#THOSE DEFORMED SPINDLY BACK LEGS TOO I...........

[buzzards-sticky-fingers]

don't look at me 🫣🫣🥴🫠

saw this post and had this ficlet unfold in my head. sort of a sequel to this first doodle and features this finial thing

Smitten.

Blurr chews on the word in irritation, holding himself perfectly still as Red Alert delicately corrects the dent across his forehelm. The only parts he allows himself to move are his fingers, the left hand drumming steadily on the medbay berth and the right spinning a small navy triangle. That little chip of blue metal should be inlaid at the center of his forehelm, but the dent had popped it right out.

He very carefully doesn't let himself look at the door over Red Alert's shoulder, where a massive shape shuffles awkwardly.

Smitten, the past participle of smite, an equivalent of smote, as in smote with a mighty blow, smiting enemies on the battlefield, smitten with disaster. To be smitten is to have something inflicted upon you with great force. It is being on the receiving end of doom, and praying that doom is the sharpness of emotion instead of a weapon.

Blurr winces as the seams across his temple realign with a snap.

Perhaps being smitten with these emotions is simply a natural consequence of being bludgeoned in the face, and that bloom of absurd fondness he still feels is in fact the symptom of a concussion.

"Give it here," Red Alert mutters, holding out her hand. He deposits the chip in her palm and she aligns it with the hole in his helm. It's still just slightly deformed and resists sliding back into place under her thumb. He'd twitch if he weren't so focused on staying still, fingers going rat-a-tat against the berth.

Too intent on keeping himself frozen for the medic, he lets his gaze flicker over to the door. The soulful, embarrassed apology in the big yellow optics looking back at him strikes him immediately, and he has to grit his dentae against a blush.

Stricken, another violent word for what should be soft. To strike right for the spark, a fatal blow, all being fair in love and war. Struck dumb with affection or struck dead from mortification, or maybe vice versa with the way his luck has been going. Love-struck, even. Blurr spins the wheels in his pedes in some halfhearted attempt to speed away from the threat.

Buzzard is still watching him. They grimace and mouth "sorry" for the third time. He can't meet their gaze for fear of some further stupid reaction bubbling up inside him, but he looks everywhere else. Their spindly finials click against one another in waves, and the rotors on their back twirl one way, then the other. He follows a line down their arms to where they nervously tap their talons together, and then traces all the way down their legs to where they’re swaying back and forth from one pede to the other. Fidgeting with their whole frame, as usual, except for their wings. Those stay tucked tightly to their sides.

He squints at the corner of the wing that laid him low and swallows a grumble. Of course they aren’t even scratched.

The itch to test that assumption tingles in his fingertips, drumbeat faltering on the berth as he imagines running his hands across the trailing edge of their wing, skating up the flat plane to the faulds around their hip—he catches up to the errant thought and squashes it with a scowl. It earns him a thump on the brow plate.

“Hmm, Buzzard,” Red Alert says. “Would you help me for a moment?”

“Me?” they say from the doorway. “Are you sure I can?”

"If you can manage to resist clobbering Blurr in the face again, yes."

"It was an accident," Blurr defends Buzzard before they can reply. The raised brow Red Alert gives him in return makes him shut his mouth before he can wax poetic about the junker's natural enthusiasm, their full-body glee almost infectious—again he squashes the thought and grumbles "Considering the proximity, I should have dodged anyway, I would've been quick enough."

"And why didn't you?"

He'd been too busy watching Buzzard's face light up in delight at something-or-other to notice them fling out their arms and wings until he was flat on the floor with a dent across his helm, but that's none of her business.

Mercifully she turns to Buzzard. "Which of your finials is thinnest?"

"Oh, uh…" They tilt their head and thumb through their lopsided finials, popping out a long pink one. "Here."

"Hmm. This will do." Red Alert takes it and scorches it with a quick sanitizing beam from her prosthetic. "I need you to leverage it into the gap right here while I work this inlay back in. See how it's just a little concave?"

"Yeah." They have to bend over a bit to get a good look. This close, their flightframe height is almost intimidating, even with Blurr sat up on the berth.

There's no reason to feel their gaze so keenly on his armor. He determinedly chalks it up to lingering soreness. Even when their optics flicker down to catch on his own, and he has to cease his drumming entirely to clutch the lip of the berth so he doesn't do something stupid like reach out and touch them, he reminds himself that this is Buzzard, a teammate, who looks at him every day. Yes, maybe lately he's been a little hyperaware of the moments their gaze finds him, and he might be increasingly self conscious about what they're seeing, and it's entirely possible he's more uncomfortable with the imperfect state of his rebuilt frame under their scrutiny rather than the injury itself… but that really, really has nothing to do with the way he stares wordlessly back at them, enthralled, like a cervinoid in the headlights. Truly.

