon as Spencer hears Derek run off after the bomber he feels his stress levels rising again. If Derek dies before Spencer finally works up the courage to tell him that he’s in love with him, he’ll never forgive himself for being such a coward, and he’ll never forgive Derek for leaving him.

Immediately, he patches into the marshaling point and tells the rest of them, who have only just all reunited, what’s going on.

“The bomb,” he explains, talking as fast as he can, “it was under Kate’s SUV. Hotch is out there with her, he seems okay but Kate is really hurt; they haven’t been able to move her.”

“Where was her SUV parked?” Rossi asks as they all gather around the computer.

“Two blocks east of Federal Plaza.”

“Two blocks east and they target Kate’s SUV?” He sounds incredulous. “Have you identified the bomber?”

“Lisa’s running him through VICAP,” he says, but shrugs hopelessly. He knows it’s a lost cause.

“Call Homeland Security,” Rossi instructs Penelope. “They should be at all the murder sites. See if they found anything.” She nods and stalks away on her heels, still managing to stay cool under pressure. Spencer would envy her, but he knows it’s only an external front, only a mask she has to wear out of complete and utter necessity.

“Okay, okay, but Morgan,” Spencer says, feeling more impatient and stressed than before, “he’s run after the bomber.”

“He’s run after the bomber?” JJ asks, bewildered. “Why?”

“He was at the bomb site,” he replies. “I’m trying to trace him on the city's CCTV network, but the feeds are grainy at best and completely severed at worst.” This is feeling more and more hopeless by the second, and the light at the end of the tunnel is only dimming.

“Keep trying,” Rossi says, and then he’s turning to the rest of the team.

Spencer takes a few calming breaths and focuses back on the computer in front of him. Find Derek, he thinks. Find Derek and, when this case is over, stop being a coward and tell him how hopelessly in love with him you are. The pool of dread and fear weighing his stomach down only seems to deepen as he searches relentlessly through the CCTV feeds he can access, looking for Derek and the bomber chasing through the streets of the city. Eventually, he finds him and follows his movements down to the subway station. He watches with baited breath as Derek looks around the empty platform, clearly shouting to the unsub, though Spencer can’t hear what he’s saying. He speeds up the feed, seeing as it’s delayed slightly and fast forwards to Derek entering the tunnel, his sense of dread only intensifying as he loses visual.

Trying desperately not to panic, he fast-forwards until he’s watching in real time, but Derek still hasn’t emerged, and neither has the bomber, both still hiding in the secrecy of the depths of the city’s transport network. There’s a vague spark of light — which he later finds out was the bomber electrocuting himself on an exposed part of the railway — only barely visible on the poor quality of the camera feed, before Derek emerges, looking rattled but very much alive.

He doesn’t have much time to celebrate Derek’s livelihood, however, because JJ and Penelope are patching him back through to their conversation.

“Spencer, Homeland Security has poured tactical teams into all the locations on the geo-profile — SWAT, bomb techs, HRT, hazmat, the works — they found nothing,” Penelope says, clearly puzzled and frustrated.

JJ’s about to reply when something catches her eye. “Yeah, all except one,” she says. “Kate’s SUV — none of the shootings were near it.”

“Maybe it’s personal,” Penelope muses. “I mean, this death card they gave us; they delivered on it.”

“No,” Spencer jumps in, realising what JJ’s getting at, “that’s just it — they haven’t. A cell as large as this one and multiple targets to choose from, they target a single SUV?”

“It’s a diversion,” JJ says, “Everything that’s happened so far has appeared to be something it’s not. The seemingly random acts of violence, Emily’s suicide by cop to make us believe it’s all over. Hotch and Kate as an endgame; they want us to think this is over. They’ve deliberately skewed our profile to make us believe they would be at the sites of the shooting.”

“You’re right. That was memorable” Rossi says, finally chiming in as he gestures to a picture of the twin towers on the wall. “This is not. There’s something else.”

⭐️

As soon as Derek manages to calm Hotch down, he summons the rest of the team to St Barclay’s and for the first time since the bomb went off under Kate’s SUV, the team is back together again.

“Are you okay?” Emily asks Hotch as soon as the team walks into the hospital. He’s scratched and bruised all over, visibly shaken, and clearly in a lot of pain but, Hotch being Hotch, he’s stubbornly refusing to accept the necessary medical attention and probably just wants to see the back of this whole ordeal, not unlike the rest of them.

“I’m fine,” he says, clearly not fine at all but shouldering his jacket on anyway. “I just want to understand why I’m still alive. Did you identify Sam, the bomber?”

“Spencer put Sam and the other dead unsub into every known database,” Penelope offers. “Nothing.” At the mention of Spencer, Derek feels his heart clench in his chest. God, Spencer’s intelligence is so attractive to him, even though he knows it’s something his pretty boy can be so unreasonably insecure about it. He can’t wait to see the end of this night and touch him, reassure his aching, restless heart that he’s safe, alive, protected.

Once again, he thinks cynically, nothing like a terrorist attack to leave him on the brink of finally telling Spencer how he feels.

They quickly get back on topic, deducing as a team the terror cell’s real endgame: they’ll use a single chemical bomb planted in the ambulance. If Sam wasn’t calling 911 every few minutes but a number that went dead minutes after he died, then there’s only one reason he stayed with Hotch and Kate. To make sure the ambulance got to them. The ambulance they drove into a hospital, with the paramedic’s help, housing someone important enough to have the Secret Service protecting them.

Derek doesn’t think. He runs.

“Spencer?” he says, into his ear piece as he runs down the stairs, refusing to let fear come to the surface. “I need you to jam the frequencies in this cell block for as long as possible, okay?”

“What’s going on?” Spencer asks, clearly concerned, but Derek can hear him already tapping away at his computer.

“Just,” Derek pauses, takes a second to feel, process, and then suppress his panic, “just… I need you to do this for me, alright, pretty boy.”

“I’m already on it.” Spencer sounds exactly he does: carefully, artificially calm. He runs down the last few flights of stairs and into the parking garage, locating the ambulance before he hears Spencer again. “Morgan?”

“Yeah, baby,” he says, panting half from the exertion of sprinting down far too many flights of stairs and partly from the pressure of the situation settling on his chest — the stakes actually registering for the first time.

“You sound stressed,” Spencer says, deliberate and light. “Where are you?”

“Not where I want to be right now,” Derek replies, a little self-deprecatingly. Really, it’s just deflection; a last ditch attempt at avoidance of the likelihood he dies tonight. “Reid, take this down for me: FDNY 108.”

“That’s an ambulance, are you okay?” His voice is quick and rises ever so slightly in pitch.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just track it for me.” Tentatively, he opens the door to the ambulance, heart sinking and blood pressure rising as soon as he clocks the monumental bomb stowed neatly in the trunk of the seat. “Reid, how long can you keep jamming the cell block?” He knows he’s sounding breathless now and he knows Spencer is probably panicking, unable to know what’s going on but clearly reading enough of the situation to understand that asking would be decidedly unhelpful right now.

“Uh, maximum of a few minutes, Morgan,” Spencer replies. “Why?”

“I’m going to have to get this ambulance out of here.” This is it. The culmination.

“Or you could just evacuate the building like everyone else,” Spencer says urgently, sounding outraged at the idea.

Derek cringes at the disapproval, but he doesn't have a choice. “No, as soon as the airwaves are clear, this thing’s going up.”

“Going up?” Spencer doesn’t bother concealing the outright panic in his voice anymore. “That’s like… in three minutes, that’s when the satellite moves position.”

“Reid, listen to me,” Derek says, climbing into the cab of the ambulance and beginning to fiddle with the wiring. “I need you to find me an area of town I can drive this thing, and you tell everybody, you hear me, everybody that I’m coming.” He finally gets the engine to start and begins to drive out of the garage. “Alright. Talk to me, Reid.” He prays desperately that they get this right, that Spencer helps him, that they manage to subvert this terrorist attack.

“Okay,” Spencer says, back to his measured, calm tone of voice, and Derek sighs in relief at the sound. “Okay, head north… and floor it. I’ll tell you where to turn.” He’s almost out of the garage when the ‘paramedic’ starts shooting at the back of the ambulance, screaming in rage as Derek manages to escape both van and bomb unscathed. “What was that?”

“It was nothing,” Derek shouts, heart pounding in his ears as he turns the sirens and lights on, stepping on the gas as he heads north, “it was nothing. Just… talk to me. How am I doing, Reid?”

Derek hears Spencer ask Lisa for an update before exhaling hard. “1 minute, 50 seconds,” he replies, despair spilling into his voice. “Why does it always have to be you? Why do you always have to do this?” His stomach clenches at the sound of Spencer on the edge of tears and feels himself tearing up in response, swallowing his grief in lieu of actually replying. “Derek, you don’t have much time. Please be smart about this. Signal’s coming back on line, there’s thirty seconds until full coverage.”

Derek’s never driven so fast, his hands pinching at the steering wheel and every muscle tensed. He tries very hard not to think about the fact that there’s a bomb only a metre behind him, set to explode in less than half a minute.

“Derek, drive to the opening and then get the hell out,” Spencer says, no constraint to his emotion at this point, he’s almost shouting down the phone, very clearly crying, now.

He swallows. He has no choice; he has to tell him. “Spencer,” he says, nearly choked off by a sob, “there’s something I really want you to know.”

“Save it,” Spencer shouts. “Just get out!”

“No, you know what Reid? If I don’t make it out of this alive, I need you to know that I love you, alright?” he says, finally confessing to the secret he’s been holding close to his chest for so long, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he’s throwing himself out of the ambulance and running as fast as he can away from it, still not outrunning the blast picking him up and tossing him across the field.

Slowly, getting back to his feet, he turns to face the fire as he catches his breath. He has no idea how he’s still alive.

Fiddling with his earpiece, he tunes back into Spencer’s line to hear him crying on the other end. “Oh, God, Derek, I love you, too,” he sobs as soon as he hears Derek click back into the call.

“Spencer, I’ll tell you what you are to me,” he says, relief and warmth and love blooming across his chest, driving out the crippling fear and panic previously rooted there, “you’re my God-given solace. Baby, you promise me one thing… whatever happens, don’t you ever stop talking to me.”

Spencer laughs wetly, and it’s the most beautiful sound Derek’s heard so far. “I’m so mad at you, right now,” he says, but his happiness is written across every word, “I’m so angry. But… I love you, too.”

Derek laughs, too, the relief of being both alive and loved by Spencer almost euphoric as he walks away from the still blazing ambulance. He guesses he has a terror cell’s failed attack to thank for his long overdue admittance of his love for Dr Spencer Reid, and the frankly wonderful news that it’s actually reciprocated.

⭐️

Derek and Hotch arrive back at Quantico 12 hours after everyone else, having driven home instead of taking the jet with the others due to Hotch’s rather inconvenient ear trauma. That only gives Spencer more time to panic over seeing him for the first time since their deathbed love confessions; they’d spoken briefly on the phone the morning before Derek and Hotch set off, promising to talk about it in person as soon as he was home, and now he nearly was.

Penelope had made a beeline for Spencer as soon as the others had arrived and taken him out for coffee, despite their mutual exhaustion. She’d deduced the situation based on Spencer’s incredibly cryptic HELP. IT HAPPENED. text message almost immediately after the explosion, having been the only one Spencer had confided in about his feelings for Derek. No matter how much she promised him Derek felt the same, he refused to do anything about it, leaving her to watch her two favourite people pine miserably for one another, and actively choosing to remain in said misery instead of confessing and being happy.

He now actually felt bad for her.

“Just tell him what you want,” Penelope says over the top of her latte, croissant crumbs littering the table in between them. “You want to get married and have lots of babies with him.”

“Okay, first of all,” Spencer says, fixing her with a look, “you know that neither of those things are true. And, secondly, it’s not that simple. What if he isn’t looking for a relationship or anything? Why hasn’t he said something before now?”

To her credit, Penelope avoids slamming her head into the table in frustration despite how much he looks like she wants to. “Spencer,” Penelope says, levelling a look right back at him, “Derek thought he was about to die. And in that moment, all he felt like he needed was to be sure that you knew he loves you. How could you possibly be that in love with someone and not crave a relationship with them?”

Spencer finds it hard to argue against that.

Derek reclines on Spencer’s sofa, comfortably surveying the organised chaos of his living room, while Spencer tries to gather the snacks and drinks as calmly as possible in the kitchen, finding it much harder to assume the seemingly unaffected air Derek pulls off so easily. He walks back to where he’s sitting, and he almost drops his only slightly wobbly tray at the blinding smile Derek sends his way.

“Oh, pretty boy, you’re spoiling me,” he teases, sitting upright and leaning forward to survey the snacks Spencer had rushed out and bought earlier that afternoon. Naturally, he blushes immediately at the compliment and sits next to him on the sofa, grabbing a drink for something to do with his hands.

“Well, if all it takes is some cheese puffs from Walmart to make you happy then I think this is going to be alright,” Spencer says, trying for cool, calm, and collected and hitting somewhere near nervous and frenzied instead.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Derek scoffs as he breaks off a piece of chocolate and takes a bite. “I’m here for you, not the refreshments, luxurious as they might be. I don’t remember confessing my love to snack food in the moment I thought I was going to die.” He ruffles Spencer’s hair as his face heats up even more, smiling bashfully over at him.

“No,” Spencer agrees, feeling all warm inside, “you told me.”

Derek looks serious all of a sudden. “I did,” he nods, leaning forward to put the chocolate down on the tray so he can focus all his attention on Spencer, taking his hands in his own, “and I meant it. I’ve probably been in love with you since you joined the team, Spencer, but I realised it properly last year, and I was always too scared to say anything. I’m sorry it had to be in that moment, and I’m even more sorry that if I’d died you would have had to live with that for the rest of your life.” He pauses and looks down at his lap for a moment. “That was unforgivable.”

Spencer smiles at him, gripping Derek’s fingers a little tighter. “I’m not mad about any of that, Derek,” he says, “I’m just glad it finally happened. And so is Penelope, apparently. She’s been telling me you loved me back for years but I never believed her; I didn’t think this would ever happen.”

Derek chuckles fondly at that and brings his hand to Spencer’s cheek, brushing his fingers across the warm skin for just a moment, but Spencer can’t help but lean into his touch, eyelids fluttering half-closed as they meet in such an intimate manner. “So, pretty boy,” he says, smile warm and eyes bright, “shall we give this a go?”

Spencer looks back up at Derek and takes a second to let the moment he’d daydreamed about for so long sink in, let himself marinate in the love that Derek has for him. “Yes,” he replies. “Please.” And then Derek’s lips are on his own, his hands around his face, and the future’s never looked so bright.

taglist: @strippersenseii @criminalmindsvibez @drinkingcroissants

Just a note: a lot of the dialogue was stolen directly from the episode and Derek & Spencer's conversation on the phone is almost an exact transcript; it's from my notes though so it may not be perfect. It also follows the case very closely and none of that is mine.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds writing #moreid #moreid fic #derek morgan #spencer reid #derek morgan/spencer reid #moreid angst #moreid fluff #moreid au #criminal minds au #moreid writing #derek morgan x spencer reid #my writing

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jokertrap-ran · 3 years ago

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(光与夜之恋 Light and Night) Main Story Chapter 1-5: 命运的拐点 Destiny’s Turning Point Translation [3rd Beta Test]

*Light and Night Master-list is under WIP *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Game is slated for release this summer! (Estimated to be 8/8/21) *Beta Test’s main story tag will be #Dreams of Light and Night

MC: Uh oh, now I can't run.

I stood rooted to my spot, brain blanking out.

??: Why aren't you saying anything? Am I that terrifying?

I resisted the urge to nod in the heat of the moment, knowing that it wouldn’t do me any good to provoke him now. I lightly shook my head in response.

MC: ...I didn't see anything earlier.

??: Then why are you trying to escape?

His voice was calm and composed, much unlike my shaky one.

However, that soon changed. His voice took on a commanding tone, frigid and icy.

??: Turn around. Let's have a talk.

I recalled that in movies, no good ever came out of having seen the villain’s face. I shook my head once more.

??: Must I make you?

Following a chuckle, the hand removed itself from the door and hovered close to my face. His hand was so close that I could feel the chill radiating off his fingers.

There was a faintly discernible scent of black cedarwood handing in the air. My instincts screamed danger.

My heart jumped, for fear that he’d take things a step further. I abruptly whipped around to face him.

❖☆———————————★❖

A man was standing in front of me within arm’s reach, looking down at me with a playful expression on his face. His eyes were sharp, with something wild and dangerous flickering within its depths.

??: Now that's more like it.

He backed away a little, using his other hand to dangle the earring before my eyes,

❖☆———————————★❖

??: Did you lose this?

I frantically shook my head like how one would shake a rattle. Suddenly, I realized that something wasn’t quite right here. Why did he ask me if I’d lost it?

Is he testing me?

I tried my hardest to remain calm, holding tightly onto the phone I’d hidden behind my back as I felt around for the emergency call button.

??: ……

Who would have thought that he’d actually lean down, clasping onto my hand with a start. He slightly raised his eyes, fixing me with a calm look.

??: And what do you think you're doing?

MC: Nothing.

??: You suspect that I'm the one who stole it, yes?

MC: ……

??: Then how about you take a guess? What do you think will happen if you get in the way of my business?

I could tell that he was evidently trying to egg me on. I was already a nervous wreck from being completely seen through by him, and since he’d already caught me red-handed in the act, there wasn’t much sense in trying to hide it anymore.

MC: This earring was something an acquaintance of mine lost. My brooch has also gone missing.

MC: And I saw you in the corridor right before things started going missing!

The man raised his chin after a few seconds of silence, releasing his hold on me.

??: Give me your hand.

I didn't know what he intended to do with it, but neither did I have the courage to ask, so all I could do was to stick a hand out just like he asked.

He placed the earrings onto my awaiting palm and jabbed his finger behind him.

??: Take that and follow me.

I held onto the ruby earrings, stunned. The thought of running away and making my escape flashed to the forefront of my mind when I saw that he’d already proceeded a couple of steps forward.

The man turned back to look at me coldly, as if he was issuing a silent order to follow.

❖☆———————————★❖

With no other choice, all I could do was to hold tightly onto the earrings and follow him to the corner of the roof.

❖☆———————————★❖

There was a wooden box there, not the jewellery box or the apple box kind that were frequently used in the competition, but an old cube that had been hollowed out in the middle with a couple of scratches at the sides.

He pointed to the box, gesturing for me to look within.

Cautiously peeking into it, I saw a layer of hay spread out on the bottom of the box. It appears to be what looked like a bird's nest, with two bluish-purple feathers nestled within.

And the centre of this "nest" was filled with earrings, hairpins, rings… Heck, these were all the accessories we lost!

❖☆———————————★❖

MC: What are they all doing here!?

I whipped around to look at him in shock, forgetting my fear.

??: The thief hid it here. I found it.

??: Weren't you missing a brooch? Have fun looking.

Is he for real? Is he not making this up on the fly…? Does this mean that he's… really not the thief?

Almost as if he'd read my thoughts, the man shrugged his shoulders and stepped a couple of steps away, turning his gaze up towards the night sky. I remained wary as I bent down and sifted through the pile until I found my missing brooch. I gave it a thorough check.

❖☆———————————★❖

MC: Thank god. It's still in one piece…

??: Found it?

MC: Yeah.

The man moved away from the wall he had been leaning on, straightening up as he headed towards me. The heavy clouds finally moved away, revealing the moonlight that filtered down, illuminating his features.

He wore a look of indifference, his lips pressed into a thin line. He even had a great well-defined jawline.

❖☆———————————★❖

Suddenly, a memory flashed across my mind— The contestant that stood atop the highest point of the podium took off his helmet, looking towards the crowd below the stage.

Something clicked as the figure in front of me started associating itself with the image that An'an had once showed me. I widened my eyes incredulously.

❖☆———————————★❖

MC: No way! You're… Osborn!?

He stiffened for a while before his expression returned to his usual aloof one.

Osborn: You know of me? Looks like word of my name really travels.

...It's really him!?

I only found myself puzzled even more despite having gotten undeniable affirmation from him. I just couldn’t connect the idea that the well-known racer was actually the same guy suspiciously sneaking about on the rooftop at night with our lost items.

A multitude of questions filled my mind.

MC: How did you find them here? Even the police couldn't.

Osborn: Well, those two feathers there.

