#Liu is tired and has bags under his eyes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yeoandmoon · 3 years ago

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you are now listening to graceland too by phoebe bridgers! ( yeosang x f!reader )

fluff, burnout!yeosang, bassist!yeosang, writer!reader, childhood friends 2 lovers but also idiots 2 lovers, yeosang and reader run away, seongjoong are engaged, wooyoung + yeonjun have a band, there is only one bed, yeosang has a nose ring, it’s implied reader has a bad relationship with her mother, wc is 3.1k

NOTE: happy yeosang day! this was a doozy to write, but i hope you all enjoy it! its based off one of my favourite phoebe bridgers songs! :)

There’s a mural on the wall of the hotel lobby. It’s a warm toned painting of a forest, with a hint of a bright blue sky peeking out from the top of the trees. There’s a moose standing at the forefront of the mural, and a little fox sleeping on a rock towards the bottom, surrounded by colourful flowers and leaves.

The mural confused you, if you were being honest. The hotel you worked the night audit at was situated in the busy downtown centre of the city you lived in, and there were barely any forests for miles around the city - let alone any wildlife, like moose or foxes. Hongjoong said it was to make guests feel more ‘in touch with nature’ and to help people forget about the ‘problems of the real world’, while Yeosang claimed it was ‘just another scam in the tourist trap’.

You, on the other hand, was sure the mural was put there to torture you. You would spend nights having staring contests with the moose (which, to your surprise, you always lost), or you would spend hours on Google with Hongjoong trying to find out what species of fox the sleeping fox was (you were sure it was a cape fox, while Hongjoong swore up and down that it was a gray fox). The blue sky between the trees teased you; a reminder that most of your days were spent in the library at your university, or in this dimly lit lobby.

Sometimes, it felt like the only time you saw the sunshine was when you were with Yeosang.

Despite the occasional burnout and the lack of seeing sun most days, you didn’t mind the job. You were always more of a night person, and your classes were always later in the day so you did manage to pull in some sleep. Due to the late hours, you usually only dealt with customers in the first hour or two of your shift, and most of that was just directing confused Ubereats delivery people and pretty Tinder dates to hallways and rooms. It was the perfect job to work on your writing, and get your school work out of the way without listening to your mother cry about how you’re throwing your life away like your sister.

Plus, you could think of a hundred worse people to spend the night shift with than the nighttime valet, Hongjoong. Hongjoong often kept you occupied with his latest reforms and art projects, and stories about his fiancee, Seonghwa & their friend, Yunho (who he kept insisting you needed to go on a date with).

“Your emo boy is coming.”

Well, you could think of ninety-nine worse people to spend the night shift with than Hongjoong, who sat next to you at the check-in desk.

You scoff, “He’s not my emo boy.” You mumble, glancing at the street entrance to see Yeosang walk in with an ice coffee on hand.

Despite your words, Kang Yeosang was your person (you wouldn’t quite use the term ‘emo boy’, even if it did fit), and he had been since your family moved in next door to his family when you two were children. Although your friendship lately had been reduced to these late night meetings while you two were on break on your respective graveyard shifts (you at the hotel and Yeosang at the convenience store down the block, of course) and occasional meetings in the garden when you were both running errands for your families, you still considered Yeosang one of your dearest memories.

It was hard not too, you suppose. He had been there for many of your firsts, and was always cheering you on. Yeosang always made you feel powerful and important - like a powerful heroine, and not his bratty next door neighbor who cried on his doorstep after being dumped by her first year partner. He always made you feel wanted.

Yeosang grinned at you as he stepped into the lobby (if your heart fluttered in your chest, you ignored it). He had on a backwards dad cap, and he had recently changed his nose ring out for the gold hoop San had bought him for his birthday. You could just faintly see his birthmark peeking out from where his bleach blonde hair curled under the hat.

“Hello, Sunshine.” He greets you, setting the coffee down on your desk.

You set the pen you were holding down, “Hi Yeosang.”

Upon first glance at Yeosang, you can tell he’s buzzing about something. He’s leaning over the check-in counter and chewing on his lip while making small talk with Hongjoong about the tourist season.

You raise an eyebrow, sipping your coffee as Yeosang turns back to you, “Do you remember Wooyoung and Yeonjun?”

You nearly choke on your coffee at the mention of your other neighbor and ex-boyfriend. Wooyoung had moved onto your street a few years after you had, and quickly became apart of the little bond you and Yeosang had formed. He moved to the coast with Yeonjun, your ex, the first chance they had gotten, but Wooyoung’s family remained in the neighborhood.

“I babysat Woo’s brother the other day…” You watched your friend, “Did something happen? Mrs Jung didn’t say anything the other day.”

Yeosang grins, and it’s his scheming grin, “Their band got signed,” He tells you, “They need a new bassist, and Wooyoung showed them that video you took of me from that show last month. Their label wants me to come down; play a few shows with them, record a couple demos. See if we have chemistry, basically.”

Your eyes widen - both out of excitement and fear. You were happy and excited for Yeosang! This is the opportunity he had been wanting for years, but you were also terrified.

You were terrified in a horrible, selfish way because you knew if Yeosang left to join Wooyoung and Yeonjun, he’d never come back to you.

“That’s… That’s great, Yeo!” You manage a grin whilst trying to shove the selfish thoughts away, “When do they want you there?”

Yeosang’s smile falters, just for a moment but you still catch it, “Monday.”

“F-Five days?”

He nods, “I’m leaving Saturday morning, so I can be there Sunday afternoon.”

You can see it in his eyes; he’s terrified too.

Before you can say anything else, Yeosang leans over the check-in counter and presses a chaste kiss to your forehead, “I have to get back to work, Sunshine.” He tells you, his voice quiet as if he’s giving you a secret, “I’ll see you later.”

He’s already halfway down the lobby when you swear and move out of your chair, you quickly call his name as you move out from behind the desk. You rush over to where he’s standing, and look up at him. He’s confused.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the words die in his throat when you pull him into a tight hug, “I’m proud of you, Yeo.”

Yeosang wraps his arms around you, pulling you closer to him. His chest is warm, and you’re sure you could spend hours here. He smiles, pressing another kiss to your head, “I know, Sunshine.” He pulls away, his hand on your arm, “I really do have to go, though. I’m already late for work.”

You nod, wrapping your arms around your torso as you watch him leave the hotel and turn down the street to go back to the convenience store. When you turn back around, Hongjoong is watching you with an amused look on his face.

You glare at him as you walk back to the desk, “Don’t you have a fiance to call, or something?”

----------------

You were tired.

Friday nights were always busy, but tonight was draining and loud and you could only take so much of Miss Liu’s incessant phone calls about mundane things at 3am. All you wanted to do was go home, and fall into your bed and sleep for hours.

Hongjoong didn’t help your mood either. It was an innocent question about Yeosang, asking if you’d seen him since he visited you on his break but it pushed your mood down to a low point. You had been so busy the past few days, and if you were being honest with yourself, you had been avoiding Yeosang.

You weren’t ready to see him leave. You knew it was selfish, but you figured avoiding Yeosang was easier than admitting you didn’t want him to leave you behind. You would just simply watch his life through Instagram and consider the ‘what-ifs’ in your life.

You shouldered your tote bag after clocking out before yelling a good-bye to Hongjoong. You could see the beginning rays of morning sun hitting the other buildings in the downtown core as you stepped out the employee doors, and then you were hit by the sight of Yeosang leaning against one of the pillars.

Your eyes widen, “Yeosan-”

“Come with me.”

You stop. Your words are left in your throat, “W-Wh… Go with you? To the coast?”

Yeosang nods, “Come with me,” He steps forward, taking your hands in his, “What do you have here? A degree you don’t care about? A job you hate?”

You frown, running over his words in your head, “I-I have my mom. And… I have Hongjoong!”

He raises an eyebrow, “Y/N, Sunshine… Your mom will barely notice you’re gone, and Hongjoong can visit us.” He cupped your cheek.

You’re so busy having an internal crisis you hardly notice the usage of ‘us’. You’re considering the logistics in your head. Yeosang was right; you didn’t care about your degree, and all it would take was an email saying you quit for them to find a new front desk person. Your mom would be upset for a few weeks. She’d probably make some passive aggressive Facebook posts about you before acting like your best friend again.

“Yeosang…” You look up at him, your hand coming up to circle around his wrist.

“Your sister is there, and you could write everyday.” Yeosang adds on, “I did the math, Y/N. Between the two of us, we’d have 6 months to figure it out. 6 months, and we’ll come back here if nothing works out.”

You stay silent for a moment.

“Sunshine, I promised I’d show you the stars, didn’t I?”

You gasp at the promise. It was a silly promise he had made when you were both kids; something you’d almost forgotten about.

It hits you quickly: there’s no one else you’d rather run away with. There’s no one else you’d trust to run away with.

You look up at Yeosang, “Yes.”

He grins, “Yes?”

You nod, “Yes, Yeo. I’ll go with you.”

----------------

An hour. An hour was how long it took for you to turn your life upside down for Kang Yeosang.

In an hour, you had emailed your program advisor and told them you wouldn’t be returning for the next semester, and you had called your manager and told them you wouldn’t be coming in for your next shift, or any shift after that (which was promptly followed by a phone call from Hongjoong, who seemed more excited about this than you were). You had packed up most of your clothes and important belongings, and they were loaded into the back of Yeosang’s shitty car. You left a note for your mother, and before you knew it, you were sitting in the passenger’s seat of Yeosang’s car.

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You had fallen asleep barely an hour into the car ride.

The rolling hills and fields outside your window made your eyes feel heavier, but you tried staying awake to keep Yeosang company.

“Go to sleep, Sunshine.” He tells you, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Yeosang’s promise was all it took for you to succumb to your exhaustion.

You don't usually remember your dreams. Though today, there are flashes of a beach, and a smile that takes your breath away. There are blue skies and if you try hard enough, you can just faintly smell sea salt.

You wake up hours later, smiling. True to his word, Yeosang is still there when you wake. He’s wearing a pair of sunglasses, and tapping his fingers to the beat of the song on the radio.

Yeosang smiles when he notices you’re awake, “I talked to your mother.”

Your eyes widen, “You talked to who?”

He laughs, “You didn’t answer your phone, so she called me.”

You frown, glancing at your phone in the free cup holder. You could imagine the amount of calls and texts that were in there.

“She wasn’t very happy.” Yeosang continues, “She wants you to call her when we get there.”

You nod, “Thank you, Yeo.” You say softly, looking over at him.

Yeosang throws you a smile, “Of course.”

“Not just for talking to my mom…” You watch him, “For not leaving me behind, too. Thank you.”

Yeosang reaches over, taking your hand, “I’d never leave you behind, Sunshine. You’d have to try really hard to get rid of me.”

----------------

The car ride was long, and full of Yeosang’s early 2000s emo playlist & fast food. You called your sister, who was ecstatic to hear about your plans and had immediately offered you and Yeosang her beach house. She made a comment about how ‘she always knew you two would end up together’, and it made your heart flutter when you glanced at Yeosang.

Yeosang told you about Wooyoung’s band, and how excited he was to play with Wooyoung. You smiled, listening to him fondly talk about your old friends and their music.

It was getting late though, and you could see it in Yeosang’s face that he was getting tired.

“We should stop for the night.” You tell him, “You’ve been driving since 6am, Yeo.”

He huffs, “We could drive through the night.” He proposes, “We’d make it to your sister’s place in a few hours.”

You frown, “Or... We could stop for the night, shower, and then leave first thing tomorrow morning. We'll get there by noon tomorrow.”

Yeosang glances at you, going to protest. He ends up yawning instead, his nose wrinkling slightly, “Fine.” He pouts.

You laugh, reaching for your phone to google the closest hotels. There's a comfortable silence in the car, filled with the occasional beat of Yeosang’s fingers on the steering wheel. You feel at ease, even if it's just for a moment.

“There’s a motel off the next exit.” You tell him, stifling a yawn of your own.

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Sure enough, there had been a motel off the next exit. It was small and slightly rundown, but cheap and had an available room. You waited in the car while Yeosang went into the check-in office, promising to be back in a moment.

He came back dangling a key in his hand, and a slight frown on his face as he opened the car door to let you out.

“So... There’s only one bed.” He broke the news, a blush growing up his cheeks, “It’s all they had, unless we wanted to drive another hour down the highway.”

Your eyes widen, “O-Oh.” You glance at the key, and then back up at Yeosang, “I’ll sleep on the floor, or something.”

Yeosang frowns, shaking his head, “We can share for one night, Sunshine. I think it’ll be okay.”

Which leads you to here; lying almost nose to nose with Yeosang. Your hair was soaking wet from a shower in the tiny bathroom and the small motel bed wasn’t comfortable, but you didn’t seem to mind as you took in the man in front of you. You pushed the strands of bleach blonde hair out of his face, and your fingers softly lingered on the birthmark next to his eye.

His breath stuttered, “Y/N,” He says, his voice a mere whisper, “We’re free.”

You let your hand rest against his cheek. Your eyes lingered on his lips before you caught yourself, moving your gaze back up to his eyes.

Yeosang only smiled at you. He gently held your wrist as he tilted his head and placed a soft kiss on your palm, “I’m going to kiss you now, Sunshine.”

“Yes please.”

You felt every nerve in your body light up when Yeosang kissed you.

A small part of your brain told you that this is where you’re meant to be: in Yeosang’s arms.

You felt this way the first time Yeosang had kissed you too, all the way back on that roof in 11th grade. You two had been talking about the future; about your writing and Yeosang’s music. You looked up at the hazy night sky, and you asked Yeosang if you’d ever get to see the stars.

He smiled at you, telling you that he would show them to you one day before he kissed you so sweetly.

Yeosang still kissed you sweetly. He kissed you like you held the secrets of the universe in your hand for him to take.

You pulled away, “I think I love you.”

He smiles against your lips, rubbing soft circles into your wrist, “I think I love you too, baby.”

—————-

You had this assumption that the next morning would be awkward; that you would be stuck for the next 6 months with someone you could barely look in the eye because of a late night confession.

Instead, you awoke to Yeosang kissing your head and placing a bagel & ice coffee down for you. He had quickly ushered you into the shower, before you put on a change of clothes and were quickly led out to the car between bites of your bagel. This all happened over Yeosang telling you how you only had a few hours before you reached your sister’s beach house, and he wanted to try and make good time so you could enjoy the beach today.

You giggled at his antics before settling into the passenger’s seat for the last few hours of your journey.

You sipped your ice coffee as you watched out the window. The countryside on the highway zoomed by you, and the car was full of sunlight from Yeosang’s sunroof being open. There was a Fall Out Boy song on the radio, and you felt a sense of calm brush over you as Yeosang took your hand in his.

The sunshine had never felt so nice on your skin as Yeosang pressed a soft kiss to the back of your hand.

taglist: @vanishingboots @sunsethw4

#ateez imagines #ateez fluff #ateez scenarios #ateez x reader #kang yeosang fluff #kang yeosang imagines #b.

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whatifxwereyou · 3 years ago

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The Oncoming Storm Part 21: Huangshan

Liu Kang x Reader and Kung Lao x Reader (gonna do both, two paths!)

Listen, I am giving myself whiplash with how much I keep wildly swinging between whether I prefer Liu or Lao LOL. Hope you guys are having just as much fun! I missed Liu. Lawd, did I miss him. Also I did not intend for it to take this long to get to the CHOICE. It's coming after the part with Liu and some plot stuff that has to happen to trigger it! Also, I miss Chen, so she'll be back after Huangshan. ALSO have you looked at pictures of this place?? SO PRETTY!! Much love, hope you are all well. <3 Thank you for the love as always. I appreciate you so much.

Next Update on Saturday. New story on Sunday!!

Part 20 Part 22 Chapter Index

Kung Lao was a bruised, bloodied, and pale mess the next morning and much of your spare moments were spent tending to wounds and trying to get him to sit for a damn minute. He fought you at every second, as if taking care of himself would somehow make it worse.

The morning dragged on, and you were grateful to check out and make your way to the roof. Kung Lao closed his eyes, praying, and lightning struck the roof for you to travel through. It was still weird and a little beyond belief, but you’d fought a monster last night, so you had to suspend your inner skeptic and go with the flow. You handed over the carefully wrapped bell which Raiden set behind him on a pedestal that had been added since you left.

He thanked you for your duty and you offered Kung Lao a hug and tried to convince him, again, to take care of himself. He insisted he was fine, of course, but also wished you good luck. You wasted no time. Raiden summoned his magic lightning again, offered you a neatly written note from Liu, and then you were alone.

The weather in Huangshan was gloomy, just the way you liked it. The sky was gray and rumbling with thunder, the slightest hint of sun peeking through to offer warmth between the gaps in the clouds. You unfolded the note as you walked along the tourist filled streets. He’d even started the note with niceties. Oh, Liu. He hoped you were well, he found you a place to stay and took some liberties that he hoped you were okay with. He also left you a time and place to meet him. It was the lobby of the hotel that he had booked for the occasion.

You were early and it felt nice to be alone. Your nerves were shot from the lack of sleep the night before and from Kung Lao’s… everything. A walk alone would do you some good. The small town halfway up the mountain was geared toward tourists. Hotels, boutiques, restaurants, and the like.

You’d missed China. Japan had been beautiful but this was home.

You stopped a man who looked confident in his way around town and asked him for directions to the hotel that Liu had written about. You bowed politely as he pointed you in the right direction. As you turned the corner, you heard a choir of angels in your head. Clothing stores. Real clothing stores. This was how you were going to blow the rest of your money.

You spent the rest of your alone time shopping and afterward you were proud to say you’d had enough clothing for an actual wardrobe. Different kinds of shoes, cute and practical, underthings, things to wear to bed, casual things, dressy things. Things you never would have allowed yourself to spend money on before. Money didn’t seem to matter as much as it had before all this. Then you’d bought a little bag to pack it all in and shoved it away. You’d got some other necessities too, things that had seemed everyday basics had become luxuries.

You’d changed after purchasing your clothing and jeans and a t-shirt had never felt so good. Even though you’d bought a bunch of new things you decided to keep the hanfu and gi that you had been gifted. You liked them well enough. It was the lack of choice that had bothered you.

The Huangshan Yeechoi hotel was more modern than the one in Japan had been and much tidier. You felt out of place, but no one gave you a second glance, so you were grateful. It wasn’t that it was fancy, just that it was different than you had expected. There had been no room number in the note Liu had left you, just instructions to meet him in the lobby.

Thankfully, Liu Kang came from the stairwell moments after you arrived. You’d been just about to ask the clerk behind the desk for his room number and so instead you dismissed the clerk and walked to join Liu. He’d gotten new clothes too! How nice. Not much different from what he usually wore but it was novel to see him in something other than the three gi that he rotated daily. It was mostly black, except for the red sash around the middle, a different shade of red than usual, and the sleeves looked like they had been torn off- as if he had been terribly angry that they existed. There was a subtle pattern stitched in white on the side of the gi. It looked to you like an abstract dragon, but you didn’t linger long on it. As always, his prayer beads were wrapped around his wrist.

He greeted you with a smile and stopped just before you with a respectful bow. “It’s good to see you, Y/N.” His smile faded quickly as he stood upright, and you averted your eyes immediately. Bruises. There were bruises and you knew he was going to hate it. You’d briefly forgotten about them with all the other craziness.

“Good to see you too, Liu!” You tried to save face, but it was too late.

“Japan must have been something.” He furrowed his brow with concern and tilted your chin up to get a better look at your neck. Your face was instantly red. “Are you okay?” That had been the worst of it, but you’d barely had time to think of it that morning because Kung Lao had been so much worse off than you were. You should have worn a scarf. Damnit. It looked bad when you thought about it. Like you were either being abused or had a very specific kink.

“It was an adventure but I’m fine. I promise. It’s obviously sore and bruised but I feel great otherwise.” You were tired, so that was an exaggeration, but it felt good to have accomplished something and to be out of the temple. He continued to examine the bruise as if he didn’t believe you, so you swiped his hand from your chin, gave it a squeeze and then set it down. His disbelief faded and his smile returned. Your nerves about your connection, your friendship, returned screaming into your brain.

“You brought a bag?” He gestured behind you. You realized that probably seemed funny since you had no intention of staying for too long.

“…yes.”

“Well, the woman at the front desk will make sure it gets to our room. We have plenty to do.” Liu rested his hand on the middle of your back and guided you to the front desk. You spoke to the clerk there. She was incredibly accommodating. Liu offered her your room information and you handed over the bag. Then you went on your way. He led you from the lobby of the hotel and walked slowly through the streets of the tourist town. “Tell me about Japan.”

Boy, there was a lot to say about Japan, but you figured he probably meant the artifact and how you’d fared.

“There was a monster which I didn’t think existed so, processing that.” You were surprised to hear Liu Kang laugh. You’d had a lot to process that had been otherwise beyond belief. “It was protecting a dotaku which I now know is a decorative bell used in rituals during ancient times. The monster was very grabby.” You gestured to your neck. At least it hadn’t left a bruise when it had backhanded you across the room. The last thing you needed was people looking at you like you were in an abusive relationship. At least the neck thing could be explained away for the most part.

“Tell me about the monster.”

“Monster is maybe not the right word for it uh… okay, never mind, it’s the only word for it. It was made from tar and stunk to high heaven, and it was huge.” You jumped so you could reach the height of the monster, which was higher than your jump, but Liu would get the point. He was an excellent listener.