He could blink at any time.

Red Alert thumps him on the brow plate again, breaking the spell. "Quit craning your head back like that, I need you facing forward."

Enthralled, dear Primus, as in captured, captivated, made a slave to fascination. He certainly feels like a mindless thrall, following some subtle compulsion rooted into his basal code. It’s ridiculous. He used to be so level-headed!

The medic wedges the shiv-sharp end of the finial into the corner of the hole in his helm. It would be uncomfortable if she hadn't dulled his sensor net already. He wills himself to stay still just a moment longer, rat-a-tatting his fingers again and staring at Buzzard's wingtip at his eye level. Surely they don't need to stay this close—

"A little closer, if you please." Red Alert grabs Buzzard's hand and guides it to his helm. "I need you to provide just a little counter pressure when I slip this back in so it sinks home, otherwise it won't fit correctly and I'll have to do this all over again."

"Um. Okay," they say uncertainly. With two knuckles they stabilize their hand on his helm, and with their thumb they put just the barest hint of pressure on the lever of their finial. "Like this?"

"Perfect."

Blurr is pretty sure his internals have ceased functioning all at once. Even through the dialed-down nervous circuitry, Buzzard's touch blazes against his armor. The scant few sections of his processor not melting down are mourning the days when this would have been utterly unremarkable instead of the mortifying highlight of his week.

"Is this painful?" Red Alert gives him a concerned look. "Vent, Blurr. Has your sensory suite rebooted?"

Venting, right. He should probably try venting again.

"Sorry," Buzzard says softly for the dozenth time.

"I’m fine. You're fine. It’s fine," Blurr croaks.

They glance at Red Alert as she tweaks the corner of his inlay before lining it up with the gap. "Couldn't you do this with your interlink?"

"Not completely," she mutters as she concentrates. "Any hard-light projection can be cut off, so it would simply fizzle out if I had it pressed between two edges like this. I have specific tools for surgery, but this hardly merits breaking out those..."

"Wonderful," he says, pedes pitter-pattering against the side of the berth in an attempt to drag his attention away from Buzzard touching him. "I'll endeavor to avoid any and all injuries, shall I, if our medic doesn't believe the loss of a body part merits the use of proper medical tools—"

"And proper medical procedure." Red Alert gives him an unimpressed look. "You skip half the steps in every recovery plan I give you, I wasn't about to let you make a mess of my medbay just because you got impatient with the sanitation process. Buzzard, a little more into the corner. There we go."

"It was a very small body part, at least," they tell him, finials twitching upward. "She's only got one more edge to fit in."

He can see the hope in their face trying to buoy his mood, as if he's irritated at the injury instead of how besotted he knows he must look right now, over what?? Two measly points of contact?? It's humiliating and thrilling at the same time, and his wheels spin erratically with nervous energy.

Besotted, that's another one he didn't think of earlier. Rendered idiotic, made drunk on infatuation, stupefied to the point of hilarity. He's certain it couldn't get worse if Buzzard actively tried.

"You have a very sleek frame," Buzzard says, clearly trying to give him a stroke, glancing between his face and forehelm. "Knock-out did a good job. The one corner is just stubborn because it's not quite straightened, but normally I think it'd pop right in. All neat and clean-edged. It wouldn't be a problem if I had just..."

They frown and bring their other hand up to cup the side of his face, thumb tracing gently down the line of aching metal where their wing had scored his helm. "I promise I'll try harder to pay attention to you."

Nevermind, it got worse.

Is this what spark implosion feels like? He's certainly hot enough to plausibly be experiencing spark implosion. Blurr sees Red Alert's suspicious expression out of the corner of his unfocused optic but can't spare the emotional capacity to worry about it at the moment, not when Buzzard has both (both!) of their hands on his face. They're still frowning. They shouldn't be frowning, why are they frowning while looking at him?

“Y-you—you, you pay attention to exactly what you need to," oh no he's babbling, "which is quite frankly what I should have been doing instead of—it wasn't you failing to pay attention that caused this and I doubt it would be wise for my sanity to ask that you focus any more on me, so really don't set aside your energy to try and protect me when you have so many other things to be paying attention to, like your rocks or your sticker pages or any of your collection—I don't even know what all you have in your collection, it's impressive that you can keep track of so many pieces with such detail which is reason enough to decline your promise, you shouldn't be holding yourself so tightly when really it was my own responsibility for my safety—and how could you promise to focus on something that clearly worries you when you could instead keep looking at what makes you happy, you should be happy, not frowning, you're still frowning and I don't know why!"

With every word, his jaw presses just a little into Buzzard's palm. Did they catch any of that spiel? Was it intelligible? What was he saying again?