MC: This is…

Osborn: Feathers of a Purplite Bird. They like to gather shiny things and bring them back to their nest.

I suddenly recalled that I'd seen these exact same feathers inside my jewelry box. So… I was actually the one who'd misunderstood his intentions?

The realization hit me hard, followed by a bout of embarrassment. I wanted to say something to explain myself out of this awkward situation, but Osborn only smiled lightly at me.

The wind blew leisurely past the roof, bringing refreshing coolness along with it.

☆Light Choice: Trust him (Didn't select)

★Night Choice: Still feels a little sceptical

MC: But it's so late now. What are you doing here? Besides, how did you know that we lost stuff?

Osborn: For someone so cowardly, you sure do have a load of questions.

Osborn: I'm no different from you. I'm still here because I'm looking for something I lost during rehearsals.

Osborn inclined his head, taking out a bracelet from his pocket.

It was a silver bracelet with a nameplate on it. It shook slightly as Osborn held it up,

The nameplate had a twin serpentine motif on the front, with some English words and numbers engraved at the back.

❖☆———————————★❖

I couldn’t help but to feel as if something was off about it, but there was no real need for me to be delving deeper into it. It was more important to focus on the upcoming competition.

MC: So, what do we do about the rest of the stuff?

Osborn: I've already informed the police, so the rest of the missing items should be returned in due time after they're done wrapping things up.

MC: Great. Then, seeing as how the issue has already been settled… I guess I'll better be going now.

I nodded to him before making a speedy escape towards the exit. However, the weight nestled in my palm reminded me of something that I’d overlooked. After giving it some thought, I halted and turned back around.

Osborn: What now? Can't bear to leave?

MC: I should put this brooch back. Else, the numbers won’t quite tally when the police do a count.

I placed the brooch back into the box and was just about to leave when my fingers accidentally brushed against the blueish-purple feathers. Suddenly, I was hit by an inexplicable wave of grief.

It was as if all my senses had dulled in a moment, All I heard was an odd, yet clear birdsong that made itself known to my ears, sad, forlorn, and speaking of immeasurable grief.

I hurriedly retracted my hand, suddenly feeling my senses revert to normal as I returned back to my body. Everything returned to normal, making what I’d just experienced seem naught but a brief trance of sorts.

MC: Do you hear something?

Osborn: Hear what?

He looked at me questioningly, seemingly not having heard the same thing I had.

MC: …Nothing. It must just be my imagination then.

I hesitantly made my way towards the door, mulling over the peculiar experience I just had while I opened the door. However, the door didn’t budge.

A chuckle sounded in my ears, carried along by the wind.

Osborn gave it a hard tug. It swung open with a loud clang.

Looks like the bolt had just gotten stuck.

Osborn: Looks like you're not only lacking in the courage department, but strength as well.

Osborn: You're welcome.

He looked me straight in the eye, a hint of a mirth flickering across his eyes.

MC: I've yet to even thank you…

Osborn: Oh? Come on then, I'm waiting.

MC: Thank. You. Very. Much.

I’d long since lost the fear I’d felt earlier. I met his gaze, biting out every word of thanks.

His attention had been starting to wander, his eyes moving elsewhere. However, he whipped back around upon hearing that, raising an eyebrow in question. I ignored him, dashing right downstairs.

It was only until the girl’s figure had disappeared down the stairs that Osborn shut the door to the roof.

A purple-coloured bird appeared under the covers of the night sky, letting out a shrill cry as it hovered mid-air.

It fluttered its wings, it’s entire body exuding inky black mist that seemed to devour everything in sight.

Osborn: Great to see you here. Now that spares me the trouble of having to go looking for you.

He raised a hand, deep blue flames erupting from his fingertips.

❖☆————— ⊹ Dreams of Light & Night⊹ —————★❖

Previous Part: (Chapter 1-3) | Next Part: (Chapter 1-7)

#光与夜之恋 #Light and Night #Otome #Translations #Tencent #萧逸 #Osborn #齐司��#Sariel #陆沉 #Evan #查理苏 #Charlie #夏鸣星 #Jesse #Dreams of Light and Night

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sillyguyhotline · 4 years ago

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Prompt: Sara, having voted for Shin to die, in the classroom (or lab?) taking Joe's dog keychain

“Alright, it looks like this room is all clear,” Sara spoke up, just loud enough to alert the two allies who were trailing behind her. Ranmaru, bandaged hands shoved lazily into his pockets, gave a quick nod, and Keiji scratched his neck in assent.

She moved down the hallway, still rather cautious as to what traps could be sprung at a moment’s notice, finger poised carefully on the map. She couldn’t quite discern what kind of room was up ahead, and that only heightened her anxiety about what she was about to face… but nevertheless, she stepped a steady foot into the room.

Sitting before her was a painfully familiar sight, dredging up memories that, in any other circumstances, could have been fond. It was her old math classroom, without a doubt, the one she’d spent years sitting in with Joe sitting right beside her. She’d resented it once, because Ryoko wasn’t in the class with her and she was seated next to the most painfully cheerful person in their grade.

Oh, how she’d feared receiving endless mockery from Joe or her other classmates; after all, Joe was so peppy, so lovely, and she’d spent her school years stewing quietly in the corner of the room.

It felt silly to look back at those fears now, after how long Joe had been her best friend and after how many secrets and wonderful moments she’d entrusted him with.

It felt even sillier to look back on those regrets now that he was gone. She’d been so sure that she would have all the time in the world to make amends for those fears of him, that she’d have all the time in the world to shake him awake when he dozed off in math class or to fall asleep on the school rooftop during lunch as he kept a watchful eye on her, knowing how badly she needed that sleep.

Sara had been a very future-focused person, a stark contrast from her cheerful best friend, but he’d often shattered her intricate plans for university with his own proposals for how they’d live life after high school. Karaoke and doner kebabs every day, he’d suggest, or they could volunteer at the animal shelter.

“Imagine how much free time we’ll have when we’ve graduated,” Joe would daydream at lunch. “And we’ll have money, too! We can do whatever the hell we want, all day long, and nobody’s gonna be there to stop us.”

“You know, we’ll have to get a job in order to have money,” Sara would always counter, looking forward to the way his face would crinkle with disappointment at that response.

“Not necessarily,” Joe would say back, overdramatically raising his finger. “We could get a job play-testing things at the arcade and then we could spend our days doing that.”

Sara would roll her eyes and flick a chip crumb at him, and then the two of them would devolve into raucous laughter that couldn’t help but attract stares from their classmates. They’d taken the future so lightly, always believing that the only things laying ahead of them were university and work and retirement. They’d never once imagined a future that didn’t have the other in it.

But, Sara realized as she stood paralyzed on the threshold of this relic from a past she’d never be able to return to, some futures simply aren’t meant to be.

Had Joe come to that realization at any point, or had he died with peace in his heart? She couldn’t help but hope for the latter.

“Sara? You doin’ alright?” Keiji’s voice pierced through the room, and she glanced over her should to find him fixing her with a very concerned stare. She knew exactly what he was thinking, knew that it had probably taken him a mere glance around the room to realize what thoughts it was meant to bring.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She gave a confident nod, as much for her own sake as his, and stepped into the room. There was moonlight twinkling through the windows, almost a carbon copy of how the classroom had looked when she’d woken in it the night of the kidnapping. She’d always thought the school had looked a little odd in the darkness, a little too cold and empty for her tastes. Now, though, with the pang of loss still stinging through her brain, it seemed even colder and more unforgiving.

She stepped carefully through the room, fingers gliding over each desk as she walked past, trying to memorize the sensation of the grooves of wood against her hands. Slowly, carefully, she approached her desk... and found that there was a bookbag neatly perched in the seat right behind hers.

His seat, his bookbag.

“Hey, uh, you want me to check that out for you?” Ranmaru was quick to step forward and make the offer, face creased with worry. How much had he been told about the events of the game? Had he seen the portrait of the bloody boy in the same uniform as Sara’s and put two and two together?

Sara hesitated, then… “yeah, go ahead.”

Ranmaru nodded solemnly, then reached into the bag and rummaged around in it before pulling out a very familiar object. “What’s this? Some sort of… dog keychain?”

It was remarkable how different it felt to see the keychain without the plague of hallucinations constantly weighing on Sara’s shoulders. No more bloody apparitions stirring in Sara’s subconscious, no more nauseating guilt threatening to spill out. Just a heavy ache in her heart at the sight of all that was left of her best friend.

“Did this… did this belong to that Joe guy or somethin’?” Ranmaru gripped at the keychain a little tighter, turning it around in his hand to examine it, and there was a clench at Sara’s heart.

“Give me that, Ranmaru.” Keiji’s voice came out cold. “Sara, don’t look at it.”

“No… no, it’s fine.” Could they hear how raw her voice was? “I don’t have to deal with the hallucinations anymore. It’s alright.”

The other two of her allies fell deadly silent, and she could only pray that they would listen to her. It was true that the real keychain was still nestled snugly in her pocket, close to her heart where nobody could ever hope to hurt him again… but this was Joe. Copy or not, she’d grown fond of seeing that keychain in Joe’s pocket, knowing that it was a symbol of all his affection for her.

He couldn’t carry the keychain to graduation anymore. It had fallen into the timeless garbage pile of shattered promises and futures that would never come to be. But she would do her best to make sure that she kept his promise alive, even if he couldn’t.

“Ranmaru… please give that to me. It’s very… very special to me.”

Hesitantly, Ranmaru handed the keychain over, and she was swift to pocket it. Perhaps she’d be able to give one to Ryoko, as cheap as it would seem, and they’d both be able to cherish their own individual remnants of their extinguished sunshine.

“Can… can you guys leave the room for a bit? I know there’s more to explore, but… can I have a few minutes alone?” Her eyes were still fixated on the carefully-carved wood of the desk, refusing to meet theirs.

After a long, weighty pause, Keiji spoke up. “...Alright. But call out for help if anything happens. And don’t take too long. We still need to catch Midori, alright?”

“Alright.”

She waited with bated breath until their solid, clicking footsteps faded away and the door fell shut behind them… and sat down at her desk.

The silence of the room consumed her, broken only by the gentle whistle of automated wind pushing against the windows. They were far too underground, surely, for the night sky to be authentic, but even the quiet ambiance brought its own flavor of peace. Even in her own quiet solitude, she felt foolish tracing her fingers over the wood of the desk, wishing so stupidly that he might be there to listen to her.

“Hey, Joe,” she spoke up quietly. “I know… I promised I wouldn’t cry over you. I know you’ve never liked to see me cry, I know it makes you miserable… I’m sorry. I hope, wherever you are, if you can even hear me right now, I haven’t made you miserable. I certainly hope you aren’t punching yourself.” She let out a quiet, heavy laugh.

Oh, the burden was too much to bear, and she quickly reached for the dog keychain, the one she knew was real, the one snugly nestled up to her heart. She gazed into the beady eyes glinting in the moonlight, trying to reclaim her courage… and saw only his smile in that plastic one.

Joe’s dopey, foolish smile, the smile that was such a perfect brand of stupid that only he’d managed to master it. The smile he’d given her whenever he’d told a good joke that managed to make her laugh, or when something genuinely good happened and he was practically bursting with joy in anticipation of telling her.

She hated that the last time she’d seen that smile, it was bloodstained and heavy with exhaustion.

It was so foolish, that out of all of the things that could possibly still haunt her, his smile had done the trick. The clatter of the hairpin on the floor, the way she’d spun hoping upon hoping that maybe he was still alive, maybe she could salvage him and they could go home alive and happy… only to be greeted with that dumb, beautiful smile. Drained of life, eyes dull with the promise of death, mouth dripping blood, he’d beamed up at her with such happiness pushing against the pain… and then she’d watched him die, still smiling.

Stupid, stupid Joe Tazuna, who could smile even in the face of death if only so his best friend wouldn’t cry.

And she’d failed him.

She’d taken the hairpin, though, even blinded by tears and grief. It was just a bobby pin, one of the many he’d use to keep his hair up all day. She couldn’t begin to recount the amount of times she’d slept over at his house and watched him style his hair with gel and pins, grinning when he’d catch her eye in the mirror and wink at her. He’d always offered to style her hair, but she’d always refused, joking that she didn’t want her hair to look like his and giggling when he gasped in mock offense.

Now, though, her motions were slow as she closed her eyes and reached her hands up towards her head. Carefully, tenderly, she slipped the hairpin into her hair, tightly securing her braid. She could almost fool herself into thinking he was the one sitting behind her, doing her hair with such care and precision.

“I miss you so much, Joe,” she said, eyes closed. “God, I miss you more than I’ve missed anything in the world. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get us out alive. I know… wherever you are, you’re probably happier. I guess this was just never meant to be, huh?” Her voice broke. “It hurts to sit here and know you’re not sitting behind me, to know you’re never gonna sit behind me again. I know you’re gone, and I know I shouldn’t be crying over me, I should be smiling so you’re happy.”

She wiped her tears away with her sleeve, staining it a darker blue. “We’ve broken so many promises, haven’t we? But… I’m going to get out alive, and I’m going to tell Ryoko what happened, and I’m going to carry this keychain to graduation. That’s one promise I refuse to break.”

The tears took over, then, but as she cried the room grew a little warmer. For a fleeting second, there was the phantom weight of a warm, bangle-wearing hand on her shoulder. As she stood up, though, it dissolved, leaving only the whisper of her words behind and the vague echos of affection in her ears.

#yttd #your turn to die #joe tazuna #sara chidouin #ranmaru kageyama #keiji shinogi #My fic #yttd fic #depressobean’s asks #nacrene archaeologist

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thrillridesz · 4 years ago

Text

no other ▫ sunwoo

➳ pairing: sunwoo x older!reader ➳ genre: fluff ➳ word count: 2.7k ➳ requested?: yes

“Does this look good on me?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it does.”

Sunwoo narrowed his eyes at Eric, who was sitting on the bed and clearly too preoccupied with his video game to pay much attention to whatever he was asking him. So much for having a second opinion from Eric.

“Wow, your opinions are so useful,” he bit out each word in a sarcastic tone, feeling more irritated by the second as Eric waved a hand nonchalantly without even tearing his eyes away from the screen for even a millisecond.

“Don’t mention it.”

Before Eric even had the time to react, a pillow was hurtled towards his head at a speed that would make even professional football stars kowtow. Alarmed, Eric dropped his phone onto the floor with a loud clatter as he glared at Sunwoo.

“What was that for?”

“The least you could was give me your honest opinion. Seriously, I don’t think I’m asking for much here.” The latter replied dryly, his expression void of any form of remorse. “I didn’t ask you over to play games on your phone while I model in front of you like an idiot.”

Rubbing his face, Eric groaned, “All of this just for a date?”

Sunwoo glowered at his words and a steady, growing heat crept up to his cheeks.

“You know how much I’ve been looking forward to this date with y/n.”

“Yeah but still.” Eric shot back, picking up his phone and inspecting it for cracks. When he found none, he heaved a deep sigh of relief. “Man, if there were any cracks, I would have had your neck.”

“Oh please, I could you take out in a minute.”

Sunwoo had to resist the urge to shake him as he kept his fists clenched tightly at his sides. Sometimes, hanging out with Eric felt like he was voluntarily giving up years of his life while trying not to lose his temper. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the mirror and focused on his outfit. He can’t afford to get anymore creases on his forehead because of Eric of all people.

Red flannel, denim jeans and black converse sneakers. Scrunching up his nose in distaste, he asked, “Do you think I’d look better if I...” - he reached over to his cupboard and grabbed a black beanie, placing it over his head - “Wear it with the beanie or without?”

Eric regarded him for a second, pursing his lips as if deep in thought.

“Without. For sure, without the beanie.”

“Thank you,” Sunwoo rolled his eyes. “For being actually helpful for once.” Tossing the beanie to the side, he mussed up his hair and frowned as he scrutinised himself in the mirror. Seemingly unsatisfied, he flattened his hair again and noticed Eric’s incredulous expression from the reflection.

“This is honestly the first time I’ve seen you care so much about something.”

“Well obviously, you don’t know me enough if you’re saying that. I care about a lot of things.”

Eric rolled his eyes. “Just not me, huh.”

“Yeah, nah. You’re not worth my time.”

Eric clutched onto his heart and wailed in a fake cry, “Ouch. I’m hurt.”

That was the thing about Eric. He was always able to make him smile no matter what. Smiling, Sunwoo quipped, “Stop being dramatic.”

“Why are you so hung up over this anyways?” Eric questioned as he laid back on the bed. “It’s just a date.”

Sunwoo stiffened. He couldn't possibly tell Eric that this was his first date ever. He would never hear the end of it.

“Yeah, sure. It's just a date but it’s with y/n.” As he said that, his expression softened as his thoughts drifted to you.

The two of you had met on his first day at school as a new transfer student. He wasn’t what you would call a model student and he certainly didn’t look the part. With a scruffy demeanor and unkempt hair, nobody had really dared to approach him. It didn’t help that there were rumours flying around that he had only transfer to your school because he had gotten in serious trouble in his previous one.

Students avoided talking to him and teachers would regard him with caution and suspicion in their eyes. It wasn’t like Sunwoo cared all that much about what people thought about him but deep down, it did hurt a little although he would never admit it. As he packed up his stuff at the end of the day, his ears picked up on the sound of whisperings not too far from him.

“I heard he beat up a guy in his old school...”

“Really? That’s terrible....”

When he turned, the group of students jumped and immediately dispersed as if a single glance from him was enough to scare them off. Although there was an expression of indifference on his face, he gripped tightly onto the straps of his backpack as he made his way past them. It was almost comical how they inched out of the way while he walked by. The day had gone by quietly as humanely possible and not one single moment, did Sunwoo ever open his mouth to make conversation with someone else.

“Whatever. Their loss,” He thought to himself, a bitter taste in his mouth. Rounding a corner, he walked smack into someone and various art supplies spilled out from the box the student was carrying.

“I’m so sorry! I should have been looking!” You apologised, a flustered look on your face as you held your hands out to help him.

“You should really watch where you’re going.” He replied, frowning as he dusted flecks of dried paint from his sleeves. Bending down to help you pick up the fallen supplies, he got his first good look at you and nearly lost his balance.

Woah.

He always did have many admirers and have been on the receiving end of quite a few confessions, all of which he appreciated but did not reciprocate. None of them have ever managed to get him to feel how you made him feel within seconds. As you smiled at him and reached out to take the sketchbook from his hands, Sunwoo felt a jolt of electricity run through him when your finger briefly touched his. That beautiful, kind smile of yours did things to his heart and for a moment, he thought himself to be crazy.

What is this feeling?

“Thank you! I’m really sorry about that by the way, I guess I wasn’t looking. I’ll see you!” You said with a sheepish smile, wrapping your arms around the large box piled high with brushes, palettes and drawing materials. The box was clearly too big for your frame and you struggled to get a proper, firm grip around it. The contents inside the box were dangerously close to spilling out as you balanced it precariously in your arms. He stood stock still as he watched you walk away before he shook himself back to his senses.

“W-Wait!”

Since you couldn’t turn back without risking everything from falling out again, you could only crane your head back.

“Yeah?”

Sunwoo willed himself to approach you although his legs were starting to feel like jelly and his heart was pounding so furiously against his chest. This was the first time he felt so nervous around someone else, yet there was also a strangely warm feeling he couldn’t help but crave already.

When you looked him in the eye, he actually felt his heart stutter and there was short pause as he struggled to find words to say.

“Can I help you?”

“I... No, I was just wondering if you needed help with those?” He asked, holding out his hands. You beamed at his offer but shook your head.

“It’s alright! I’ve got this. Thank you so much for offering though,” you replied, heaving the box up a little higher when a paintbrush slid dangerously close to the edge.

“I insist.” He smiled shakily.

Sunwoo later found out that you were a part of school’s art club and even though he didn’t have an ounce of artistic talent or drawing skills in him, he put his name down on the sign up sheet anyways. Seeing you at every art meet would be the highlight of his day and after that first run in, you had recognised him and struck up a conversation with him before he could talk to you. Internally, he was glad that you did because it meant that he wouldn’t need to worry about messing up in front of you yet on the other hand, his heart was almost bursting with anxiety.

The two of you grew close as the days passed and because of your friendship with Sunwoo, people started being less intimidated by him. People were starting to talk to him or even invite him out on outings. If it wasn’t already impossible, he felt himself liking you more and more as the days went by. Before long, he found himself working up the courage to ask you out.