“How did Kung Lao handle that?”

“Oh, you know, like Kung Lao does.”

“Chaotically?” Liu chuckled.

“I’ve never seen one man thrown through so many doors.” You drifted off and he laughed again. The sound of his laughter was sweet, not as hearty as Lao’s but more under his breath and twisting his face into the cutest smile. You’d made Kung Lao out of ink to protect you. That seemed important but you hadn’t processed it yet, really. Your brain was buffering.

“Really though, is he okay?”

“Much worse off than I was because of all the doors and walls but I took care of him the best he would allow. I’m hoping he’ll actually keep his promise to go to the infirmary.”

“Raiden will make sure he does.” Liu reassured you. “Trust me, this won’t be the first time he has to be dragged there. Or likely the last.” He stopped, looked you over and then continued, purposely avoiding eye contact. “Was he on his best behavior?”

“Is he so often in trouble that I should have been that worried?”

“Kung Lao doesn’t like to listen to directions, and he was with you and I know how he is so…” He glanced at you curiously again and you laughed in disbelief. Liu Kang was fishing for information! Interesting. Now that you knew they gossiped about you, you wondered what exactly the gossip consisted of. They were up to something, and you were going to get to the bottom of it. Maybe you had spent too much time with Kung Lao. Liu Kang had always been honest with you, you thought, and now you were suspicious of every word. “He has a track record for trouble, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t give you a hard time.”

“If you have something to ask me, Liu, then you should just ask me instead of this little word dance you’re doing. Are you feeling me out for information and what about?”

“I say what I mean, Y/N.” Liu knit his brow in confusion but still smiled at you. You sighed because that didn’t seem right. Something was off. He could be frustrating too sometimes, you supposed. He had a way of saying things without saying what he meant to say and leaving you guessing at what he had meant. You’d had so many close calls between you now romantically. At least four that you could think of offhand that had nearly killed you. But then it was like nothing had happened. You didn’t talk about it. There was no follow through. If he said what he meant to say, then what did saying nothing mean?

That hurt.

And they’d gossiped about you. Kung Lao and Liu Kang had in some way gossiped about you. You clenched your jaw in frustration. You didn’t have time for this. You had work to do.

“We can talk about it later.” You decided. “Have you figured out anything about where we should go?” That had been the reason he’d gone early you’d been told but you had no idea what was true and what wasn’t anymore. Your head was mixed up and your brain was buzzing.

“Yes. One of the areas from your vision is called the Seas of Cloud. Raiden mentioned that you saw images of deceased emperors, so I was looking into that too.”

“It was in quick flashes. I didn’t understand what they were at first.”

“There are tales about this place and the yellow emperor after which it is named. He used the waters of the springs here to gain eternal life in these stories.”

“Is that your way of saying that you think the springs might be related?”

“Anything is possible, but I figured it was worth looking into. There were springs in your vision too if I recall.”

“Yeah. I saw a bunch of dead emperors and a spring, but it wasn’t… it was different than I expect the ones here to be? It was in a cavern. It felt secret.” You admired the gray sky but still felt tense all over. You had to breathe and let it go but the more you tried the more frustrated you became. “So, we’re narrowing it down to the springs and the Cloud Sea?”

“Yes. We aren’t too far from either of them but it’s still an endeavor to explore. Yet, it is less than the whole of Huangshan.”

“Probably somewhere between if I had to guess. I followed him in my vision through the mountains up to the clouds and into this cavern that had a spring inside it. Oh! Do they have maps of the mountain? Sometimes with places like this they will list caves on the little brochure to explore.”

“I thought of that. Regrettably, the caves are not mapped out and most are off limits without a tour guide.”

“What if we told them that we lived in a cave. Do you think that would help or cast aspersions?” You considered. There you were, trying to defer your frustration and inner struggle with sarcasm again. Liu chuckled.

“Probably the latter. We know what we’re looking for at least and it shouldn’t take terribly long to hike the area. If we don’t find it then we can start to worry.”

“I have a feeling that it’s secret. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to find. Maybe we should try to feel around for information instead of wandering blind?” You stopped walking, trying to take things more seriously. That was hard.

“I suppose that we can play tourist. We’ll stop at the springs and ask an attendant if they know anything about a secret or hidden spring in the caves.” Liu suggested. At least it was a better lie than fake date.

“Fine.” You said flatly and were annoyed with yourself almost immediately. This would be so much easier if your visions weren’t all over the place and fuzzy.

“You seem irritated.”

“Oh?” You bounced on your heels and shook it off. You were sulking. You had to cut it out. “No. I’m sorry, Liu. I didn’t mean to come off that way.”

“Are you sure, Y/N? Because you seem… annoyed and that’s not like you. If I’ve done something to offend you then we should discuss it.”

Oh no. He was good at confrontation. Damnit. “No, you didn’t do anything like that, Liu.” He had but not on purpose, you were sure. You were just touchy after the day before and overthinking. You had to stomp out that inner voice, but it was so loud. Your anxiety hadn’t been this bad since you were a kid. “I’m annoyed with myself. I’m sorry it’s coming out at you. It’s not intentional.”

“Y/N, you…”

“Don’t tell me not to be annoyed with myself, please. If I could navigate these visions in a way that made sense, then we wouldn’t be so lost on where to look and having to spin ridiculous tales and theories of where to go and what we might find. I could just lead us there and that would be that. And if my brain would just calm down, I wouldn’t be so annoyed. It’s a perpetual cycle.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself. Besides, I don’t mind spending a day or two in Huangshan with you, Y/N. It’s a nice change of pace from Raiden’s Temple.” He smiled sympathetically.

“It’s just like you to put a positive spin on everything.” You scoffed.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing!”

“No!” You huffed defensively and then pouted. “I’m coming off grumpy, aren’t I?”

“You are.” He smiled, but amusement danced in his eyes. He thought that your frustration was either funny or cute. You supposed you were grateful for that.

“I don’t mean to. I’ve got a lot on my mind. I’m surprisingly sore from the whole monster thing too so there’s that.” You rubbed nervously at your neck.

“That is a pretty bad bruise, Y/N.” He tilted your chin up again and you grabbed his hand and pushed it away.

“I really should have worn a scarf so you wouldn’t keep pointing it out.”

He laughed and led you through town and along the path that went to the springs. Liu had picked the perfect location for you to begin your search. It was a short walk from your hotel. There were buses that offered transport, but it seemed such a short walk that it was likely for those who were elderly or drunk.

“This is a popular tourist spot. It was difficult to get a room. I don’t usually stay in places like that, but it was the only vacancy that would accommodate us both and be close enough to where we needed to look. I figured that we didn’t know how long it would take us so the luxury would be a nice break.”

“Makes sense.” Why was he trying to justify his selection to you? You liked the hotel. It was nice.

“Grumpy,” he whispered, leaning close on one foot with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I’m trying so hard, Liu.”

You reached the gate to the springs. You couldn’t see the water beyond it, but you could hear people within, and you could feel the steam and heat even from outside. There was a large building with two doors separated by male and female for changing. In front of that was a booth where a young man sat reading a magazine and looking extremely bored.

“Should I meet you inside? We can see if anyone knows anything?”

“Or we could try the attendant first.”

“Him? He’s a distracted kid who has no interest in our questions, Liu. Look at him.” You nodded discreetly toward the young man. He was likely in his early twenties and doing this just for a paycheck by the look of him.

“Yes, but you’re well… you.” He gestured to you, and you looked down at yourself, brow furrowed in confusion.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You laughed in disbelief.

“You know what it means.” He turned his gaze away from you, hiding his smile but you saw his cheeks turn pink just enough. As quickly as you had noticed it, it had passed. “Now, go be charming and ask that kid about a private spring in a cavern closer to the Seas of Cloud.” He grasped your shoulders gently and turned you toward the booth then gave you a gentle nudge forward. You stuttered on your words and stared forward in complete awe. What the fuck?

Fine. You’d try but he was biased, at the very least. You weren’t built for this kind of thing. You’d always been awkward and terrible at flirting. Gah, you were blushing now too. This was the worst. Okay, deep breaths. You could do this. You didn’t have to be flirty or cute. You could just ask the question. Liu waited behind you, but you didn’t think he was far enough away to be as subtle as he thought he was being.

“Excuse me,” you began politely.

“Just you? Or your friend too?” The attendant didn’t bother looking up at you from the magazine that he was reading.

“I have a question for you, actually.”

“I’ll try to help if I can. Go ahead.” He closed his magazine and finally looked up at you, looked you over, and then was still clearly disinterested. He was working. You knew he would be!

“I heard some stories that there’s a spring in a cavern offsite. Further up the mountain and closer to the Seas of Cloud. I think that it’s considered private. Maybe even off-limits. I was curious if you knew anything about it.” You did your best to sound curious and charming, but you had no idea how it actually came off since you’d been so damn grumpy. The attendant looked from you and then peered around you to Liu. He closed his magazine, folded his hands, sighed heavily, and gave you a knowing look. Oh no, he’d immediately misinterpreted your intentions.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you.”

That was a bad start.

“Oh, I think you maybe…”

“I’m just filling in for my sister today. I needed the extra cash, and she has a date this afternoon.”

You laughed nervously and looked back to Liu since that was where the attendant kept looking suspiciously. “I think that you misinterpreted my intentions. This doesn’t have anything to do with him. I just had heard a story and was curious. A private spring sounds really beautiful.” You were the world’s worst liar. You couldn’t even come up with an excuse other than you thought it might be pretty.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Do you not know then?” You were grumpy again. Damn.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but I can’t help you.”

You were flustered beyond recovery now. He had misinterpreted your desire to see a secret spring and the only thing you could think to do was stutter that he had done so. Then Liu was standing behind you, one hand on your back, the other on the counter.

“Is there a problem?” Liu sounded curious and offered a smile, but the attendant rolled his head back and groaned.

“I am not making enough money today to deal with this.”

Liu straightened his posture in surprise and looked to you for further explanation. At least you weren’t the only one flustered. That made you feel a bit better. You turned toward him and he placed his hand on your arm gently. That was probably not helping your case, but it felt nice. “I asked him about an off-limits spring closer to the Seas of Cloud and now he seems to have confused my desire to see this beautiful spring with something…” You stuttered in a frustrated whisper and couldn’t seem to find the word, the obvious word. Instead, you smooshed your hands together in front of you.

“Oh?” Liu tried to interpret your hand motion and then laughed in realization. “Oh. Intimate.”

“That’s it.” You pointed at him. “That’s the word.”

Liu let go of your arm and leaned against the counter with a sigh. “How much would it take for you to give us an answer?” You snapped your head back to Liu so fast you nearly gave yourself whiplash.

“Look, dude, I don’t even work here usually and…”

Liu Kang placed some yuan on the counter and you stared at it in horror, mouth hanging open. Then you had to close your mouth tight to keep from bursting into hysterics. Your eyes were burning, trying not to cry with tears of laughter. Liu Kang was bribing a stranger to give you directions to a romantic hot spring instead of just explaining himself. Of all the possible outcomes you had expected this was the funniest one.

“Whoa, man… look I…” The attendant stared at the money on the counter and Liu tapped the bills before sliding them toward him. You were dying. This was where you died. RIP. Tears. You blinked them away. Your cheeks hurt from keeping it together. This was amazing. “If you take the main path up it branches about an hour in. Take the left fork and then walk for a bit. As you get close to the Seas of Cloud there’s a few caves. One of them has a spring in it but it’s hard to find with all the trees and not exactly safe. Gives me the creeps. That’s all I got.” He scooped up the bills. “Have fun man and if you get caught it wasn’t me who told you.”

“Thank you.” Liu bowed his head politely and then, hand on your back, led you away from the booth. You started up the hiking trail that had been pointed out to you and then you burst into hysterical laughter, practically hyperventilating from having held it in for so long. Liu pulled his hand back and stared at you with some concern as if he didn’t understand why this was hilarious.

“Y/N, are you okay?” He gently brushed his hand over your shoulder.

“What the hell was that?”

“Oh. I guess it was funny. He was going to think whatever he was going to think, Y/N. Sometimes we have to use other resources to get what we need.”

“Oh my god, does that mean you bribe people often? I didn’t expect this. I’m sorry. I wasn’t emotionally prepared for how funny that would be.”

“Only when they’re more convinced by money than words, Y/N.”

You took deep breaths to get yourself together and cleared your throat.

“How very Zen of you.”

“Come on, now.” He chuckled and placed his hand again at your back to lead you along the path that would start your hike. “We have private springs to find.”

“This day keeps getting weirder by the second.” You blinked away the remaining tears from your fit of laughter.

“Was it really that funny?”

“Liu. My stomach hurts from laughing.”

He shook his head with a smile as you continued on your way.

65 notes · View notes

kabira · 4 years ago

Text

06 | disguise

pairing — spider-man!vernon x ofc

featuring — joshua, yeji (itzy), felix (skz), yangyang (nct)

word count — 2.5k

genres — spider-man au, marvel au, fluff, action, angst, humor

warnings — none

go to fic masterlist | main masterlist

Joshua walked into the cafeteria alert, his head held up and gaze searching for a familiar brunet head amongst the thick crowd in the room. Usually he’d be late, probably held up talking to a teacher or waiting for Vernon, but after the experiences of the past week, he knew better than to wait up for his distracted friend.

“Sorry!” he yelled after almost colliding with a girl and making her spill her banana milk down the front of her shirt. She glared at him as he gripped his tray tighter and winced, quickly shouldering through the group before him to get to his table and as far out of her reach as possible. “Coming through!”

He reached the empty table as the same time Vernon did, both of them putting down their trays at the same moment. Joshua raised his eyebrows, letting a small smile form on his face as he slipped into the seat next to Vernon’s. “The prodigal returns,” he announced. “Where have you been, dude? I’ve barely seen you all week.”

Vernon shrugged, tapping his fingers on the table. He seemed distracted, eyes darting around the cafeteria as if waiting for something, or someone, to appear. Joshua knew that look—it was the one that indicated that something bad was about to happen, most likely within a ten-meter radius. “Um,” the blue-haired boy muttered with a small frown, “I don’t have to worry about that Rhino guy busting down the door, do I?”

“What?” Vernon glanced at him with wide eyes, as if only just having noticed he was here. “Uh, no. At least, I don’t think so.” He smiled sheepishly, hands sliding over the tabletop to grip his tray again, though Joshua guessed it was just to stop them from moving. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

Joshua sighed, placing a fingertip against the bridge of his glasses and sliding them up his sweat-slicked nose. It wasn’t even hot out, but being in a room packed with sweaty, hormonal bodies will do that to you. “I was asking you what you’ve been doing to keep busy in the last few days.”

“Nothing much,” Vernon said, twirling his plastic fork. He looked distracted, maybe a little tired, but despite the dark circles under them, his eyes were alight. “Because of the new team, I have to do all of these S.H.I.E.L.D. training projects with them, and they keep giving up these random hero assignments like stopping robberies and rescuing cats from trees. You know, the usual.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of annoying that I have barely any creative freedom with my fighting these days.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Joshua quipped. “If you call flying solo creative freedom.”

His best friend grinned. “Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you,” he said, suddenly excited as he leaned forward on his elbows, eyes glittering. “I got a job in Dr. Connors’s lab.”

“That biotech guy who worked with your dad?” Joshua raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. “When?”

“Last Tuesday.” Vernon’s eyes had taken on an almost dreamy quality as he talked about his new job. “It’s just the post of research assistant, pretty basic stuff really, but he lets me take part in some of the data collection sometimes. Man, you should look at all the amazing equipment in his lab. He’s got a BOD incubator, an electrophoresis chamber—”

“Vernon.” Both the boys looked up at the source of the voice, which stood before them in the form of Felix Liu (or, as he was better known, Felix Lee). The boy’s eyes glazed over Joshua as if he wasn’t even there before coming to rest on Vernon’s with a kind of communicative intensity. “You’re wanted in the principal’s office.”

Vernon stared at the boy for a few moments, looking confused, and Felix raised his eyebrows, glaring at him meaningfully. Joshua glanced between them, wanting to say something but a little apprehensive of doing so. “The principal’s office?” Vernon echoed, a defiant note in his voice. “Why?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Felix asked, scowling. “Coulson himself stopped me in the hallway, so it must be urgent. You should probably go talk to him.”

Something like realization flickered across Vernon’s features. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, right. You’re right.” He got up suddenly, casting an unsure look at Joshua as if he’d just remembered there was a witness to their exchange. He glanced at Felix with a conflicted look in his eye, clutching the back of the chair uncertainly. “Uh, there’s something I should tell you—”

“Tell me later,” Felix cut him off impatiently, waving him away. “Just go.”

Vernon glanced at Joshua again, teeth worrying at his bottom lip. He opened his mouth, looking like he was about to say something, then stopped himself. He shook his head, chest deflating as he let go of a long breath, before turning around and making his way towards the exit.

Joshua kept his eyes on his retreating back as he went, not turning even when he felt Felix pull up a chair opposite him. Only when Vernon finally disappeared behind the double doors did he turn to his food, which lay untouched on his plate. Something was up, and he had a good idea about what it was.

“Aren’t you going to eat that?” Felix asked, making Joshua look up at the sound of his voice. The boy’s cheeks were puffed out, mouth already filled with whatever they were supposed to consume by way of food for lunch. When Joshua didn’t answer, he cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”

“I don’t feel like eating,” the blue-haired boy murmured, but unwrapped his sandwich anyway. The new kids had started eating at his, Luce’s and Vernon’s usual table in the past week, which Joshua was completely okay with—except he usually had at least one of his old friends to keep things from becoming too awkward. Between the three of them, Joshua was probably the one with the worst social skills.

He took a tiny bite of his sandwich, and glanced despairingly at the door, waiting for Luce to show up. Heck, even Yeji or that other guy—Yangyang?—would have been welcome. Felix had always struck him as the silent type, but he didn’t yet know if it was a strong silent or a sensitive silent. Eating this way was awkward, to say the least, but the only topic of conversation Joshua could think of was probably not fit for discussion in public.

Ah, to hell with that. “You’re Iceman, right?”

Felix looked up so quickly Joshua heard something crack in his neck. He felt a sudden, sharp, bite-like pain in the back of his right hand, which had been lying much too close to Felix’s tray. “Ouch!” Joshua pulled back his hand with a hiss, cradling it against his chest. “What the hell was that for?”

“Sorry, I—” Felix stopped with a small scowl. “Hey. Don’t go around saying stuff like that!”

“So you are Iceman,” Joshua said. “Can’t really deny it now.”

Felix blushed at the statement. The color that flooded his cheeks was startlingly bright against the pallor of his skin. “Who told you that?” he demanded. “Was it Vernon?”

“No, I kind of figured it out by myself.” He lightly touched the back of his hand again, making sure the feeling in it hadn’t been stopped entirely. “Between three new superheroes showing up with Spider-Man and three new kids dropping right into the middle of the session less than a day apart, it wasn’t hard to guess,” he said. “You were sent here by the biggest super spies in the world and the best disguise they could come up with was hair dye and a last name change?”

Felix didn’t snap at him again, but the look he was giving him was definitely hostile. “You have a better idea?” he countered. “In case you haven’t noticed, no one in the school has realized my identity yet.”

“Except me.”

“Except you,” he added, though a little sourly. “And that’s probably because you already know who Spider-Man is.”

Joshua considered this. “Well, that is true,” he admitted. “But it’s still kind of surprising that none of the kids that go here have figured it out yet.”

“They probably don’t want to believe there’s a mutant in their school,” Felix muttered. Joshua noticed how his face darkened as he continued staring at his food, stabbing the mashed potatoes with his plastic spoon. “People believe what they want to see.”

Joshua studied the boy, noticing the tension in his shoulders and the probably unconscious crease in the middle of his forehead. “Are you…” he started, then hesitated. What was he supposed to say?

Felix waved the half-question away, and spooned in a huge mouthful of his potatoes, indicating that the conversation was over. Joshua took another bite of his sandwich, wondering what was going through the blond’s head. Not having a secret identity, he didn’t know what it would feel like to have a common high school kid figure it out within days of meeting you. Something bad, probably.

There was a metallic clunk as someone placed their tray on the table. Luce swung her bag off her shoulders, dropping it to the floor, and took a seat next to Joshua. “Sorry I’m late, got caught up in a meeting,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the tension at the table. “What’d I miss?”

Joshua cast a furtive glance at Felix, only to find the boy’s eyes already trained on him. He hadn’t noticed before, but Felix’s eyes were brown. Joshua had never taken a close look at Iceman’s eyes, but somehow, he knew the brown eyes were a result of contact lenses.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

Running in the hallways wasn’t allowed, but when you were going to the principal’s office, Vernon guessed it was an exception.

He sprinted all the way to the room, equal parts concerned and annoyed by the summons. If Coulson had called on him in school, then it was probably something important—but on the other hand, he hadn’t asked for Felix. Maybe it was a specifically Spider-Man related emergency.

When he burst through the door into the office, Coulson was leaning against the side of his desk, arms folded over his chest. The only other person in the room was Yangyang, who was seated on one of the chairs before the principal’s table, picking at the stuffing peeking out of the worn-out arm of the chair.