Red Alert gives him a look. "Were we supposed to understand those noises?"

Blurr has no attention to spare for her, caught instead by Buzzard. They blink a bit, frown easing into confusion, or heavy thought, or something solemn and serious when they should be light and free. Their thumb runs down his cheek this time, and he knows, he knows it doesn't mean much, they're equally touchy with Necro and Gremlin and anyone else who tolerates contact, but his spark still jumps in its chamber.

"I understood it," they say softly. "Thanks, I guess, um. It's not that I need to watch you all day or anything, but... I don't like hurting you on accident, Blurr. I don't like hurting you at all."

"You were expressing happiness," he insists. "and I was being stupid. A dent is worth it."

They're back to frowning, shaking their head with finials pinned down. "No, that's not how it works. I'm not happy if I'm hurting my friends, y'know?"

"This," Red Alert says drily. "is a uselessly circular conversation which can be easily had anywhere else on the ship."

Both Blurr and Buzzard look at her. "You're done?" the junker asks.

"I was done before he finished word-vomiting."

"Oh," the two of them say simultaneously.

Red Alert plucks out the makeshift lever of a finial from under Buzzard's fingers. "Here. If you want to use that guilt in a productive manner, you can check that hoard of yours for any spare transistors, I need a couple."

"Uh, transistors? Yeah, I think I've got... hang on." Buzzard sticks their finial in their mouth for a second to rifle through their cockpit.

Blurr watches them blankly, cheek still warm where they were touching him. He raises a limp hand to feel at his forehead before Red Alert bats it aside and wipes his browplate with a cloth. He hadn't even felt the little chip snap in place. It couldn't have been missing for more than fifteen minutes, but his processor is spinning from an emotional marathon.

Buzzard closes their cockpit and hums in thought. "They're back on my shelves, I think. Gimme a minute."

"Thank you. Try not to dent anyone else on the way over," Red Alert says. They give her a sheepish smile and then duck out the door with one last glance at Blurr.

It may be wishful thinking, but he's pretty sure their wings were no longer huddled so tightly to their sides.

"Well?" the medic asks him a few moments later. "You're healed. Will you sit there staring at the wall all day? I thought you'd be halfway across the ship by now."

He runs a thumb across his helm and can barely feel a dip now.

"It isn't as if I doubt the quality of your work as a medic, Red Alert," he begins cautiously. "and believe me when I say I'm grateful for your skill and care, no matter how abrasively that care may be expressed at times—"

She raises a brow. "The point?"

"Would you mind checking for a concussion again, please?"

"Why?"

Because he wasn't this hopeless half an hour ago. Surely his refurbished neurocircuitry had been rattled into insanity. It couldn't be genuine, a single touch shouldn't be making his spark pound just at the memory of it. And all over Buzzard. They are just. Just. It has to be a concussion. He opens his mouth to confess just how unbalanced he feels, simply helm over pedes, utterly crazy about the very one who nearly knocked him out, and just barely manages to swallow the building monologue with the most impressive feat of self control he's accomplished in years.

"I feel... woozy."

Red Alert guffaws. "Yeah, I could tell!"

He hunches into himself on the berth, fighting another blush at feeling so uncomfortably seen. Despite the wry look on her face, Red Alert runs a quick check, testing the vibrancy of his optics, his sense of balance, his memory.

"You appear to be functioning optimally," she announces, like he was dreading she would. "No processor issues apparent. If it weren't for the particular faults of your current frame, I doubt you would've gotten much more than a light ding in the first place."

Crazy, then. Crazy about them, or driven to insanity, and just all of a sudden aware of how far down he's spiraled. Keen on them, twitterpated, out of his mind, lovesick. Is this going to be a reoccurring problem? Should he start accounting for loss of processor power in their presence? Could he accidentally end up staying too long around Buzzard and dropping all higher function until he forgets the need to escape entirely?

That actually doesn't sound too bad. Now he knows he's going crazy.

"You seemed pretty intent on not letting Buzzard take responsibility," Red Alert says as she cleans her workspace. "Staring at them the whole time, too. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're smitten."

He freezes on the edge of the berth, flushing purple.

She glances at him with a half-smile, like her statement was supposed to be ironic, but it drops when she sees his expression. "Wait. Hang on, you actually—?"

But Blurr is already halfway down the hall outside the medbay and picking up speed. He doesn't stop running until he's clear on the other side of the ship.

This whole... love thing, it's rather violent, and destabilizing, and uncomfortable. Buzzard is—well, not perfect, but close enough, they're certainly not the problem here. He can't help but feel the accidental victim to an oblivious perpetrator, squeezing his spark like a stress toy while he's putty in their hands.

Actually he doesn't much mind the thought of their hands on his spark, and wonders if they ever think of that, of letting their touch explore further than armor—he smacks his newly repaired forehelm with a growl as he squashes the thought.