This was a tricky thing for him since firstly, he had never been on a date and secondly, you were older than he was. When he had told Eric, the one person he trusted second to you that he harboured a crush on you, the man had burst out laughing. There was a certain sort of stigma in school around liking a senior if you were a guy yet Sunwoo didn’t care. Why should age be a factor in liking someone?

When he had finally worked up the courage to ask you out, he almost chickened out at the last minute. What if you rejected him? What if he somehow messed this up? Sunwoo wasn’t a guy who easily got shaken or afraid but when it came to this, he would honestly have much rather leap off a cliff than go through the jitters of it all.

One can only imagine the sheer joy and relief he felt when you uttered the answer he so desperately wanted to hear from you.

“Yes. Of course, I would love to go on a date with you!”

Call him a drama king but it was like fireworks erupting around him when you said yes. You know that feeling when you ace a test when you thought you had messed it up once and for all? That was exactly how he felt. That joy was short-lived however, as he realised with a start that he had to now impress on the date.

“I just really want this date to go well.” Sunwoo declared firmly, straightening and giving his reflection a final once over.

“Alright, dude. Good luck!”

Grabbing his keys and fixing his shirt, he asked absent-mindedly, “What’s the time anyways?”

Eric squinted at the time displayed on the digital clock at the bedside table. “It’s 1:16pm.”

Wait... What?

Immediately, the colour disappeared from Sunwoo’s face as he turned to look at the time. The red digits on the clock stare back at him and he felt his stomach churn. He was supposed to meet you at 1:30pm at the cafe!

“Oh. Oh, hell no. I’m late!” He shrieked frantically as he made a mad dash for the door, almost tripping over his own foot.

“Classic. I’ll just carry on with my game,” Eric yawned, picking up his phone as the door closed behind him.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Crouching over with his hands on his knees, Sunwoo could hear his heart beating in his ear as he gasped for air.

He might have busted a lung but he didn’t really care. As he panted, he whipped out his phone to check the time.

1:45pm. Fuck. He’s 15 minutes late to the date.

Quickly, Sunwoo pushed open the door to the café and his eyes immediately brightened at the sight of you sitting at a corner near the window. Mentally, he willed himself to calm down as he tried to steady his breathing. His hair was sticking in all directions, his entire body was sweaty and his face was red and blotchy from exertion but he didn’t have a choice. He had to make do.

“Y/n!” He called out, voice slightly trembling from his nerves.

You turned around at his voice and smiled, causing his heart to clench. Why do you always have to look so beautiful? It’s not fair. You always look so effortlessly amazing and he’s just a sweaty, nervous wreck whenever you were around.

Grinning brightly, Sunwoo started towards you. He should really have seen the guy incoming on his left but he realised that a little too late when he felt the boiling hot chocolate drink spill out onto the front of his shirt.

It took him a split second to react and with a yelp, he probably made himself look like a total clown as he scrambled back, wringing his sore hands of the sweet, hot liquid.

Gasps could be heard and as Sunwoo clutched onto his reddened hand and grazed his fingers over his burned waist, he couldn’t help but feel extremely embarrassed. His hand and waist may feel like it’s burning but it was nothing compared to the heat in his cheeks. So much for a perfect first date and with you no less. He was sure he’d made a fool of himself right there and then.

He barely even registered it when you rushed forward, a look of concern on your face as you held his hand.

“Oh my god, are you ok? We need to get you some ointment immediately!” You said as you held onto his hand.

Sunwoo nodded quietly with face was downcast as though he couldn’t bear to look you in the eye.

The two of you sat underneath a giant oak tree at the park as he lifted up his shirt to expose his raw, now angrily red torso.

Your eyes widened as you realised just how toned and chiseled he was but quickly masked it over as you squeeze out a dollop of burn cream onto your fingers. Dabbing gingerly at his wound, you hesitated as he flinched, his teeth gritted in pain as you made contact.

“Does it hurt a lot?” You asked softly.

“Um... Yeah, a little,” he replied in a small voice, his eyes avoiding yours. There was a pause before he added, “Look, I’m really sorry for how this date turned out.”

You stopped what you were doing and gazed up at him in total shock. What was he saying?

Sunwoo’s face was turned away as he continued on.

“It’s all my fault this date is ruined and I know you probably don’t expect much from me but this must have been even lower than your lowest expectations. I may be younger but I swear I can be as good as the seniors, it’s just that today just wasn’t the day I guess. I showed up late, clowned myself-”

You quickly placed a finger over his plump lips, shushing him immediately as he gazed at you in surprise.

“Don’t say another word! This isn’t your fault, Sunwoo. Please don’t blame yourself.” You said in a tone of disbelief. To think he would beat himself up over this was completely beyond you.

His eyes softened and he murmured against your finger.

“Weely?”

The feeling of his moving lips on your skin felt searing hot as you withdrew your finger, your body tingling at the sensation and blood rushing to your cheeks.

“Yes. There is no other like you. I wouldn’t have traded this date in for the world.” You smiled as you watched his lips tug into a huge, genuine beam.

“That... That meant a lot to me... Thank you.” He whispered, suddenly shy.

You can only chuckle at how cute he was before you stood up, holding out a hand.

“Let’s just enjoy our day together, okay? We could start by shopping for a new shirt.” You laughed, gesturing vaguely at the large darkened stain on his shirt.

Sunwoo looked up at you. The sunlight was shining on the side of your face and it brought out the liveliness in your eyes, your hair framing your face in the most elegant way possible. If you didn't already look beautiful in his eyes, you certainly were now.

He felt his heart flutter wildly and he grinned as he clasped his hand with yours.

“Okay.”

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anntoldst0ries · 4 years ago

Text

Diagnosis

I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who read my previous fic and left such kind comments. You can’t imagine how much I appreciate this!

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x f!MC (Vicky Valentine)

Word Count: 2,911

Summary: Dr Ramsey attempts to diagnose the most difficult case in his career...his own.

Warnings: None! A lot of introspection again and hints of angst :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan Ramsey considered himself a brave man.

He always had the courage to say whatever he wanted to say or what had to be said - be that a terminal diagnosis, savaging someone’s speech at a medical conference (only if the speaker was talking nonsense, that is), scolding an intern - you name it.

With years of experience under his belt, Dr Ramsey excelled at the “art” of saying the most horrible, unpleasant and inconvenient things. It was a process he took to pieces and mastered every tiniest part.

He knew exactly what they were whispering behind his back in the hospital corridors. Dr Ramsey is a bully. A ruthless cynic. No one survived more than 3 minutes of his tirades without bursting into tears. Or, as some of the interns so lovingly put it, he was “the only survivor of a heart transplant”. The last remark had been conveyed to him by Baz, who found it hilarious…and so did Naveen. It took one deadly look to silence Baz forever, however Naveen used every occasion to remind his protégé of hospital’s favourite joke:

‘How’s your heart, Ethan?’

‘Good, why are you as—‘ Ethan didn’t have a chance to finish answering the question, interrupted by Dr Banerji who was in convulsions.

‘God, Naveen, for such a bright mind and one of the best doctors in the world, I still find it hard to believe that you have a sense of humour of a 5 year old’

‘There is nothing wrong with some joy, Ethan. You should try it sometimes, it may do you good.’

Similar conversations took place on a regular basis, but they always ended with Ethan rolling his eyes and Naveen sighing. Younger doctor would never, ever tell his mentor off, he respected him too much. So Ethan let Dr Banerji have some fun at his expense from time to time.

But, truth be told, he kept his emotions at a leash and he was good at it, because there wasn’t a thing in Ethan’s life that he wasn’t good at. Regardless of what it was - saving people’s lives or emotional self-deprivation.

That’s why reminiscing past 2 years was so hard for accomplished diagnostician. He couldn’t help but think that he’s lived more during this time than he’s lived during his whole life. His existence wasn’t a boring one, he loved his job and the cases that the team had to crack were mostly complex and thus exciting. There was also a sense of fulfilment and servitude to a greater cause.

As a kid, Ethan wanted to be a detective. It all started with Alan buying his son one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books. There was no hidden intention in this choice - Alan simply ran out of book ideas, Ethan was literally gobbling up the books at his disposal and was thirsty for more. Therefore, Mr Ramsey picked picked one of the thickest positions available in the book shop, with hopes it will keep Ethan occupied for at least a couple of weeks. Oh, how wrong he was - 5 days later his son was already begging for more.

Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot quickly took the top spot on the list of Ethan’s childhood heroes. He was obsessed with their investigative methods, their sharp minds that captured even the tiniest of details and how missing those nuances would make solving a mystery a lot harder, if not impossible.

That’s why he became obsessed with details. He analysed, compared, observed and noted down everything around him with deliberation. After a while, Ethan realised that these skills come handy in various areas of life. He could read people and to a degree foresee what their next move was going to be. If he wanted to, he could probably try and influence their decisions too. If it wasn’t for Alan’s upbringing, this particular skill might have taken his life onto a dark track, but fortunately he utilised it for greater good.

Having this sort of insight made him very self-conscious and he never turned away from reliving his own decisions and behaviours, which helped him become a better doctor, every single day. But he never wallowed in the mud of emotions, instead always operating on facts.

But for the past couple of months, this process became a pure torture.

You know what they say, the devil is in the detail. And the devil it was indeed.

The devil that would be the death of Ethan was 5’4, had raven hair, plumped lips, mesmerising eyes and a captivating laugh.

Suddenly, he heard the devil’s voice in his head.

‘Are you pinching the bridge of your nose right now?’

He was.

‘God dammit!’ - shouted Ethan, so loud that he startled poor Jenner, who resigned from occupying the sofa and ran straight to his bed. Even the retriever, in his doggy wisdom, knew that when his master was upset, it was best to stay out of his sight and wait for the storm to pass.

Whenever Dr Ramsey had a serious dilemma, he would subtly join his thumb and index finger to pinch the gentle skin between eyes. She knew of this somewhat subconscious habit and teased him about it countless times.

With most people, the whole observing and reading process was a one-sided game. For majority of mortals, Ethan was a closed book and they had no idea how to open, let alone read it. But not Rookie. She saw right through him. Ethan considered himself a riveting mystery thriller before, if we’re talking comparisons, but right now he was probably a cheap Harlequin. How did he sink so low in practically no time?

The answer came before he was even able to finish the question.

He was hopelessly, utterly and irreversibly in love with Dr Vicky Valentine.

“Victoria….” he whispered. He knew her full name, he’s read her bloody application and her employee file many, many times. More than he’d ever care to admit. Neither him nor anyone else addressed her by her full name. She always introduced herself as Vicky and even mentioned to him, June & Baz one time that she considered herself too young to be a bearer of such gracious name. But when the name fell out of his lips, it made perfect sense. Victoria. Victory. After a long, tough and heartbreaking battle, she’s won all of him. And man, wasn’t she fighting fiercely.

She was so much like him, and yet so different. Patients loved her, and for a good reason - not only was she amazing at her job, but also so genuinely caring about every patient she met. Somehow, she was able to see past people weary of their conditions, instead she always noticed the human beings with their unique stories. Thanks to her, patients never felt like sickness became their identity, but merely a stage in their life that shall soon pass.

Hospital staff adored her as well, she had time and a huge smile for everyone; her bright aura lit up every room she walked into and was a pleasure to be around.

Those who knew Ethan a bit better or worked with him were aware of the insanely high standards he was holding himself to. And it would have been fine if they only applied to him, but he held everyone else to the same standard too. It was his buffer. Most gave up without even trying, it was humanly impossible to live up to such expectations. And that was the goal. Dr Ramsey wanted no distractions and if anyone wanted so much as approach him, they had a giant wall to jump over first.

But the young intern wasn’t bothered in the slightest. Dozens of people before her stood in front of the wall and tried to figure out how to get in. And she… she just found a tiny gap and squeezed right through. Before Ethan realised what’s going on, it was already too late. And she wasn’t even fully aware of what she’s done.

Like air, she’s entered his life imperceptibly, filling every space until there was nothing else. She was in every reflection he saw, every smile, every freaking thing a reminder of her, one way or another.

He was completely under her spell, enchanted, drunk in the thought of her.

The most ironic part was that if he went by his unreasonable standards, she’d never stand a chance.

She was messy, she was a klutz, she laughed too loud and rounded her eyes like a child when something seriously excited her.

And yet, something about her made him break all of his rules, lower his guard and re-think everything he’s ever thought he knew and believed in.

Obviously, he wouldn’t be himself if the occupational quirk did not kick in at some point. Whatever the cause, Dr Ramsey had to get to the bottom of it, no matter how many tests did he have to run on his mind and heart. He needed the diagnosis so he could start the treatment. But his sharp diagnostic skills which made him a famous man, suddenly decided to go on unplanned vacation and it looks like they were not coming back anytime soon.

Ambivalence became Ethan’s newest companion. Some days, he thought he was going to blow his brains out, the others he was strangely content and did not want to analyse anything, things were good just as they were.

For the first time in his life, he felt truly lost. He felt like Jon Snow, he knew nothing. It wasn’t a result of one event, rather a chain reaction. Starting with Naveen getting sick, the inability to figure out what was wrong with his mentor made Ethan seriously doubt his capabilities as a doctor. Then, Louise Ramsey made a surprise reappearance after having walked out on him and his dad 25 years earlier. When he was little, his dad use to say that wherever Louise goes, trouble follows and it wasn’t any different this time. She brought company - insecurity, sorrow, resentment - to name just a few. Ethan felt like someone ripped a band aid from his heart and painfully reminded him that all the wounds are still alive and never really healed.

And finally, Edenbrook. The place that others saw as walls, glass, beds, people in white coats, sickness, illness, death. To him, it was much, much more. The hospital had almost a transcendental dimension. It was here that Ethan’s transition had been completed. He shed his old skin and became Dr Ramsey, the person he was always meant to be.

That’s why Edenbrook closing hit him so hard - a part of him was about to die and be buried beneath years of sweat, tears and effort. It was probably the hardest thing to come to terms with in the 37 years that he’s been walking on the surface of the Earth.

And throughout all these events, she was with him.

She never gave up on Naveen and Ethan knew that there was more to it than just saving Edenbrook’s most prominent doctor. He believed, he wanted to believe that she did this for him too.

The memory brought shame that drained off him like unpleasant wave of cold water. Ethan never really forgave himself for just laying in his bed like a drunk bag of potatoes, whilst she was busting her gut to solve the case, even though she had ethics hearing to prepare for. A hearing that could make or break her whole career, before she even had a chance to start.

Dr Ramsey would like to think they were alike. But as a matter of fact, she was a much better person than him.

Then, with his mother in the picture, she never told him what to do. Even though he asked, many times. He hoped someone can actually make the decision for him, because it hurt so much to even think about this, let alone decide what to do next. But she never did. She was just there and by simply being, she empowered him to make his own, informed decision.

She was there, like no one else was in his entire life. Not to take anything from Naveen, who had tremendous effect on Ethan’s life - but this was completely different.

She penetrated his soul.

She made him feel.

Love.

It was the first time he used this word in a long, long time.

And maybe, quite possibly, for the first time in his life he used it with intention.

He thought he felt it once before.

When he was a student at Johns Hopkins, Ethan met Camille. She was a year older than him, with angelic voice and looks, the cascade of blond locks surrounding her gentle facial features like a halo.

What impressed him was that she kept hitting up on him, not the other way round. He’s had his mind set on graduating as a top student in his class and then getting the best residency there was - in Edenbrook hospital in Boston. It was either him or someone else. University romances were of no interest to him, or so he thought. After all, he’s just gone past his teenage years and was relatively new to the world of intimate human desires. As much as he tried to push them away, he had needs and his hormones were still a giant part of his decision-making process, doesn’t matter how hard he tried denying it.

Also, there was something motherly about her and she reminded him of the woman who left him when he was just a boy. It was completely fucked-up, he hated his mother and yet a memory of her and how he’d once do anything for her was tattooed in the insides of his brain.

Ethan and Camille shared a passion for medicine, music and opera. A few times, he was close to bringing her down to Providence, to introduce her to Alan, his father. But there was this weird voice in his head stopping him.

Maybe that’s why he wasn’t overly surprised when one day he walked on Camille. In his bed. Screaming and making other explicit sounds…except, he wasn’t the igniter. It was none other than his best friend at the time, Tobias. Ethan would never forget the jealous glance he shot him with when he first brought Camille to one of the student parties. And then things got worse. Ethan and Tobias always competed and for a long time it was a fuel that kept them both going. But when someone wins, someone has to lose. Neither of them was good at losing or accepting the failure.

Ethan was doing better than his best friend. Not significantly better, the difference between them had usually been slight, but it was there. Tobias couldn’t swallow this. Not only was Ethan doing better than him, he also had one of the most beautiful students at Hopkins by his side. Jealousy started to spread inside him like a wildfire and since his attempts to beat Ethan at school were futile, he decided to make use of his other skills. Tobias was a born flirter and charmer. He often used to say that no woman can resist his spell and that “where there’s a woman - there’s a way.”

Dr Ramsey never told anyone, but having found out that his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend was sort of relief. Call it sixth sense, an intuition… subconsciously he sort of felt that she wasn’t a girl for him. As for Tobias, he was tired of the fight….of Tobias fighting with him, that is. Ethan wasn’t fighting, he was just a better student and was going to be a better doctor. He was tired of petty competition and how the toxin poisoned their relationship.

So they actually made him a favour and helped him killed 2 birds with 1 stone - he was saved from having an awkward break-up conversation that he’s never went through before and he now had every right to hate Tobias. He didn’t really, as such feelings were a waste of energy, but a week later Tobias moved out of their shared apartment and they never really spoke again.

After Camille, he was only in a brief relationship once. With Harper. He deeply admired and respected her, but when things started getting too serious (from her side), he distanced himself. And so, for a couple of years to follow, they were on the off and on again terms. They went through countless friends with benefits stages, but he genuinely enjoyed her company. They just never wanted the same things, which became more and more evident as she was getting older. And he respected her too much to mess her around.

Ethan’s career was everything to him and he accepted the fact that falling in love and having a family is just not in the cards for him.

Or so he thought.

Dr Valentine entered his life one September morning and hasn’t left ever since. And, hell, hasn’t he tried to erase her. To make her hate him. To draw a line between work and personal life. He could honestly say that he tried everything.

For the love of God, he ran to fucking Amazon! He tried to hide from all things Dr Valentine, like a fool who forgot one of the most basic rules of life: there is no running away from yourself.

Tag list (please let me know if you wish to be removed): @terrm9 @openheart12 @openheartthot @rookie-ramsey @alwaysmychoices @brooks-eden @drethanramslay @starrystarrytrouble @justanotherrookie @caseyvalentineramsey@incorrectopenheart @heauxplesslydevoted @perriewinklenerdie @mercury84choices @archxxronrookie @renasalek-blog @maurine07 @whippedforethanfreakingramsey @lemonmiddleton @tsrookie @choicesfan10 @dr-colossal-pita @queencarb @gryffindordaughterofathena @qrkowna @aarisa-frost @choicesficwriterscreations

#open heart #dr ethan ramsey #dr ethan jonah ramsey #dr ramsey x mc #ethan ramsey #open heart choices #dr valentine #play choices #open heart fanfiction #open heart fic #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week

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romantichopelessly · 4 years ago

Text

Not a Cinderella Story

This is my contribution to @dukexietyweek 2020! The prompt was Fairytales and I followed it... very loosely. This is also a bullet fic because I scrapped my plot no less than three times over the course of writing this.

Pairing: Romantic Dukexiety, Implied/Background Mociet

Words: 2072

Warnings: jealousy, misunderstandings, toxic behavior

Synopsis: When Remus, Roman and Virgil were young, they were inseparable. They always played pretend--castles and princesses and dragons. But everyone has to grow up. Things change.

----

Remus Sanders and his twin brother Roman have always been close. “Attached at the hip” some would say. Specifically, their mother, neighbors, and preschool teachers.

They always do the same things. They like the same juice. The same snacks. They play with the same toys, and they always laugh at the same things.

Their bond is unbreakable. They are the perfect duo. They never need anyone else.

Until they meet Virgil Storm.

They meet him early in their second grade year. Virgil is… a weird kid. He wears a purple jacket with cat ears on the hood in the middle of August. He doesn’t try to talk to anyone at lunchtime. He wears different colored socks and carries a lunchbox with cartoon spiders on it that says “Happy Halloween” even when it isn’t October.

He’s odd.

Remus loves him. And because Remus loves him, so does Roman.