Vernon let the door shut behind him before stepping in, glancing between the two in confusion. The atmosphere definitely didn’t feel urgent. “Agent—I mean, Principal Coulson,” he said, wincing slightly at his slip-of-the-tongue. “You asked for me?”

“I did.” Coulson uncrossed his arms, placing the heels of his hands against the edge of the table. “Take a seat.”

Vernon crossed the room hesitantly, slowly sitting on the unoccupied chair. “Uh,” he said, glancing at Yangyang’s lounging figure with a frown. “Is this about something important?”

“It is indeed,” the agent confirmed, straightening. “If you consider the Shocker important.”

“Shocker?” Vernon repeated. “Isn’t he in S.H.I.E.L.D. jail or something?”

Yangyang snorted, and Vernon shot him a murderous look. “Unfortunately, no,” Coulson answered. “We’ve been trying to apprehend him, but he’s been laying low for a while.”

“Shocker, laying low?” Vernon raised an eyebrow. “Not something you see every day.”

“Yesterday, he robbed a bank on Madison Avenue,” Coulson continued, ignoring him. “I didn’t call you in then because you had a pop quiz in history going on, but—”

Yangyang groaned. “Seriously? Man, I could have used the distraction.”

The agent gave him a sharp look, before facing Vernon and speaking. “He’s out again today, terrorizing citizens in Central Park,” he said. “Usually, I’d prefer for other professionals to take on him, but orders are orders, and you, Vernon, have the most experience with him and will probably be able to take over him the most quickly.” He looked almost regretful, probably about them having to miss school hours. Damn, he was really getting into his role as the principal. “You are to leave immediately.”

“Wait, what’s he doing in Central Park?” Vernon frowned. “That’s not the most lucrative venture for a small-time villain.”

“Terrorizing citizens.” Coulson raised his eyebrows. “As I said.”

“Terrorizing citizens…?” Vernon muttered, sitting up a little. “That’s strange.”

“What’s up, Parker?” Yangyang asked with a mocking grin, uncrossing his legs and getting to his feet. He stretched, flexing his shoulders. “Disappointed in your little pet project?”

“Shut up, bucket head,” Vernon murmured. “It’s just not his usual style, but I guess he’s branching out.” He pursed his lips. “Still, I can’t imagine why.”

“And I can’t imagine why the two of you would stand around bickering and wasting your time when there’s a dangerous criminal on the loose,” Coulson said firmly, giving them a very teacher-like look. “Get going already.”

Vernon blinked. He glanced at Yangyang, who stood by the door looking at him expectantly, and then at Agent Coulson. “Wait,” he muttered, brow creasing as it slowly dawned on him where this was heading. “What about Tiger and Iceman?”

“They’re not needed for this simple mission,” Coulson said. “I’m sure the two of you can handle this problem by yourselves just fine.”

“Unless you’re scared of old Shocker, that is.” Yangyang gave him a lopsided smirk. “In which case, I’m sure Agent Coulson wouldn’t have a problem packing you an extra pair of underwear when you wet your pants.”

Vernon glared at him, his grip tightening on the armrests as he refused to get up. His gaze swiveled to the agent, eyes going round and pleading. “What about sending me with White Tiger instead?” he asked imploringly. “I’m sure we could take Shocker down more efficiently since we’ve had more time to practice our maneuvers together—”

“Go. Now.” Coulson was definitely not taking no for an answer as he gave him a stern look. Vernon stood up slowly, not taking his eyes off the man, just in case he got a last-minute break, but he was unrelenting. “Today would be good.”

“What are you going to tell your teachers?” Vernon asked desperately as he reluctantly made his way towards the door, where Yangyang was still waiting for him. He gave the boy a disbelieving look, surprised that he was willing to go along with all of this. Their animosity was, on most days, mutual. “We have bio lab later, and we’re both partners, and if I miss this class I might—”

“Don’t worry about that, leave it to me,” Coulson said, now simply looking impatient. “And stop making excuses to get out of the situation. Every little second you waste here doing that means another second of those innocent civilians being in danger. What happened to all your preaching about responsibility?”

Saying this, he pushed the two boys out of his office and shut the door in their face. Vernon stared at it glumly, finally accepting his fate.

“Come on, then, partner,” Yangyang said. He stood next to him with his arms crossed over his chest, grinning like a cat after a catch. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

#kwritersworldnet #caratwritersclub #svtcreations #svt scenarios #seventeen #svt #vernon #spiderman #seventeen fluff #seventeen angst #vernon fluff #vernon angst #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fanfic #vernon imagines #vernon scenarios #vernon fanfic #q

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puppy-phum · 4 years ago

Note

for the character ask...OUR FAV BOY LIU SANG

(*´∇｀*)/💖

i had to come answer this one bc!! my son!!!! aaaaaaahhhh!!!!!! so thank you sob now i can talk about my second sour grape boy,,, wait. ok well, hissy kitten ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ spot the difference (you can’t)

give me a character

(placing this one under a cut too bc oh boy. i have things to say about liu sang)

How I feel about this character

Good lord. I feel so many ways about Liu Sang. He is absolutely amazing but he also just drives me insane every day. No other character has ever given me such headaches, he must be proud. Finally someone suffers as much as him (because I bet those ears cause him a permanent migraine). I feel sorry for him. I’ll take this pain gladly if it helps him in any way.

But well. As simply as with Jiang Cheng, I do love Liu Sang. I shouldn’t really be surprised (at this point) that I fell in love with him but back when I was watching Reboot, he hit me like a truck. Which,,, he probably drove that truck himself, judging from the way he was handling the car chase with Jiang Zisuan. Just ruthlessly drove me over. I never stood a chance, not in front of that arrogance and stubbornness and enormous puppy eyes.

And with all of himself, good and bad, he makes me feel so many things. One of those, probably the strongest one, is protectiveness. He needs someone to protect him from himself because he has a nasty self-destruction streak going. Boy has not known love since he was born. He has gone through way too much to try handle it alone. I can’t even remember how old he is supposed to be in Reboot (maybe 29?), but that is way too many years of fighting a battle he was never supposed to win. But he pulled through. Cynical and prickly and absolutely terrified of any human contact but he fucking pulled through. I want to fight some battles for him now. He deserves to rest. He deserves some peace and quiet and unconditional care. I want to tell him that he doesn’t deserve all the pain he’s going through, all the pain he himself is putting his body through because he thinks he can only be used as a punching bag. I want to tell him he deserves friends. I want to tell him that it’s okay to trust people again. I want to... just protect him. And maybe this is why – because of all this fragile mess I’ve discovered from inside of him while trying to figure out who he is – I struggle so much with writing him. I feel like I’m bringing up things no one is supposed to see. I feel like I’m pulling out words from him like teeth. But at the same time, I know he’s desperate to tell these things.

So I struggle because I love him. Willingly. But oh boy does he annoy me sometimes, under all that protectiveness and fondness I have for him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I am quite sure at this point that I don’t really ship Liu Sang with anyone. No one clicks with him in my head so well that I could feel myself slipping into the proper shipping territory. But I haven’t minded any of the ships I’ve seen for him, not Pingxiesang (which makes me super soft) or him with Kanjian (which is so sweet) or even @kholran’s pool noodle Risang (which is very interesting and I will read your fic, friend, when I am out of my Pingxie pit! I just need to feed these beasts first). I am mostly just very intrigued by all these ships people come up with because it really plays to my wish to just explore his dynamic with every other character that is available for him.

But to put it simply: Not one perfect match exists for him yet in my head. Let’s give boy some time to figure out freindships first.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Well, this one I love because! This is what he is all about for me, somehow. So I will mention three: Xiaoge, Bai Haotian, and Pangzi.

First, like I already mentioned in my Xiaoge answer, I adore Liu Sang’s dynamic with his ouxiang. They are both so damn awkward. I feel like I’m following a train wreck happening in slow motion any time I see them interact but instead of death and flames and screeching metal, it’s. surprisingly soft and sweet? They are both very tentative when it comes to people so they somehow get each other? Even if Liu Sang is a mess when it comes to Xiaoge which I totally get because I have once in my life met a person I consider a celebrity and who I look up to a lot and I was just shaking. And giggling. And acting dumbly. So I don’t blame Liu Sang for any of that; I’m actually quite proud that he’s keeping his cool so well and despite the rough start, manages to be a huge asset to his ouxiang. I am so happy that he gets to have this budding friendship with Xiaoge because they both need it.

Then! Bai Haotian. I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately and the more I rewatch some of their scenes together, the more I notice that they really develop a bond during Reboot. They are in a very similar position: brought in because of their idols, young, sometimes overlooked, struggling, and usually falling behind. And oh, definitely in need of some saving and with tragic backstories. They could be such amazing friends, and I think they come to trust and care for each other during their trip to Thunder City. Bai Haotian is so caring by nature and then Liu Sang is just right there. And Bai Haotian is so lowkey about her care; she doesn’t push if people don’t want her to, which works so well for Liu Sang. She’s there when needed. She doesn’t ask too much. She knows how it feels to look up to one of the members of the Iron Triangle and then curl your own life around them. (She also knows how it feels to have a crush on that same member and then notice that crush will never lead you anywhere, though I guess Bai Haotian comes to realize that during their trip instead of years before but well, details.) She doesn’t judge Liu Sang and somehow Liu Sang comes to rely on her a lot.

And last but not least (never the least!): Pangzi. God I adore these two to bits. Their banter is just *chef’s kiss* and when I look at them, all I can think about is a big dog trying to pat a hissing kitten with its paw. Which then turns to the kitten play fighting the dog’s big paw. And then getting tired. And falling asleep. While the huge dog just curls its body around the kitten to keep it warm, and maybe the kitten swats at the dog slightly for show but actually it enjoys it. Because it’s nice and soft and very warm. So yes, I love it how Pangzi and Liu Sang start off as enemies but come to care for each other. I cry about the peanut scene every day. Yes please adopt this poor stray kitten, he deserves a loving home ;; Give him food and a blanket and maybe he will hiss a little less (Pangzi also gives great hugs and Liu Sang deserves a dozen. For starters.)

My unpopular opinion about this character

Once again I am at a loss with this. I don’t really know what this fandom thinks about Liu Sang? I feel like our tiny Liu Sang hyping corner here on tumblr is very much unified with the opinions. We all love him a lot and want the best for him, case closed. So maybe I’ll just talk about my hypersensitivity headcanon for him? Let me do that for fun haha

So, I know he’s sensitive to sounds. Understandable, with his skills. And I feel bad for him for that because it must be horrible at times (we get introduced to him through him vomiting because he can’t handle a train station with all the noise, christ) but I also somehow relate to that. I get sensitive to sounds sometimes too. A simple click of my mouse can be annoying at times. I require absolute silence quite often, and this intensifies if my emotions are on the negative side. So, somehow I’m taking things from that. Touch hurts when he’s feeling bad about himself. Noises annoy him when he’s angry or scared. Lights look too bright or he feels like he can’t focus his gaze when he’s sad or panicking. Smells and tastes are intensified when he’s stressed. I dunno, just simple little things. Him feeling through his senses. Him just generally being sensitive with his feelings because this world is a demanding place and pushes you into feeling things. And I feel like a lot about him is already tied to his hearing so why not his feelings too? I’ve read so many nice takes on him which somehow support this so I feel like this just fits right in.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

Liu Sang joins the final celebration!! Him just disappearing doesn’t make sense at all!!!! Let him get hugs!!! Let him be happy!!!! Oh my god. I was so mad about that and still am because no way did he just leave and not join his new friends for this final evening!!! Dammit. No matter how much he feels like he doesn’t belong and like he’s just “a hired talent” among them, he’s not that dull!! He got those damn peanuts and some hugs and shoulder pats from people, he was there saving the day, he managed to create bonds!!! And god, knowing Wu Xie, he would never allow Liu Sang to think that lowly of himself!!!! He would be there to offer Liu Sang the world if he wants it!! Gaaaahhhh

So yeah, give Liu Sang his moment with his new family or I am throwing something, for fuck’s sakes

thank you again for sending me these asks ♥ i’ll answer the rest during these next few days! you’re amazing!!

#i would give him my right arm #or my lungs #if he asked #so here take my blabberings #also gonna tag this as #liu sang #bc i know ppl out there love him #and we like to see each other blabber lol

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argylemnwrites · 4 years ago

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Fight or Flight - Chapter 14: Help

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Heir (canon divergent from the end of book 2)

Word Count: ~4100

Rating: R (language, 30 diamond scene)

Summary: About three weeks since The Walker Absconding

Author’s Note: With my state surging so badly that the CDC had to come up with a new category for coronavirus monitoring, and my hospital group changing policy constantly, even the illusion of an update schedule is pretty much out the window at this point, so thank you to all of you who are still sticking with this series! I saw that in canon, our crew just now decided to go on the run, but my MC and Drake have been on the lam for a while at this point, hahaha, so thanks for going on this wild ride with them!

This series follows the Walkers, their friends, and Cordonia as a whole after they flee the country with their daughter during Barthelemy Beaumont’s attempted coup. To catch up on this series, check out it’s masterlist. (link can be found via my bio - sorry, Tumblr is once again not putting my posts with links in tag searches)

Olivia let out a sigh as the privacy divider in her town car finally finished closing, tipping her head back and tugging the pins out of her hair. “God, what a nightmare.”

Liam hummed in agreement. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at the palace tonight? It might be good optics, keeping you in the thick of things since the social season just started.”

He shook his head as he shifted slightly next to her. “After Hana’s conversation with Kiara and all its revelations, we need to be able to discuss things openly. With everything that has already happened, I don’t trust my assigned quarters at the palace to not be bugged.”

All Olivia could do was let out a little shrug. She knew he had a point, but she was worried about his overall approach here. All the strategizing and discussing in the world wouldn’t matter if he didn’t maintain an image of strength and dependability. Trotting back to the seclusion of Lythikos consistently would absolutely weaken the perception others had of him.

“So, I think we can safely assume that Amalas knows about this alliance between Barthelemy and Auvernal. It would explain why she was so eager to strike a deal with us,” Liam continued, reaching up and loosening his tie as he stretched his neck.

“But why would Aurvernal agree to work with Barthelemy? He wasn’t exactly supportive of them when they were trying to force Drake and Riley to solidify the betrothal. Hell, he used that mess to argue against their suitability to raise Bridget.”

Liam frowned, his eyes dropping to his lap for just a moment. “The latter part of your statement I can see him spinning over the coming months. He can argue that he has met with neighboring leaders and struck more beneficial alliance terms than I was ever able to foster, making him better suited for the role of monarch. With the delay in the start of the social season, he’ll have plenty of time to sell it as believable.”

“We had to push Rashad to delay. Hana told us that we need to make sure-”

“-Kiara represents House Theron, I know. It’s just unfortunate the delay may also be desirable for Barthelemy’s camp as well as ours. It would be nice to catch a break for once.”

“Liam…”

He ignored her attempt at sympathy. “Oh well, that’s just the reality isn’t it? We need to figure out how Auvernal played into Landon’s decision. Have you been able to buy off any of their staff?”

Olivia shook her head. “Not yet. I have a couple of leads on a maid and a driver who might be loyal to you, though.”

“That’s something, I suppose. I guess we should probably try and gain some intelligence about the motives of Bradshaw and Isabella as well, shouldn’t we?” He sounded tired, his hands working to remove his cufflinks.

“Yeah, we definitely need to hit this from multiple angles, find out their goal and what they might have done to sway not only Landon, but Hakim and Adelaide. Barthelemy is absolutely going to challenge Bertrand for control of House Beaumont, so we need to gain at least two of those votes. Counting on keeping the Beaumont vote in our camp is just too… dicey at this point, don’t you think?”

Liam nodded, but didn’t seem to want to say anything, so Olivia just kept going. “Now, I think since it’ll be Kiara voting, and she’s been very willing to divulge things to Hana, that is probably our best bet. And I know I’ve been focusing on getting some dirt on Landon and Emmeline, but maybe Adelaide would be the easier pick up? She’s never had much interest in actual politics, so maybe if we had Maxwell just socialize with her repeatedly at the upcoming events, that might be enough? For whatever reason she’s always loved him.”

She glanced over, surprised to find Liam with his eyes closed, his head tipped back. Had he fallen asleep that quickly?

“Liam?” she hissed out.

“I’m still listening; I promise you I’m not asleep.”

“Do you have anything to add?”

He shook his head against the back of the seat without opening his eyes. “No, you seem to have things under control.”

“But, I was-”

“-I trust you, Olivia.”

His words should have been affirming and confidence boosting, but instead all she felt was fear. He should be more invested than this. He needed to be more invested than this. And honestly, she was sure he knew that fact. He would go through the motions of strategizing with her on a regular basis. But he always faded quickly, becoming distracted or introspective. He was ruminating instead of focusing and channeling that hurt and pain into something productive.

But that wasn’t going to stop tonight. It was very late, and the drive back to Lythikos was a long one. So, Olivia just let him rest, pulling out her burner phone and scanning for any news bulletins about the Walkers being found in Athens, letting out a small sigh of relief when she found none. It looked like Leo and Riley had managed to pull it off. Combine that with Hana’s intel, and she knew the night had been more successful than not. She just needed Liam to start to see things that way. Otherwise, the upcoming months were going to be even bleaker than anticipated.

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

Riley kept her head down as she shuffled past a man in the hallway. With two large duffels, it was a bit awkward, and she didn't want the man to remember anything about her other than the fact that it was a bit of a tight fit with all her luggage.

Once he was out of sight, she unlocked the door to their hotel room, opening it as narrowly as possible to slide into the room. She had barely closed and locked the door when she felt a pair of familiar strong arms engulfing her. She dropped the duffel bags to the ground and spun in his embrace, wrapping her arms around his back.

"You're back," Drake murmured into her hair. She could feel his chest rising and falling rapidly, his whole body practically trembling. "You were late, and I thought…"

"Leo was almost an hour late," she said, her voice somewhat muffled by his chest because of how closely he was holding her. "I wanted to text you, but-"

"No, you made the right call." They had decided early on to avoid using their new phones to contact each other if at all possible. That way, if one of them got picked up and taken into custody, the other wouldn't be instantly traceable. It meant a lot of anxiety and fear when they weren't together, though. "I just… I… I was worried that…" Drake kept trailing off, almost as if he was unable to say his fears out loud.

"I know, Drake. I know. But it's okay. It all went okay." She slid her hands up, tracing between his shoulder blades, running her fingers through his hair, trying to soothe both him and herself. To call tonight stressful was a mad understatement.

“Leo had our stuff?”

She nodded against his chest. “In his hotel room. I obviously didn’t take the time to dig through it all, but I saw toys, clothing, documents, money.”

Drake ran his hands through her hair, then loosened his hold on her enough to lean back and look her in the eyes. “Did anyone… were you...”

“I don’t think anyone noticed me, Drake.”

He let out a shuddering breath, and then he was kissing her. Not some gentle, tender peck, but hard and deep. Like he used to kiss her when they were alone. Before she turned their lives upside down.

She missed this. She knew it was stupid. They were wanted fugitives and barely getting by in a foreign country. They were hungry and stressed and sleep-deprived. On top of that, they shared one room with their soon-to-be 11 month old daughter, so they had no privacy. Their sex life was far from their most pressing concern.

But… she still missed it, that sense of shared connection and intimacy, and that encompassed more than just the sex. She honestly felt like his teammate or coworker more than his wife far too often. They just spent so much time on the practical, discussing next steps, trying to arrange logistics. Moments of shared laughter and warmth were few and far between these days. And sure, they didn't really have much to laugh about, but it was still a loss.

When she’d sat on his lap yesterday after dyeing her hair, it almost felt like a sliver of their old life and dynamic was back. She’d teased him, he’d held her close. But moments like that were just not the norm for them anymore. Most of the time, even any physical affection was more focused on comfort in light of something negative. Holding hands, hugs, that sort of thing seemed to only happen when their world felt like it was crumbling around them. It’s like they shared nothing but worry and fear most of the time.

There was also the fact that Drake hadn't opened up to her about his own emotions. She knew him. She knew that his fractured relationship with Liam must be weighing on him, that he must feel mad guilty about so many things. But he wasn't telling her anything. He hadn't kept things from her like this in years, and it honestly scared the shit out of her. At first, she thought he was just trying to shield her from his own pain. She knew that her initial panic had probably sent him into hyper-protective mode. But that was weeks ago. She was pretty sure she was holding it together better now. At the very least, she didn't think she was a walking mess anymore.

But Drake was definitely still keeping everything bottled up, and she had to wonder if that was in part because he didn't trust her. Whether it was because her initial panic had meant that she had not considered him enough or because he resented her decision to take Bridget out of Cordonia and away from their entire support system or because he couldn't help but see her as the reason he was named a traitor she had no idea. And maybe he was still just trying to shield her from his own worries and anxieties, but the fear was there that in her efforts to protect her kid, she was slowly losing her husband.

While Drake was off busting his ass to keep their family afloat, she'd had a lot of time to think, and she knew that wasn't helpful. When Bridget was awake, playing with her kept her mind off of those awful thoughts, but they kept creeping back in when she napped and slept. There was only so long that playing Dopey Cat could provide a distraction, after all. So instead she wondered endlessly if she had only been able to keep Bridget by her side at the cost of the foundation of her marriage.