Clearly, being in love is an uphill battle. It's not very pleasant from his perspective, with Buzzard winning handily without even trying, as far as he can tell. He huffs and shakes himself out a bit, trying to find some semblance of equilibrium again. If he weren't so smitten then maybe he'd stand a chance, or if they were on even ground and Buzzard was smitten... Blurr closes his optics against the rush of warmth that thought elicits.

Right, then. If he's going down, he won't go down without a fight. Buzzard shouldn't get all the victories here. Time to start punching back.

[wobbledogscoderepository]

I feel like I need to share this with you?? I imported your pup, Prawn, and something HAPPENED. His body height glitched and went up by 235% 

And now he… Flutters through the air like a Silent Hill monster instead of walking. He’s truly a masterpiece.

0Cg4g;n10BbFE1=06151d5AE0b10F0a01F0^FC241A:34BFn9b06990a79D8E8:a1h901b8t0C<6FANbE:14::Ba1F9D10c0aF;B=818F1=FwF1bFFFFF1F9F;FD3FFF05:;FFFF1FFF8FF0A=:F0FFF:FF0;FF034F2<FFFFFF2;8882Dca530F1BBF::F6BD8aFF415FE:81F1db11FFC:F3eC1<a4C847:38:5g89C<b366:8FA2754Ea81D2E:0308B<80:3FaFi488FFFFCCFF11FC05FB8C9B00B59F82aF13^80F3BF;EC7F38EF^3TE5Fa0137E3D1C8.;<0Fc^rP301CDe:c0afBaD4FF2B82CEC7F0C:7=9FA38819C5aB1320A90678a08:F<D

Here’s his code if you’d like a truly nightmarish creature. :3c

[jincherie]

intermission • iii | moonchild

• ☽ — pairing: bts x reader • ☽ — genre: crack, fluff, angst, college/uni au • ☽ — words: 4.6k • ☽ — rating: sfw • ☽ — warnings: rabid old ladies and tree-climbing shenanigans • ☽ — notes: another intermission! this is my last part for now, miss zee will be writing the next two and then we will see my return!!!! but until then, please indulge us n show miss zee some love!! she works hard for it :’< also because with zee’s next chapter... we see a bit of a twist arise!

— posted; 09.06.2019

When the love letter you wrote and submitted as an assignment is leaked to the entirety of your university, it becomes a race against time to dispel rumours and convince the seven suspected muses of the poem that they aren’t the subject before anyone realises that you are the author. Easy, right? Well… maybe not as easy as you think.

— • masterlist | prev | intermission iii | next • —

— some time in first year —

 The afternoon air is cool and the sun is a soft, comforting warmth against the exposed parts of Kim Namjoon’s skin, chasing away the slight bite of the cold that lingers in the breeze due the transitional season as he walks home. He’s just finished fulfilling his third ‘help wanted’ poster duty of the day, collecting the sheets, both handwritten and printed alike, from shopping mall billboards like Pokémon. He has a thick wad of them folded up and wedged in his back pocket (he’d forgotten his trusty messenger bag this morning that, despite being two snapped threads away from falling apart completely, has always managed to see him through the day) and a comparatively much smaller wad in his other back pocket, of the odd jobs his managed to complete through the week.

His rationale for being such an upstanding citizen and going out of his way to help anyone and everyone he can? Two things—experience, and references. He knows it’s a harsh world, and to succeed you have to prepare yourself as much as possible for everything to come. So when the time comes that he steps into the adult, working world after graduating… he doesn’t doubt he’s going to be one of the best prepared people they’ve ever seen.

Plus, sometimes the little old ladies and distraught pet owners he helped gave him a few dollars as a tip. Unnecessary and not something he asks for, but Namjoon isn’t one to turn away a gift when it could do wonders for his loose change jar. It satisfies him to see the little glass thing with a cork lid get fuller and fuller each weak. He blames the deep, primal part of his monkey brain that likes seeing a big collection of shiny objects like coins. It sparks joy, one could say.

The odd job he’s just completed was a little dryer than the rest, if he’s being honest. It was much simpler than the ad for it had made out— just helping some fellow uni student as clueless as him fix their broken toilet roll. All he had to do was find the screw that came out and the student gave him, like, a whole box of frozen chicken patties in return. Which… isn’t so bad but also, Namjoon considers himself an intellectual and while he may be bought by food he still longs for a mental challenge. So despite how usually he gets in about three a day, on a good day, but even thought this is his third one he’s still… hungry for more. He’s also hungry in the literal sense; the last job made him miss lunch and now his stomach is performing an acapella version of ‘feed me, feed me, you bastard’. A classic hit, one he is especially familiar with. He’ll have to rifle through the papers in his back pocket and suss out whether any of the posters seem the type to provide food for the help.