The three of them make quick friends, underneath the tree on the playground, sitting in the grass and sharing easy smiles, as children do.

Roman suggests that they play a game that he and Remus invented all on their own--Knights and Dragons.

Virgil is quick to agree, because young children don’t have anything to worry about beyond silly games with their peers.

Remus believes that Knights and Dragons is a much more fun experience with three people. Sometimes Virgil is a knight, with Roman, and they both chase Remus around the school yard, giggling and waving sticks like they’re swords. And other times, Virgil is a dragon with Remus, and the two of them roar and yell and flap their arms like wings.

Virgil makes Remus laugh in ways that he thought only his brother could. Virgil laughs with him, not at him.

Of course, all good things come to an end, and soon, for the imaginative boy that was Roman Sanders, Knights and Dragons is not enough.

Knights and Dragons are boring in the eyes of a third grader.

Roman suggests one day that they add a princess to their game of Knights and Dragons.

Remus (rightfully) thinks that this is a very stupid idea. Princesses are for Disney movies and fairytales. Remus Sanders most definitely does not live in a fairytale.

But Roman loves fairytales. And Roman loves Disney. And, unfortunately, so does Virgil.

So they add a princess to their game. Oftentimes, this princess is played by Virgil, but sometimes Roman steps into the role. Remus is just glad that he gets to stay a big scary dragon.

That is… Until just a princess being kidnapped by a dragon and saved by a courageous knight is not enough for young Roman Sanders.

No, Roman wants more. Roman wants to emulate his favorite movies and his new favorite theme of said movies--

Romance.

So Knights and Dragons and Princesses turns into… Playing Cinderella.

There definitely wasn’t a dragon in Cinderella.

Remus is quickly shoved into the roles of the ugly stepsisters and stepmother. Don’t get it wrong! He loves playing the villain. He loves laughing maniacally and calling his brother funny names and getting away with it without punishment, because it was just pretend.

He doesn’t so much like sitting in the grass of his own backyard, watching while Roman and Virgil twirl around, holding hands and “dancing” to imaginary music while they “fall in love.”

It’s boring.

He’s almost glad when Roman’s phase of playing pretend Disney princesses ends.

Except that he can’t be. Because it ends with the three of them turning twelve and entering the dreaded halls of middle school. It ends with Roman joining the school theater club and making a whole bunch of new friends.

It ends with Virgil and Remus suddenly being left to walk home from school alone one day.

Despite his brother’s popularity, both Remus and Virgil are… outcasts of a sort. And since they just downgraded from a trio to a duo, their friendship is a bit more… strained. They still have the closeness of five years of best friendship, but there’s something… missing.

Cue Janus Duncan.

Janus is also an outcast. Janus is like a fairy godmother who comes in to save the poor outcasts at the last second, turning bleak days into wishes come true (if eating school lunch under the bleachers and snorting with laughter as they mix all the slushie options at 7-11 into one cup can be considered wishes come true), and wearing a super cool leather jacket that was two sizes too big, but definitely influenced Remus’s punk phase.

Because, oh yeah. They definitely both start their punk phases after meeting Janus Duncan.

Honestly meeting Janus really is a wish come true for Remus. A miracle among the comedy of errors that was his teenage years.

Because after about a year of Virgil, Janus and Remus being the perfect trio 2.0, Remus starts to… notice some things.

One thing is the way that his heart seems to inflate like a little balloon in Remus’s chest when Virgil smiles at him. The way that his guts squirm when Virgil laughs at one of his jokes, true and bright. The way that Remus catches himself staring at Virgil’s crooked smile, or his chipped nail polish as his fingers twirl around in his hoodie strings.

The second thing has… a lot of the same signs honestly.

Because Remus starts to notice how Virgil always watches Roman when he’s over at Remus’s house. The way that Virgil always smiles and waves at Remus’s twin brother when they pass one another in the hallway at school, his pale cheeks flushing a soft pink.

It makes a terrible, sickly green emotion curl in Remus’s stomach.

Jealousy.

So when Virgil tentatively brings up trying out for the school play, and asks Remus if Roman would mind running some lines with him, Remus does something he isn’t proud of.

He snaps. He tells Virgil that he shouldn’t try. That he won’t even make it. That he isn’t popular kid material. That Roman isn’t his friend anymore, god, Virgil, can’t you take a hint?

He watches it happen like he isn’t the one controlling his own body. He sees the shock take over Virgil’s features. The years of easy trust crumble before his very eyes as Virgil reels back in horror. He can taste the jealousy on his tongue.

As Virgil leaves, Remus knows that he is the villain of this story.

He can see it as plainly as if he had shattered Virgil’s dreams right in front of him, like so much of a shattered glass shoe on the palace steps.

That night, Janus comes over and lets Remus have it.

For about five minutes, before Remus breaks down and tells the truth to his now one and only best friend and lecturing quickly turns to comforting.

By the time that they start high school, the original trio has withered down to just Remus. The other two thirds are nearly distant memories. One a locked door down the hall, and the other three lockers down, speaking to new friends.

Anyone would choose the prince over the ugly stepsister. He couldn’t blame them.

The spring of their sophomore year, the school announces that they will be putting on a production of none other than Cinderella.

Roman auditions, of course. He gets the role of the Prince.

Virgil doesn’t audition, but he offers himself up for the role of stage manager.

Virgil and Roman’s friends Patton and Logan audition. They get the roles of mice, but they don’t seem at all upset by that fact.

Janus auditions. He gets the role of the fairy godmother.

Janus asks Remus to audition.

Remus refuses. He doesn’t want to play a campy version of the ugly stepsisters in front of the entire school. He may not care about this hell hole, but he isn’t going to make his remaining two years any worse than they have to be.

Janus drags Remus to rehearsals anyway. Kicking and screaming.

By some miraculous happenstance, Remus suddenly becomes the set designer for the show.

He may be imagining things, but he is pretty sure that that has something to do with what Janus, Roman and the director were whisper-arguing about in the first week of rehearsals.

Remus is grateful for it. Not that he plans on saying so. He still can’t bring himself to apologize to Virgil, but watching him from afar still brings those butterflies to Remus’s stomach.

One night, after rehearsal, Remus is putting the finishing touches on the carriage prop, which has quickly gone from inconsequential to him to his very own magnum opus. He’s just testing out its mobility when he hears soft laughter.

Naturally, he follows the sounds.

Stage left, hidden in the wings, Remus sees his brother, in full costume, standing across from Virgil, who is chuckling and gently smoothing his hands across the front of Roman’s costume.

Remus sees green. His old friend Jealousy curls around him like the dragon that he used to love to play.

He barely restrains himself from breaking the very set that he worked so hard on.

Funnily enough, that is progress.

The night before the play opens, there is a house party. Remus isn’t quite sure who is hosting, but the cast and company are the only people invited.

Remus doesn’t want to go.

Janus makes Remus go.

Begrudgingly, Remus has a good time. He has a good time drinking soda and watching the other stage hands tell stories about past productions. He has a good time laughing at Janus as he unsuccessfully tries to flirt with the boy in the bright blue sweater who plays a mouse.

He is still having a good time when the girl who plays Cinderella herself caps a plastic bottle and places it on the ground, calling for everyone to gather around for a game of spin the bottle.

Remus finds himself sitting between Janus and his giggly mouse boy, and some other techie who wears sunglasses indoors.

There are a few fun rounds. Roman has to kiss the girl playing the stepmother. One of the mice has to kiss Cinderella. It’s all in good fun.

That is, until Remus isn’t really paying attention and the mouth of the bottle is suddenly facing him. He blinks.

From across the circle, the studious looking mouse speaks up. “Janus clearly touched the bo-” The hand of one of the set designers covers the mouse’s mouth.

Remus blinks again. “So who’s the lucky bastard I’m making out with?”

All eyes turn to Virgil, who looks like a startled mouse himself.

Shit.

Virgil is up before anyone can say anything, backing away from the circle and spinning on his heel before making a beeline for the kitchen. Remus follows, standing up before his mind even catches up with his body. He sees Roman making to stand up too, but he holds out a hand.

Even after years of not being close, Roman can tell what he means without a word.

Remus follows Virgil into the kitchen and finds him leaning against the counter.

“Didn’t want to kiss the ugly stepsister that badly, huh?”

“What?”

“You… You know, Emo, like that stupid game Roman always made us play when we were ankle biters.”

“Wh- First of all, you and Roman are identical twins. You look exactly the same. That was just a game.”

Remus shrugs, as if he hasn’t carried that game and all it implied with him for the entirety of his teenage years.

“And… No. It wasn’t- I just didn’t want to kiss you in front of everyone.”

Remus pretends like that doesn’t make his heart shatter into a hundred tiny pieces.

Virgil seems to see it anyway. “I mean that I don’t want to… have my first kiss in front of all of them. It’s nothing against you, they just- they just all know about my crush.”

Virgil says it like it’s something stupid. Like being in love is something shameful. Like liking Roman Sanders isn’t something that literally everyone in that room except for Remus has in common.

“Your crush on my brother?”

Virgil looks at him like he’s the biggest idiot on the face of the earth.

He probably is.

Because he doesn’t see it coming for a second when Virgil steps closer, cups Remus’s cheek in his hand like he is made of something precious and priceless, and closes the gap to kiss him.

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tloujm · 4 years ago

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Part I: Going Home

Author’s Notes: This is the first chapter of my first Joel Miller fic. As mentioned in an earlier post on my main page, my desire was to veer away from canon and it does...like a lot. It still keeps enough details to make it familiar, but I rearranged it to fit the plot that I had in my head. This takes place after the events of TLOU. It does utilize some scenes at the end of the first video game, but most of the plot is inspired by the second game. The reader, you, is replacing Ellie. Instead of a father/daughter relationship, there is a romantic relationship between Joel and a more age appropriate OC/reader. The reader is still younger than him but an adult. Its up to your imagination how much of an age difference there is. I try to keep things vague regarding the physical description of his romantic interest to make it easily relatable for a variety of readers. It’ll probably get more specific in later chapters to help with imagery of certain scenes *wink wink*. I’ve proof read it, but let me know if things don’t make sense. Please show love if you enjoyed reading it! Even if no one reads this, I enjoyed pouring out my love (and lust) for Joel.

Genre: Fluff, Angst

Summary: Joel drove you to Jackson to live a more stable and comfortable life. It was his best way to protect you; that and lie about what really happened at the Fireflies hospital. His goal was to move on from anything Fireflies related, but you couldn’t quite do that. So many questions ate at you which caused your emotions to conflict. You wanted to trust Joel; you felt something deep for him. Unbeknownst to you, he came to terms with his love for you when your life was threatened at the hospital. It was you or them and he chose you.

Ship: JoelxReader

“They stopped looking for a cure. I’m taking us home.” Joel said before falling silent on the car ride to Jackson.

It was a long ride from the hospital in Utah to Maria’s settlement in Wyoming. You would drift in and out of sleep in the back of the car Joel was driving. Home. He said it so naturally as if Jackson was the destination the whole time. A home felt comfortable. The word gave you warm feelings as it was something you hadn’t known for a very long time. That sense of content mingled with the anesthesia allowed you to push away any more questions you had.

They were still there, however; popping up more frequently in your head. After the car ride, Joel was careful not to mention anything related to the Fireflies or the hospital around you. His lack of transparency caused you to be a bit hesitant. The words just wanted to roll off your tongue; it was so close, you could taste it. Tell me everything. What did the test results say? Where are the other immune? How could they have given up? You remember the look in the eyes of the Fireflies back east. They were so eager to find a cure.

Just a week ago, there was no one in the world you trusted more than Joel. Being around a group of strangers in a state that you’d never been in, Joel was a crutch. He trusted the place because of Tommy, so you knew you should too, but it wasn’t that easy. At the same time, however, you had the instinct to keep your distance from Joel. He caused an inner conflict with you.

The settlement itself was easy to love though. The running water, electricity, stable of horses, fresh food and the list went on. It wasn’t easy to maintain these resources, but it was damn better than hunting and gathering out there everyday. Joel picked out an empty house within the settlement walls large enough for the two of you. He fully expected you two to sleep in separate rooms but he did not expect you to reject the house altogether. He may have been your social crutch, but you just felt better being in your own four walls. Being protective, he preferred to have you close, so the two of you made a compromise by agreeing that you live in the garage. It was quite large as it was a two-car. After a little while, you were able to make it up in a way that suited you. Soon enough, the only thing you had to share with him in the main house was the bathroom. It wasn’t that you wanted to avoid him completely. In fact, he peaked a certain interest in you which furthered the inner conflict.

Having space from Joel was difficult because you hadn’t yet made friends. Between the anesthesia weakening your body and Joel’s air of mystery, people tended to tread lightly around you.The only other people you really talked to outside of him were Maria and Tommy. It was surprisingly easy to fall into a domestic routine of sorts. The two of you ate together, walked around outside together, patrolled together. Watching Joel sit on the porch or relax on the couch after a long day gave you a glimpse into how he must have looked before the world went to shit. After all that he’d been through, watching him rest warmed your heart. He deserved it, you thought. He didn’t smile often, but you caught him smiling more since arriving home.

Laying in your bed, you thought back to the period right before you arrived at the hospital. It was probably the best part of the whole journey. The weather was just starting to get warm again, the scenery was lush and most impactful of all, the two of you were getting along. Not just in a civil way, but in a ‘something more’ kind of way. At least that’s what you felt and you couldn’t help but tread across those waters. Joel became more open with you. He would play into your flirtatious antics as if he wanted more. Despite knowing that the journey was nearing its end, Joel allowed himself to enjoy your company as you did his. You remembered that he even asked if you wanted to continue the journey further, at one point. He said that the two of you could turn back now and head north to Jackson. Sometimes, you wish that you had chosen that option instead, but you know that you’d just regret not choosing the hospital even more.

Seeing Joel’s guard fall down, slow as it was, still is sometimes, made you happy because you liked the person that you saw underneath it all. It was still a struggle some days, though. A hardened look would appear on Joel’s face at the mention of the Fireflies, even if it was unrelated to you. Moments like those reminded you of the questions that formed not too long ago in your head. Moments like those prompted you to form new questions. Why did he look so defensive? What was he hiding behind those darkened eyes?

After a few months of living in Jackson, you had finally mustered up the courage to talk to Joel about that day back in Utah. What was the worst that could happen? You were comfortable around him and he cared about you. He never said those words, but you knew that he did. You wouldn’t be in Jackson if he didn’t.

“Joel?” You shout from downstairs. You entered the house from the back door without knocking like you usually did. He wasn’t scheduled for patrols today so you were hoping that he was home.

“M’up here.” His voice responded from upstairs. You walked up the steps until you reached the hallway. The only door open was that of his craft room.

“You making something?” You gestured to the raw piece of wood in his hand. He looked up from his whittling knife and turned to face you standing in the doorway.

He shook his head. “I dunno what I should make,” He offered up a half smile. “Just shavin’ off pieces ‘til I figure somethin’ out.” He sat the knife down onto the workbench. “What is it, (Y/N)?”

You shrug casually. “Just wanted to see what you were up to.” You moved into the room and found a place to sit. Joel scoffed at his dinged up piece of wood before setting that down too. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Shoot, darlin’.” His pet name for you always made the nerves that you had melt away, to an extent. You would constantly tell yourself that there was no reason to be nervous around him, but you saw the way he looked when he was triggered by certain words.

You let out a breath. “You know, back in Boston when I was bitten, I was not alone. My friend was there. She was my best friend actually.” You look down at the wooden floor. “Well, she got bitten too. We didn’t know what to do. We were scared. So she says, ‘Let’s just wait it out. We can be all poetic and just lose our minds together.’ She...I didn’t…” You shake your head. “I’m still waiting for my turn.”

“(Y/N)” Joel began before you cut him off.

“It was her, then everyone else I attempted to get close to after that. Why do I get to live when they don’t? Each time, others have had to take my turn for me and I don’t know why?” You pause. “Why am I immune?” It was the first question you had for the Fireflies but everything happened so quick and next thing you knew, everything went black.

“(Y/N), that’s not on you.” Joel said gently. “I’ve struggled for a long time with survivin’.” He let out a sigh. “No matter what, you gotta keep finding somthin’ to fight for.” He made sure to look you in the eyes, even if you didn’t want to meet his.

“You don’t under---” You start.

Joel cuts in. “Now, I know that’s not what you wanna hear right now, but it’s---”

You speak up. “Back at the hospital...” You watched as his face began to harden. You contemplated what to say next. “Just swear to me. Swear that everything you said about the Fireflies is true.” He repositioned himself in the chair, never breaking eye contact with you.

His voice turned gruff. “I swear.” You stared at him for a long moment to read his face. He looked you dead in the eye and gave you his word. How much could you trust a man that would do that and still lie?

“Okay.” You nodded your head and left him alone in the room. Joel had half a mind to go after you, but decided best to give you space. You asked him to swear and he did.

*****

“(Y/N), You comin’?” Joel asked from the other side of the garage door after knocking. You didn’t forget that Tommy had invited the two of you over for dinner. After talking to Joel, however, you weren’t much in the mood.

“I’m coming.” You said with a huff.

You quickly threw on something nicer than what you usually wore and opened the door. You found him standing there waiting. He turned to you and smiled as if the most intense conversation you’ve had with him in months hadn’t just occurred. You offered a tight lined smile in return before walking off. The air was crisp and the temperature was just right. It didn’t take much for him to keep pace with you. Joel took glances at you every so often. You would only look back at him when he wasn’t. The thing was, you weren’t sure if he was actually lying. You could only translate the feeling in your gut. You stopped on the stoop of Tommy and Maria’s house as Joel lifted his knuckles to rasp the door. He waited a moment and glanced at you again.

“Hey!” Tommy exclaimed after opening the door. “Come on in.”

“Thanks, Tommy.” Joel muttered as he walked in.

“Yeah, thanks for having us.” You followed.

“Of course. It’s not often we all have a night off at the same time.” Maria chimed from the dining room. Joel grunted in agreement.

“C’mon, have a seat in here.” Tommy guided us out of the hallway. “Dinner’s just about ready, right hun?”

“I hope y’all like duck! I tried my best with it. I’ve never cooked duck before.” She brought a large roasting dish into the room and sat it in the middle of the table. “If not, there’s still mashed cauliflower and gravy right there and then some lima beans over there.”

“I’m sure it’ll taste really good, Maria.” You said.

“Now, where did y’all find a duck?” Joel inquired as a way to make conversation.

“I went hunting, brother mine.” Tommy replied, patting his older brother on the shoulder before sitting. Joel rolled his eyes and gave Tommy a pointed glare to which he chuckled. “Jesse told me about a new pond he discovered while out on patrol and well, you know, where there’s water, there’s life. So I decided to go see for myself and I took my rifle with me.”

“Shoulda told me. I would’ve gone with you.” Joel responded. He held out his glass as Maria came around with a pitcher of water. He nodded at her in gratitude.

“Nah. Wanted it to be a surprise for the dinner here. You ever had duck?” Tommy turned to you.

“No.” You shook your head. Tommy could sense there was something up between you two but he knew better than to bring it up at the dinner table. He wondered if Maria had caught on.

“Duck.” Tommy stated with a sigh, trying to think of something else to say. “Always thought it was a rich man’s food. Now look at us.” He carved into the breast of the roasted duck and began to serve portions.

“Next time, I’ll bring some caviar.” You spoke up. You saw what Tommy was trying to do, so you in turn tried your hand at comic relief. Luckily for you, it worked. The room broke out in laughter.

Maria sat down and grabbed her husband’s hand to her right and yours to her left. This prompted you to take Joel’s hand into yours. “We are rich in our blessings. We have food and we have each other.”

Maria quickly said grace before everyone at the table dug in. For something you’d never tasted before, it was good. It wasn’t your favorite meat but the dinner as a whole was delicious and fulfilling. You think back for a moment on how your full belly now contrasted to that of yours a year ago. The four of you sat at the table for an hour after finishing the meal. You had to admit that it was an awkward start but these were the people that you were most comfortable with in the whole town. That had to mean something. Even things with Joel subsided, if just for the evening.

The rest of the night was spent in the living room. The four of you caught up with each other. At times, the conversation included everybody and at others, it was just between Tommy and Joel which elicited Maria to spark up a conversation with you.

“How’s things going?” She gestured her head toward Joel. She caught on. “If you guys need anything, you know all you have to do is ask. We’re happy to do what we can.”