For so many years, those fears of never mattering enough to someone else, of always ending up alone in the end had led her to keep relationships superficial. She’d avoided vulnerability, and therefore pain, at all costs. But then she came to Cordonia, and she had Drake, Hana, Maxwell, and Liam. She’d come to trust and feel and it was beyond anything younger her could have ever dreamed up. But now she’d ruined things with Liam, was disconnected from Hana and Maxwell, and it seemed all too likely she’d damaged things with Drake, too. All those people, who actually cared about her. She’d made a mess of the best parts of her life.

And maybe she was overreacting. Drake still clearly loved and cared about her. Worried about her constantly, in all honesty. But she also worried that he was gradually pulling away from her, that some day would creep up on them where all they would share would be concern for Bridget. But tonight, after all the stress and anxiety and fears of the evening, he was kissing her like he wanted her, like he loved her, and she couldn’t get enough of it.

She let out a pathetically needy moan, the sort of noise that would usually draw a smirk and some teasing from Drake. But tonight, he didn’t. Instead, he just surged forward with a groan of his own, driving her back into the wall and hooking his hands around her thighs, hoisting her up onto his waist before she could even process what was going on.

Riley clawed her fingers into his shoulders, dropping her head back against the wall as he moved his lips across her jaw. She began rocking her hips against him, tilting her head to the side as he worked his way down her neck, biting down lightly as he went. She tugged at his t-shirt, and after a few moments, he finally got the hint, sliding his hands out from under her thighs, letting her drop to the floor as he pulled off his shirt.

Deep down, Riley knew they had a lot they still needed to talk about and that doing this wasn’t going to fix the ache that had been growing in her heart, day by day. But she also knew that after weeks of stress and the horrible possibilities about tonight that had been running through both their minds, maybe this was just something they really needed. So she scrambled to tug off her shirt and jeans, kicking her sandals somewhere towards the door as Drake unbuckled his pants, and in almost no time they were both adding their underwear to the pile of clothing on the floor.

They were back on each other in an instant, hands grabbing and stroking, mouths everywhere. Riley felt her feet leaving the floor, so she wrapped her legs around Drake’s waist as he held her under her thighs, slamming her back against the wall. And then he was sinking into her, dropping his head to her shoulder to muffle the groan he let out as he did so.

It was all quick and frantic, both of them thrusting against each other wildly. She could sense that Drake was just as desperate as her. Desperate to feel something besides anxiety and guilt and pain. She knew she was going to have bruises from his fingers with how tightly he was clutching her thighs, but she didn’t care. Hell, she wondered how badly she was scratching his back. None of that mattered.

She hissed out his name as his lips latched back onto her neck. She knew this was going to be quick, so as she slid one hand up to his neck, tugging on his hair, she also dropped her other hand down between them, letting her fingers trace circles right above where they were joined. It didn't take long before she felt a warmth spreading out, down her legs and up her back, and then she was gone. Drake must have felt her climax, because he muttered "Fuck" into the skin of her neck, only driving into her a couple more times before she felt him spilling inside her. He slumped against the wall, his weight the only thing keeping her from sliding to the floor.

After a few moments, Drake let out a sigh, placing his hands back on her thighs and easing her down as he took a step back. “You okay?” he asked, his head slightly downturned.

Riley closed the newly-created gap between them, stepping forward and sliding a hand up to his cheek. “Drake, I’m fine. Are… are you okay?”

He nodded, tugging her into a gentle hug. “I just… I think I…”

“It’s okay, Drake. I get it.” She didn’t like that he still apparently couldn’t talk to her, but if he’d needed a minute of physical comfort and reprieve, well that was pretty fucking understandable. So she didn’t push him, just joined him in getting cleaned up and dressed in a t-shirt and underwear. While Drake washed the day’s clothes in the bathroom, she checked on Bridget, passed out in the travel crib Drake had picked up a few weeks back. They hadn’t used it to this point, and Riley wondered why Drake had dug it out of the car tonight. It had been safely tucked away with the tent, sleeping bags, and ground pad since he bought it.

“I thought we should probably start trying to get her used to it.” Drake’s voice cut through the room, startling Riley and answering the question she never got a chance to ask. “We are looking at months of being on the run. We need to start… I don’t know, making things… stable for her, I guess.”

“Makes sense,” said Riley, giving her daughter one last look before turning around to face Drake. “How did she handle bedtime?”

He grimaced and shook his head. “I think she was scared or upset because you weren’t here. She was basically inconsolable. I contemplated taking her on a drive just to calm her down. I kind of figured the night couldn’t get any worse, so I might as well try the crib. She screamed for about an hour before she wore herself out.”

Riley walked over and wrapped her arms around Drake. He struggled more with the sleep training than she did, even if he talked a way bigger game about letting Bridget “cry it out” in the light of day. “Well, she’s asleep now at least.”

Drake nodded, running a hand up and down her back. “You ready to go through the bags?”

She nodded and gave him a little smile, sitting down on the end of the bed as Drake grabbed the duffels and brought them over. They slowly worked their way through them, item by item. Hana had included so many useful things, from the practical, like clothes appropriate for a variety of types of weather and spare contact lenses and Riley’s glasses, to the unessential but truly missed, like Bridget’s stuffed corgi and Riley’s good hair brush. There was a lot of money in there, too. Thousands of Euros, which probably wouldn’t be enough to get them all the way until January, but at least made their situation a lot less dire. Their passports and birth certificates were tucked in there as well. For the first time, it felt like they might have some options when it came to their next steps.

After twenty minutes or so of sorting and unpacking, they reached the bottom of the bags. There were a handful of framed photos. Riley hadn’t mentioned any pictures as being something they wanted, so this must have been Hana’s idea. There were a couple that had been displayed in their bedroom and den. A candid Maxwell took on their wedding reception, Drake sitting down as Riley stood behind him, her arms looped over his shoulders, both of them looking at each other with stupid, cheesy grins on their faces. The two of them with Savannah, Bertrand, and Bartie taken down in Texas, the day before the wedding. A photo of the three of them that Hana had taken in the privacy of their home the day after the anointing with them in casual clothing, just curled up on the couch holding Bridget, a stark contrast from the pomp of the formal portrait for the history books and press release the day before. There were a couple of new ones, too. The corgis snuggled together on their massive cushion in the den. Hana and Maxwell grinning with arms thrown over each other's shoulders, clearly a selfie taken by Maxwell at a formal event. Liam and Olivia sitting on a couch at what appeared to be the Lythikos keep, Olivia with an eyebrow raised, Liam with a hollow-looking smile.

Riley glanced over at Drake, unsure how these photos would affect him. He just swallowed roughly before placing the stack of photos he was holding on the bed next to him. Riley leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. They were both silent for a few moments until Drake finally spoke.

“Was that everything?”

Riley shook her head. “No, there’s a letter. At least I assume that’s what it is. It’s an envelope with Hana’s writing.”

Drake didn’t say anything, so after a few seconds, Riley leaned forward, grabbing the envelope with “Riley & Drake” looped in beautiful cursive sitting at the bottom of one of the duffels. She slid her finger under the flap and pulled out a sheet of stationary with delicate pink and cream flowers in the corners. She held it between them so that Drake could read it at the same time.

Riley and Drake,

I hope that you and Bridget are all doing well and in as good of spirits as the circumstances will allow. I can only imagine how incredibly difficult this must be for you.

In these bags, I’ve included the items you mentioned as well as a few more toys for Bridget and pieces of clothing that I thought would be suitable for when the weather gets colder. I know it isn’t much, but hopefully this will make your lives just a little more comfortable.

I also sent some pictures I thought you might like to have, both old and new. Whenever things get tough, just remember that you have people who love you and want the best for you and your family.

While this is probably the furthest thing from your mind, I want to assure you that I am not taking my position as Duchess of Valtoria lightly. I am setting up citizen meetings for the upcoming weeks. Judging by the protests outside of the estate, you have a lot of support still here, and when this is all resolved, I will step down if you would like to rightfully reclaim your titles.

I love and miss you both, and tell Bridget that Aunt Hana misses her, too. Maxwell said I should include paw prints from Anderson, Vera, Ellis, and Ilsa, but for the sake of the staff who would need to clean up that mess, I will just settle on saying they clearly miss you as well.

Keep safe, Hana

Riley twisted to look at Drake. She knew he would already be done since he was a faster reader than her. His face was very still as he stared over at Bridget’s crib.

“Drake?”

He jerked his head over to look at her, giving her a very empty smile as he did so. “Your best friend is really something, huh?”

She frowned, trying to suss out how much she should read into that statement, but he kept his expression blank. When it became clear he wasn’t going to elaborate more, she settled on a light response, knowing he probably didn’t want to delve into things too deeply at this point. “She really is. But her assumption that we would be at all worried about our former titles is adorably naive.”

Drake let out a little snort of a chuckle, so Riley kept going. “Can you imagine us just rolling back to Valtoria after all of this and challenging Hana for the title?”

His smile became a little more genuine at that. “Well, being out of touch with reality is a common trait amongst the nobility. Maybe it would just be us finally catching up with the rest of them.”

She nudged him with her elbow. “Come on, let’s pack this stuff up and get some sleep.”

“Sounds like a plan, Walker.”

Riley stood up and offered a hand to Drake, tugging him to his feet as well. There was still a lot they needed to sort through and take care of, both practically and emotionally. She knew that. Even with everything given to them tonight, the months ahead were hardly going to be a cake walk, and she knew she would have to get Drake talking at some point. But for the first time in weeks, she felt true hope. Hope that they could make this work, that they weren’t two seconds away from failing their daughter and each other, that they were moving forward. And for tonight, that felt like enough.

Perma: @walkerswhiskeygirl @octobereighth @kimmiedoo5 @mom2000aggie

TRR/TRH: @iaminlovewithtrr @mskaneko @axwalker @jovialyouthmusic @marshmallowsandfire @kingliam2019 @sirbeepsalot @texaskitten30 @princessleac1 @ladyangel70 @debramcg1106 @masterofbluff @sarahx206

Drake/MC: @no-one-u-know @iplaydrake

FoF: @burnsoslow @bobasheebaby

#drake walker #drake x mc #trh au #trh fanfic #trh au fanfic #choices fanfiction #trh #the royal heir #king liam #olivia nevrakis #n*fw #30 diamonds

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boxoftheskyking · 4 years ago

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Pick Up Every Piece, Part Four

Ugh this took forevvvvver

I know that the MDZS map is like based on actual China, so my apologies to whatever Yiling is based on. I need a shithole for this story, and Yiling’s it.

In which Lan Zhan follows A Story

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

----

Early November 2000

Lan Zhan is headed back to Moling. It’s not a trip that he particularly enjoys, anymore. He takes the train these days, since he got rid of his car.

He used to drive the 45 minutes there twice a week when he and Liu Shirong were first dating, before they moved in together in Caiyi. There used to be a sense of anticipation, enjoyment, each landmark and familiar turning a step closer to someone he wanted to see. An arm across his back, a kiss to his jaw, Shirong reaching up on tiptoe to greet him. He’d pick up Shirong at school and they’d wave out the window at the little kids in the schoolyard. Bye, Teacher Liu! Moling was an escape, an innocent place, somewhere far away from the darkness and dirt he spent his days sifting through.

Dear Shirong. He’s a good man. Short, kind, a silly gasping laugh. Desperate for children. He has two now, and a husband. Lan Zhan has lunch with him occasionally.

Now that he thinks about it, their last lunch was over a year ago. He supposes that doesn’t count as “occasionally” anymore. He could reach out first, if he wanted to. But he’s never been the type to reach out. Shirong has a life, a family, all the things he always wanted. All the things Lan Zhan couldn’t give him.

“I cannot imagine myself with a child,” he’d said when they broke up. He hadn’t intended for it to actually be a breakup—he hadn’t really thought that far ahead. But Shirong had visited an actual agency the day before and handed him a brochure, and Lan Zhan had left the apartment and driven into the mountains in a blind panic. He’d ended up stopped outside someone’s cabin, all the way up their driveway, and parked outside this stranger’s house until he’d gotten his breathing under control. That’s one of the reasons he’d sold the car. He’d never done that before, taken off like that, trespassed on private property, so getting rid of the car was the safest option.

Precept 45 of the Lan Clan: Do not act impulsively.

Precept 213: Be strict with yourself.

Precept 341: When faced with temptation away from the righteous path, remove the source of temptation.

His brother finds his interest in the old clan rules an amusing idiosyncrasy. Even his uncle, strict as he is, finds the rules nothing more than an heirloom, evidence of some kind of hereditary virtue but nothing relevant to the modern day.

It’s not that he follows them. He just likes to know them, to turn them over in his mind. As options. When faced with a decision, there’s a comfort in turning to generations of dead Lans for guidance. Some people like astrology.

There are a lot of Lans, these days, enough that he’s never met a good number of cousins. There’s plenty of Lans he’s barely related to at all, at this point, but the name still has a good reputation. It’s the opposite of what the Wens have to deal with, those who weren’t involved in the insurrection. Everyone knows the old clans are ancient history and you can’t judge someone on their family name. But still, no one named Wen is going to find work in Lanling anytime soon.

The point is, the Lans have survived and multiplied, so whatever kept them going in the old days can’t be completely useless.

His original interest in the rules was mostly as a journalist, which he’d hoped his uncle might understand. Every rule implies a story. A reason. Thousands of them mean you can triangulate an entire context. Who were we? How did we get here? What did we lose, and how?

Precept 9: Do not speak dishonestly.

Precept 77: Do not make promises that you cannot honor.

“I cannot imagine myself with a child,” he’d said.

Don’t worry, Lan Zhan, we’ll figure it out together. “I’m not sure I want to imagine myself with a child.” It will be different when it’s ours. You’ll see. “The more you talk about it, the less sure I am.” That’s okay, Lan Zhan, I can be sure enough for the both of us.

“I don’t want this. I don’t want this with you.”

Precept 424: Do not be needlessly cruel.

Lan Zhan had killed men during the war. Cultivation was useful for long-range attacks, but he still found himself in the situation of killing up close, of watching the light leave an enemy’s eyes.

He saw the light leave Liu Shirong’s eyes. For a moment his instincts had jolted, shocking through his nervous system. You’ve killed him. You activated your core, by accident, and you’ve killed him.

But it wasn’t the end of Liu Shirong’s life, of course, just the end of his love for Lan Zhan, the end of their life together, the end of whatever future he’d imagined for them. Lan Zhan had meant to release him gently, like a small rabbit with a newly-healed leg, back out into the world he came from. But he’d crushed him instead, under his clumsy feet.

Do not be needlessly cruel.

There are pools of guilt around Moling. Every place that he recognizes, everywhere they went together, even if the memories themselves are good. The guilt gathers on his clothes, soaks through to the skin, makes him cold.

It’s not that he misses Shirong. Perhaps he should miss him more than he does. It’s been nearly three years since they split up. It should perhaps hurt more than it does. It’s embarrassing that it took longer for him to get over Wei Ying—a relationship that never happened.

The worst part of the breakup didn’t even have to do with Shirong himself. He hadn’t made a special call after Shirong left, or even after he officially moved out a week later, but he had mentioned it when Lan Huan called him as usual on the second Tuesday of the month.

“Oh, I’m sorry, didi,” Lan Huan had said. “I know you did love him, in your own way.”

In your own way.

Is he not— Did he not—

Had he never—

He is nearly to Moling. The train track curves here, about fifteen minutes out, and the rails were laid in crooked. It’s a jolt, every time. It’s easy to see who the regular commuters are, whose coffee sloshes over, who widens their stance in time, who looks suddenly out the window, worried. Sabotage on the tracks, maybe, or someone under the cars. The younger people don’t look worried, only bored.

The landscape is odd, he realizes suddenly. He’s been staring vaguely out the window, letting his mind wander, but where he’s used to a few farms, a man-made lake, and mostly open country there is torn up ground, heavy machinery, and miles of chain-link fence. Did he not notice this on his last trip? Had he been reading?

Out the window he sees a large sign on the fence announcing, “Future home of Jin Industries Moling Satellite Campus.” Typical.

In your own way.

He never asked what Lan Huan meant by that. Lan Zhan has won multiple awards for his reporting, for his ability to encourage others to talk. The right facial expression at the right time. A direct, polite question with just the right emphasis. Merciless is what they say about him, sometimes. He’s like a swordsman in an old movie, Nie Mingue used to say, in a way that sounded like a compliment. He moves so quick and so sharp, you don’t even know he’s cut you until you’re around the corner and your head falls off.

He’s poking at it like a sore tooth, needlessly. His golden core makes itself known, just a little sense, a small awakening. It’s always ready to defend him, even so many years later. He does nothing with the awareness, of course. No cultivation is authorized outside of combat. But his core was never removed, never shut down. Can’t put the hot sauce back in that bottle, Jiang Cheng had said once.

The train slows, stops.

“Moling station. Depart here—” The pleasant voice is cut off by a beeping. Lan Zhan stands and shoulders his bag.

“Attention passengers,” a crackled voice comes over the loudspeaker, far less pleasant than the recording. “Due to a security concern all passengers must depart the train at car fourteen. Doors will not open except for car fourteen. Departing passengers, please make your way to car fourteen.”

Lan Zhan looks around the car, then sees a “3” on the far wall. He sighs and follows the few people who are struggling with the connecting door to car four. The chimes that gently demand Get off the damn train are going. He has to speedwalk down the aisle, which is undignified, and everyone looks up at him with that poor bastard expression reserved for torn grocery bags and flat tires.

He makes it off the train a second before the door closes and it pulls away.

“Close one!” an old man grins at him, more humor than teeth.

The police have roped off most of the platform, everyone standing around looking at each other. A few are smoking. Lan Zhan goes over to the rope, coming up next to a kid with one of those handheld electronic games. The kid’s staring around at the cops while his game beeps vaguely in a lonely sort of way.

“What’s happened?” Lan Zhan asks him.

The kid answers without looking at him. “Abandoned bag. Nothing’s happening.” He sounds disappointed.

“Hm.” Sure enough, there’s a nondescript green backpack slumped on a bench.

“They always say it might blow up, but it never does.”

“Not so much these days,” Lan Zhan agrees.

“Like, if it was gonna blow up they wouldn’t be smoking near it, right?”

Lan Zhan smiles despite himself. “Good eye,” he says. His golden core is settled within him, curling beneath his breastbone like a sleeping cat, uninterested and unconcerned. No danger.

There had been a certain amount of withdrawal, after the war. And grief, and nightmares, and a limp for a while. But the end of regular cultivation, of relying on his golden core as a seventh sense, a second consciousness, a second self, the end of healing himself from the inside, of Wangji at his back and power at his fingertips . . .

It’s not entirely the government’s fault, if he’s being fair. Governments have always thrown away veterans, no matter who is in power. Always have, always will. Use you up and spit you out with maybe some benefits and the number of some overtaxed and underpaid case worker. And cultivation, being both new and more ancient than anything, was an unknown since the beginning. There are no peer-reviewed studies on the long-term effects of using a golden core. If Jin Guangyao hadn’t been doing his own research with the Wens for all those years, only to defect back to his father’s side when the tide began to turn, there wouldn’t have been a cultivator corps at all. So Lan Zhan can’t put the responsibility on any one person’s shoulders.

But it still claws at him, sometimes. His core wants out, wants to stretch, to strike, to light something up. It’s like wrapping his head in blankets, sometimes, stifling and muffled and hard to breathe.

Jin Zixuan likes to talk about it, how it feels. Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng do not.

He checks his watch and picks up his pace, passing by another building down the block under renovation with a Jin Industries sign. The logo is close enough to the Sunshot flag that the government connection is implied, but different enough for plausible deniability.

Lan Qiaolian is leaning on her car a few blocks away, exactly where she said she’d be. Lan Zhan appreciates it—they’ve met only once, and he doesn’t trust his ability to pick her out in a crowd. She’s a short woman, but solidly built. Doesn’t look like a Lan, is what his uncle would say.

“Lan Zhan!” she waves to him and drops her cigarette on the pavement. “Thanks for coming.”

He nods and takes his place in the passenger seat. The drive to the Moling Children’s Center is quiet for a while. The Center is near Yilong’s old gym; he remembers the road.

“You had a meeting with the detective?” he asks, though he knows the answer.

“Yeah. Still stonewalling me. Everything’s fucking confidential. They say they’ve canvassed the neighborhood, everywhere between the school and the bus stop and home. But it’s like everyone saw him walking home with his cousin, his cousin turns around for a minute to chase a damn neighborhood cat up a tree, and Sizhui is just . . . gone. How does a kid just disappear like that?”

“But this lead?”

“The administrator I talked to at the Center said they might have something, some record of where he was born. Maybe someone from his birth family has been looking for him, would take him? There’s just— Even if the records do exist, if they weren’t destroyed, I don’t know who has access. And he’s just a kid, you know? I’m not special. We’re not special. So I can’t think of anything but the worst. You know what happens to kids, especially if they take them West, I know they sell—”

“You don’t know,” Lan Zhan cuts her off, gently. “No one knows. No reason to go down that road unless the evidence points there.”

Lan Qiaolian rubs her face. “I just don’t know what the evidence is.”

“We’ll find something. I have a hunch.”

He does not have a hunch. He doesn’t believe in hunches. Or, rather, he didn’t before he started cultivating. Now he believes in the extra-sensory perception of his golden core, which he has been ordered—and signed pages of documents agreeing—to never use it again.