He’s still toying with the idea when he happens across an unexpected scenario that seems to have been dropped into his path by the fates themselves. Along one side of the footpath are suburban homes and their small front yards and cute little mailboxes, and to the other is the occasional tree and then the plain asphalt of the road. About a yard in front of him, just far enough that he can’t really see even with his glasses on, there seems to be a bit of a commotion occurring near one of the larger trees lining the street.

Excitement probably shouldn’t be his first reaction, but it is, and Namjoon hurries his long-legged gait so that he can reach the spectacle sooner. He doesn’t know what he looked like but walking like this, he feels a bit like those spiders with the tiny bodies and disproportionately long, spindly legs. And here he is, going to help out like the friendly neighbourhood spiderman. He slapped his thigh, eyes wide. He might be an iron man enthusiast at heart, but damn that’s a good line for his resume.

The closer Namjoon gets to the commotion he’d spotted from afar, the more he realises he might have hit jackpot. The source of the loud yelling and frantic movements seems to be a woman, a little on the elderly side, with her wild salt and pepper curls defying gravity in some places and clumping in others—it takes Namjoon a moment to realise that she’s actually attempted to tie her hair back and that’s why it looks a little bit deformed from the distance. As he draws closer, he notes that she looks a little unhinged. His reaction to such a thing should be caution, and he should feel wary, but all he can think is hell yes this woman clearly needs help and he is going to help her, damn it.

“Pudding, come down! Please! I’m sorry for calling you fat, Pudding! I didn’t mean it!”

As soon as he’s within earshot, he hears the woman sobbing hysterically as she claws at the thick trunk of the tree. She’s too small to reach the lowest hanging branch, and has taken to draping herself pitifully against the leaning trunk as she scrabbles against the bark with her nails. The woman wails, pitifully, voice piercing the air like a siren, or a banshee, “Pudding!”

Confused as he may be, he’s sure that as soon as he asks the lady what happened, he’ll be as clued in as possible. Namjoon clears his throat and composes himself, before stepping forward and speaking loud enough that the woman can hear him over her own loud weeping.

“Excuse me, ma’am, is everything alright? Do you require assistance of any kind?”

The lady spins around, a crazy glint in her eye, and belatedly, Namjoon begins to feel a little wary in addition to the wave of concern that seems to have caught up to him from where he left it in the dust.

“My pudding,” the woman wails, lurching and attaching herself to Namjoon like he is the tree she’d just been attempting to scale. Her nails dig into his arms, and the male is suddenly thankful for the long sleeves of his shirt and jacket protecting them from being punctured by her claws. “My pudding is stuck in the tree.”

A few beats of silence sound in Namjoon’s head, before finally a thought spawns into being. This woman…. Did she fling her dessert into the tree? God, it’s worse than he thought. He never expected to walk upon such a tragedy.

“I’m so sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Namjoon says, sincerely sympathetic. Being prone to trips and falls as he is, he has been victim many a times to accidentally flinging food all over the place. His heart goes out to her, his hands coming to pat her forearms with only a little hesitance (distantly, a part of him wonders if the crazed look in her eye is due to rabies, and the whiteness of what he assumes is snot all over her face and mouth makes him a little nervous). “Would you like help? I can get the pudding down from the tree, and then you can go on ea—”

“Oh, would you, dear?” the woman’s grip tightens like a vice as she cuts him off, wide, glassy eyes gleaming with hope. Is she starting to froth at the mouth a bit? Namjoon chooses to ignore that observation. “Please, please get him down. He’s the fat bastard on the second highest branch, and he -hic- must be so scared.”

Namjoon resists the instinct to make a face just barely— is she referring to her pudding as a he, and did she just call her pudding a fat bastard?— and instead follows the old woman’s shaking hand as it point to the top of the tree. Realisation slaps him in the face.

There, sitting right on the thickest part of the second highest branch near the trunk and somehow still managing to bow it, is both the fattest and the ugliest but most oddly endearing cat Namjoon has ever seen. At least, he thinks it’s a cat. It’s a cat until proven otherwise, he decides.

“Oh,” Namjoon says, staring at the cat. The cat stares back, and Namjoon gulps at the sudden goblin energy it seems to be radiating. “Pudding.”