“Oh, we’re fine. I’m fine. I’m sure Joel’s fine but thank you.” You replied.

She looked at you for a moment. “Is there something going on between you two? I’ve seen the way Joel looks at you. Even the first time y’all came around to Jackson. I saw it back then and I know you live with him.”

You glanced up at him then shifted back to Maria. “Well technically I don’t...um no. There’s nothing between us. We’re friends.” You shrugged as if you had no idea what she was talking about. “I guess after traveling so far for so long, you just grow attached to each other, but that’s it.”

“I think he’s grown more than attached to you.” She shrugged as well. “But if he’s not who you want, then that’s fine. Just please don’t hurt him. Tommy has told me things about his past all the way down to their childhood. I don’t know what he’s shared with you, but he’s had it rough.” To this day, Joel hadn’t shared much with you, but you didn’t need to know exactly what happened in his past to know he’s had it rough. Everybody’s had it rough in different ways.

“I could never hurt him.” You meant it. You just hoped that he could say the same about you. “I was wondering if I could ask you something.”

“Go ahead.” She replied.

“How do I go about changing my patrols? I don’t want to stop going out with Joel, but I would like to do it with other people. Make some new friends.”

She smiled. “I think that’s a good idea. Jesse is one of the patrol leaders as well as Tommy of course. Talk to one of them about it. They can pair you up with an experienced patroller to start you off. I know you’ve got experience patrolling with Joel, but it's just protocol when someone takes a different route than usual.” She paused for a moment to down the rest of her water. “Hell, Jesse might even take you out himself. He’s a good kid.”

“Thanks.” You replied.

#Joel #Joel Miller #TLOU #TLOUS 2 #The Last Of Us #Ellie #Troy Baker #fanfic #fanfiction #tlou fanfic #joel x reader #joel miller x reader #reader insert #oc #fandom

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anianimol · 4 years ago

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Hello, Again | Kōtarō Bokuto

Bokuto x Fem!Reader

Genre: Fluff & Imagine, Agnst

Warnings: none

WC: 1.2k

Synopsis: Years after your move to Miyagi Prefecture, you reunite with an old friend.

continue reading : ch.2

listen along: to build a home - the cinematic orchestra

a/n: for my beautiful friend kayla☺️🦋 @janellion , I hope you like this one as much as I loved writing it!! i felt super inspired after starting this one and was planning on making it a little series, so please feel free to give feedback below💕🤗

“Remind me why we’re going in the first place?” You groaned to Yachi as you tossed options from your closet onto the bedroom floor.

“Well, I kind of sort of told Kageyama and Hinata that I’d come with them if they passed their algebra test...” the blond trailed off, her sheepish expression visible even through the blurry screen. Sighing in defeat, you flounced onto your mattress, trying not to think about the day before you.

Yachi had somehow blackmailed you into babysitting the mismatched gaggle of volleyball players from across Japan as they headed to the amusement park this afternoon. The idea hadn’t completely scared you; you had met some of them after watching their games and dropping by to see your best friend after practice.

The boys didn’t worry you.

But two words did—Kōtarō Bokuto.

Just hearing those syllables made your chest tight⁠—the thought of him bringing a familiar heat to your face. It had been years since you had last truly spoken; you two had attended the same middle school, growing up practically inseparable, up until your move to Miyagi Prefecture.

But it wasn’t awkwardness that you feared; more so the feelings that you were yet to come to terms with.

“Don’t.”

His words seemed to reverberate within you, sending a wave of goosebumps across your skin.

You watched silently as the street lamps above cast twin shadows onto the pavement, one dwarfing the other as they stopped abruptly at a corner.

“So is this it? Am I never going to see you again?”

His voice was hoarse, a stark contrast from is normally bright tone, as he fought desperately to bite down emotions wrestling free.

You didn’t have the strength to look up. The thought of seeing that pained expression plastered on his face was too difficult to bear.

“Look at me.”

It didn’t matter, you told yourself. How much you ached to give in to him, to confess to the throbbing of your heart each time you met his eyes and felt the scorching heat of his touch; you knew that deep down, you couldn’t, not if it meant bringing upon him that same gut-wrenching ache that tore you up from the inside at the thought of having to leave the boy you loved behind.

"Please.”

He took your wrist gently, his nimble fingers wrapping around gingerly, sending a sharp current through your blood.

Gathering whatever courage remained, you met his eyes, rendered speechless by their severity.

His amber irises were in agony; if they held any more emotion you thought they would shatter into a thousand flecks of gold—the death of a star; a supernova.

“Tarō, I-”

“You can’t leave me. Not like this.” He whispered, his head bowed as tears pricked the corners of his eyes.

“You know I don’t have a choice,” you choked out, bottom lip quivering as hot streaks trailed down your cheeks.

Hiccuping, you gathered syllables together, murmuring weakly, “We'll still be friends, Bo, you and Akaashi and me—”

“You know damn well that I don’t see you as just a friend.”

Silence.

His fingers slipped from your wrist, hesitating for a moment as he sharply inhaled before sliding his hand across your palm and threading his fingers through yours.

“My pulse doesn’t race like this when I talk with Akaashi.”

You had never seen his face sport an expression that serious; his eyes were blazing now, some kind of concealed hunger now present in them as they gazed hopefully into yours, his thumb lightly brushing your cheek.

“I’m falling in love with you.”

The tears were flooding now, pouring down your face, your body trembling as you suppressed the gut-wrenching sobs from reaching your throat and the desire to bury your face into the front of his shirt.

Your lips parted, but words refused to come.

“You don’t have to say it back.”

A small smile.

His lips brushed the skin of your forehead, releasing your hand and pulling away after a long, quiet moment.

A sad smile ghosted his face, as if admiring you for the last time.

The final words that left his lips hung in the thick August heat, dissolving slowly into the heavy moisture that coated the air as you turned to go your separate ways:

“Goodbye.”

A horn blared incessantly outside, slipping you out of a daze.

You pulled on a cream colored top and a pair of flowy olive pants, sprinting out the door and across the street at the barrage of texts from your blond friend.

“Sorry, I lost track of time,” you sighed as you pulled the door closed behind you, staring blankly out the window as you pulled away, your mind anywhere but present.

After a much needed rant to Yachi, you felt somewhat reassured upon hearing of his indifference towards your joining the group—though the uneasy feeling at the pit of your stomach said differently.

Did he no longer feel the same?

The thought had crossed your mind thousands of times over the past few years, resurfacing bitterly as you watched the clementine-haired first year slam ball after ball onto the hardwood floor of the gym, heard those same syllables leave his lips, carving them once again into your battered heart.

Maybe it was for the better, you assured yourself. It was safer that way; slowly drifting from him after leaving had been the most agonizing process, but maybe, just maybe, you had eased his pain, taking on the burden for the both of you.

As you pulled into the lot of the amusement park, you spotted a striking group of boys heading towards your car: one dark haired and reminiscent of a rooster, a tall blond, a shorter boy with furiously orange locks accompanied by a visibly annoyed partner, and a pair who lagged behind the rest, one with tame, dark waves, the other sporting silver-frosted tips and a large grin.

Bokuto.

Noticing your dumbfounded expression, Yachi dragged you from the car, using every ounce of muscle in her small frame to force your weight alongside her.

As he drew closer, he seemed to glow like a hologram, the outline of his form sparking with blue electricity.

Only he was right here, standing inches from you, his presence radiating that familiar, comforting warmth; Bokuto had always felt like home.

He was the same, exactly the same. That identical cheery, rambunctiously childlike boy you had known. Only now he was a man; his boyish face melding into strong, angular features to showcase that blinding grin, accentuating his telling facial expressions.

By some form of sorcery, it seemed as if he had grown even taller, his shoulder now surpassing the crown of your head as you timidly peered up at him, craning your neck slightly.

Blushing furiously as his eyes landed on you, you began shyly;

“Hi, Bo.”

He smiled that toothy, sunshine grin:

“Hi.”

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lyssismagical · 5 years ago

Text

i finally found you, my missing puzzle piece

{The Glee/Parkner AU nobody asked for,, Based on S2 ep 6-8}

{TW biphobia/homophobia, bullying}

Being the only kid out of the closet at his school was hard enough for Peter.

Being on the Academic Decathlon, the nerdiest club in school, filled with the biggest losers according to all the popular kids in school, made it that much worse.

Peter likes to think it would’ve been different if he had been gay, still bad but in a different way. Being bisexual was like being a mythical creature to the other students.

Everyone on the Acadeca team were nice enough. They supported him, they cared about him, but they would never understand what it was like to be bullied for something he couldn’t change about himself. They would never understand how hard it was to walk the hallways scared for his life.

“Oh my god, Peter,” Ned gasps when Peter walks into the library for their Acadeca meet.

All eyes turn to him, staring at the bruises he’s sporting from yet another day where his bullies attack him for simply being bisexual. One of his eyes is swollen shut, blood drying under his nose and across his mouth from his split lip where he holds a wad of tissues, bruises dark and splashing out across his nose and cheekbones.

“I’m fine,” Peter says, voice low and shaking, giving away how much this is affecting him. There’s tearstains shining on his cheeks, smudged beneath his eyes from trying to hide the evidence. “Just- Let’s just keep going.”

“Who did this to you?” MJ demands, slamming her papers onto the table, eyes burning with anger. “We can’t just let you go through this.”

Peter shakes his head, grabbing a pen from Betty and preparing to take notes on MJ’s ideas for their Acadeca sectionals approaching. “I’m fine. Please, let’s just keep going.”

“We can’t just stand by while you get hurt like this, Peter.” Ned grabs his arm, trying to get Peter to look at him, but Peter keeps his eyes downcast.

“All of you have been bullied before too. I’m dealing with it, okay? Please, can we just move on?”

If Peter doesn’t want the help, they can’t really offer much. Plus, they don’t get it.

His bully, the main guy that hates Peter’s guts, threatened to kill Peter if he told anyone or tried to get him suspended. Peter’s scared.

“Here’s a job for you, Peter,” MJ says, tipping her chin up to appear stronger and taller. “I want you to sneak over to Osborn Academy and spy on their decathlon. They won their sectionals, nationals, and got second place in regionals last year, and we need to beat them at nationals.”

“Osborn Academy?” Peter repeats, dabbing at the blood on his upper lip, ignoring the looks of sympathetic glances from Betty and Liz.

MJ nods, picking up her stack of cue cards. “Yeah. They’re our biggest competition for nationals. We’re going to win sectionals, no problem, but we’re going to lose to The Academy.”

Peter shrugs, figuring he might as well. It’ll get him out of seeing his bully afterschool to get beat up again behind the school. It’s going to be hard enough to hide this from May.

Travis Wright is the quarterback of the school’s football team, has pretty low grades for somebody who’s still managing to stay in a STEM school, is too tall and too broad and looks older than most people, including the beginnings of stubble around his jaw.

And he’s been bullying Peter ever since the ninth grade when Peter came out as bisexual.

The bullying’s escalated from cruel words and being tossed in dumpsters, to being beat up behind the school.

He finds himself pulling on a jacket and tie that mostly resemble the ones at the Academy before heading over to the school. He’ll pretend to be a new student to spy on the acadeca team, it’s easier than trying to hide in the bushes or whatever stupid plan Flash came up with for him.

The Academy is huge, filled with boys wearing the same black and red uniforms as they make their way to classes around the school.

“Excuse me?” Peter calls out to the first boy he sees who doesn’t look incredibly intimidating.

The boy turns, golden brown curls flopping around his eyes as he smiles at Peter.

“I’m, uh, I’m new here?” he says, eyes wide as he stares at the way dimples crease in the boy’s cheeks.

“Well, hiya, new kid. I’m Harley Keener,” the boy replies, southern accent smoothing over Peter. He grins, and holds out his hand to Peter. “Come on, new kid, everyone is on their way to The Osborn Academy’s Academic Decathlon friendly competition.”

Peter tentatively takes Harley’s hand, letting him lace their fingers together and lead him down the hallway to the huge library, filled with people who clap for Harley when he ducks in with a bright smile.

“Your decathlon is… cool?” Peter asks, staring at the students filling the room. It’s not obvious who the jocks or the popular kids are when they’re all in uniform, but there’s so many students here that it’s obvious the popularity of their acadeca.

“Course it is,” Harley says, shrugging like it’s no big deal. “We’re putting all of our smarts into a competition, it’s a talent and it’s also fun. Why wouldn’t we be cool?”

Harley’s eyes linger on Peter’s bruises for a moment too long, casting his gaze to the floor and back. And then his hand slips out of Peter’s and he takes his seat at one of the two tables with more boys in uniform.

Their friendly competition is a little thing they do at the Academy where their team splits in two to face-off in a trivia game to see who knows more. Whichever team gets the most points, gets bragging rights and their pick of bus seats on the way to sectionals.

Peter, despite being in a room full of people, can’t seem to tear his eyes away from Harley who answers all the questions right with a sort of confidence Peter could never even imagine having. Harley’s smart and he’s sweet and he’s got this southern charm about him. Not to mention, he’s beautiful.

As soon as Harley’s team wins the little competition, Harley heads over to Peter, a half-smile gracing his face.

“Come on, I wanna talk to you,” he says, nodding down the hallway waving over some of his friends. Peter recognizes Harry Osborn, the son of the headmaster.

They lead him outside to one of the eating tables under the afternoon sun, offering him soft smiles.

“Are you from Midtown? Spying on your competition?” Harley asks, elbows leaning against the table. He doesn’t even look angry about it, he’s still got the same smile on his face like this is all fine.

Peter shrugs like it isn’t a big deal. “Your school thinks that Academic Decathlon is something to be celebrated.”

“Of course,” Harry speaks up. He takes a sip from his coffee, looking more nonchalant than ever. “It’s a show of intelligence, it’s the same idea as Debate Club or Chess Club or even Student Council.”

He tries to keep how upset he is off his face, but obviously he doesn’t do a good job because Harley’s expression softens and he leans back in his chair.

“Your school doesn’t think like that, does it? You’re being bullied for being on your team?”

Peter shrugs again, turning his gaze to his hands. “That and they all hate me for being bisexual.”

The other boy, the quiet one, isn’t quick enough to hide the drop of his jaw.

“Somebody did that to you for you sexuality?” Harley exclaims, anger coloring his expression. “What the fuck? Why hasn’t he been expelled?”

“His parents are these super rich douchebags who’re sponsors for the schoolboard. Even if the principal wanted to, which she really doesn’t care about, he’d be able to get back in within a day if he wanted to.” Peter picks at his nails to try to hide the anxiety that thrums through his body.

Harley looks livid, like he’s prepared to murder somebody just for Peter, for somebody he just met. He waves his hands and mumbles a quick goodbye to the other two boys, leaving Harley and Peter alone.

“I used to be bullied too at my old school, back in Tennessee,” Harley explains quietly, shaking his head. “I came out as gay and suddenly everyone was turning their back to me. It was mostly just words and shoves, but I ran away from them. I let them win.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Harley’s expression softens reaching across the table to take one of Peter’s hands. “Be the bigger person. Maybe they just need to be told what’s up. Being bisexual isn’t a bad thing. I don’t know how much you’ve believed everything they’ve been saying, but it’s not true. Teach them. Have courage and fight back, educate them.”

“And if they hurt me worse?”

“Osborn Academy has a no bullying policy, everybody’s accepted here and if somebody breaks those rules, they’re expelled, no second thought.”

May doesn’t have the money to afford to send him to the Academy. Peter doesn’t bother saying it, trying not to let the tears fall as he squeezes Harley’s hand.

Have courage and fight back.

When he gets shoved into the lockers the next day, a fist slamming into his cheek, he doesn’t let them do what they want. He doesn’t try to run. He doesn’t curl up and cry. He shoves Travis back.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he shouts, pain flaring through his cheekbone where he’s certain a bruise will bloom soon enough. “What did I ever do to make you hate me so much?”

Travis rolls his eyes and lifts his fist like he’s going to hit Peter again.

“You can’t punch me into being straight!” he continues, repeating Harley’s words in his head to hold himself together. Have courage. “No more than I can punch the ignorance out of you!”

“Don’t test me, Parker,” his bully says, glaring down at him.

What hurts him more than Travis ever could is that the fact that the hallways have cleared out. Nobody bothered to help him, nobody cared to even pick him up off the floor after this inevitably ends in blood and bruises. Everybody saw and they still left.

“You’re just scared, aren’t you? You’re just projecting one of your own insecurities onto me. You’re just a scared, ignorant, stupid boy who-”

And then Travis’s mouth is on his.

It barely lasts a second but it feels like hours pass where Peter’s heart beats hard and fast, and he shakes out of his own skin.

He comes to his senses enough to shove Travis’s chest, needing him off, away.

Horror and fear is immediately shrouded by shock and confusion, leaving him standing there, wide-eyed and jaw dropped as he stares at Travis.

“Oh god,” Peter breathes, stumbling a step backwards into the lockers again.

Travis shoves him up against the lockers, breath too warm, too close, as he hisses, “If you tell anybody about this, I swear to god, I’ll kill you, Parker. You know how easy it would be for me to throw in a few extra hits to your head and leave you to die in the dumpsters. Don’t fucking test me.”

Pain flashes through his head as he’s shoved harder into the lockers and then there’s nothing but numbness as he slides to the floor, takes the few more punches and kicks Travis throws, and then he’s alone and numb and shocked.

At some point, MJ appears at his side, all careful touches to his head and arms and soft words as she leads him up to his feet.

“Are you okay?”

Peter chokes on a sob and everything he’s built around him, all the bravery and the walls to make sure nobody found out, it all crumbles.

He falls into MJ’s awaiting arms, hiding his face against the crook of her shoulder, and lets himself cry.

He’s been bullied for three years and he’s reached the maximum amount of damage to his self-esteem he can handle. He can’t keep doing this.

Later, MJ guides him to the office where the principal gives the same spiel about how Travis’s parents have too much power in the schoolboard to have any lasting consequences, and then May arrives in a flurry of parental worry, smelling like the chemicals from work and a hint of her vanilla soap and holding him so tight.

He barely tells her the basis to the events. He lies and says it was a once-off thing, tells her it was about something trivial and dumb, that he’s safe at school. Because he can’t worry her about things she can’t fix.

Either he deals with this or May’s going to have to find a way to make enough money to get him into the Academy and she can’t afford that. He can’t put her under that financial stress.

Have courage.

Harley’s thumb traced over Peter’s newest bruise, a deep purple contrasting the paleness of his skin.

“I’m so sorry, Peter,” Harley murmurs, eyes shining with sympathy. “If I hadn’t told you to stand up to him…”

“Can you keep a secret?” Peter’s voice is filled with teary desperation, hands trembling as he grips his coffee cup.

Peter didn’t want to risk showing up to the Academy again, so instead, they’re meeting up at the coffee place that’s normally crawling with boys from the Academy, but today it’s pretty empty.

Tipping his head in concern, Harley nods. “Course.”

“He kissed me,” Peter blurts, lip trembling and hands shaking as his heart pounds in his chest. “I fought back and I called him a coward, and he kissed me. And then- And then he told me he’d kill me if anyone found out. I’m just- I walk the halls of my school terrified for my own life, Harley. I’m scared that he’ll, I don’t know, decide it’s not worth it to keep me around.”

The anger reappears like it had the day they met, fiery and upset, like the world has let him down one too many times.

“You can’t live like that, Peter. It’s not right, it’s not fair.”

“There’s nothing I can do!” Peter draws back enough to duck his face, hating knowing he can’t hide the bruising that litters his face, some old and some new, all hurting just the same. “I can’t get him expelled, I don’t have the money to involve cops, I don’t know how to fix this anymore.”

Harley gently takes Peter’s hand, his calloused and bigger than Peter’s, and tugs him to his feet.

He’s pulled into a hug, Harley’s arms wrapping around him and making him feel safe for the first time in months.

“We’ll figure this out,” Harley promises.

* It’s all a mistake that May finds out.

Travis had been leaving Peter alone, relatively. He was probably worried that if he did too much to Peter, the younger boy would spill the secret about the kiss. There were shoves here and there, and the insults never stopped, but Peter hadn’t been punched in a while, bruises finally healing.

Until, May’s coming to pick Peter up from Academic Decathlon after school one day.

Acadeca meetings are the same afternoons as Football practice. Peter’s waiting by their lockers with Ned and MJ, unaware of May rounding the corner, just as Travis comes out of the gym.