Either way, he’s learned that the general public like hunches. It’s comforting, apparently, someone taking the lead off of no information. It doesn’t make much sense, but most reassuring things don’t.

“I can’t help thinking—” Lan Qiaolian trails off, tapping her thumb on the steering wheel. “Maybe he left because of me.”

This is not a comfortable situation. Lan Zhan should respond with Of course not, don’t think like that. But for all he knows it could be true. He doesn’t really know Lan Qiaolian, and he certainly doesn’t know Lan Sizhui.

All he knows are the facts. Lan Qiaolian began fostering Lan Sizhui a year ago, when he was eight. It was just the two of them until a few weeks ago when Lan Sizhui went missing. It’s not his job to find missing children, but they are technically family, and if there’s some kidnapping or a dangerous part of Moling where children are falling into holes in the ground, that’s a story.

“Why would you think that?” It’s not as gentle, maybe, but it’s useful.

“I got laid off a few years ago. A lot of us did, mass layoffs.”

“Construction?”

“Yeah. Everyone from site managers to the detailers to— well, everyone. One whole firm shut down. So I thought, you know, I’d be home for a while, I got some unemployment, so maybe it would be a good time to finally start fostering. You know? I could stay home until he got adjusted, then when he started school I’d have found something new.”

“And he was happy?”

Lan Qiaolian smiles. “He’s always happy. He’s a real happy kid. Whatever he went through when he was little, he doesn’t seem to remember. Makes friends easily, fine by himself. He’s a dream. But maybe he was just good at showing me what I wanted to see. You know? Coming from a traumatic background like that, being in the system. You know, kids learn how to survive.”

“If he seemed happy, I’m sure he was.”

She sighs. “I just— The work never came back. The last six, seven months I’ve been calling everywhere I can think of. Even considered moving. Nothing. And so it’s been tight, even though it’s just the two of us. I figured with my husband’s life insurance we’d be fine until I found something, but I didn’t anticipate it taking this long. I’ve got some unemployment, but the support payments from fostering messed with my benefits. And so it’s been tight. And maybe he— You know, the secondhand clothes, no takeout, no games. Not getting to go on the school trips because I can’t pay the— I can’t help thinking, maybe all that time in the system, he must’ve been dreaming about a home, you know, what it would be like. And then when it wasn’t—”

“That’s a lot of conjecture.”

She laughs. “True. I just— The brain, it spins. You know?”

“Hm.” Lan Zhan looks out the window at the familiar neighborhood, then startles a bit. “Did they tear down the market?”

Qiaolian glances over. “Oh, yeah. Couple months ago. No more independent groceries in this part of town anymore. Not that most people could afford it at the end. They tried to stick it out, but the big chains moved in after the war, got those tax breaks.”

“Ah. ‘Economic revitalization.’”

She laughs again.

“So, if I can ask,” he starts, glancing out of the corner of his eye to gauge her response. “On the train I noticed building sites. Jin Industries?”

Her jaw clenches. “They’re not hiring.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“We’ve all tried. They’ve bought up half of Moling, and whoever’s running the construction’s not hiring local. Union’s totally shut out.”

“Really?”

“I’ve tried, okay? I’ve called so many—” she cuts off with a frustrated noise.

“Forgive me. It wasn’t a criticism. I’m just curious.”

She nods curtly. “We’re here.”

The administrator who has agreed to meet with them has black toner smudged up the inside of her left forearm and a framed picture of a cat on her desk. She offers Lan Zhan room temperature water in a cracked coffee mug.

“So you’re my eleven o’clock, right? Okay, right.”

“That’s an old flag,” Lan Zhan says, nodding up at the wall behind her. “I haven’t seen that design for a while.”

For the most part, it’s a standard Sunshot, but in addition to the golden hand and red sun, thin black lines reach up the palm like branches.

The administrator looks surprised, turning around to it. “Oh. Yeah, I guess. I don’t know, I don’t have time to keep up with all that. We have to pay for our own, you know. We’re required to hang a flag in every room but the bathroom, but it comes out of our general operating budget. The official ones aren’t cheap.”

Lan Qiaolian chuckles. “My cousin got it tattooed right after he got discharged. He was pissed when they got rid of the black squiggles in the update. I told him, that’s why you gotta think for more than a week before you make a permanent decision, you know?”

The administrator smiles politely. “Anyway. Let me see here.” She starts digging through her pile of folders. “Lai, Lai—”

“Lan,” Lan Zhan corrects.

“Sorry?”

“The name, it’s Lan.”

“Right! Right, okay, Lan. Lan . . . Here we go. Lan . . . Qiaolian. Foster mother. Yes?”

Qiaolian nods.

“And you are?”

“Family,” Lan Zhan says.

“Right. Okay, let’s see. Lan Sizhui, age nine.”

Lan Zhan leans forward. “Anything you can tell us about where he came from, his life before Lan Qiaolian met him?”

She clicks her tongue and runs a finger down the page. “War orphan, typical story. Moved around, a bit once he got to Gusu. No injuries or disabilities. Hearing and sight all good, average height. Slightly underweight, but that’s not unusual.”

“When did he arrive here?”

“At our facility? Looks like ‘98.”

“So he wasn’t here long before you got him,” Lan Zhan looks to Lan Qiaolian.

“Yeah, I guess. We don’t really talk about his past. That’s what the counselors recommend. You’re supposed to wait until they volunteer, you know? You don’t ask first.”

“Any idea where he came from? Birth family?”

The administrator clicks her tongue again, flips a few pages. Lan Zhan catches a sight of a grainy printed photograph, a kid looking around six, big chubby cheeks and shaggy long hair.

“Came in through law enforcement. No note of any charges or juvenile detention, so likely if he had surviving family they lost custody due to a criminal conviction. Looks like the child didn’t offer any details to counselors or placement. Um, looks like Sizhui was the name he got here.”

Lan Qiaolian frowns. “You named him? That’s not his birth name?”

“Common practice, especially if we have multiple kids with the same given name. He never gave a family name—Likely he either didn’t know his parents or forgot after being in the system for a while. A-Yuan is what he was called when he got here.”

“Yuan,” Lan Zhan turns it over in his mouth. “Something Yuan. Any record of where he was born?”

“Mmm, can’t be sure. But he entered the system in Yiling.”

“Yiling?”

“Yep. First registered into care in Yiling, 1995.”

Lan Zhan looks back up at the flag. The others must be thinking the same thing. Yiling in 1995, the Sunshot Massacre. But that’s a ridiculous thought—there were no survivors then, and plenty of other battles, bombings, one-off murders in the area at the end of the war.

“No family names though?” Lan Qiaolian asks. “Any record of someone who might be looking for him, might want him back?”

The administrator suddenly yawns hugely, covering her mouth with both hands. “I’m so sorry. No, no siblings, no recorded birth family. I’m so sorry, I haven’t been sleeping.”

“It’s all right,” Qiaolian says.

“I live over on the East side. They’re building some new damn complex, pounding in pilings at all hours of the night.”

“At night?” Qiaolian asks. “Why?”

The woman sighs. “I don’t know. Lights coming in the windows at one in the morning. I had to dig out my old curtains, thank goodness I still have them. Wake up in the middle of the night thinking the bombing’s started up again, ha, the banging and the lights. We’ve been complaining, but the company offered all the neighbors a settlement stop reporting it. Two months’ rent, we couldn’t turn it down.”

“Lots of construction,” Lan Zhan says, carefully. “Unusual construction.”

“I wouldn’t know,” the administrator shrugs. “I just hope they finish up quickly. My cats are getting stressed to death.”

“Have you noticed— Never mind.” Qiaolian chews her lip.

“Noticed what?”

“The site over by me, there’s a lot of trailers.”

“Like trailers you live in?”

“They look similar—usually there’s a double-wide or two for an on-site office, break area, you know. The site by us there’s a dozen at least. I just find that odd.”

“I haven’t noticed. Maybe. I don’t know, I try to ignore it. Whatever office complex or hotel or whatever it is, I don’t need it.”

The administrator flips through the file again. “I’m afraid that’s about all I can give you. Yiling might have more information—I think the children’s home there moved a couple years ago so files might have been lost, but it’s worth an ask. Signature on the transfer form looks like a Xie Ling. It’s not a huge town, anyway, could be someone remembers the kid, or the family. Local police or courts maybe, if they keep decent records.”

Lan Zhan and Lan Qiaolian exchange a glance.

“Sounds like I’m going to Yiling,” Lan Zhan says.

“You don’t have to—”

He shakes his head, then hands his card to the administrator. “If you think of anything, or hear anything.”

She takes it. “Gusu Herald? You’re not going to mention the flag thing, right? We’re compliant with everything, this one’s just a mistake.”

“I doubt you’ll even be mentioned. I’m just following the story.”

She looks doubtful. “Okay. We’re compliant, though.”

“I work for a newspaper, not the government.”

She snorts. “Yeah. Okay. ”

It twists a little in his stomach, but he nods at her politely as they leave.

The hallway takes them past a large window showing some kind of playroom. Three adults huddle around a low table, arguing in hushed tones, while a child who looks around four plays by himself with a few scratched up toy cars. The child has a cast on one arm, rolling one car at a time solemnly around on the carpet. He looks up as they pass him and tracks them all the way down the hallway. Lan Zhan can feel his eyes on the back of his neck even as they go out into the sunshine.

“Did Sizhui talk about anybody here?” Lan Zhan asks as they get back in the car. “Any friends at the group home, or children he knew when he was younger?”

“Not really. I was worried he’d have a hard time making friends, because he always seemed so content playing by himself. It’s why I was so glad he had Jingyi, his cousin. He’s the same age. He’s the one who was with—” Qiaolian breaks off, blinking hard. “Sorry. Long day.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” he says. He should say something else like It’s okay. It will be fine. We will find him. But he doesn’t, because that would probably be a lie. His silence rises like water in the car, over his mouth, his nose, stifling.

Do not be needlessly cruel.

“Yiling,” Lan Zhan says, to fill the space.

“Fucking Yiling,” Qiaolian agrees.

“I’ll go this weekend.”

“What? You can’t just take off across the country.”

“I haven’t taken vacation in three years. I can go.”

“Lan Zhan—”

“I will go. I’m not saying I will find him, but I will go.”

Lan Qiaolian doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride. When she drops him at the station, she just nods, lips pressed tight together.

“I will call you,” he says. She nods again and he gets out.

He stops by the payphone on the way in to the station to call the office.

“Can I talk to Lan Shu? Yes, thank you.” He waits while the call is transferred down to the basement. “Hi, Lan Shu. Have we got anything from Yiling? Anything we’ve covered. Is there a local paper there? I haven’t—”

Lan Shu snaps her gum on the other end of the line. He pulls the receiver away from his ear, wincing. It’s a very wet sound. “Yeah, I got some. I’ll check our clippings, but they’ve got some shitty local rag. A weekly, I think.”

“Please pull that for me. I’m looking for 1995, don’t know what month.”

“Eh, looks like it’s only been running a couple years. First edition I have is April ‘98.”

Lan Zhan taps his finger, thinking. “I’ll take everything you’ve got. Any of our coverage from ‘95.”

“So, Sunshot.”

“And anything else we covered.”

Lan Shu laughs around her gum, “What else is there? No one gave a shit about Yiling before Sunshot, and nobody’s given a shit since.”

Lan Zhan sighs. “Just pull what you can find. Please. I’ll be by in an hour and a half.”

He hangs up before she can snap her gum again. It gives him a headache, the wet sound.

He grabs a copy of the Herald for the train ride back. Instead of reading, he flips through the entire paper looking for one word: Yiling. He finds three mentions: once as the birthplace of a soccer player (a rags-to-riches story), once as the site of a hailstorm in the weather section, and once, as expected, in reference to the Sunshot Massacre.

He hasn’t thought about it much before. He’s never been to Yiling, but there’s never really been a reason. Even before the war it was a small, poor, middle of nowhere town with low property values, high crime rates, and the worst literacy numbers in the country. It was shitty, but not in an interesting way. Qinghe was always shitty but exciting—drug kingpins and porn producers and a famous red light district. It’s become more respectable since the war, though it’s kept some of it’s sleazy veneer. Lan Huan likes to visit, says there’s a good arts scene, but Lan Zhan has never been tempted. He traveled a lot during the war, but since returning home he’s never really felt the urge. For a while it was justified. Recovery. But five years? Maybe he’s more than comfortable, now. Maybe he’s stagnating.

Lan Shu gives him two-and-a-half years of weekly papers in a brown paper bag and slim folder of photocopied clipping from the Herald’s own files. He hauls it all home on the bus piles them neatly by year on the coffee table, then settles in with a cup of tea to read. There are empty gum wrappers in the bottom of the bag.

The Yiling Observer is a quick read, only eight pages in its first edition. There are no bylines, oddly, no editors listed, no photographs, just one phone number and a street address in the masthead. The stories are . . . not quite what he expected. No gruesome crimes or depressing statistics. Just coverage of a local amateur basketball tournament, a car accident that took out a storefront, an interview with a grandmother about her vegetable garden. Small stories, almost defiantly local, but clearly and concisely written. Professional. A recipe for xiao long bao attributed to a Mrs. Yi.

He flips to the back page, under the fold. Whatever it says in bold.

This is your humble author’s own column, where our fearless and frightening editor has given me these few inches to write whatever I like. Hence the name, Whatever. Today we’re going to talk about the Sunshot Flag, or as I like to call it, “Hey, let’s slap reminders of a war crime up on every building in the country, that’s a great idea.”

Lan Zhan snorts. Whoever the writer is, they’re not wrong. He gets up to heat more water and adds to his list of things to do on the kitchen counter. Read all of the newspapers. Call the HR department and schedule a few days of vacation, maybe a week. Wait until his uncle sees it on the out of office calendar and calls him in a huff to explain the story. Book a train ticket to Yiling. Make an appointment at children’s services. Find a hotel. Ask Lan Huan to water his plants. Do laundry.

He feels better with a list, like all of the static of potential responsibilities has focused into a clearly intelligible sound inside his skull.

He goes back to the paper.

And before you complain—and I know some of you will—you’re the one reading my paper. Maybe someday you’ll have better options and can use this only for lining your bird cages, but for now I’m the best you got. That’s Yiling, baby.

Part Five

#assorted writings #pick up every piece #the untamed #cql #mo dao zu shi #postwar journalist au #i hate plot

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seemslegitflapjacks · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter 2, The Neighbors

When I woke up, It was already the next day. The obnoxious sun glaring at me through the curtainless window. I groaned, sitting up, my back aching from sleeping on the floor. I looked, seeing Rambo pawing at the door, asking to be let out. I sat up, kicking my way out of the sleeping bag, opening the door for the massive dog, who shoved his way out the door.

“Jeff! Wake up darlin and help us with the boxes please!” I heard my mom holler from downstairs.

I smiled, hearing my mom’s voice first thing in the morning was the best. Even if it was her telling me to grab scratchy cardboard boxes and carry them back and forth.

“Coming mama!” I hollered back, running down the stairs so fast I nearly fell.

“Hey raggamuffin.” My mom chuckled, ruffling up my messy head of hair.

“Hey mama.” I smiled back, hugging her, my mom returning my embrace.

“Ok, now go help your daddy and your brother with the boxes. Your boxes have your name on it baby.” My mom told me, giving me a kiss on the head as she shooed me away.

I walked outside, taking a few good seconds to adjust to the bright sun. I couldn’t remember the last time I’ve ever been outside when it was so bright. It was probably a California thing, hell if I know.

I kept walking to the moving truck, walking up the ramp, seeing my dad pass by with boxes in his hands.

“Mornin’ champ.” He greeted as he passed.

I gave my dad a wave back, searching for the boxes with my name written on them. After digging a bit, I found one of them. I carried it into my room, doing the same with the rest of my boxes. Back and forth, up and down the stairs. I honestly couldn’t tell whether I was running suicides or moving. It kept me busy though.

I had scratches from the cardboard all over my forearms. My arms and back felt so strained from constantly crouching down to pick up stuff. The constant back and forth up the stairs also took a bit of my energy. But it wasn’t as bad as soccer and lacrosse. Those were honestly way worse with the constant running.

After I had set the last box down in my room, I heard my mom call me from downstairs.

“Jeff! Come down please we have some neighbors!” My mom yelled, to which I rushed down the stairs.

Once I was outside, we were met by a young woman and her son. She had a slim deer like face with freckles and big doe eyes. Her son was about five or six, he has scruffy brown hair with big hazel green doe eyes and freckles.

“Hey, I’m Barbara, and this is my son, Billy.” The tall slim lady smiled, her hand patting her young son’s shoulder.

“Hi Barbara, my name’s Margaret, this is my husband Peter, and these two boys right here are my sons, Jeff and Liu.” My mom spoke, a smile on her face, our father matching her smile as the three of them shook hands.

“Hi I’m Billy!” The little kid blurted out, shoving out his hand towards my twin and I.

“Hey Billy, I’m Jeff, this is my twin Liu.” I smiled, shaking his tiny hand, the kid’s jaw dropping.

‘Mommy! They’re twins!” He told his mom, pulling on the edge of her shirt.

‘Oh! Your boys really are so alike Margaret!” Barbara replied, my mom laughing.

“You should’ve seen Jeff when he had short hair, couldn’t tell one from the other.” Our mother chuckled.

The three adults talked for a while, discussing random stuff. The conversation drew on for so long I knew my mom had already made a new best friend. I remember when I had to literally sit in the candle aisle at Wal-mart for a whole hour because my mom couldn’t stop talking to a coworker of hers. I love my mom but she’s gonna be the death of me someday I swear.

“Nice meetin’ y’all, see y’all later!” Our mom waved, finally, alas, I didn’t have to listen to my mom ramble about my brother and I.

Once we were back inside, I saw our cat Chanel laying on the couch. I smiled, quickly scooping up the little kitty in my arms, he let out a surprised meow, but instantly started purring when he realized it was me. I scratched his ears as I held him on the couch. My parents were talking in the kitchen, while my brother was attempting to figure out how to get the TV plugged up and connected to cable.

“You know It’d be nice if you helped me instead of petting the cat dude.” Liu told me, shooting me a dirty look.

“Sorry but I’m not willing to get electrocuted.” I clapped back.

Liu rolled his eyes, “You’re not gonna get electrocuted you wuss-” just then, almost on clue, the outlet shocked. Liu making a weird yelp noise, holding his finger.

“See? I’m not finna play ding-dong-ditch with God’s door dumbass.” I told him, sticking out my tongue.

“Shut up Rapunzel-” He snapped, embarrassed.

I rolled my eyes, continuing to pet Chanel, who was almost half asleep. My mom returned, turning to help my brother configure cable wires. The TV eventually flicked on, Liu grabbing the remote, changing the channel to some random show. Probably some white trash rich people show, House wives of nobody fucking cares. I hated the shows, but they were also entertaining.

At some point, my mom had turned it to the news. The reporter talking about a grizzly murder that had happened the night before. The body of a convicted child abuser was found strung up and gutted in the woods. The body was mutilated in all sorts of ways. Apparently the murderers had also smacked him around like a pinata. That was gruesome. Like, being a human pinata sounded painful. It wouldn’t even be that exciting, I mean, you don't even get candy you just get teeth n’ stuff.

We had dinner, which was just door dash Steak Escape. I grabbed Chanel, taking the little siamese cat upstairs to my room, plopping the cat down on my bed. Quickly walking into my bathroom, taking a shower.

I sat, letting the skin boiling water rain down on me. I closed my eyes, leaning my head up, the shower water making my forehead numb. I heard static fuzz up in my ears, slowly getting louder and louder. Before I opened my eyes, it had completely stopped. I quickly washed my hair, making sure I got it all before I lathered myself up in body wash, watching the soap rinse down into the drain.

I noticed the water turning pinkish red, quickly putting the back of my hand up to my face. Only to see blood. Shit, I was having another nosebleed. I’d been having a lot lately, they’d bleed until I started to hear static again. I didn’t wanna tell my parents, they’d think I was lying. Who would believe something like that anyways? Like, ‘Oh hey mom I hear static and everytime I do my nose starts gushing blood.’ Like my mom would totally believe that. I stepped out, quickly pinching my nose as I leaned over the sink. The static became louder and louder. It hurt so bad, it was ringing in my ears like a siren. I moved my ears back, trying to drown it out by making the blood in my ears rumble. But it didn’t stop. That’s when I gagged, hacking and choking, before a slug of blood splattered into the sink. Yuck.

I let go of my no longer bleeding nose, My hands stained bright red from the blood as it began to dry up. I turned on the sink, running my hands up under the water. Quickly grabbing a towel to dry myself off. I looked at myself in the mirror. My skin pale and yellowish, I felt cold and clammy. The skin on my arms splotchy with red. I looked sick as a dog. The bags under my eyes a dark purple brown. I looked disgusting, like actually nasty. I thought showers were supposed to make you feel and look better. Clearly today’s shower decided to nerf me.

I walked out, Chanel meowing loudly as he waited outside the door. The needy bastard wanting to be given attention. I nudged him away, grabbing some basketball shorts and a random t-shirt, bouncing up onto my bed. Chanel jumping up. The small cat meowing as he walked on my stomach, shoving his forehead onto my hand as I pet him. Chanel cured up on my lap purring until I got tired of petting him and fell asleep. Tomorrow was gonna be one hell of a day.