The woman, still babbling incoherently while Namjoon creates a half-assed sort of mental plan for how to proceed and reach the top of the tree, starts shaking him slightly in her distress. Being a music major doesn’t prepare him for shit like this, he laments. This lady better have some food on the table for the trauma she’s currently inflicting.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get pudding.” He gingerly brushes her grip off him, surprised she let go with such little convincing, and makes his way to the trunk of the tree. The cat stares him down the entire time, lidded yellow eyes peering into the depths of his being and pulling out his innermost fears. Namjoon feels like this cat is the kind of thing you peer under your bed as a child and see balled up in the corner, hissing, with big fangs and ominous man-eating energy. This cat looks like the second Namjoon is within reach he’s going to claw his face off or eat his ears. A shiver rolls down his spine, but he pushes on. He’s going to climb this tree, make this cat his bitch, and bring it back down for the crazy old lady who has started breathing extra heavy the closer he gets to the tree. Distantly, one of his braincells knocks around and whispers that this feels like when Hansel and Gretel got tricked by a witch and her candy house— except in this situation the candy house is Namjoon’s incredible need for good references and experience. Annoyed at the errant brain cell, he flicks it away mentally and tries to think of a way up the tree when he reaches the base.

Well, he supposes he’s just gonna have to go up branch by branch and see which ones he can reach with his long noodle legs. He has to bring his foot up past his ear to clamber onto the first branch, and amongst the pain of essentially doing the splits he feels oddly proud of himself. Kim Namjoon; outstanding citizen, academic, genius music major, now gymnast. It has a nice ring to it. Perhaps he should consider broadening his horizons and extending his athleticism.

Scaling the tree is actually much easier than he anticipated. None of the branches are too far or too high to reach, and he’s satisfied with the effortlessness this job has taken so far. This will look fantastic on his record— he can’t forget to get a written statement from the rabies lady.

Before he knows it, he’s come face to face with the cat. Up close, it radiates even more demonic goblin energy, and Namjoon feels his knees quake slightly in response. It doesn’t meow, doesn’t even growl, merely bares its teeth in greeting, and the male gulps. Alright, time to make this cat his bitch for a moment and save that old lady’s day.

“Hey puss,” Namjoon greets, a little rusty on his cat conversation etiquette. “Come here puss, here, tch tch.”

The cat, fearing neither god nor man, merely sits and looks at Namjoon as he makes kissy noises in an attempt to lure it. ‘You think you can control me?’ It feels as though the cat says to him, with its apathetic, golden-eyed stare, ‘I belong to no one, fool. I will perish before I move at your will.’

Alright, seems like he’s just gonna have to scoop him up and go. Hopefully his nature is a docile as the name Pudding implies and his intimidating outside is just a farce.

Namjoon leans against the trunk of the tree as he reaches for the cat and takes it into his arms successfully— it’s too fat to put up much of a fight, and for that the male is thankful, even if it now feels like he’s holding a boulder in his arms and they’re going to fall off if he doesn’t deposit it soon. What does that lady feed this cat?! Cement?!

Having secured the old lady’s bag, Namjoon directs his gaze downwards and goes to embark on the next step in the plan to climb the tree for the cat and then climb down with the cat— as expected, it’s time for the latter. Wait, speaking of—

A ladder? God he wishes he had one of those right now, because he’s just realised that he has no idea how to get down. The cat’s belly gives an almighty rumble and, expectedly, it throws Namjoon a little off balance. The old lady is calling out hoarsely several many feet below them, and Namjoon feels a little overwhelmed as he considers possibilities and analyses paths down.

Gulping, he makes a calculated decision— unfortunately, he was never that great at maths.

x x

An afternoon stroll through the streets surrounding your dorm is just what you need, some fresh air to sooth your tired, university student soul and refresh your mind.

At least, that’s what you decided like ten minutes ago. Currently, you’re not sharing the same sentiments as past-you so much. This is mostly due to the abundance of unhinged elderly and zombified youth that seem to have had the same idea as you and that are now milling about unchecked. You accidentally stepped off the footpath before and stepped maybe ten centimetres onto someone’s lawn. That someone happened to be a short, stout middle-aged couple that had matching outdated hairdos, and they were not happy about you ‘messing up their lawn’. Before embarking on this walk, you could have proudly said you’d never been chased down the street by some screaming woman with a broom before. Now though, you’re no longer a virgin to that particular experience. You’re not going home as the same woman you were when you left.

The street that you’ve just turned onto, on your journey back to your dorms, is remarkably less chaotic than the rest and you feel yourself letting out a breath of relief. Finally, you thought you were going to combust from the stress alone. As relieved as you are though, you don’t let down your guard; you’ve been burnt before, thank you very much.

Not even three houses down the street, your reservations are proven right. There is an elderly woman, who appears afflicted with a sickness of some sort if the fluids all over her face are anything to go by, who is sobbing and moping at the base of a tree in what you hope is her front yard. Confronted with the strange situation, a part of you instinctively wants to help her— the other part tells you to turn tail and go down another street because this could be one of those traps where they trick you with a crying child or old lady and then mug you, taking all your money and any candy still surviving in your pockets.