He barely looks at Peter as he shoves him hard into the lockers, not stopping in his journey to his own lockers.

MJ glares over her shoulder as she helps Peter up from where he’d fallen to the floor, Ned retrieving Peter’s backpack, as May reaches them.

“What was that?” May demands, voice quiet enough for Travis not to hear, but angry.

“It was nothing-”

MJ cuts him off before he can come up with a good excuse. “He’s been bullying Peter since the ninth grade.”

“Excuse me?”

“May, please-”

Ned grabs Peter’s wrist, cutting him off again. “It’s gotten worse than shoves. This is the first time all year that I’ve seen him without bruises.”

“It’s not that bad!” Peter exclaims, eyes wide as he looks over May’s shoulder at Travis who’s slinging his bag over his shoulder. “May, please, you can’t say anything.”

“Why the fuck not?” May’s hands are clenched into fists as she stares daggers at Travis who’s already heading down the hall.

Peter sighs, leaning his back until it hits the lockers, relieved that Travis is finally gone. There’s no way out of it.

“He threatened to kill me.” Peter can’t help the tears that threaten to fall, sick of feeling so scared at his school, sick of flinching at every locker slamming, sick of crying every night about something he can’t change.

There’s a collective gasp as the words sink in. May hadn’t even been aware of bullying. Between her night shifts at the hospital and Peter always having plans to get out of seeing her, she hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten. She’d seen a few bruises here and there, but none that screamed in danger. He always came up with excuses about falling or how it was just teenage things.

“You’re kidding, right?” Ned says, voice high with worry. “I knew it was bad but…”

“We have to tell someone. We have to get him expelled.”

Peter shakes his head, sinking to the floor and hiding his face in his palms. “His parents are these super rich lawyers, May. They’re the biggest sponsors of the schoolboard. Trust me, I’ve thought of every possibility. There’s nothing we can do.”

There’s a quiet moment while they all come up empty-handed. Solution-less.

Until, “What about Osborn Academy?” Ned offers. He sits down on the floor beside Peter, giving Peter the opportunity to rest his head on his best friend’s shoulder. “You’ve been gushing about that kid you met there.”

“Would it be safer?” May asks.

“It’s too expensive.” He lets MJ take his hand, offering him as much comfort as she knows how to. “It’s a private school with uniforms and everything, May. We can’t afford the tuition.”

May shakes her head. “I don’t care about money, sweetheart. I care about you being safe. Somebody threatened to kill you, I’m not letting you stay anywhere close to him.”

“May-”

“No, we’ll figure it out, Peter, it’ll be okay. For now, let’s get you home. We can watch one of those soaps that you like and eat ice cream and you’ll tell me all about this kid you met. Okay?”

Caving isn’t as hard as Peter thought it would be. He’s been so desperate for a solution and this is it. He’ll get to go to a school where he’ll be accepted and he’ll be able to walk the halls without fear of somebody turning on him.

“You deserve this,” MJ murmurs. “Even if we’re losing our best Acadeca teammate. We’re going to kick your ass at Nationals.”

“You wish, Em,” Peter grins, getting up and pulling Ned up with him.

He tugs his two best friends into a hug. “I promise I’ll text all the time and we’ll go out for coffee.”

May wraps an arm around his shoulders and they start off towards the exit. “Now, who’s this special kid?”

“His name’s Harley and he’s the greatest.” Peter launches into the story of how they met as they drive away from Midtown, and Peter has never been more relieved to be leaving.

Even though he’ll miss his own Acadeca family. Ned, MJ, Betty, Abe, Cindy, Zach, even Flash and Brad. He’s excited for the future Osborn Academy holds for him. Where people accept each other, their Acadeca team is considered cool, and there’s no bullying. Plus, there’s the obvious positive that he’s already got friends there. He’s sure Harry and Harley will accept him with open arms.

The future is brighter than it’s ever been.

Taglist: @littlemissagrafina @spideygirl2003 @romeoandjulietyouwish @c-artara @shadedrose01 @likeaphoenix13 @tonystarkweneedyou

#lyss writes #glee au #parkner #parkner fic #harley keener #peter parker #peter parker fic #harley keener/peter parker #klaine au #i wanna write a whole glee au but i feel like literally nobody will care lmao #also this was written in one go without editing bcs i'm a dumb bitch but it's okay

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girloikawa · 4 years ago

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carry on youtuber au

baz starts out as a cover artist, occasionally posting his own songs (he does violin stuff too)

but eventually he gets recognition and people are like “who is this person?????” so baz does a few q&as

oh BUT THEN he reveals that he also has so many other interests (books, movies, planting, coffee, Controversal Topics) that people want him to do other types of videos

and that is what starts baz on the long road of his channel basically being an everything bagel where he does a bit of everything and people find it very chill

agatha and baz become friends over their mutual love of gossip in the community (as long as they’re not apart of it)

(because baz and agatha and simon and penny aren’t problematic)

which brings me to agatha, she’s one of those channels that keep everyone updated on the drama and the shitty stuff that happens on YouTube as long as regular media

very opinionated, this gal is, so she shares her opinion on...everything

though, sometimes she’ll do a q&a and do her makeup and talk about fashion or what she’s into at the moment

she’s basically angelika oles

penny’s a booktuber!!!

she mostly reads and reviews fantasy books, as they are her favorite, but she’ll also do those videos where it’s like “i just read a shitty wattpad romance story, let me rant” or “my top ten favorite ya pairings” or “tier ranking every harry potter character because life has no meaning”

now, simon, the babe, he’s (and you cannot fight me on this) basically jenna marbles

his videos are so random and spurratic, he doesn’t even plan what his next video is, and he’s the youtuber

i would also like to point out that simon probably totally has adhd and would talk about it and his experience with it

his most popular videos are of him baking. he’s like (and hear me out) very good and very bad at it. like, all throughout the videos, everybody’s holding their breath’s like “oh no this is going to turn out terribly” because simon being in the kitchen is like a horse babysitting a dog, it’s a mess, however the end product is always perfect and amazing and by the end everybody’s drooling behind their screens

simon is also widely conceived as the weirdest straight guy ever. like people (from just looking at him) think he’s just So Striaght but a very Cool Straight Guy who people wouldn’t actually mind being around

simon has the most subscribers (the majority being that they find him funny and see him as a friend, the minority being people who think he’s Hot As Hell and okay yeah he’s a good person too but have you seen those freckles-)

then it’s baz because he actually started first and his following has been a journey, then agatha (she’s the newest, and her subscriber rate is growing rapidly), then penny (booktube is a small community sad face)

penny n simon are irl best friends and penny was the one who convinced simon to make a channel bc he needed something to help let out his energy, “plus it’s a little fun hobby”

snowbaz now :)

simon has followed baz from pretty much the beginning. he saw his cringy covers, his development as a songwriter, and the walls built around baz crumble over the camera

baz...well, he’s one of those people who think simon is Hot As Hell, but he also genuinely enjoys the videos. at first, baz was like “I’m not watching him, everybody watches him, and I’m different” so he always avoided the recommendations youtube gave him of simon’s videos (but it was also bc he didn’t want to confront that he was very attracted to simon)

and then, one fateful night, agatha sent baz a link to a video called “coming out” and under the link she wrote “youtube angel!”—that’s their nickname for simon—“shocking the world!”

baz click click clicked because hot guy is lgbt+????? and baz watched the video, commenting “proud of you” or something along those lines, and then he watched so, so many more of simon’s videos

simon, a boy who just came out as bisexual, just had his youtube hero comment on his video where he came out and is like !!!!!!

simon’s sexual awakening is baz

also, simon breaks the internet with that video, because he isn’t striaght and that’s so mind-boggling to everybody. but there’s always that one group of people who are like “i saw this coming. do you not remember that one time simon showed his socks and his jeans were cuffed-”

simon replies to baz’s comment and is like “oh my god thank you so much. you’re like my actual favorite youtuber” like a fucking Nut and people see that and say “omg collab” because they’re both relatively high status youtubers and their collab would be Powerful

then, summoning all his courage, simon dms baz on instagram with just a simple “hey, a lot of people are saying we should collab lmao”

“i’ve seen that” “heh uhm yeah” “maybe we could get to know each other and see if that would be a good idea” “yes! i’d love that”

and they do. they get really close and stuff,, but people don’t exactly...see that

you see, on twitter, they get in millions of arguments. people genuinely think that they hate each other to some extent, when in reality, they’re swooning at the sight of the three dot bubble

baz, on twitter: “you cannot tell me that people actually enjoy sparkling water. it’s trash, move on” (they had an argument over it, privately, and baz is making it public to cause a rise out of simon bc he finds angry simon cute)

simon, in response: “yo I’m throwing you in the trash as we speak. fuhhhck u”

so, when they collab for the first time, everybody at home is just like *shocked pikachu emoji* they end up doing a video where simon bakes baz’s mom’s recipe of cherry scones with baz. it’s kind of a big deal bc both simon and baz don’t want to ruin baz’s memory of his mother

in the end, baz tears up and gives si a big ass hug because they’re perfect, simon. i love them, thank you. the fans start shipping. hard. it’s simon’s highest viewed video

that surprise hug is also what makes simon realize that his feelings are much deeper than attraction and surface level forms of knowing someone

on baz’s channel, they were going to film a video where they talked about their experiences being queer, but then simon realized that his biggest, most prominent example was staring at baz’s jawline, so he had to be like “uhhh, actually, I’m not really comfortable with that yet” which is part true. instead, they do a video where they have argumentative discussions, like on twitter but in depth and with less insults

anyways, they receive pretty positive feedback on the videos, people enjoy them, so they decide to do more. also, they both live in LA, so it’s actually pretty easy to do them, plus they have a diverse area to do them in

also, i think it’d be nice to mention that simon will sometimes do twitch streams of him playing minecraft and then he puts edited versions on his channel. it’s worth mentioning because during this one stream, he ends up slipping up and saying “we talk a lot, actually. and i—i like him a lot” about baz, then he blushes like hell because i really just said that and it’s live oh god

all the while, baz and simon actually just start hanging out (without hiding behind wanting to do a video). one meet-up, they go to disney world and halfway through baz is like “uh, should we be filming this?” and simon gives him a smile and replies, “no” because that moment is for them and them only + the fans who see them together and ask for a picture/just take pictures of them being like a couple

their next collab is a bit of a fun one. behind the scenes, pen, ag, si, and baz all become friends, because of that one time baz came over while penny was there and he barely payed attention to simon, too busy talking to penny. anyways, they do a big four person collab where agatha basically teaches them how to do makeup

on penny’s channel, it’s book related. they have to do a look based on the synopsis’ of each other’s favorite books. baz gets simon, simon gets agatha, agatha gets penny, penny gets baz. baz: “snow, you’re holding it wrong. it’s like this” simon: *stares longingly at the brush that gets to touch baz’s face*

on agatha’s, the video is just titled Teaching My Friends To Do Makeup (ft. idiots who test my patience). they all suck. majorly. well, by all, i mean simon and penny suck at makeup

on baz’s, they do a trivia of sorts. if they get a question wrong, they have to skip a product. simon: “oh thank god less work” agatha, deadpanning: “i think i might kill him”

on simon’s, they have agatha and penny go against simon and agatha. si and pen being the ones who have to actually do makeup because, according to agatha, “since you decided to bitch so much, you guys are doing our makeup” “but-!” “nope, I’m Peak Brains of us all so I call the shots” “you’re not even-” “shut up” Everybody (and by everybody i mean the fans) is actually glad that they got to see simon doing baz’s makeup, because it’s literally them just being so flustered the whole time

the collab stuns everybody bc: “they’re all friends??????” plus, some people start calling them the Four Fucks because at one point penny says “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, and most importantly, fuck me” after simon flinged a bunch of eyeshadow on her

okay so agatha and penny are just like: “these idiots need to get together already” because it’s very obvious that they like each other. like the eiffel tower in paris, you can’t miss it. everyone watching the videos also sees it, so you can imagine the comments

during one of si’s live-streams (he’s playing the hunger games minigame on minecraft), the chat goes wild because baz pops in. he plans on surprising simon with a picnic (he just thought that they could go into simon’s backyard or the park that’s a few miles away), but it was pretty spur of the moment so he didn’t think about simon doing a stream. and to be honest, simon’s stream was also spur of the moment, so it’s not like he made sure to tell baz about it

“simon! hey, i let myself in!” baz called from the front doorway. the chat is freaking because: ��is that baz???” “omg baz has a key to simon’s house!!” “are they dating???” simon kind of just freezes up and starts sputtering as he reads the chat and tries to reply to baz

of course, baz doesn’t understand that simon doesn’t want baz to go into his office/room with his computer, so he does go in and as soon as he sees the livestream he’s like: “oh, uh, I’ll go” and simon unfreezes and goes “no, no, stay, I’ll just be a bit” “do you want me to...leave the room?” “you can watch if you want” (baz wants) “okay, sure” so simon pretty much shows baz how to play minecraft

i never finished this, do i?

15 notes · View notes

jjkpls · 5 years ago

Text

(y)our name 2 - one (m)

> genre : fluff, angst, light smut

> pairing : jeon jungkook x reader (f)

> total words : 6.7k

> warnings/content : friends to lovers, unrequited love, slice of life; a LOT of cursing, oc is... chaotic, thirsty, panicked; Bad Editing Le Retour™

You could not look any less serious. With your badly dried hair, your face glazing from the cream you just applied in a rush and your whole frame, vibrating in childish excitement. “You know what, Guk? We can decide to make it weird or we can decide to be two grownups, responsible and smart and like reliable and- and be like 'Well yeah we had sex, whatever, it’s not gonna change anything!'”

There's a heavy silence blaring in the hallway. You're too ecstatic to let it affect you but still, you wish he'd appear a little less impenetrable. He's not giving you anything to work with. And even though you can't imagine any other alternative than the one you just suggested, he has to confirm he's willing to go along. “Right?” You're defying him with your gaze, hands attached to your waist, head tilted to the side. The smile stretching your lips grow less natural and more rigid. Jungkook simply shrugs, shifting about on his feet.

“I guess you’re right.” He says but he doesn't look like he means it. He looks preoccupied. And a thought, disturbing, invades your mind. Something is burdening him. And from the frown on his adorable face, it's at least mildly serious.

“Are you okay?” You’re pouting as you ask, not meaning to tender him the way you do but you can see his troubled heart all over, in his stance, in his giant eyes. You feel bad for being the idiot concerned about that night when there is something wrong with him. Anything could have happened during those excruciatingly long and testing three weeks. Your merciless dumb ass may have missed a drama in your favourite boy’s life and the fact that you could have actually let it happen breaks your heart. “Is something wrong?”

He gazes at you, wide-eyed. They’re shining with a curious apprehension. It’s as if he wants to say something. The tiny tremble of his lips hints there is something, just right there, at the tip of his tongue. A simple little push would have the words out. “Tell me.”

Instead, he shakes his head, one of his hands rising to mess with the already chaotic pile of dark locks. “S'nothing. I’m good.”

“Jungkook.” He’s already down a few steps, his back turned to you. “You’re not gonna tell me?” There’s a tiny little edge in your voice, as if your heart's been wounded. It brings him to spin around to peek your way. You’re not that stupid. You know three weeks of break in a friendship that has, in almost a decade and a half, never had any before, must impact it somehow. You detest the idea. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“I know.” He says, softly. He seems all tiny, hunched over as he is, several stairs down.

“Still, you’re not gonna say?” He looks up from his shoes. There's this contemplating pout on his mouth. Again, he looks like he's debating internally.

“If- It’s not important. If I need to, I will, ok?” Your heart stings. But you want to trust him.

“You promise?”

Jungkook rolls his eyes, biting a smile back. “I don’t need to, you already know.” Grinning you jump on the step next to him, wrapping with great difficulty an arm around his shoulders, you lead him down the stairs.

You're rambling loud in the resonating hallway about how you spent the whole night watching your favourite zombie movies in prevision of the day you're about to spend. He doesn't need to hear you say it all as he already knows. His phone along with him didn't have any sleep last night, as you kept sending him messages of extreme importance regarding all the technics and strategies you were actively learning watching the films and how useful they were all going to be for the zombie apocalypse-themed escape game you had made reservations for.

You are so excited, you can't contain yourself. Finding him back after having missed him so much and for so long, you just can't accept to spend any more time without him. Which is ridiculous. You two would have to get back to your lives and go to work for starters, but not now. Now you've dumped your shift on your kindest colleague at work, quite last minute, so you could have the whole day with Jungkook. Planning on going to that escape game you two had been talking about for months, making a checklist of all the places you could visit afterwards to eat and take pretty pictures if he wanted to, adding a list of the potentially interesting movies now in theater if you still have time left. Yes, you really did miss him. You don't want to say it out loud as it's been said enough the night before, but you hope he knows from how hard you hug his arm against your heart that you're still overwhelmed by the joy brought from him filling the staggering void in your chest again as if he'd never left it.

Your phone lights up on a too-familiar face and a name you feel too uncomfortable to pronounce out loud. It’s Namjoon. Again. You see Jungkook’s eyes catch it before you turn it off, and they divert awkwardly as if terrified to meet your own. Your heart stings again. Like a sharp scorching needle piercing through the thing. You can’t bear the awkwardness. You used to be able to talk about anything. Even some things that require litres of liquid courage and lead to consequences such as burning ears and heavy sweating. But never anything has just been brushed over. The realization that something is installing itself between you hits. A new norm, where some subjects must remain unmentioned. It’s horrifying so quickly you blurt out, “We broke up!” Jungkook looks up from his bubble tea, eyes large like saucers.

“Yeah, I heard so. From Jimin.” He doesn’t ask for more information and it’s upsetting. You want him to know he can ask anything. Anything that is yours, anything that is you is his too.

He should know it all.

“It’s just- he is- he is not an asshole but I don’t know, I guess we didn’t agree on everything. He wanted me to choose between you and him.” Your eyebrows raise, head shaking in remaining disbelief. He had some nerves. You felt bad momentarily because it meant Namjoon believed your relationship to be strong enough to face this kind of ultimatum. But he was so rude about it! So rude and assertive, it didn’t even give you the willing to clarify things up with him, to sort things out, consider a compromise. As if you’d ever sincerely only dare think about giving up Jungkook for anyone or anything else. You would never.

Jungkook smiles around the straw he's gnawing on and you chuckle. You're sharing the same mischievous glance you used to when younger, you would find some shenanigans to ditch a third party you were not inclined to stay with so you two could play and be yourselves exclusively together. Like a secret handshake, you have your secret smile. There you know you'll be fine.

After some time, he feels comfortable enough to bring Namjoon back to the conversation. It's just to apologize again about what happened. He doesn't leave on any more information, any answer to the burning question you've carried with you since the incident but you decide to not push it. It was fucking weird, this whole mess of a situation. So unlike him to hit someone. So unlike you to turn your back on him as if there would ever be a valid reason for you to stop loving him. A piece of the puzzle is missing, however, you trust him with it. Surely, he'll give it to you one day and that's fine.

You're cutting the calm quietness surrounding you with a sudden burst of giggles. He squints at you, eyebrows frowned as if he already knows and it makes you laugh harder.

“Shut up!” He groans while trying to reach for your phone on the table. Your reflexes are cat-like though, and before he knows it, the hilarious video you shot today of him, fighting incredibly poorly a zombie, plays for the two of you to enjoy. He's screaming so loud, cursing a bunch of profanities you've never heard him say, and when his ass hits the ground without the actor touching him you're throwing your head back, crying in hilarity. It's been torturing you for the past two hours. Each time your brain starts to putter, the video comes knocking and you just can't help the bubbling mess to rumble from your chest. You only stop when he starts to threaten you, saying he is going to leave and head home.

You really don't want to go home. Or more like, you don't mind going home but he has to come and stay with you. Why couldn't you have been born as Siamese twins?

Sticking the lollipop out of his mouth, he winces in pure disgust, “That'd be horrible!”

“What? Why? It'd be awesome! We'd be stuck to each other all the time!” Which is an enchanting thought -maybe it needs to be precise. You're sure he thinks the same. The grimace intensifying on his face is just comedy.

“We'd be siblings, by the way. Not best friends. That wouldn't work.”

“Let's hot glue the shit out of our hips so we can test this theory out!”

“What are you even-” You don't interrupt him, he does himself, deeming it's pointless. Halting his steps, sighing deep and loud as he stares down at you like you're crazy. Maybe you've turned a little bit insane. That's what too much Jungkook and sugar do to you: you're sincerely considering the whole hot-glueing thing. “Ok. You're going to bed.” It's a gasp that answers him and like a dad who knows how to handle his misbehaving child, he cuts you off before you even get to say anything.