#creepypasta #jtk #creepypasta jtk #jeff woods #jeff the killer #liu woods #homicidal liu #alternate universe #my au #rewrite #creepypasta fandom #writers on tumblr #writing #chapter

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aengelicsoul · 5 years ago

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i wanted to make a list of all MY MUSES, active and inactive, with a brief description of each of them — just to make a little summary ! — so here it is. feel free to message me anytime to start a thread / think of a plot with any of my babies.

　　　　　　﹟ 　ALYX SIENNA LEE 　 / 　 MADELYN CLINE. 22. australian. a bartender who works as an escort, from time to time, to mantain a certain type of life she got used to in canberra [ her father is a known and rich politician there ]. bisexual. SHE IS　　 lots of tattoos, cocktails whose names are impossible to remember, leaving her number on a napkin with a smiley face, taking risks, sunkissed and glowy skin, surfing the highest waves, indie concerts, eyeliner and dramatic lipsticks. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　AUBREY MARTIN　 / 　 NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO. 25. canadian. a waitress who has been spoiled her entire life and can’t do anything by herself. bisexual. SHE IS 　　 thrifted clothes from the 80s, 90s and 00s, pending earrings, cloudy days with a few sun rays, nude lipstick, messy mascara, kind words and touching attentions, big salads, overpriced smoothies, a different bag everyday, ikea full lenght mirror for selfies, organized plans and tidy rooms. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　ELIA RUFFINo　 / 　 LORENZO ZURZOLO. 20. italian. a university student who’s studying cinematography and taking acting classes. used to be the drama kid in school. bisexual. HE IS 　　 dramatic performances off and on stage, getting high at concerts, puppy eyes, all black, foreign movies, leather journal filled with poems, swearing in italian, tabacco at the bottom of his pockets, deep conversations on the roof at three am. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　FRANK (FRANCESCO) ZANETTI　 / 　 MATTEO MARTARI. 35. italian. a private bodyguard for the rich and wealthy who used to be a policeman, in italy. bisexual. HE IS 　　 getting into fights for love, freckles, worried eyes, tired soul, navy suits and white shirts, a hint of beard, fear of losing control, gentle kisses, vanilla icecream and a familiar handwriting. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　HENRIETTA CALHOUN　 / 　 MADISON DAVENPORT. 24. canadian. a university student who’s taking her master in engineering informatics + a hacker in her free time. bisexual. SHE IS　　 black babydolls, fingers typing quickly, bringing her computer anywhere, black and white polaroids all over the walls, punching hard, feisty temper, coding, her sister’s necklace, rings, incense burning on the window shelf, succulents. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　LEO (LEOPOLD) BURNETT　 / 　 RUDY PANKOW. 18. american. a senior in high school whose life consists in working for the richest beverly hills families when he can, to help his mother, and surfing. bisexual. HE IS 　　 waves so high he can feel the clouds, the smell of fresh grass, the same old denim jacket his father left him before leaving, forehead kisses, snarky comments, heart of gold. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　LOVISE DE SMIT　 / 　 DANIELLE CAMPBELL. 23. norwegian. a freelancer cartoonist (comics artist) who has a small etsy shop on the side. bisexual. SHE IS 　　 comics everywhere, a dreamcatcher hanging over her bed, a board to help visualize her latest story, pinterest boards for her characters, a huge collection of pencils and colours, shades of color but not being able to catch the shades of grey in life. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　LUCIEN KERR　 / 　 THOMAS DOHERTY. 21. american (french from his mother’s side). a self-employed mechanic who inherited his father’s business and anger. bisexual. HE IS 　　 comics everywhere, a dreamcatcher hanging over her bed, a board to help visualize her latest story, pinterest boards for her characters, a huge collection of pencils and colours, shades of color but not being able to catch the shades of grey in life. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　MOIRA DONOVAN　 / 　 CRYSTAL REED. 31. american. a homicide detective whose life revolves around crime and riddles. bisexual. SHE IS 　　 multiple identical leather jackets, running at night, finding comfort in her gun, playing darts alone after a long day at work, blurry morals. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　NADINE BROOKS　 / 　CLAIRE HOLT. 30. american. a contract killer who never stays in the same place for long and loves to change identity and play different parts. latest one: colleen miller, a kind bartender who plays therapist with her drunk clients. homosexual. SHE IS 　　 knives hidden under an evening dress, warm smile and cold hands, numerous expensive wigs, contact lenses, bullet holes, bloody kisses. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　RAMONA PEREIRA　 / 　 ESTER EXPOSITO. 19. spanish-american. a social media influencer whose business is based on fitness, photoshoots and promoting things she doesn’t believe in. bisexual. SHE IS 　　 lace lingerie, a flask safely held in her purse, a pair of never wore before loubotins, bad intentions, crying herself to sleep, self-inflicted bruises, working out to empty her mind, fake perfect life on instagram. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　RAVEN VAUGHN　 / 　 SAMANTHA LOGAN. 19. american. a university student studying accounting and finance, who has a way with numbers but not with words. heterosexual. SHE IS 　　 pink lips, braids, fancy water bottles, cooking for someone else, romantic comedies from the nineties, dreaming of prince charming, two-piece outfits, pastel colors, long baths and singing in the shower, white ribbons, numbers over words. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　REBECCA TREMBLAY　 / 　 KENNEDY WALSH. 19. american. a visual design student at university who dreams of becoming one of the best graphic designers out there. homosexual. SHE IS 　　 floral overpriced tops, whimsical make-up, rainbow hair, borrowing her mother’s weed and hiding it under the bed, fairy lights, tweeting at all times, soft kisses and big fears, hugging her dog when something goes wrong. 　 ♡ ﹟ 　REMI (REMINGTON) OLIVER KNIGHT　 / 　 GAVIN LEATHERWOOD. 25. british. a fashion photographer with a bad reputation. bisexual. HE IS 　　 a library with no books in it (only cameras and different lenses), his work framed in different pictures all around his house, luxury cars, scandalous parties, bad reputation, black leather shoes, spending hours in front of a mirror. 　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　RICHIE (RICHARD) LOPEZ　 / 　 BENJAMIN WADSWORTH. 18. american. a senior high school student whose reputation as your classical troublemaker precedes him. bisexual. HE IS 　　 a constant black eye, cigarette behind his ear, soft curls, disappointed look, fists clenched ready for a fight, not caring about getting hurt or hurting who deserves it, an old pastel car that feels like home.　 ♡ 　　　　　　 ﹟ 　SAGE TAYLOR　 / 　 LAURA HARRIER. 27. american. a middle school art teacher who doesn’t care about showing her art to anyone with eyes, not anymore. heterosexual. SHE IS 　　 ruined t-shirts, painted overalls, colored eyeshadow, brushes in every angle of her apartment, more pillows than space on the bed, fire over ice, weird coffee orders, naked bodies touching any surface. 　 ♡

#⊱ ♡ ‧ mun talks.#indie rp

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silvereddaye · 5 years ago

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The Protectorate One-Shot

This is a one-shot that I’ve been sitting on for two years. (Wow.) My writing has grown since doing this, but it’s something I have never share. More on this at the end of the story.

Summary: Young Xun goes to the market with his mother. He lives in a galaxy where Sidious’ plot to create a Sith empire never happened, but in its place rose the Protectorate run by Jedi Order.

I wanted to explore this idea where the Jedi were the ‘evil Empire.’ I always wanted to make this into a proper story that connected in SW characters. I decided to try writing a bit of a world-building piece as to what that world would look like.

-- -- -- --

Xun could barely sit still as his mother tied his long hair into a knot on the top of his head. She wrapped it with a long blue sash. His mother tapped him on the shoulder, indicating that she was done. Xun jumped out of the seat. His hair was the last thing they needed to do before he left with his mother to the market.

Xun looked over at his mother. She was collecting her bag. Her long black hair was pulled into a large bun on her head. A simple flower pin was stuck in the side. She was wearing a hanfu dress in soft purple, gray, and white tones.

Xun himself wore a simple blue vest with a white undershirt. He wore black loose flowing pants. Yun, his twin brother, came up and handed him his robed over layer. Xun took the blue robe and wrapped it around himself. He glanced back over at his mother, she was ready to go. He followed her to the door. She paused and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Remember everything we’ve talked about?” she said looking directing into his eyes.

-- -- --

“Yes mother,” he responded. He bit back a sigh and didn’t roll his eyes. Xun was nine years old now. He knew the rules about leaving the house. His mother nodded and the two left. He kept his pace to be directly behind his mother, but it was hard. His legs ached to run.

It was rare to be allowed outside the house. Even rarer to get to go to the market. The last time Xun had been allowed out of the house was three months ago. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been to the market. A year? More? Each time he left the house, he always wanted to run. He was no longer bound by the walls of his home. Yet despite the yearning in his body, he didn’t run. He walked properly behind his mother.

“Good morning Hui!” Xun looked to see a neighbor walking along the road. They were walking towards them. Xun’s mother nodded and greeted the older lady. The two exchanged a few words. Before the woman left she looked at Xun. “Have a good day young Yun.” Xun nodded and was quick to follow his mother as she walked away from the lady.

The first rule of being let out of the house was Xun was to pretend he was Yun, his identical twin brother. In fact as far as the outside world was concerned there was no Xun. His family only had one son, Yun. Their other son, Xun, had died when he was three years old.

Xun and his mother made it through the wooden homes and into the business district of town. More and more people were roaming the streets now. Xun did his best to simply stare at his feet or his mother’s back. Glaring at others could call for attention, something his mother had lectured him about. Yet he let himself steal small glances at the crowds.

Most of the people walking around were locals. Humans who looked and dressed like Xun and his mother. Yet as they neared the marketplace he started to see a few aliens. He tried to match them up with what he’d read on his holoreader or had seen in holodramas or on the holonet. The marketplace was loud and crowded with people. Stalls filled a large courtyard. Colorful and patterned tarps protected the sellers and their goods. Xun let himself glance over the goods in the stalls. There was a lot of food. There were clothes and fabrics. His favorite was seeing the holoprojector stalls, with all the projectors showing miniature blue holos. Xun said nothing as he followed his mother as she shopped. A few times a vendor would ask something of Xun. He kept his answers short as possible or avoided responding by simply nodding.

At one point his mother bought them both of them some meat skewers. They found a quiet spot off to the side of the marketplace to eat. Xun greatly enjoyed the market food. Even after the skewer was eaten, he sat licking his fingers. As he did, he glanced along the nearby marketplace. Tall poles were scattered throughout the place. Hanging from those polls waved the flag of the Protectorate.

The flag was all white with the blue insignia of the Jedi Order: a sharp thin line shot up the middle with two wings growing out and circling the edes into a circle. Suddenly Xun found the leftover sauce on his fingers tasteless. He wiped his hands on his robed jacket and glanced down. He fought back a shiver thinking about the Protectorate. The Jedi.

The rest of the shopping trip continued with no problems. Xun played the part perfectly of his brother Yun. His mother was finally done with all her shopping, and was making her way out of the marketplace. A loud sound ripped through the air. He looked up as a small spaceship zoomed over head. Then another and another. He turned watching the three ships disappear. He turned back ready to follow his mother, but her eyes were on the sky where the fighters had disappeared to.

Xun could feel his mother’s fear. Her worry was radiating off her. Her eyes were wide and her face had gone pale. She looked down at Xun, grabbed his upper arm tightly and pulled him. He let out a small yelp as she kept a quick pace out of the marketplace. Xun was doing his best to keep up with his mother.

Suddenly his mother stopped and Xun ran into her. Her fear had gotten worse. She pulled him behind him, but Xun stuck his head out to see what was causing his mother to react this way. They were only a few stalls away from the edge of the marketplace. Yet at the edge stood several troopers. There was no mistaking them. Xun had seen them enough through the holonet to recognize them. They wore their white armor with the blue symbol of the Jedi Protectorate on their shoulder.

Xun now understood his mother’s fears. His own fear was rising inside of him. It was scraping and dragging down his insides.

“Mothe-” he started to whisper. She immediately hushed him. She turned, once again grabbing Xun by the shoulder, and led him back into the marketplace. She wound through the stalls. He noticed they were going towards a different exit, but again there were troopers there.

“Tā mā de!” his mother whispered under her breath. Once again she turned, dragging Xun back into the marketplace. Once in the middle they stopped at a stall. Her mother stood a bit to the side, as if she was contemplating buying one of the loaves of bread displayed at the stall. Yet her eyes kept dashing down to Xun.

She pulled Xun on again until they came to a tea cart. A decent size group of people stood around the cart, sipping from small earthenware cups. His mother walked up and paid for two cups. She handed one to Xun, who took it, but didn’t feel like drinking it. He wondered why they were stopping for tea of all times.

His mind kept going back to the troopers. Surely they weren’t here for him, were they? He had been so careful. He hadn’t done anything! He tried so hard to be normal. His mother’s voice brought him out of his own thoughts, but she wasn’t talking to Xun. She was talking with a small group of women, who were also sipping tea.

“I saw troopers at the north end and east end of the marketplace,” she said. A few of the ladies nodded.

“The Jedi are here,” said one older woman. Xun couldn’t help the ice-cold jolt of fear that ran down his spine.

“Really? Why would a Jedi be here?” another one asked. She clearly didn’t believe it.

“Then why the fighters?” another woman chimed in. “You don’t have those Protectorate fighters just flying around civilian airspace for fun.”

One woman stepped closer into the middle of the circle. Her voice low. The other woman leaned in to hear. “I heard there is a Force-sensitive here. The Jedi are here to collect it.” A few women nodded their heads. Xun was wide-eyed and caught his mother giving him a quick glance.

“A-a Force-sensitive?” his mother said. “Here?”

“I think it’s that newborn from the Liu family,” one woman offered. A few women nodded. Xun’s mother drank the rest of her tea. She grabbed Xun’s untouched cup and placed both cups on the tea cart. Again she tightly gripped Xun’s shoulder and pulled him through the marketplace. Again they made it to the edge of the marketplace, but no troopers were present. His mother let out a loud sigh. Her grip weakened a bit.

They left the marketplace, but they had to wind their way through the crowded homes. They had left from the west side of the marketplace. Xun’s home was in the south-east. Xun was getting tired. His feet hurt. But he didn’t slow. He didn’t complain. He wanted to get home. To be safe.

From a small alleyway ahead of Xun and his mother, two children dashed out. The older was a boy and the younger a girl. The boy yelled at the girl to keep going as glanced over his shoulder. Xun’s mother pressed him to the side of a wall as the two ran passed. Then Xun heard the heavy feet following the two children. From the alleyway, the two had run out from came five troopers.

The boy and the girl let out a scream as they rushed on. Xun watched them as they desperately ran away from the troopers. He watched as the red blaster bolts hit the boy in the back and fell. The girl screamed as she turned to watch the boy fall. Yet she was quickly silenced as two red bolts struck her. She fell as well.

The troopers marched up the street. Xun held his breath as they passed him and his mother, but the troopers never looked at the two. They walked on to the dead boy and girl. Xun’s mother pulled at him and they ducked into an alleyway. Then they were running. She dropped the items they bought at the marketplace and grabbed onto Xun’s hand.

Finally, they made it to their house. His mother pushed him inside, slammed the door shut and locked it. Xun stumbled in and fell to the floor. His whole body ached. How he had wished to do nothing but run when he first left the house, and now he never wanted to run again.

“Xun!”

Xun looked up to his brother Yun running up to him. Behind him was their father. His face was creased with worry. He walked up to Xun’s mother and hugged her tightly.

“I feared the worst when I heard the fighters above,” Xun’s father whispered into his mother’s hair. The two stayed like that for only a short while.

“Get the vial,” Xun’s mother told his father. His father nodded and walked further into the house.

“Xun come here,” his mother ordered. Xun stood up and followed. Xun’s mother started to undress him. She took off his coat and vest, handing both to Yun. Yun quickly put both on. The sash holding his hair up was pulled loose. His mother walked over to Yun and pulled his hair back. Yun now looked like Xun had when he was in the marketplace.

Xun’s father returned holding a medical vial and syringe. Xun couldn’t help but cringe seeing it. His father stuck the needle into the vial and letting the syringe fill with the clear liquid.

“It’s for the best, Xun,” his mother said softly as she had come to stand behind him. Xun only nodded. He rolled up his sleeve to allow his father access to his arm. The medicine would put him to sleep. If Xun was asleep he couldn’t use the Force, at least that’s what his parents said. Xun didn’t know what it was like to use the Force. He was pretty sure he had never used it before.

Xun’s father put the medical vial down and walked over to Xun. The man grabbed the boy’s arm, but before he stuck the needle into the boy’s arm there was a loud banging noise at the door. The whole family tensed. Again the banging came. Xun’s mother and father exchanged worried glances. Then there was the sound of a blaster. The lock started to smoke. The door was kicked in and white-armored troopers poured into the house. They surrounded the family, blasters pointed at them.

Then walked in the Jedi. Xun didn’t know what species she was. She was human-looking, but with pink skin. Her eyes looked more like an animal- they were large and all black. Most alarming was her hair. Pink matching her skin and in large coils that seemed to float off her head. She wore the traditional brown and tan Jedi robes. Her hands were clasped behind her back as she glanced at the family.

“I am Jedi Knight Lanis,” she said. “Identify yourselves.”

“We-we are the Han family,” Xun’s father stammered. Xun noticed the syringe was missing from his father’s hand. The Jedi woman didn’t respond. She kept glancing from Xun to Yun.

“Bring the kit,” she ordered. One of the troopers nodded and briskly walked out the door. He returned shortly after carrying a small box. “Test them all,” she ordered. Xun saw his mother stiffen.

“We’ve already been tested,” his father pleaded. “It’s in the planetary files.”

“Then you won’t mind being tested again,” the Jedi said harshly.

Xun’s mother let out a gasp as a stormtrooper grabbed her arms. Another trooper grabbed his father. Then Xun and Yun were also grabbed. The grip felt like durasteel. The trooper with the box opened it up. He pulled out a syringe and walked up to his mother. He pulled blood from her arm. He passed the full syringe to a trooper, and then grabbed a new syringe and pulled blood from Xun’s father. The process was repeated on everyone in the family.

There was a small machine in which the blood was put into. Xun’s mouth had gone dry. It felt like large rocks had placed inside of him and was trying to drag him down. His legs felt weak. He wanted to sit down. The machine was testing midichlorians. It was testing to see who was Force-sensitive.

“Ma’am the results,” said the trooper who had been testing the blood. He handed the Jedi a datapad. She glanced over it and then looked up straight at Xun.

“It’s the boy without the jacket,” she said handing the datapad back. Xun was pushed forward toward the Jedi. She grabbed his chin. Her fingers digging into his face. Xun could hear his mother crying behind him.

“How old are you boy?” the Jedi asked.

“I-I-” he stuttered.

“Don’t lie,” she said. Her words were dark and heavy. “I’ll know.”

“Xun!” his mother whimpered from behind him. He tried to turn to look at her, but the nails of the Jedi dug into him.

“Your age,” she hissed.

“Nine,” he cried softly. She let go of him. Xun instantly brought his hands to face and rubbed where the woman had grabbed him. The Jedi walked over to his parents, still being held by the troopers.

“Nine?” she said as she stopped in front of them. “That’s quite old. How is it that a nine-year-old living in this grand Protectorate has gone unnoticed? Surely he was tested at birth?” The Jedi woman was glaring at his parents. His mother had started to cry. His father had gone white. “Surely he has been tested each year, as required by law?” Neither parents spoke up.

A trooper walked up and handed the Jedi a datapad. She looked at it and swiped her finger through the contents.

“Feng and Hui Han,” the Jedi Knight said Xun’s parents’ names. “One son Yun. Age nine. One son deceased. Xun at age three.” The Jedi looked at Xun again. Then she looked at Yun. Finally, she looked back at Xun’s parents.

“Feng and Hui Han you're under arrest according to the following Protectorate Laws: purposely withholding a child from being tested, purposely hiding a Force-sensitive, and failing to report a Force-sensitive to the Protectorate.”

Xun’s mother started to sob loudly. She sagged to the floor. The trooper let go of her arm. The Jedi nodded to a trooper behind Xun. Xun quickly felt hands grab him and drag him towards the door. He started to resist.

“Mom! Dad!” he yelled.

“Xun!” his father cried back. This whole time Yun had been quiet. The Jedi had now turned her attention to Yun.

“You know it is quite rare that a twin would not share the same midichlorian count as the other,” the Jedi said as if amused. She grabbed Yun’s chin as she had Xun’s. She stared at him. Xun struggled against the trooper holding him. He wanted to go to Yun’s side, to get him away from that horrible Jedi woman. Yet then the Jedi let go of Yun. “The tests do not lie,” she said. “This one has no connection to the Force.”

She did a sharp turn and headed out of the house. She passed Xun and the trooper pulled the boy after her. In the street stood a few more troopers. Quite a few neighbors were on the street watching. Xun’s family was dragged outside by troopers. They were placed in a line facing the Jedi woman. The woman gave them a long glance before she turned her head to a trooper nearby.

“Proceed,” she said.