Ultimately, the more empathetic side of you wins out and you hesitantly begin to walk closer to the woman clawing at the tree and screaming about desserts.

“Uh, excuse me ma’am, are you o—”

You don’t even get to finish before there is a sudden series of snaps and cracks from the tree above you and a mass comes hurtling down from the foliage. You scream, the sheer blood-curdling nature making your throat ache, and just about shit yourself as you launch away. Where you stood, a shape smacks into the ground with a hearty thunk that shakes the earth a little beneath your feet. You were right, you’re about to get mugged!

“AHH FUCK WHAT THE FUCK FUCK OFF I KNOW KATANA!”

The mass on the ground groans and you blink, watching with absolute dumbfoundedness as it shifts and suddenly the fattest cat you’ve ever seen is parting from it and running towards the woman in hysterics by the base of the tree. For such an absolute unit, it moves fast, and barely a moment passes before the massive load of a cat is wrapped firmly in the old lady’s arms.

“Pudding,” she weeps into his coat, the cat pinning you and the lump at your feet with an ominous, dead-eyed stare over her shoulder. “Oh my sweet, fat bastard— don’t you ever do that again, okay? Oh my sweet baby—”

She turns, mumbling into the fur of her cat as she begins to depart from the tree and make her way back to the house that you presume to be hers. For a moment you forget about the lump at your feet, until you hear it let out a pathetic whimper.

“My reference and commendation…”

You let out another scream, for some reason not at all expecting it to speak words. When you look down, however, you instantly feel guilty.

The thing that fell from the tree was a man and he landed right on his ass.

“Oh wait holy shit are you okay?!” Now that you’re over your fear of being mugged, you run over to the man and pop a concerned squat next to his curled up form. “What the hell were you doing up there? Did you steal that crazy lady’s cat?!”

The male at your feet groaned, bereft. “No, I was helping her get the cat down. Holy shit, my buns…”

You turn your gaze to his heinie, realising that with how hard he hit the ground he very likely has broken something. God, now that you think about it, he could have broken his tailbone. You have a friend that did that in highschool— it wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t pretty. And the thought that this poor man who fell from the tree and scared the absolute shit out of you might have done the same… oh, you felt for him. He attempted to roll and let out a pathetic groan. Oh yeah, he definitely broke it.

“Wait, don’t move! I think you broke your tailbone when you fell! Don’t move too much.” You hurry to halt him, and all he can muster in response is another sad groan.

“God, I- I can’t see…” he dropped his head against the earth, eyes shut. “The light… it’s growing closer.”

“H-hang on!” You panic, hands flying into the air. “We need to get you help! We need to get you to a hospital! Please don’t go into the light!”

The male groans again, and you flounder— you have to get him to the ER! It’s more serious than you thought. Panicked, you scramble for a way to get him up and mobile. Finally, an idea occurs to you, and you survey the man’s lanky form to try and assess how well it’s going to work out. A grimace finds its way to your face.

You’re going to be so sore later.

x     x

For forty minutes, you carried the long-limbed male on your back like nothing but a pack mule. Twenty minutes of that you spent walking, feeling like that Atlas bitch carrying the heaviest thing imaginable on your back and shoulders; and the other twenty was spent taking (read: waiting for) public transport. By the time you arrived to the hospital and got the man on your back checked in (you learned his name is actually Kim Namjoon and he’s a student, much like you), you felt as though at any second you were going to pass out. You still feel like that, actually, as you sit in the chair along the wall across from the male’s bed, which has the curtains drawn as the doctor inspects him, and attempt to recover. You’re sweaty, and gross, and desperately want a coffee. You even considered slipping some of the paper from the mysterious wad in his back pocket before you realised it isn’t money. You didn’t get to see what was on the papers, since you lost interest as soon as you realised it wasn’t cash.

You don’t get to lament too much about it before the curtains are being hauled back, a brightly smiling man greeting you; the doctor appears just as exuberant and overjoyed as when he first walked in.

“Well, good news and bad news!” he chirps, tucking his clipboard under his arm. His nametag reads Dr. Lee Minhyuk, and you can’t help but think that your new friend Sera would probably be frothing at the mouth at the mere sight of him. You catch sight of Namjoon adjusting himself on the bed behind the doctor, cheeks red.

You send the doctor a probing look, knowing he is waiting for a response. He beams, delighted at your acknowledgement.

“Good news first!” the Dr. Lee clicks his heels together before shifting his stance, gesturing his arm widely to Namjoon. “His tailbone is not broken! Thanks to the uneven distribution of his ass cheeks— ahem, sorry, his buttocks— all of the force of impact was absorbed by the, uh, dominant butt cheek, if you will. His tailbone is fine!”