“___, it’s 3 am. Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

“I start at 5 pm!” You pester, hitting the ground with your foot.

“Still. Don’t be ridiculous. You need sleep.” His huge eyes blink slowly, his face contorting weirdly as he contains a yawn. He's the one who needs sleep but-

“But-”

“You really did miss me, huh?”

He's all smug eyebrow-dance and wiggly shoulders so you decide to simply be honest, that'll shut him off. “Of course I did!” He tsks, not having expected this as he stares off the distance, looking anywhere but you. You pout, hitting his ugly sneakers with your own boots. “Why do you keep wearing those things?” The offending bulky things are daring you to criticize them further.

“You don’t know fashion.”

“Oh is that fashion? Ok, I guess I really don’t know then.” When you look up at him, grinning, he has that look on. Head slightly tilted to the side, tight-lipped smile, the one that pinches the skin around his mouth into a tiny dot, eyes looking soft but implacable. It’s the look he has when he’s telling you off and it makes you whine indignantly. “I don’t wanna go home yet.”

“But you will.” He decides, sticking the lollipop back against the inside of his cheek, gaze all ominous before he's throwing you on his shoulders. You'd scream if it were not the middle of the night and you didn't mind having people calling the police on you two for night fuss.

It's not the end anyway. You're dramatic and greedy because it feels natural to be in these circumstances but you know you two will be fine. You should let him go home to sleep without fearing losing him again.

There's no doubt in your mind. Still, instead of your brain to sink in the happiness and let you fall peacefully asleep on your two ears, the uncooperative thing just wouldn't let you rest. Keeping you wide awake and alert, bringing thoughts way too joy-filled to not render you giddy and fidgety.

I guess it wasn’t that terrible. It wasn’t bad at all. You did apprehend it. Not only were you two to start hanging out again after a pause that felt like an eternity, but you had also to do so after spending the night that you did together. It seemed easy enough on his part. Maybe because he seemed already preoccupied with something else. Either way, it went smoothly. Like riding a bike. Something you never just stop knowing how to do. Jungkook and you, it’s natural. It’s pure fated affection, there’s no place for any lagging. This you confirmed today.

As the days pass, the routine reinstalls itself, with morning breakfasts shared, impromptu hellos, and stray kitties pictures sent out throughout the day.

It feels wonderful. You can appreciate what you used to have with a whole new level of intensity. It’s like hovering over the Earth on a candy cloud. You’re not lucky, you’re blessed, gifted. Nothing is that upsetting. Nothing is that tiring. Everything fixes before it even breaks because there’s Jungkook and the happiness he brings everywhere along with him.

You’re not that bad at being cool about the whole one-night thing. Not as good as him but still good enough. You manage to prevent anything potentially compromising to slip, refract any impulsive gesture towards his arms or his chest or his thighs even. You do end up blushing furiously sometimes when an unexpected careless babe falls through his lips, or when he mutters your name quietly to bring your attention to him and the breathless calls from this one night remind themselves to you. And of course, it would be like this. How could it not? How could you just say each other’s name so casually when you heard them being moaned by the other the way you did. That’s what you think. But he doesn’t seem on the same page as you. And that puzzles you. Not greatly, you know him to be more used to unattached sexual affections, but still.

How could he not be affected when you’re pretty sure you screamed his name? That’s the other thing about the fateful night and its consequences, the more time passes the less you remember every detail of it, and you dread it. You wish it would stay intact, untouched in your head, as grandiose as it was when it happened.

It’s worrying. How obsessed you are about the incident. But not for the reasons one could expect.

Your friendship is not at stake per se. Or maybe it is in a way, and that’s why you’re not presenting yourself to him with those thoughts.

It’s not about Jungkook or more so, it’s less about the feelings you adorn for him, and more about his skills. Because he does have skills. You have no idea where they come from. If he’s spent years secretly attending sexology seminars or if he was born an incubus and for some reasons you knew nothing about that, point of the matter is: he blew your mind. He ruined you, opened up a door inside you had no idea was there and it felt so good during and after, that you find yourself feeling miserable at the idea that maybe, you won’t ever fall upon a lover like him.

Namjoon was fine. He didn’t have the best stamina and was a bit too stiff to plant and bloom passion as intense as Jungkook managed to in few minutes but he was ok. Taehyung was fine too. Perhaps tending to be a bit selfish, forgetting to give back if you didn’t remind him but for the most part decent -he did have a huge shrine that wasn’t so handy in practice but still managed to entice you and make you squirm before you realized that, except for pain and discomfort, the hugeness of it didn’t bring much more.

And that’s the thing that annoys you the most: they used to be good. They used to be in your mind more than good enough. You didn’t question the possibility of having more. It was alright. You didn’t come each time. You never came more than once in one encounter. But it was fine for your standards. You didn’t know any better, that there could be more to it. Now Jungkook swirled in, wrecked you, leaving you a satisfyingly empty shell lain in a puddle of your own arousal and that’s the mind-blowing sex you want to have for the rest of your life. The thought that maybe he is one exceptionally proficient guy, member of a very rare and exclusive club of fucking abnormally phenomenal lovers that has the secret access to a secret magic to Orgasms -with a capital O because what you thought to identify as orgasms before definitely are not the same things as what you experienced with your best friend- it’s depressing and horrifying and makes you want to start a fucking riot against the universe and maybe against men for not all being as good. Because they should. Fuck, there would be no more cheating partners, no more lonely solo underdogs, eternal peace in the world if everyone dared be as good of a lover as Jungkook.

Maybe you’re over exaggerating. Maybe. Probably not.

How, how in the hell are you supposed to just brush that memory like a simple anecdote, marking your history like any other tiny souvenir would, like that first time he cried in front of you right after he scratched his hands falling from his skateboard and you had kissed it better, or that time he lied for you so you wouldn’t get your ass beaten by your parents after having skipped two classes to go make out behind the school with Kim Seokjin.

Well, you can’t. It’s impossible. And at first, it’s fine. It just means you spend a little more time in the shower, you're a little slower at work because you have to constantly bring your brain back to the task ahead, you’re overall a little more angsty and every time you meet up with Jungkook, there’s a little apprehension. It’s a little less 'I can’t wait to see that dumbass’ cute face even though he might bully me for not having showered', and a little more 'I’m going to meet with my good old friend who happens to be the man who fucked my brains out that one time, so maybe I should put on that skirt'.

The permanent tension doesn’t last that long. He’s too much like he’s always been. You’re too happy with him like you’ve always been.

Things go along as they should. You repress actively your deviant brain, decide you’re going to get over him because he is not the only man on this fucking Earth and there’s no way, there’s no fucking way -it’d be too unfair- he is the only good man worthy of your time.

Soon you realize that in fact, he is. In a way or another, by some curious black magic or something, he managed to make himself the only man left on this Earth. What a dick, you think. Because now he’s gotten back to his life, his awesome life of an awesome dude, unbothered, untroubled by whatever the fuck happened when you, on the other hand, are all broken.

There's this thing about you. You used to fall a bit in love with every person you’d see when you'd be single. There would be this tall guy with his beanie low on his forehead pushing his fringe in his eyes, reading some manga on the train, and you’d start making up a sweet history for him and you’d wish he’d look up for a second and fall in love with you too. But he’d leave without noticing you and then this young woman would walk in with a dude on her toes. She’d look saddened while the guy would look annoyed and you’d start thinking about where you’d like to take that girl out and what cute pet name she’d like you to give her when you’re not even into girls -allegedly. You’re desperate for love. You’ve always been. Which could be surprising as instead of having a childhood deprived of it as often have the people who grow to be very demanding when it comes to affection, you were spoiled with it. Instead of curing you, the force-feed love rendered you addicted and you've always wanted more. More people to meet and discover and adore. Rarely enough. Except when you’re in a relationship. You’re not simply loyal you’re fully invested. You want to be good, to be the best, bring the most. You know how to direct all your time and attention and aspiration on one person without wanting to look away.

And that’s what you need again. Maybe. Someone to prove you that sex is not it all. You never thought that before stupid Jungkook but now, you're questioning it. He did break you. You think constantly about it, not wondering what compliment that one stranger like to hear, what place that other stranger would love you to make them discover, you're wondering if they could make you feel good. If their bodies would be as hard and hot as Jungkook's. If their sexes could fill you up and stretch you, hard and right the way his did. And fuck Jungkook because not only did he change your way of considering people -which is fucked up, by the way, you feel like a creep every time you catch yourself doing it-, he made them all uninteresting. None, even in fantasy, do it for you. You don’t want them to touch you. You don’t want to touch them. You wonder what’s under their clothes without really wanting to know. That’s not that surprising. You’ve always been a very emotional person and perhaps it’s just not something for you. Perhaps you can’t fuck without affection. But at the same time, it’s what you want, it’s what you need. Just purely wild and relieving sex.

It’s the reason why you end up grabbing your phone, tapping your passcode in a fury because the print sensory thingy won't work and you’re already pissed enough as it is. Wrist hurting, breathing laboured, pussy quivering uselessly around nothing, you quickly get to your chat log with Jungkook. You’re mad. It’s the umpteenth time that you try to get yourself off and end up on the verge of crying from frustration because you can, physically, feel yourself craving for a cock to fill you up -possibly his. It’s the worst feeling. A degree of desperation like you never have felt before. And it is insane because never in a million years could you have imagined that sometimes a woman, and you of all, could have your cunt yearning for something that bad. It’s like it builds and builds, not phenomenal but seemingly good enough, and then it snaps but as you come, you feel the lacking spoiling completely your already low-quality orgasm. One of the worst experience of your life. You’re enraged and delirious from the dissatisfaction and that’s why you end up sending him this message:

you : thinking bout u

Read. Right away. There are the three little dots blinking on the screen, your brain adds a mental drumroll to accompany it. And then they disappear. Five minutes pass, you’re dying, feel like your pussy might catch a cold staying open like that -which is quite dumb and lewd but you’re so upset, you spent so much energy on attempting to get off that you can’t even get yourself to roll over to the side (it’s not even like he’s going to teleport himself there and just slip inside at any instant). The dots don’t come back so you decide to text him again, a bit more apprehensively.

you : do u think about me?

jungkook : are you making a YouTube video?

You’re confused for a while, reading multiple times the text over, simply not getting it until the phone vibrates again in your palm.

jungkook : like a lyric prank

Ah.

you : Ah no. And why would I chose a song from 2009 to do that

jungkook : It’s not 2009 and cause you’re lame like that

This is absolutely not going the way you planned, you think finally closing your legs together. Then you remember that you didn't plan shit.

you : 😐

jungkook : What do you want anyway? Why aren’t you sleeping

jungkook : ?

you : I just told you

jungkook : I don’t know what you mean

Is he messing with you? Or does he sincerely not know? Fuck, you hate texting. You never know what the person on the other line genuinely means. You're not being a coward tonight though, so you send:

you : You said to tell you if I ever think about you

The torturous three musketeers are back, cackling right in your face as you stare, for an eternity, wishing for something, anything, to replace them. It’s outrageously long. It’s like he’s typing his eulogy or something. Until the dots are replaced but by worst than any text, no text at all. They disappear and nothing else comes through. The embarrassment is so overwhelming, your body finds the strength to fully wince, your legs jerking up to your chest and your whole body falling sideways from just the cringe. What a fucking idiot. Your face buried in the pillow, you wail and groan in emotional pain. Then it shakes again, the cellphone, the cursed object you shouldn’t be allowed to own. You grab it with your eyes shut close, terrified at what the screen has to show you. When you gather the courage to look, you frown: it’s a link. A URL you don’t recognize. You tap on it, gnawing nervously on your lip as Safari takes forever to load the page and once it's done, and the title of the page appears, you wish it wouldn’t have loaded at all. Fucking hell. You’re going to die. You’re dying of embarrassment tonight, it’s decided.

'69 Best Masturbation Tips for Female Orgasm'. It’s an article about masturbation. He sent you that. To help probably. Because he doesn’t want to do it himself and doesn't know how to say it. Of fucking course he doesn’t want to and oh-my-fucking-god how could you have been so fucking stupid.

you : Sorry

There are the dots again but you can’t bear to see them again so quickly you type a desperate:

you : I’m really sorry, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything. Sorry sorry JK please just forget I said anything sorry good nighttt 😅 😅

It’s the worst moment of your entire life. And this thought, the thought that it’s so terrible, nothing will ever compete for that title, is the sole reason why you decide to not suffocate yourself to death in your pillows. The worst just happened.

You’ll just avoid him. For a few days. If he lets you. He probably will. The poor guy is probably feeling even more awkward than you. You were acting so normal, regular platonic friendliness and suddenly he learns that you’ve been lurking over his ass for all this time. For fuck's sake. You’re the worst. There's a tiny voice in your head that's not a bitch and keeps telling you that a couple of days would suffice and eventually your cheeks’ crimson will reduce and progressively the whole thing will be lost in your memory like those events that sometimes fade so far away, you’re not even sure if they were ever real or simple dreams. Except this one is a fucking nightmare and as you toss and turn around relentlessly for the whole night you’re sure you won’t ever forget it did happen and the shame that you felt.

And you’re wrong about that. Because as you wake up the next morning after having successfully fallen asleep for an hour around 6 am, the memory is blurry. It’s flimsy. The burning devastating emotions are gone like they hardly ever existed and you can sigh in relief as you stretch out of bed, body sore and rusted but mind fresh and enthusiastic. You feel like you’ve just woken up from a power nap -you know the fatigue will strike you half-dead later, around 10 am or 2 pm, you’re not sure yet-, feeling positive and wanting to move the world with how productive you feel like being today.

And then your initial hypothesis is proven right. As you reach for your phone by rote, meaning to check the time and your notifications as you usually do, you fall upon the text Jungkook sent you right after you shut your phone off, the night before.

jungkook : It’s okay

That’s it. Hell befalls once again on your stupid self. It’s like last night, all over again. Your eyes well up, aiming to fill up the tenuous rivers dried up on your cheeks. You fall on your face back in bed, yelling full-on in your mattress. It’s horrible. It’s horrible. It’s horrible.

“Are you okay?!” You hear Eun ask from the other side of the wall. Her voice is all hoarse from sleep and now you feel even worse for having woken her up with your idiocy. Stupid and selfish you are.

“Yes, sorry!” There’s a loud thump as you assume she lets herself fall back to sleep. You’re glad she’s too tired to register the tremble in your voice and the obvious desperation even you could decipher.

'It’s okay' with no emoji, no nothing. The emptiest text you’ve ever received. It’s worse than one of those 'ok' assholes send sometimes as an answer to a long invested text. You know what it means. It means it is not okay. He is too sweet to tell you off the way he should or wants to. He knows you’re not an inconsiderate bitch and that you will read through the pixels with this simple two words that it is not okay, he’s not interested and he feels bad but that’s just how things are.

The alarm of your phone rings loud. You’re reminded of your stupid duty you’re supposed to attend to: your job. You feel like a teenager again. Well, in reality, you never really stopped feeling like one. When something would happen, you expected the whole world to stop for you to deal with it. You were too spoiled as a kid. People would actually stop. You remember walking down the playground, eager to play at something but not knowing what and sauntering about looking out for your different options and all the kids, no matter what they were busy playing at would stop and stare, sharing quick nods of approval before one of them, one for each group, would walk up to you and try to convince you to stay with them. Everybody liked you at the time, everybody always loved you without you completely realizing, only occasionally would you suspect it with a sheepish mischievous smile hidden in the corner of your lips.

And now you’re twenty-three and someone, the person who’s supposedly is always cherishing you, doesn’t want you. Which is fair. Fair enough. You’re friends and it’s weird for him, you get it. But he said that you could call him whenever you thought about him. He said it. And he said something else. You can’t remember properly now but you remember what you thought at the time: that he was suggesting you’d do it again. That happened. Whatever the exact terms were, he did hint at wanting other times to happen. Then again, he did say a lot of things that night. And obviously, those were spurred in the heat of the moment. You guess he’s smooth along with being talented. His words are part of the whole thing and for good reasons, it works like a charm.

But, therefore, of fucking course, you’d take it seriously. Of course, it’d take roots in your weak mind and bloom into invading, overpowering desires.

You’re pissed at him now, you realize as you struggle to apply mascara from how much your hand is shaking. You’re angry because he is the asshole behind all that. Even if he did not do it on purpose, he’s made you like that, fucking obsessing over his fucking dick like it’s the only one left and you’re meant to save humanity from extinction. He didn’t have to be that good to you. And why would he say those stuff if he didn’t mean them? That’s fucking sick. And why does he not want you anyway? He didn’t have a problem with you being best friends the first time. He sure enjoyed it, right?

Right?

Your memory is hazy.

You’re not sure if you just made it all up from the pleasure you were experiencing. He is good. But maybe you suck? Maybe he just went along and concluded with you because he was too sweet to back up and stop in the middle of the course of action but in fact, he didn’t enjoy it. You didn’t do a lot, that much is true. You didn’t feel too bad about it before because you were sure he still had his fair share of pleasure but now that you’re not sure, now that you consider the idea that maybe your brain affected the real turn of events to spare your ego and feed that magical experience you had, you feel like shit. It must be it. With all those girls, beautiful, liberated you’ve seen him with over the years, he must have had expected and wanted more. He didn’t end up that talented with no one to practice with. And there you were, awkward potato who couldn’t keep the lights on -which apparently was such a big deal-, way more inexperienced than you thought yourself to be, giving him the worst sex of his life. Of fucking course, he wouldn’t want to do it again.

It’s decided you’re never meeting him again. It’s not his fault. It’s yours. You suck balls. Or rather you don’t and that’s the issue.

Fuck. This is so embarrassing. It's been a couple of hours since the curse text he's sent, and you don't feel any better. If only you could focus on those dumb coffee orders and forget about your stupid pussy for a second.

It’s a little easier after a few mistaken cups of weird lattes, when your manager, perched like an owl on a bar stool, starts staring at you like she’s about to fly to you and bite your head off.

It gets harder when you finish your shift and your mind is left to think about him again and the atrocious humiliation. You’re cringing the whole ride home. Having to stop yourself from growling out loud in frustration, not wanting to freak people out by making them think you’re rabid or something. And it turns the hardest when you have to walk past his door and ignore it, when it’s right fucking there, to quickly flee in your apartment. You’re sweating and shaking once you’re inside, pressing yourself against the door, praising the barrier protecting your ego from him.

Wow. That’s insane but you don’t want to see him ever again. Or at least not until it quiets down. It’s too much. You know there shouldn’t be a seat for shame in your friendship but you can’t help it. It’s just Jungkook but it’s also the best lover you’ve ever had and, you can't deny it anymore, an extremely attractive man. And you’ve humiliated yourself in front of that man.

It’s the reason behind your avoiding him. You don’t even take the time to think about it and try to rationalize, think about what he might be feeling, think about the implications of your action, about how childish you’re being, you just do it.

At first, it’s a blast. Knowing you would work hard to precisely avoid him makes it more bearable for your existence. You don’t wake up with an awful tummy ache and a migraine just considering having to talk to him and act fine and casual as if you’re not dying inside. You won’t see him so it’s fine. It requires a little effort though. A little checking the area for safety with an unsuspecting Eun. A little hustling as you have to steal all of your colleagues' early shifts so that you don’t have to be home for breakfast and see him land in your living-room to eat with you. A little stealth when you have to come home as you do in the early afternoons and you don’t know for sure if he’s not working from home, eagerly tending the ear to try and catch you coming home. His ear is very sharp and you know when you don’t pay attention and are loud climbing up the stairs, he can hear you from his apartment. He told you before that he recognizes the sound of your stepping, different from Eun’s and that’s how he knows you’re home safe when you get off work at ungodly hours of the night, and knows to send you a sweet encouraging text when he hears you leave ungodly early.

It’s because of those messages that you start feeling too bad to handle. The first time, in a panic, you had answered the text with a raccoon gif. He responded with a sympathetic laughing emoji and you decided you sucked faking casualty and would simply restrain yourself from answering his morning texts. It’s been cleared out already that you should not be allowed to use a fucking cellphone.