“Yes ma’am,” the trooper said. The troopers who had been holding Xun’s family let go. They stepped back and raised their blasters. Xun bolted forward, but found he couldn’t. Strong hands were grabbing his arms. He opened his mouth to call out, but then the red bolts blasted into the backs simultaneously. His mother let out a small gasp before she fell over. Xun’s father and Yun fell over without a sound.

The view of his dead family quickly grew blurry as tears started racing down his cheeks. The Jedi woman turned and looked down at Xun. She placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Jedi do not have attachments,” she said dryly before removing her hand and turning away.

-- -- -- --

First of all, I take no credit for the original idea of this. I got the idea from another fanfic called To a Dark Place. I really loved this concept where the Jedi were the bad guys with the ‘evil empire.’ I thought AceLightning did a good job at going in depth into how the Jedi would take over at the end of the Clone Wars and with the death Sidious. However, while I loved the story, it’s been very inactive and hasn’t been updated in a while. I just wanted more. I couldn’t wait to see where this idea went. And it never came. So I really wanted to explore it myself. But I could never really form a cohesive plot. So all I have is this one on-shot that I’ve been sitting on for two years. I don’t know I’ll figure out anything to do with this.

#my writing #one shot #the protectorate

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cllements · 5 years ago

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⧼ natasha liu bordizzo, cis female, she/her / the bones by maren morris ft. hozier + raven hair spilling out of a messy bun, dog-earred pages in a library book & encouraging post-it notes ⧽ ━━ don’t look now, but that’s gianna mei. the twenty one year old gifted human has been here in seattle for a year, and is a student & library assisant. they’ve always been patient & thoughtful, but i guess this town just brings out the worst in people ; apparently, they’ve been way more outspoken & flighty. it wouldn’t surprise me if they knew what was going on.

click here for gianna’s pinterest ! and here for musings !

gianna mei was born and raised in tacoma, washington with her 3 other siblings. they were the definition of a lower-middle class family, living in a small, two bedroom apartment. the mei’s always sort of skated by.

her parents weren’t around much-- not because they didn’t want to be, but because they were busting their backs so they could skate by. her older brother took on the role of being the primary caretaker until he moved out, and then that role sort of shifted onto her.

she loves her family dearly, but always had the highest amount of admiration for her grandmother who lived an hour away in seattle. gianna found herself spending many of her weekends in there, taking her around on her errands.

after high school she enrolled at the university of washington and took a few classes at their tacoma campus, working as an ambassador for the school. the spring of her sophomore year, she opted to study abroad in florence.

gianna loved being abroad. she loved being in a place that was so wildly different than the place she called home. she enjoyed learning the history and meeting new people. she got the knack of handling herself as she went around-- knew all the pro-tips and the in and outs n what not. she felt safe until she wasn’t.

supposedly, somewhere along the way she befriended ( or thought she did ) someone who she didn’t know was an informant for the volturi-- a group she didn’t know existed, up until this trip. the idea of the supernatural existing was all but lost on her. for reasons unknown to gianna, she was something of value to the volturi.

she became aware of all this later, after she was taken by the volturi. enter edward masen -- the vampire tasked with turning gianna. even through her own panic she could still see in his red eyes it was something he did not particularly want to do. she wasn’t sure if it was her own words that ultimately saved her -- she made sure to tell her whole life story, that she had family at home that depended on her return, but he spared her. she was told to forget what had transpired, as if that was possible.

she tried acting like everything was fine. she didn’t feel she could open up this can of worms to anyone. didn’t feel as though she could take off running, yet, either, which greatly conflicted with edward’s pleading for her to get out of europe. but then an opportunity presented itself, in the most heartbreaking of ways. her grandmother started developing dementia, and couldn’t quite care for herself the way she once could.

there was no room for her grandmother to move in with them in tacoma, and they couldn’t afford to put her in a nursing home. it seemed like a no brainer that gianna would go and care for her. seattle was big. she felt she was ultimately forgettable, and could blend in among a crowd. it should be safe. it was far from italy. far from the vampires-- or so she thought!!!!!!

she’s been living in seattle for a little over a year now, and transferred to u washington’s campus there. to say she doesn’t have a life would be an understatement. while she had plenty of friends in tacoma, the same didn’t translate to her new home. she didn’t have time. she works full-time at the library as an assistant librarian, and takes two classes asemester. when she’s not there, she’s caring for her grandmother. a chick is always tired !!

gianna has not. fully come to terms with essentially being kidnapped by the volturi. heck, she hasn’t even kind of come to terms with it. she easily shuts it from her memory, but the backlash from it has manifested itself in many ways. she’s restless at night in the worst sort of way - she often can’t sleep or when she does it’s nothing akin to being peaceful. she’ll usually save her homework or studying for them, maybe read, anything to distract from what her head probably wants to go to. the bags under her eyes are usually written off by people pretty quickly. . . because who in college actually has a good sleep schedule ? usually the lack of sleep is because of a bountiful social life but. . . people don’t need to know that. she over works herself for the same sort of reason.

she doesn’t mind crowds after everything, which is surprising, but she DOES mind being touched when she can’t anticipate it. think someone moving through a crowd, and someone moving through behind her rests a hand on her shoulder or waist to move her out of the way. such an action would fill her body with DREAD, quickly.

some info about her just !! personality wise, she’s really, really patient. exceptionally so. gianna’s also pretty self-sacrificing, but not to the point where she’s a door-mat. she can be a firecracker when she knows people are trying to take advantage of her, or when someone simply needs to be put into her place. not really naive at all, at least, not on the level that she used to be. she’s a bit more skeptical of the world around her.

gianna does have a gift, which is why she was wanted by the volturi. she has ability augmentation. an ability that, unless she encounters someone else that’s gifted, has never affected her at all.

i am v excited to be here and always down to plot, so pls lmk if you wanna plot w this bean !! i am essentially. always down for anything. so if gianna fits a plot you particularly want, i’d be happy to throw her at u !!

#equinox.intro

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beautiful-liu · 7 years ago

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CHAPTER FIVE

Title: Jane Doe Pairing: Kryber [Amber Liu x Krystal Jung] Fandom: f(x) Genre: Drama, romance, mystery Summary: When everything goes wrong in your life, there’s only one thing to do: party until you pass out. Amber is having a hard time getting along in society and one night, she’s simply done with its bullshit. She goes to a club and finds this mysterious stranger, introducing herself as Jane Doe. With a force greater than the sun’s gravitation, Amber is drawn to the beautiful brunette as if she had been all that was missing in her life and tries to find out who she is… However, Jane Doe isn’t planning on going easy on her. Word count: 1400 Rating: T A/N: Excuse the grammar mistakes, I’m not a native English speaker Read it on: AO3 & asianfanfics Moodboard: x

The next morning, Amber woke up due to a killing headache and the sound of ringing church bells in the distance. The first thing she did was groan. Not only did her head ache, but her body was sore as well. She felt awful; the lack of sleep mixed with a hangover didn’t do her much good. Her bad condition didn’t keep her from immediately noticing that the spot next to her was empty though. The longer she managed to keep her eyes open, the more memories of last night crashed over her like a wave. She was naked under the covers, which meant that the mysterious girl hadn’t been a dream. Still, she would be lying if she said that she wasn’t disappointed that she hadn’t stayed. When she looked around the room, it became clear that she didn’t leave any traces. It was like she had disappeared completely; vanished into thin air. She guessed it was fitting after all. Yet, the longer she looked, the more she noticed that certain details didn’t add up. Amber didn’t remember turning of the light last night, yet the lamp in the corner of the room wasn’t shining anymore. Her dishes of last night that she had been too lazy to clear and had left on her kitchen table were gone. The clothes she had worn were folded and were positioned in a neat heap on her desk even though she knew one hundred percent sure that the beautiful stranger had thrown them somewhere in a corner last night. There was a glass of water on her nightstand with two little pills next to it. Amber guessed they were painkillers by the look of them. There was a little, yellow note sticking out from under the glass. Getting the note was the first thing Amber did that morning. She unfolded it, knowing it just couldn’t be accidental. Without getting her hopes up, she opened the note, revealing only a phone number. A small smile formed on her lips and she looked at the elegant handwriting. Amber managed to find her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. The first thing she did was make a new contact and save the number. She doubted for a moment when she had to enter a name, but eventually saved the number as ‘Jane Doe’. Despite the agonizing headache that caused her to prefer death over anything right now, Amber managed to get up and take a shower. She smelled like sweat, alcohol and sex and the scent was enough to make her gag. When she was done – and felt a bit better – she opened her fridge to silence her rumbling belly. Sadly, her fridge was as good as empty. With a sigh, she started to get dressed to go to the store. She took her most comfortable clothes out of her drawer: an oversized, black sweater, her favorite jeans, a snapback to cover her messy hair and her fake Ray Ban sunglasses to hide the dark circles under her eyes. Amber took her skateboard and left her apartment. When she skated to the supermarket a few blocks away, she noticed how tired she actually was. By the time she arrived, she was panting slightly. Amber got some fresh groceries and was on her way back home when the church bells rang again. On her way back, she passed the church and longingly let her gaze go over the impressive building. It was Sunday morning and normally she would have attended the service but she had woken up too late this morning. She reckoned it wouldn’t be that bad to skip one, but she still felt sad she couldn’t go. A stream of people was leaving the church and blocked the pavement, causing Amber to be forced to jump off her skateboard and walk until the mass of human bodies would scatter off. She walked until there was enough space to skate again. As she let her board fall on the ground again and got on, she noticed a flicker of long, brown hair in the corner of her eye. Amber didn’t pay any attention to it, until she felt someone bump their shoulder hard against hers. A little irritated, she looked up into an angry pair of eyes. They belonged to a man, with sleek, light brown hair, black eyes and full lips. The male wore a shirt that looked like it cost as much as all of her clothes together, tucked in a beige pantalon that ended just above his calves. With his hair pushed back, he looked like a common rich guy. He was the definition of handsome, although his angry appearance took away that effect. He was the last one of a group of friends to leave the church, walking in the way Amber needed to go too. They all had the same fancy, wealthy-looking style and the straight backs of people who had never known anything but fortune. “Don’t block the pavement, girl,” he hissed towards her. Amber was ready to bark something back, but the young man already turned around and walked away. His friends joined him, all of them with their heads held high. He threw her another filthy look and grabbed one of the girls by her hand, pulling her along. Amber sighed and shook her head, watching them go. Right when she wanted to get on her board and skate off, the girl who was holding hands with the rude passer-by turned around. For a moment, their eyes met but Amber looked away, only realizing a few seconds later that those dark eyes were strangely familiar. Amber immediately jerked her head up, her mouth already opened to say something. The beautiful, mysterious stranger smiled to her with the same smug smile she had showed so many times yesterday evening. Their eyes locked and she winked, causing Amber’s mouth to fall open a little bit more. Before she turned around again, she mouthed words that Amber unmistakably recognized as ‘call me’. The brunette flashed another smile before turning around and hooking her arm around the man. All Amber could do was stare at her, dazzled about her sudden appearance. She stared until the girl was nothing more but a dot in the distance, eventually disappearing around the corner, her long, brown hair waving in loose ringlets around her shoulders. The most remarkable thing was that she looked like she didn’t stay up all night, let alone spent the night with someone else. There were no signs that she had spent yesterday evening drinking in a club, doing body shots or hooking up, except for a small red spot in her neck that Amber recognized as the spot she had bitten down upon in the heat of the moment. Her tight dress of yesterday was replaced for one that was looser around the legs, more of a summer dress, that ended around the knees. Her heels had become ballerina’s – which immediately turned her a lot smaller, probably even shorter than Amber herself. The way she had her fingers intertwined with the rich adolescent made her toes curl with jealousy. When Amber came home, she didn’t even care to unpack her groceries – she simply shoved the entire bag into the fridge – and immediately got her phone. During her ride home, she had thought that it had vibrated, indicating that there was a message, and she hadn’t been wrong. It was the number she had saved this morning. Jane Doe. I had fun last night. I don’t say this to everybody. You have something about you that’s special, Amber. Don’t be fooled about my appearance at the St. Paul’s Church, a girl has to get by in this world, doesn’t she? Be sure to contact me. Krystal Jung. Amber started to laugh. She laughed aloud, shaking her head, reading the message over and over again until her eyes got stuck at the name at the bottom. Krystal Jung, she was called Krystal Jung. Had a name ever fitted a person better? She guessed not. Krystal… She indeed shone like crystals and was even more stunning than one. Amber immediately changed the name of the contact and eagerly started to type back.

#fx jane doe #kryber #amber #amber josephine liu #amber liu #krystal #krystal jung #jung soojung #jsj #f(x)#fx #f(amber)#f(x) krystal #f(krystal)#f(x) amber #f(x) fanfiction

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temmiecat1-blog · 8 years ago

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Chapter 1 The new year of killing Eyeless Hood woke to the sound of thunder. She knew the storm was coming, but then she heard screaming and gurgling. She put on her mask and took her hatchet from under her bed. As she walked through the hallway, she saw Jeff The Killer. "Urg.. Jeff no killing right now! WE'RE TRYING TO SLEEP!" Hood yelled, mad. "Well sorry! I can't sleep with no eyelids! And its the new year! I wanted to wake everyone up to celebrate! Jeez Hood!" Jeff yelled, waking everyone in the house up. Hoods brother, Eyeless Jack, looked shocked and yelled loudly "WILL YOU BOTH JUST SHUT UP!!" Everyone was silent, because Jack never yelled. Everyone but Smile. Smile growled, and everyone looked at what he was growling at. It was the cops. "SHIT!" We yelled, grabbing our weapons. One of the cops yelled "GET OUT OF THE WAY MONSTERS!" Hood walked forward and yelled "WE ARE NOT MONSTERS! WE ARE STILL PEOPLE!" She yelled, furious. The new year of killing has just begun. Chapter 2 After killing the cops brutally, Hood checked the time. "Five in the morning. Hm.. Grinny, Smile, go to the store when you're human. We need more food." She said, and sighed. "OK, we'll go." Grinny said, her cat body turning into a human form. Smile and Grinny were the house pets. Grinny was a female cat, and Smile was a male dog. They both were similar, for they were red and black, with a smile and grin. As Smile transformed, he said "oh, and can you come? Please Hood!" Hood sighed, and her black (the color black) skin turned to tan. She took of her mask, and eyes formed. "Okay Smile" Hood said, a bit tired. "Let's go." As the three of them walked, Grinny stayed quiet. How did the cops know? This never happens! She thought. They bought a ton of food at the store. "Waffles for Toby, and Cheesecake for Masky and Hoodie." Hood read. Smile begged for a steak, that was very bloody. "Fine." Hood said and grabbed the steak. "Would you like anything Grinny?" "Maybe a new mouse toy? Mines a bit old." Grinny awnsered coldly. Hood grabbed a red and black mouse toy, which was very shiny. They checked out all of the food, which was 60.99. Hood pulled out a stolen wallet, which she got from a rich couple. She gave her the money, and the trio walked home, with loads of bags. "I wish we brought the van..." Smile complained. "Urg... Its a good workout Smile." "But its raining!!!! What if lightning hits us?!? WE'LL BE DEAD!" "Its not that bad! Jeez Smile!" Grinny and Smile argued. When they got home, they changed back. Grinny and Hood started making dinner, for Grinny was half human and half cat. She did that when she cooked. Hood let Sally feed Smile, and Sally took a bath. Chapter 3 Life as a proxy After eating dinner, Hood, Masky, Ticci Toby, and Hoodie followed Slenderman through the woods. Hood had her headphones in and listened to music. They carried their weapons and were looking for wandering people to kill. Hoods sharp, blood covered teeth (Like Grinnys sharp teeth) shone as a car went by. Her mask was above her mouth, unlike Jack's. Toby saw a movement and whispered "time to kill!" They smiled. Masky and Hoodie took out their guns, and Toby and Hoodie took out their hatchets. Hood had one, and Toby had two. The man who was wandering was collecting the eight pages that Lazari and Sally put up. Masky and Hoodie went behind him, and said "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Hood and Toby came over. "Boy, Sal and Lazari are gunna be mad." Hood said, laughing."W-who are y-you? I-I was just l-looking for s-something my f-freind lost! H-he said h-he left it u-under a p-page. P-please don't hurt me!" The man said. On closer inspection, he looked about fifteen. The proxys looked at eachother. "Fine, we'll help you find it. But then leave and don't come back. Deal?" Hood said. "D-deal! And m-my name is Liu." "Wait... Liu? Aren't you Jeffrey Woods' brother? Liu Woods right?" Toby said, knowing Jeff's whole family. "Yes. I-I miss h-him." Hoodie saw something move. Then he saw a white hoodie. "Liu, you're about to see your brother. Now known as Jeff The Killer." Hoodie said, as Jeff walked over to where they were standing. Liu smiled, Hood didn't. Hood hated Jeff. Then, she felt as if she was choking, or she was a target for a Voodoo doll. She fell to the ground, holding her neck. She kicked the ground, hoping someone would notice. Masky looked at her and yelled "Guys!! Hoods choking!!" He emedietly picked her up, and went inside. Jack came into the room, and his eye sockets widened. "What happened?!? Oh god!" Black blood came out of her mouth, and through the cracks of her mask. "Everyone, leave." He said. When the room was empty, he took her mask off. He cleaned it, and super glued it together. The blood on Hood's face stopped, and he put her mask on her. Hood saw Jack and said "what happened?" "You choked because your mask was broken." He looked shocked and angry. The next day Liu moved in. Chapter 4 Surprises Hood lay on the couch, sleeping. She was tired from shopping, making dinner, and almost dying. Nobody but Hood and Jack knew that if Hood's mask broke or cracked, she'll start choking and bleeding, Which could end up in death. Everything was different with Lui moved in. It was more calm. Jeff was silent most of the time, for he was with his brother. Hood stayed close to her brother, in case her mask broke. Jack sat by her feet, worried. Ben would stay in his room for hours. Hood would make treats for everyone often, so they weren't worried about her. It was a hard time for everyone. Slender stayed outside and gaurd the place often. Hood slept a lot and was usually very tired. Toby wasn't cheerful like usual and wasn't well. Grinny slept on Hood, with her beautiful mouse toy in her soft red paws. Ben came into the living room. "Jack, why are you always by your sister? It not like she's gonna die." He said, and Jack shushed him. "Quiet. She's asleep. And why can't i be with my god damn sister?" He hissed. "Well, you can. But why all the time? Cmon. Me and a few 'friends' are going to a party. Sally can take care of her!" He whispered, hoping Jack would come. "Fine. Where to?" "At the nightclub. Follow me!" Jack looked worried about his sister, as she sang Heathens in her sleep. Once they were gone, Hood woke up. Or more like opened her eye sockets. She had heard everything. She yawned and sat up. She watched TV for a little, then fed the animals. Sally helped make breakfast, and Hood put Sally's syrup on only Sally's pancakes. Sally's syrup was filled to the brim with sugar and dye. It was pink dye, of course. They would have to take her to the dentist everyday because of it! A little bit a real syrup was in it, though. "Yummy!" Said Sally as she picked up her fork. Hood cut up the pancakes and added a square of butter. She made herself a breakfast also. Why does she like that syrup SO much? Hood thought, as she made her eggs. "Hood?" Sally asked. "Yes Sally?" "Why don't you eat kidneys like Jack?" " Hearts. Not kidneys." She awnsered. Sally liked to ask questions about Hood and her brother. Which was very common. Grinny slept with her mouse, that she slept with everyday since Hood got it for her. "Sally! Your all sticky!" Nina and Jane The Killers said. "Oh, you're up Hood!" Said Jane, as Nina took Sally to the bathtub. "Yep. How's Liu?" "He's okay. Jeff on the other hand...is the opposite." Chapter 5 Collage? For Creepypastas? Slender went to every bedroom in the house. He asked if they wanted to go to a Collage that his family runs. These Creepypastas wanted too go: Eyeless Jack Eyeless Hood Laughing Jack Laughing Jill Masky Hoodie Ticci Toby Smile Grinny The Nurse Ann And Jeff, Jane, and Liu.

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whatifxwereyou · 3 years ago

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The Oncoming Storm Part 26: Sick

Liu Kang x Reader and Kung Lao x Reader (gonna do both, two paths!)

You finally see where they sleep and get to take care of them a little bit. Finally. And Kung Lao is back! Yay!

A/N: I missed writing Kung Lao so much, I didn't realize how much until I was writing him again. He feeds into my sarcastic insides. My biggest suggestion for reading anything I write is to add sarcasm in your head. Lol. Hope you guys are doing well! I got home yesterday but had this chapter prepped and ready to go since I knew I'd be jetlagged today. Smooches.

Part 25 Part 27 Chapter Index

You rejoined Liu Kang who had very much still been watching you. He no longer made any attempt to hide it.

“Everything alright?” He looked weary. You couldn’t un-notice it.

“Yeah. Chen wanted to catch up, but I told her later.” Was it just you or had he gotten paler? You touched his forehead with the back of your hand, and he was radiating heat. But Liu Kang was always a little warmer than most. He pulled your hand away from his forehead and chuckled under his breath.

“I’m fine, Y/N.” He gave your hand a gentle squeeze before letting it go. “Careful down here, by the way. The monks can be a little…” He drifted off.

“Yeah, they’re huge drama queens and gossips. I know. You have no idea how much I know.”

“Yes.” He kept his eyes on the floor ahead of you, as if to purposely avoid eye contact with you. “They are all very nice, but they are also… as you put it… dramatic.”