Namjoon chokes behind him at the words that come out, and a part of you is mortified for him but the rest of you finds that too funny to even begin unpacking everything else yet. One of his ass cheeks really pulled a hard carry and did the lord’s work and absorbed all the impact. The power… A sigh of relief escapes you at the doctor’s words, though, and you go to speak up your relief when the doctor cuts you off.

“Whoops, actually I take that back! That’s the bad news— his tailbone isn’t broken, but it is bruised.” Dr Lee clicks his tongue, taking out his clipboard to scribble something short down. He then turns to Namjoon. “I kind of have to go— since you came in through the ER but this isn’t an actual emergency— but I’ll send a nurse in with directions for you on how to manage this, and after that you’ll be free to go. I recommend not climbing any more trees for a while! Also I hope you don’t sleep on your back, that might be a bit difficult like this.”

With that, he clicks his heels once more before saluting you both, and then he’s striding out of the room, off to tend to actual emergencies, you presume. You’d gotten an earful earlier for bringing him to the ER when it wasn’t a life-or-death emergency, but you stand by your decision.

There are a few long moments of silence in the time after the doctor leaves, and you decide to break it by standing and moving to the table beside his bed, where you’d left your phone like a fool. Avoiding his face (he’s still blushing so it’s a courtesy, but also because while sitting and waiting for the doctor you’d realised he really is quite good looking and your mind is having trouble associating that with the man who fell out of the tree earlier), you reach for the phone amongst the water cups and chocolate wrappers, from when he’d emptied his front pockets. He’s a nervous drinker and a hoarder, it seems.

“Wait,” His hand shoots out, long fingers wrapping around your wrist before you can grab your phone. Your heart jumps, perhaps in fright. You look to him with wide eyes. “I’m gonna need you to sign a non-disclosure about what you just heard.”

“I…” you give him a pained look. “Please, tell me you carry them with you at all times. Please. If you don’t tell me, I really might die.”

Namjoon lets out a great, big sigh, releasing your wrist somewhat petulantly. “I don’t… please hold your tongue until I can print some more.”

More? You’re having a field day with the implication that he has had instances where he’s needed to hand out non-disclosure agreements before, but he seems a little sombre. So instead of mocking him, as per your first instinct, you decide to try and make conversation. You know the nurse is coming soon, but you would feel bad leaving him alone until then. You feel like, having carried him on your back for miles and miles, almost an hour, you’ve really gotten closer and crossed the bridge from strangers to acquaintances.

“So…” you begin, tapping your fingers against your thighs. You search for another nearby chair before grabbing it and pulling it over, flopping down. “What do you study? Where?”

You feel like a new language learner asking questions using only the limited vocab you have, but Namjoon is unphased and answers as though you’d asked him something much more natural.

“CCU,” he says, fingers picking at the threads on his blanket, before he looks up to glance at you. “I’m a music major.”

Surprise filters through you at that, a noise of wonderment escaping before you can really stop it. “Oh! Hey, me too! I think you’re in one of the years above me, though, because I haven’t seen you in any of my classes before.”

Namjoon, who had been somewhat withdrawn and had put up a wall of sorts between you since entering the hospital and regaining control of himself (and a donut cushion to sit on), seems to do an absolute one-eighty at your words. “Oh, your major is music as well? Where are you specialising?”

You tell him with an eager smile, and he responds with one of his own. Just like that, the two of you fall into a conversation that comes much easier than anticipated, talking about your majors and music inside and outside of school. The nurse takes forever and you spend a good amount of time there, just talking to this upperclassmen who happened to fall out of a tree while you were walking past. Eventually, he confides in you about a rough draft of his, something he has really high hopes for. It’s a song called Moonchild, and it’s barely half done but he drums and beat boxes the rough rhythm out for you and you feel your cheeks heat in awe as you listen. That’s amazing, you can’t help but think, and it’s all him. You don’t think you’ve ever liked the demo of a song as much as you like that one.

The afternoon passes with the nurse eventually visiting, and all too soon you’re waiting with the long-legged noodle man at the drop-off and pick-up zone, watching with a note of sadness as a car pulls up and some mint-haired twink that looks vaguely familiar sticks his head out and calls for Namjoon. Namjoon thanks you for your help and bids you farewell, and then he’s climbing into the car with an abrupt wail of pain— he forgot to put his donut down first— before the doors shut and the car is pulling away, disappearing into the dusk and leaving you by your lonesome. You stand a few minutes, before letting out a huff and turning to leave yourself.

The whole way home, and throughout the rest of the week, you can’t help but think about the beautiful tune of moonchild and how it rings serenely through your mind when your thoughts quieten just enough. You hope you get to hear it again, someday; you hope you get to hear it when it’s finally completed and Namjoon’s name is on the credits.

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