He's too powerful though. The kindness of his texts and the guilt you’re facing directly proportionate to it adds to the fact that you miss him. It’s been five days and you miss him immensely. It’s when Eun who asks why the boys haven’t been around in so long that you realize you’re really being a bitch. He deserves better than that. Therefore, laying down on the sofa, legs propped on the armchair, naked feet shaking in anxiety in the air, you pick up your phone because you never learn apparently.

you : you wanna have a ““““spooky””””” movie night? Netflix put up the scream movies + pizzas

It's natural enough. Doesn't mention anything risky and that's perfect.

jungkook : I’m in busan rn

you : What? Why are you in Busan?

you : And since when?

jungkook : Two days. I’m coming home tomorrow night

jungkook : For a seminar

jungkook : And you would know if you were not so busy avoiding me

Well, here goes the not-mentioning-anything.

Another quirk of yours: when your mind is set on something, hardly anything can make your aim waver.

you : *gasp* I don’t appreciate being called out like that

Nicely played.

jungkook : Don’t care

But he's going to be difficult.

you : 😐 😐

jungkook : Are you embarrassed about the other night? That’s fucking dumb

you : You fucking dumb

jungkook : Why are you so embarrassed? I told you it’s fine

you : But it’s not though. I feel terrible still

jungkook : There’s no reason everybody gets horny

you : But I rubbed it in your face when clearly you don’t want it I’m verysorry

jungkook : Stop apologizing

And again, as always, it just goes smoothly. You don't understand this. It used to be so simple being friends with him. But lately, it's like everything is a challenge. You always doubt before being proven that yes, things are like they've always been. You have no reason to doubt your friendship, nor him. The weight lifted off of your chest feels incredible as it leaves, bringing a few relief tears to the corner of your right eye. It's the end of it, at last.

jungkook : who said I don’t want it

a/n : yes, it’s happening, (y)our name is back. Way sooner than expected but it’s kookie’s bday so i felt i had to give him another chance. So, there should be 2 other chapters to follow, all in reader’s pov. I’d really like to know what you guys think. I feel like it’s too messy (it took me a while to write and i’ve been feeling stressed out so i think it transpires too much). in any case, i really hope you enjoyed, i know a lot of you anticipated a sequel so i hope i don’t disappoint. i’ll try to have the second part up next week-end. until then, peace out boys scout!

& a happy birthday to our angel, please bid your well wishes hard enough so they can reach him.

Hugs and kisses and love to you all. 💜

▲ Comment ‘tag’ if you want to be tagged when I post the next part! ▲

#btssmutclub #gukkienet #btswriterscollective #jungkook smut #bts smut #bts angst #jungkook angst #bts fluff #jungkook fluff #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #my writing

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do-androids-dream-ao3acc · 4 years ago

Text

And my scars remind me that the past is real

TITLE: And my scars remind me that the past is real

SHIP (if applicable): Emhyr x Geralt / Can be read as GEN

PROMPT DAY: 5 (Loneliness)

MEDIUM (Netflix, Books, Games, Hexer): Witcher3

WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

SUMMARY: Asked about one of his scars, Geralt recalls a time when he was still very young and realized for the first time what life - and especially what end - was in store for him.

WORD COUNT: 4182

AUTHOR’S NOTES: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25083352

For @geraltwhumpweek

Every single lover has asked about his scars, even the whores. Most of them were interested in particular ones, although there were times when one wanted to know the story of each one. Emhyr never asked, not once, although he always takes the time to look at them - at him - very closely. But that night he does ask.The oddly shaped, thin scar in Geralt's armpit is easy to overlook - there are more impressive marks on this skin, which is why they are always so interesting for his counterparts. Larger, worse-healed scars tell of adventures, of interesting stories. Of monsters, of pain, perhaps of a mysterious cure - they are the stuff of dreams. He has stopped wondering about that a long time ago. So that night Emhyr asks about a scar for the first time, and it is one of the smallest, most inconspicuous scars, in a spot where it is hard to imagine that much damage has been done. Maybe he only asks because he wants to know if Geralt can actually remember each of these injuries - the thought seems really strange to him. He runs his finger over it, gently, almost carefully, as if this particular scratch was brand new. For him, it is. It's a strange spot, and the mark has a strange angle. "Is it impolite to ask where this comes from?" he says. Geralt's quiet laughter pierces through both their entwined bodies. "What's so funny?" "No one has ever wondered if they may ask," Geralt returns. "Really?" Emhyr watches him closely. He's still not sure exactly when the witcher is trying to be funny - at least he has a strange sense of humour. Geralt, on the other hand, finds it amusing that someone who could demand any information from any person cares to ask. This is new, and besides, he's never had a problem telling the stories before. In fact, he does remember each one. "It looks unremarkable, doesn't it? It is a good story. But it has no morals, nor does it end well." "Why doesn't it end well?" Emhyr demands to know. "Are you the sort of person who reads the end of a book first? You have to be patient. So, watch out: Once upon a time, there was a witcher …“

Once upon a time, there was a witcher named Geralt of Rivia, and let's just say he was pretty young and pretty stupid. No, let's say he was pretty inexperienced, because it was his fourth year on the Path, so he was still a bit like a baby learning to walk. There was a lot of wastage in those first years: most of them were happy if they survived the first year. It was autumn, and with a bit of luck the witcher would return to Kaer Morhen this year, and with even more luck most of his brothers would be there. But it was likely that not all of them would return. There would be no mourning, no farewell celebrations, and certainly no funerals. But nobody likes to think about that when the autumn sun is still warm and its light makes even the darkest areas like Velen seem cosy. In those years almost every small village had a monster problem. A good time to gain experience: Lots of drowners, tons of ghouls and even the odd alghul, nasty chorts, endregas, disgusting kikimores, water hags - just name a monster, he has seen it.At least that's what he thinks, he is confident and maybe a bit too full of himself. These are the years before Skellige, for him a siren is just a mythical figure; it will be decades until Touissant, before he sees a giant centipede for the first time …

„What happens then?" Geralt raises his eyebrows. "Don't interrupt the narrator. But anyway …" He lifts the light blanket, exposing one thigh. Then he points to one of the larger scars on the inside, thin and faint against his pale skin. There are a few here, most by nekkers actually, but this one is a little special. "The first reminder that these beasts are significantly longer than what is sticking out of the holes they dig in the ground above. Now, do you want to hear about this or shall I go on?" "No, go on. I particularly liked the part about the witcher being young and stupid.“ "I bet you did. Now listen.“

So the young and still somewhat inexperienced witcher believed that he already knew a lot of monsters, which he was wrong about, of course. He came through a village whose name he will not remember decades later, but in those years the names are not important either. There were enough villages, there was enough work. There was almost never enough coin, but he rarely went hungry. He directed his faithful horse - which was called Roach, of course - through the village, looked for the village headman and asked for work.The usual banter began, most of it stupid and redundant: "Whatcha got white hair, with a gob like that, you must have just learned to jerk off" and similar jokes. Four years weren't nearly enough time to get used to it, but he was making progress. No need to pity him anyway, for it was common knowledge that as a witcher he had no feelings - in every respect, so it didn't matter if someone threw rotten fruit at his head or insulted him. He remained polite, as he had been taught to be. So he asked for work, and they said, no, they don't need a witcher, it's a decent village. Actually. If it weren't for the old elven ruins, deep in the forest: a deserted, eerie place; a place for tests of courage for the young and for horror stories from the old. It was not a contract, because basically they seemed to have no problem and no real reason to be afraid, or at least they chose not to tell him. They told this story only because for some reason they thought that superstition, folklore and fairy tales would interest him. Or maybe just to get rid of him. And he was not yet so jaded - or so clever - that he would have missed the opportunity to explore a perhaps enchanted place. He was still very young. And he still believed that, if he should run into a problem - and the forests of those days had enough monsters - there would be someone who would pay him to take care of it. That was a mistake, it would take him quite a while to understand this. So the villagers saw him leave, watched as he turned towards the forest, and the whispering did not stop there. Some actually seemed surprised that he went there, but some called him an idiot to do so, and that might have told him something. However, he was an idiot in a way, so maybe not.

"He's still an idiot today," Emhyr says sleepily against Geralt's shoulder. "Is this story going anywhere?" "Not if you keep insulting me." "Is that so? My apologies, master witcher. But there better be a really nasty monster coming before I fall asleep." "Not to worry. The monster will come. Stay awake, or you'll miss it.“

The witcher rode into the forest, but soon had to dismount and leave his horse behind, because the forest was very dense and the ruins lay off the road. They were completely overgrown, it was easy to overlook them, unless you knew the area - or were a witcher. Now it was not very warm anymore, so deep in the forest, where the sun hardly shone through the dense treetops. But to the witcher the cold seemed almost unnatural - which was the first hint that something may be wrong. He penetrated further into the undergrowth, until the evidence of the elven culture became clearer and more visible: ancient, moss-covered stone slabs, perhaps benches; the remains of something similar to a bird bath. Perhaps this had once been a garden, but now, at any rate, there was nothing but green and dust and the somehow creepy feeling that he felt like an intruder. But since he was not allowed to have feelings, he was not afraid. A little adventurous, perhaps, but nothing more. Of course, that was quite stupid, and he would realize later that it can be very valuable and important to be afraid. But he roamed fearlessly through the legacies of the elves, and since there was nothing else here - neither monsters nor treasures nor adventure - he soon regretted he had set out here, for nothing. As in every good story, he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye just at the moment he had already decided to leave. Quickly he turned around, and he felt as if he had heard a sound - not the sound of footsteps, nor of any animals in the undergrowth, more like a distant, unearthly laugh. Now his attention was caught, and he got down on his knees and searched the ground for traces; for anything that might indicate that there was or might have been someone else here. But these kind of tracks were easy to miss, at least if you didn't know what to look for, and he didn't know it yet. He kept moving in the approximate direction the sound came from. And then he saw her. Only a few steps away from him a woman was sitting on something that once might have been masonry, but now there were only meaningless stones, overgrown with ivy. She was a beautiful, young woman with long, scarlet hair, dressed in a simple robe. He wondered, of course, what she was doing in the middle of the forest, so he addressed her.

"Is this turning into some kind of weird sex story now?“ "What, why?" "If not, I wonder why it matters what color of hair she had," Emhyr countered. The remark could not be entirely dismissed, considering Geralt's past. "Of course it matters, you'll see why. And furthermore: The witcher is much too young, such experiences are still ahead of him." "For heaven's sake, how young is he?" "Maybe he's a late bloomer? In any case, nobody ever had scruples about sending very young men into battle, did they?" All he gets is a snort. "Stop interrupting me. So, he spoke to her …“

He spoke to her, asked her what she was doing in the forest, and she looked at him thoughtfully. "People say this place is haunted," she eventually said. "All the more reason not to roam here," he replied. She stood up, moved towards him, and his witcher's medallion vibrated. That was the moment he put two and two together. Because he was young and inexperienced, but in the end not quite so stupid after all. The lessons were all still fresh, he could quote from the bestiary at any time. And he was a quick thinker - and far too bold in the face of danger. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, and the woman was surprised and stopped. She hadn't expected this noise, nor the horse that suddenly came trotting out of the bushes with some effort. The woman - only that she was not a woman, of course - looked at the horse curiously. It seemed as if she was trying to understand what it all meant, and that gave the witcher enough time to search the saddlebags for the one vial he needed, for the one potion he had never used yet before. Perhaps she too was still inexperienced, though certainly not young in the true sense of the word, but she did not stop him; she only watched curiously as he drank the potion. She continued to watch him as he hesitated briefly and reached for another vial that was in the bag strapped around his chest, to drink this too. Obviously she didn't understand what purpose this served - which was perhaps the only reason why he got the opportunity to do it at all. If she found it strange that he looked completely different after that, she didn't let it show. And why should she care - she was clearly not human, and although he hardly reminded of a human being now, that would not stop her. It was strange that she didn't say anything besides the few words she had uttered earlier. In later years he would meet others of her kind who were very talkative, loquacious almost. But she said nothing, just looked at him. Then she brushed her hair back behind one ear, and he saw that it was pointed. It was fitting that she had chosen the ancient ruins as her habitat. It was easy to mistake her for an elf - a mistake that would be fatal for anyone who dared to pass by here. A second later she suddenly stood very close to him. That was when he realized for the first time how fast these creatures were, and he was just glad she was not a bruxa. This encounter was yet to come, but that's another scar and another story. She was now so close that he could smell her, and whoever got that close had to notice that behind the beautiful facade hid horror. For she was an alp, of which her red hair and pointed ears were a testimony. The witcher knew as little about her as about all other vampires, at least in practice. In theory he knew enough of course, at least everything he had been taught. So he drew the sword, the silver sword of course, because she was susceptible to that. Her gaze was still just curious, but it was clear that she understood what he was holding in his hand and what purpose it served. Surprisingly she retreated, and a blink of an eye later she disappeared from his field of vision. He knew that these creatures were fast, but that they were so fast, he could not have known. She suddenly stood behind him, and it was only thanks to his excellent reflexes that her first blow came to nothing. The alp seemed to have instinctively understood that danger was coming from the witcher, so she used the moment of surprise. But he could still dodge. Her appearance had changed: she was now naked, but her pale, almost translucent body was not meant to look attractive. Her face was a grotesque grimace, the long, pointed teeth a clear warning; and her fingers were now horrifying claws. The alp attacked, and the witcher jumped back, rolled off, came back to his feet, and raised the sword just in time to fend off her claws, which struck the blade with a horrible noise. The horse got nervous and took off, and the fight went on. The witcher hit the alp a few times, but she hit him too, and her claws were as sharp as his blade. In the past four years some monsters had wounded him, and he already had one or two scars, and it always hurt. People might like to think that he had no emotions, but that didn't mean that he didn't feel anything. On the contrary: he felt every cut she made on him, felt every time her sharp claws tore his skin open, how the steel-hard tips pierced through his flesh. He could only hope that she felt his blows as well. In any case, they were both soon covered in blood, which looked strangely vulgar on her bare skin and only made her even more incited. She was fast, much faster than he could have imagined, and yet she was so unnaturally quiet. All the monsters the witcher had met before had made sounds: they hissed, shrieked or roared when they were hurt. But she made no sound. Her red hair had become disheveled, her face terribly distorted, no longer human, no longer beautiful. And then she jumped at him, in such a hasty movement that he neither saw her coming nor could have avoided her. He lost the sword, it slipped from his hand as she forced him onto his back with a tremendous force. Now he lay under her, she sat on his chest, took his breath. Her mouth was wide open, so that he could see her long teeth, the pointed teeth with the tips of which the paralytic poison dripped like some obscene precum. His arms were free, and he reached for her with one hand - to push her away, or to beat her; to do anything. She just knocked the hand away and then she bent over; she stank horribly of death and dying, and she sank her teeth into his neck. She drank his blood, and this feeling was almost worse than the pain of his ripped neck. It was pointless to try to tear her away from him, but at least he wouldn't give up without a fight. So the witcher desperately groped for the dagger he always carried with him on his hip. Though he imagined he could feel the poison entering his veins - and he had no idea what effect it would have on him - he eventually had the dagger in his hand, and he thrust it into her back. The alp hissed softly now - her first sound of misery - and finally let go of him. He used this moment to smack her in her face. It was of course a useless move, but it had the desired effect: She was confused for a second. He reared up and shook her off. Then he jumped to his feet, and although she was confused and hurt, she was actually still faster than him. He reached his sword at the same moment she caught him: his fingers closed around the handle, she leapt at him and threw him to the ground again. He held the sword, this time he held it tight, but she pulled his arm up, pinned him down. Then she thrust with her other hand. She took only her index finger, which now didn't even look like a finger anymore, which was now just a long, sharp weapon: a blade as sharp as a sword, only much thinner. She pushed this claw through his chest at the side of his armpit. It was a long claw, and it tore tissue and muscles and tendons along the way, stabbing at his ribs. The claw was as hard as iron, and it was so sharp that it pierced right through one, and it broke, which he felt very clearly. It felt like she had pierced his lungs, because for a moment he just could not breathe; and that pain was new, one he would never get used to. She was now half sitting on him again, pushing further and further, bending over him, drilling. But before she reached his heart, he managed to free his hand with the sword. He pushed, but because he couldn't aim, he hit her hand, he pushed in the sword so deeply that the wrist was only hanging on single tendons when he pulled the sword back. She hissed, much louder now, and yanked her hand back, but the claw got stuck, got stuck in him. And then, eventually, the alp started twitching uncontrollably. She put a hand to her throat and stared at him in disbelief. Because finally, the potion worked, and she staggered back a little; thick, dark liquid coming out of her mouth. He raised his sword once more, reared up, and he hit her neck with pinpoint accuracy. It is a rumor that severed heads fly for miles: in fact, it didn't get far, it landed not far from his own head, which had now sunk to the ground again in exhaustion. Her dull eyes stared into the sky. It took the body a second longer to realize that it was over - she fell down, twitching, killed by a good pinch of black blood. The one potion he had never had to take before. His strength was just enough to push the lifeless body away from him. The witcher thought that he would have something to tell when he returned to Kaer Morhen that winter. If he did return. For now, as the adrenaline left his system, he realized that he had won, and yet he felt defeated. He lay on his back in that godforsaken forest, among elven ruins, cursed ruins that could only serve as a test of courage at best, and he could barely move. He lay there, staring at the sky, wondering because there were no stars. The clouds were thick and there were no stars, and he found it cruel that he had to die without seeing stars. For now he was firmly convinced that he would die: The poison of the alp set in, and he was sure it would be fatal. Perhaps it had its good points, because little by little the pain would disappear. He bled from numerous wounds into the moss and grass beneath him, and he was bleeding inside, he felt that as well as every single cut. The rib she had broken hurt him the most; his breath escaped him whistling, and he tried to breathe shallowly. It still hurt. Most wounds were superficial, which did not mean that they did not hurt, but if he would have survived, most of these wounds would close and heal without any problems. But this one, that stitch on the side, that would scar, and what kind of ridiculous scar would that be? When they met in winter, they still proudly showed each other every single scar, at least the younger ones among them. Those experiences were still new, and every scar meant an adventure and a monster killed. But a funny little scar under the armpit was hardly suitable for showing off. However, that probably didn't matter anymore, because while the poison was flowing through his veins, her paralytic poison - her last, damned gift - he felt that he couldn't move his hands anymore to get to his potions. He could die from this poison or the toxicity itself, it did not matter. If he had ever thought about what it would be like to die - and after four years he usually didn't think about it - it wasn't like that: Not on the forest floor in a godforsaken place, while he felt his blood soaking the earth, beginning to stick to him. Not with all the pain that tore him apart. Not so young. And especially not so alone. He thought of all his brothers, he thought of the damned Vesemir - would anybody miss him? It was only logical that a witcher should die alone. No witcher would die in his bed, they said, but he certainly would die alone. That his only company would be the corpse of an alp was somehow ironic, the stuff of nightmares. This was the first time he really understood his fate. Those were the years where he still thought he was doing good to the world. But now he finally realized, that to this world, he did not matter. He stared up, the sky was still cloudy, still no stars. A fitting demise for a witcher: no company, no stars, no happy ending. He would die alone.

Geralt remains silent after this, and after a few heartbeats Emhyr looks at him in surprise. "That was it? That was the end? That's a pretty gruesome story, I must say." "I told you, it didn’t end well.“ "But you survived.“ Geralt shrugs. "None of it was fatal. The blood loss was considerable, of course, but the paralytic poison was actually helpful: The bleeding stopped. And because I could no longer move, there was no danger of moving the claw somehow, so that it would have punctured an organ after all. Eventually it was clear that I would not die, not even from the poison, but that poison worked all night." "So you lay in those ruins all night? All alone?" "It was pretty lonely," Geralt admits. “But there were many nights like that.“ He is silent for a moment, lost in thought, until he feels Emhyr's lips on his shoulder. "But not anymore," he says."What happened then?" "Not much. Morning came, I very carefully pulled the claw from my armpit, I got up, I took care of the injuries, and rode with the head of the alp to the nearest duchy to claim money for it. There wasn't any, so I threw the head at the treasurer’s feet and went to the nearest tavern to get drunk." "Mmm," Emhyr ponders. "I still wonder if all this isn't a gross exaggeration. Maybe you made the story up just to impress me." Geralt laughs softly. "Why would I want to impress you?" "I have no idea. But you better not lie to your emperor." "You're not my emperor,“ Geralt replies automatically. "And I would never lie to you." But that is a lie, and they both know it.

#geraltwhumpweek #geralt whump week 2020 #@geraltwhumpweek

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