“I can handle it. I think they’re kind of funny. Besides, I got used to being gossiped around as a kid.” You walked slowly with him through the halls, not exactly sure where you were headed, dragging your bag behind you. “How are you feeling?”

“What, are you worried about me?” He grinned mischievously.

“I am never going to live that down, am I?” You groaned.

“Nope. But it is very sweet that you do. I’m okay. I don’t feel like I have a fever. I’m sore and tired but it has been a wild few days, Y/N.”

“It has been.” You walked, somewhat aimlessly. “Are you going to rest?”

“Yes. Doctor’s orders.”

“How very well behaved of you.”

“My constitution is usually reliable when it comes to illness but if Kung Lao has that high a fever, then I should be careful. Usually, I’d ignore these orders for a little fever but I’m taking the effects of these artifacts very seriously. I know my limits. I don’t know theirs.”

“Is it okay if I make sure that you get back to your room to rest?”

“Oh?” He stopped walking and so you did the same. He stepped closer to you and stood over you and you straightened your posture in response. He tilted your chin up to him, pushing his boundaries with. He smirked which was the most beautiful expression you ever saw him make. “Worried?”

“Oh, god.” You made a sound of disgust. “Yes. Okay? I’m worried about you. Are you happy now?”

“Very.” Liu considered and then resumed his walk next to you. You joined him, relieved that you’d finally kept your composure in front of him. Liu Kang getting that closer to you? He knew what he was doing. You were beginning to think that they both knew exactly what they were doing and were in cahoots! They were cahooting! “I’m fine, Y/N, but yes you may accompany me.”

“I’m sorry for all of that, by the way.” You followed his lead down the hall and up a flight of stairs. “The worry thing, that is. I don’t mind that you worry about me. You were right. I got so far in my head that I was up my own ass.”

“It’s okay, Y/N. I know this has been difficult. I appreciate you taking the time to clarify things. I’m still going to tease you about it. I’m not sorry for that.” Liu led you through a door at the end of the hall. You stopped in the doorway to take in his space. His windows were covered with various draped cloths. There were scrolls hung on the walls, shelves of books, a desk, prayer beads, incense, and a prayer mat nearby. His bed was neatly made.

“It’s funny. This is exactly how I pictured your room.”

“Oh?” Liu turned to you in surprise. “You pictured it, did you?”

“I did. I pictured more books though.” You rolled your eyes at him as he teased you but couldn’t help but smile. You liked that he was teasing you a little bit. It was cute.

“I donate most of my books to the library when I’m done with them to share with everyone so that was not an incorrect assumption.” He sat on the edge of his bed and rested his elbows on his knees, hand over his left eye.

“Are you okay?” You risked being teased to worry about him again, crouching in front of him to catch his gaze.

“Headache.” He was looking gray.

“I’ll be right back.” You left his room, abandoning your little bag. You felt his eyes on you until they could no longer be. On each floor there were several rooms where waterflow had been setup in a rudimentary system that you were thankful for. You found the closest one to Liu’s room, filled a bowl with cold water, grabbed a clean cloth, and then returned to his room. You set the bowl on the little table next to his bed and then dipped the cloth in it. Then you wrung it out and gently dabbed at his forehead and held it next to his eye in hopes it would offer him some relief from the headache. He was watching you with deep admiration. It radiated from him. Sometimes Liu didn’t have to say what he was thinking because you could just tell.

“Thank you.”

“Just returning the favor.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“I know. I want to help you though.”

Liu laid back on his bed and you sat on the edge of it next to him and brushed his hair away from his face gently. You could see why he enjoyed doing that to you. “You can stay with me if you want.” You mentally revisited that morning almost immediately and decided you should clear your head instead.

“I’ll stay until I’m sure that you’re resting. If you want, I can read to you the way that you used to for me.”

“I’d like that.”

You stood and perused his books.

There were a handful set atop the bookshelf that were about Huangshan and then even more about ancient curses. You took the book about Huangshan and found where he’d marked in the middle of the book and sat next to him again. You rested the book in your lap, took the wet cloth, and rested it on his forehead, above his eye. His skin was hotter than usual. The fever had gotten worse even over the few minutes that it had taken you to get to his room.

Then you read to him, trying to be as clear and concise as he had been. It was soothing to watch him as he listened to you. He rested one hand on your lap and closed his eyes. Before you knew it, he had fallen asleep. You closed the book and marked your spot. Liu was pale and you took the cloth from his face. Hopefully, the fever didn’t last very long but it had also felt wonderful to take care of him. You knew you didn’t owe him anything, but it was nice to be able to return his kindness.

You sat with him for a few more moments then set the book on the nightstand, tucked him in, and left. Now you just had to find and check on Kung Lao. You dragged your bag behind you deciding you would blindly search the same floor. Besides, this would keep you busy and well, a 104 fever was nothing to laugh at.

You didn’t have to search for long. When you turned the corner, there was Kung Lao, walking right toward you.

“Hey you! You seen Liu?” Kung Lao was pale and had bags beneath his eyes. You could tell with one look at him that he was clammy. Even his usually rosy lips were ashen.

“Yes, but he’s asleep. Not feeling well.” You gestured behind you and then stepped closer and poked his chest. “You are as white as a sheet, Kung Lao.”

“I’m fine. Are you doing okay? I was worried after you left, and I came down with this annoying fever.”

“Unlike you, I am actually fine. Whatever this is? It hit you guys. I dodged it.”

“Because you’re already cursed, right? So, you’re used to feeling like garbage all the time?”

“Wow, that makes me feel great. Thanks, Lao. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I need to talk to Liu first.”

“Well, Liu is sleeping. Talk to him tomorrow.”

“Fine,” he whined, pouting and batting his eyelashes. “But it’s important!”

“Is this something that I could help you with in his stead? I’m going to insist that you let him rest.”

“Well, I need to talk to Liu about something, but you can take my temperature so that I don’t have to go back to the stupid infirmary. Then you could lie to them and tell them I’m fine. Wait, scratch that, you’re a terrible liar. They’ll never believe you.”

“I don’t understand why you hate it there so much. They’re nice.” You placed the back of your hand to his forehead and pulled it back in alarm. “Yeah, wow, you are on fire. Please got to bed. I can’t force you, but I can annoy you until you do.”

“Dammit. Stupid bell,” he grumbled.

“Are you sure that you don’t want to go get some medicine to help with it or something?”

“No. I won’t. You took my temperature. That counts as checking in.” Kung Lao snapped and you cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “Fine. Okay. Yeah. You know what? Fine.” He sighed and pulled off his hat long enough just to push his sweaty hair back. “They’re very nice. You’re right. I know that but I don’t like being confined there or poked at or told what to do. And I don’t care for doctors in general.”

“Why? They’re just trying to help.”

He avoided your eyes and looked at his feet with a pout. “Bad memories.”

“Childhood trauma? Lao…”

“Memories of someone who had a rough time with doctors.”

“What? Me? I’m the cause of all this?”

“Of course, you. You used to come back from those stupid doctors crying or feeling worse off from a treatment for something that wasn’t treatable with medicine.” He looked very much like a defiant child in that moment.

“They were trying to help me, Kung Lao. They had never meant to hurt me.”

“Yeah, well I hated watching you suffer. So there.”

“Wow,” you laughed beneath your breath. Honestly, you were a little touched. You’d had no idea that the short time you’d spent together as kids had such a profound impact upon him. It had on you too, you supposed. No man had ever stood up to Kung Lao. At least not before Liu Kang. “It’s kind of sweet.”

“No, it’s very not sweet.”

“It’s a lot sweet, actually.”

“Please stop.”

“Come on, Kung Lao. You need rest.” You decided not to tease him in his moment of weakness. You would hold onto that information for later though. When he was feeling better, all bets were off. You grabbed his arm and began to guide him in the direction that he’d been coming from.

“Where are you taking me? To your room? To force me to rest?” He grinned.

“No, I’m expecting you to guide me back to your room so that I can force you to rest.”

“Oh, that is closer I guess.” He gestured behind him and turned you around and then stopped to sway and regain his balance. He really was sick. You needed to get him to bed. “This way. Though, I don’t need to go to bed. I’m fine.” Despite his objections he led you down the hallway and presumably toward his room.

“Says the man who almost fell over just turning around. Do you want to end up back in the infirmary?”

“No,” he snapped again.

“Then you need to rest, Lao.”

“Yes, mom.” He rolled his eyes but then turned a corner and led you into the room just on the other side of it. You were surprised when he opened the door. It was tidy. And organized. He had a collection of weapons on one wall, a prayer mat that looked like it had never been used, and a series of ropes tied from wall to wall on one side of the room that you guessed were for movement practice. His bed was unmade but everything else was put away.

“I did not expect this.”

“What?”

“I expected chaos.”

“I have been trained my whole life to be disciplined, Y/N. To have control and respect.”

“Not in my experience with you.”

He laughed and then held his sore side and coughed with a whine. You heaved a sigh and he slowly turned his gaze and whined. “Okay, so maybe I need rest.”

“Uh, yeah.” You nudged his shoulder carefully. “You went through so many doors the other day and now… this fever. Rest will help.”

“Fine.” He kicked off his shoes and then crawled into bed. It was clear to you that he was trying to save face by not whining or wincing as he laid back. It was cute. You tucked him in, and he shivered. You sat next to him. He admired you and then nodded toward his side.

“You still confused?”

You turned your gaze and stiffened up. “We don’t need to talk about that right now. You need rest.”

“That’s a big ol’ yes.”

You couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m cold. Thought maybe you could keep me warm.” He batted his eyelashes at you again. “Kiss me and make me feel better?” He couldn’t keep a straight face while he said it.

“I’m leaving now, Lao.” You stood and he reached for your hand to stop you. It was wrapped in gauze.

“Y/N?” His playful tone had faded.

“What?”

“Stay until I’m asleep? No funny business, I promise.”

How could you say no to that? You’d melted. “Yeah, I can do that.” You sat on the floor next to his bed, resting your back against it. You sat quietly and he tucked his arm back beneath the blankets.

“…did you kiss Liu again?”

“You’re making it really hard for me to stay, Lao.”

He laughed. “So defensive. Okay.” He tilted his head toward you so you turned and leaned with your arms resting against his mattress. He’d done the same for you on more than one occasion. Your grandma wouldn’t let him in on days where you’d been particularly ill or had a bad visit to the doctor. So, he had instead climbed in through your bedroom window and sat next to your bed, arms folded just like yours were now. He’d made you laugh. Stayed with you while you’d slept. You’d forgotten about those tender moments. In your grief, you had forgotten many things about him. “Thanks for not bailing on me when I’m frustrating.”

“You should be grateful.” You teased but in truth you had no real desire to leave until after you were certain he was resting. It didn’t take long. Only moments after he’d allowed his body to rest, he’d fallen asleep. He had needed it. You waited some time afterward to make certain he was really sleeping and not just faking it. He couldn’t be trusted.

He was sweet when he slept.

You had to make your choice. There was no more putting it off.

You’d mull over it the remainder of the day while they rested and then you would decide. You weren’t sure how you were going to make that decision or how you would tell them about it but you would figure it out. You weren’t scared of it anymore.

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focusontheeasternlightning-blog · 6 years ago

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The “Rural” Mom Meets the “Urban” Daughter-in-Law

Liu Jie, Hunan

Different Viewpoints, Constant Conflicts

I am a typical housewife, a good wife and a loving mother, I take good care of my husband and children, I’m hardworking and thrifty in running my household, and I’ve never recklessly spent my money. But something unimaginable happened to me. My son married a fashionable girl who really loved to have fun and dress up and follow the trends of the world. She pursued and purchased whatever was popular in the world, she threw away money by the handful, and however much she made each month was however much she spent. Since there was such a huge difference in our ways of thinking and living, my daughter-in-law and I often would be at loggerheads, we got into angry arguments, and our problems continued to get more and more intense.

One day I saw my daughter-in-law come in carrying a bag, so I hurried over to ask her what she had bought, and how much money she had spent. She lit up and said: “I bought a dress, it wasn’t expensive, just 400-something yuan.” When I heard this, I got extremely angry: How could she be so relaxed, she was acting like she was someone with a lot of money. When I buy a dress, it’s less than 100 yuan, and I wear it for several years. However, the clothes she bought were expensive, and once they became outdated she’d stop wearing them, while her wardrobe got stuffed full of clothes; the more I thought about it the angrier I got, and it started to wear on my face. When my daughter-in-law saw that I wasn’t happy, it wiped the smile off of her face, she turned around and walked into her bedroom, and I heard the sound of the door slamming shut.

Advice Unheeded, Distance Widening

The “Rural” Mom Meets the “Urban” Daughter-in-Law Later on, whenever I saw her get back from shopping, I would scold her: “Lili, look at our family, we are not very well-off, soon your child will be grown up, and then there will be lots of things we will need to spend money on, so we cannot keep on spending money so recklessly. If we have clothes and shoes that fit, then that’s good enough; we can’t continue throwing away money like this. You need to consider your future.” But my daughter-in-law responded by saying she and my son knew how to live their lives and said that I needn’t worry too much about it. Seeing that she didn’t understand where I was coming from made me feel full of resentment toward her, and we would often get into disagreements over these things. Later on, when she returned from another one of her shopping trips, she avoided me, taking advantage of me not paying attention. She stepped quietly into her room and didn’t come out until after she had hidden her things away. After I found this out I got very upset, but I knew that it would be of no use to speak of it, all I could do was turn a blind eye and put up with it. But as time went on I really couldn’t bear it, and I would often whine to my son. It was difficult for my son, who was wedged in between us, and one day he unexpectedly asked me: “Ma, when Lili goes shopping she doesn’t ask you for money, so why do you mind so much?” Seeing that my son was also on her side I felt especially hurt and saddened inside. I got so angry that I ignored them for several days. But afterward my daughter-in-law carried on as if nothing ever happened, which made me even angrier.

With the Word of God Leading the Way, I Found the Root of the Problem

One day, when my son told my daughter-in-law that they were going to go to his coworker’s house to eat, she went to her room to put on makeup, and after an hour went by she still hadn’t come downstairs. Seeing her like this, I came up and angrily lectured her: “Every time you put on makeup for so long, it really is a waste of time! I’ve never worn makeup in my entire life, and I’ve managed to get by, and I don’t look any uglier than other people, I just go with my natural look.” When my daughter-in-law heard me say this she started fighting with me, and I got so angry that I wanted to immediately leave the house and live on my own, away from her. I thought to myself: “What I can’t see can’t hurt me.” But I looked at my son and granddaughter and knew that I couldn’t be so heartless, so I was forced to abandon this plan. But the resentment I held in my heart for my daughter-in-law grew deeper and deeper, and we would often get in fights over small things. We were not keeping a peaceful home.

Living in this kind of a quarrelsome household made me feel very tired and bitter, so I thought that as a believer in God, I was revealing my corrupt disposition in quarreling with my daughter-in-law like this all day long and that it didn’t conform to the will of God. In my suffering all I could do was pray to God: “Oh God! I know that I shouldn’t argue over trivial matters with my daughter-in-law, but I just can’t help it. Oh God! I’m asking You to enlighten me, please get me to understand how to treat my daughter-in-law in a way that conforms to Your will, I am willing to practice the truth in order to satisfy You.” After praying to God, I opened up the word of God, and read where God says: “What do social trends include? (Style of clothing and makeup.) This is something people often come into contact with. Clothing style, fashion, and trends, this is a small aspect” (“God Himself, the Unique V” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “For man who is not of sound body and mind, who never knows what is truth, who cannot tell the difference between positive and negative things, these kinds of trends one after another make them all willingly accept these trends, the life view, the life philosophies and values that come from Satan. They accept what Satan tells them on how to approach life and the way to live that Satan ‘bestows’ on them. They have not the strength, neither do they have the ability, much less the awareness to resist” (“God Himself, the Unique VI” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Through the revelation of the word of God I finally understood this: The trend of the world is a means for Satan to corrupt man. Satan takes advantage of social trends to control us and dupe us, it teaches us all kinds of erroneous viewpoints such as, “The love for attractiveness is native to humans,” “Clothes make the man, a saddle makes the horse,” and “Seize the day for pleasure, for life is short.” Once these mistaken viewpoints enter into our minds, we believe that: our lives ought to be about pursuing beauty and paying attention to how we dress, and this is natural and normal. How you dress is a symbol that proves your status and worth; if you wear pretty and fashionable things and put makeup on to make yourself pretty, then you will not be outcast by society, then you will be valued by others; if not, you will be disparaged and looked down upon by others. Because of this mistaken viewpoint we unwittingly get swept up and carry on in evil trends. Looking at society today, it doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, everyone keeps up with the latest fashion and chases current trends, everyone wants to wear extravagant clothing and pretty themselves up with makeup, whoever is on the front-line at a given time is who is chased after by everyone, and no one believes that this is a negative thing stemming from Satan; on the contrary, they are under the impression that pursuing these things is reasonable and as it should be. My daughter-in-law doesn’t believe in God, she does not understand the truth, she doesn’t have discernment, so how can she not be affected by living her life under these kinds of circumstances? She has a love of beauty, she loves to dress up, and she loves to waste her money because she is affected, influenced and corrupted by Satan’s evil trends. To be spurred on by these kinds of evil trends makes her especially vain, she is always comparing herself to others, and she believes that the clothes and makeup she wears is her bargaining chip for raising her self-worth. Really, my daughter-in-law is without the freedom to act independently. By coming to understand these things I came to find the root of the problem, and I felt that everything had suddenly become clear.

The “Rural” Mom Meets the “Urban” Daughter-in-Law Afterward, I came before God and prayed: “Oh God! I am willing to let go of my prejudices toward my daughter-in-law. May You guide me so that I can put myself aside and do and view things in accordance with Your word.” From then on, whenever I saw my daughter-in-law spent money recklessly on shopping and it made me feel bad, I would pray to God and seek God’s protection so that my heart might be at peace in His presence. Slowly but surely, I didn’t have as much hate in my heart for my daughter-in-law, and through the word of God I became aware: We are all a part of the corrupt human race, we all live under the domain of Satan and are duped by Satan, we all live involuntarily on the basis of our corrupt dispositions. My daughter-in-law is also a victim of these evil trends, I should not resent her, and I certainly shouldn’t treat her on the basis of Satan’s corrupt disposition. Satan is the main culprit of all of these things, Satan is more detestable than anything else.

I carried on in this way for a period of time, thinking that I had already set aside my prejudices toward my daughter-in-law, but since I did not have true knowledge of my corrupt nature, since my life disposition had not changed, when I came across things that weren’t in line with my desires, my corrupt disposition was once again revealed.

The Word of God Led Me to Self-Awareness

One month, after my daughter-in-law spent all the money she had to spend, we didn’t even have money to pay our social insurance. After I discovered this, I was filled with so much rage that I really wanted to immediately kick my daughter-in-law out. Just when I wanted to get angry at her, I suddenly realized that I was again living in a wrongful state, so I hurriedly calmed myself down and prayed to God, seeking His protection over me, so that I would be able to not treat my daughter-in-law according to my flesh.

When I opened up the book of the word of God, I read where it says: “Don’t be self-righteous; … If you regard others as less than you then you are self-righteous, self-conceited and are of benefit to no one” (Utterances and Testimonies of Christ in the Beginning). The judgment and chastisement of the word of God made me recognize that I had always disliked my daughter-in-law because none of her actions conformed to my expectations, she did not meet the standard of what I thought a daughter-in-law should be. I am a frugal housekeeper, and I demanded that my daughter-in-law be the same, to be a good wife and loving mother. When I saw that she was not only not diligent and thrifty, but that she spent her money recklessly, I despised her and thought that she didn’t understand things and that she just threw away her money. In addition, I also wanted my daughter-in-law to obey me in anything I asked of her and live according to my lifestyle. Whenever my daughter-in-law did not do what I asked I got angry, criticized her and gave her dirty looks. But in this moment I finally saw that I had been completely controlled by the satanic nature of “putting oneself above all else,” always wanting to hide the truth from the masses and having the final say. All that exuded from me was an arrogant and self-righteous corrupt disposition, and it was of benefit to no one. “What’s more, my daughter-in-law and I are from different generations, we are not affected and influenced by society in the same way, but I’m always using my own standards to ask things of her; is this not being arrogant and conceited? Am I not being a controlling person? I thought about how supreme God is, how He even appeared in the flesh to hide with humility and obscurity among us to carry out the work of saving man, how God has never used His position to suppress people, and hasn’t forced people to put His word into practice, how all along He’s only expressed the truth to supply man, and used His love to move man and make man repent. But whenever we rebel against and resist God, even though He uses His word to expose and judge us, at the same time He is patiently guiding us, supporting us and providing for us, and with great patience and tolerance He waits for us to turn back to Him. God is so humble and so good! However, I, who am so deeply corrupted, behave so arrogantly and without reason, I always force my daughter-in-law to listen to me in my position as the mother-in-law, and all that I live out is corrupt disposition.” The more I thought about this, the more ashamed I felt. I saw that I had been so deeply corrupted by Satan, that when I was confronted with things I couldn’t quiet my heart in God’s presence. My naturalness was very strong, and I had too many personal wishes, and many times I had lost witness. I really was not fit to live in the presence of God.

#pray to God #the truth

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