#all through i’m get a subway yummy

[14thcommander]

i’m high for the first time in ages lol

[3monthsineurope]

August 5 and 6, 2022

Ingvar and I were going to London! We were so excited! We were heading to visit his good friend, Zach, who was going to film school and living in London.

I spent Friday morning and afternoon packing and getting everything organized for our trip. I had helped Ingvar pack the night before, because he was actually in the office that day! He was able to get off work early, so he was home by 3:30. Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bill were actually taking us to the airport, because we were flying out of Vancouver, BC! We had found a cheaper flight from there, compared to Seattle, so we thought why not! I had never flown through Vancouver before.

Sue and Bill picked us up, and we all headed for the Peach Arch border in Blaine. We had budgeted a few hours of time for traffic and the border wait, but for the first time in my life, we didn’t have to wait at the border! It was crazy, we just drove right up to a customs agent. Sue and I had each filled out an ArriveCAN application for each couple, so the agent pulled that up, asked us a few questions, and we were on our way! I’m really glad we didn’t have a border wait, because there actually was a lot of traffic heading into Vancouver. But, Bill did a good job navigating us to the airport, where they dropped Ingvar and I off, to begin our adventure!

We had plenty of time to go through security. They made me rearrange all my liquids/toiletries, which was a little frustrating, but then we were all clear. We made sure we knew where the gate was, then heading to a lounge, which I had access to from my credit card. Our flight was at 8pm, so we hung out and had a few drinks and some dinner in the lounge. I had some really yummy noodles! Our flight was actually delayed about 45 minutes, but that’s not too bad.

The flight from Vancouver to London was about 9 hours. We had to wear masks, which we kind of forgot about, since the US had lifted that requirement. Ingvar and I each had travel pillows, but we were on a larger plane, with two aisles, so we didn’t have a window to lean on, we had a middle seat and aisle. I was pretty uncomfortable most of the flight. Ingvar did get to sleep a little, though. Air Canada fed us some dinner a few hours into the flight, of pasta and salad. We spent the flight listening to music, trying to sleep, and I blogged a bit from some of my previous trips.

Because of the time change, we landed in London’s Heathrow airport around 2pm, on August 6. We were pooped! But, we had a plan. We went through customs, then found our way to the Underground (subway). I had found my Oyster card (their transportation system) from 2014, when I was in London with Haley! So, we put some money on that, and got Ingvar his own. I had coordinated with Zach about where we would meet, so we took the route that he recommended, to an area of London called Ealing, where he lived. We arrived at the Ealing Broadway station, made our way to the street level, and Zach was waiting for us! Perfect timing!

It was around 4pm, and we were pretty tired, but decided to stay up and have an early night, instead of taking a nap. Zach helped us with our things and got us on a bus, which we took for about 10 minutes, to his apartment. He lived in an area called Pitzhanger. He lived on the third level of a row apartment, with two other guys. One of those guys was out of town, and was nice enough to let Ingvar and I stay in his room. Zach’s other roommate had a friend staying with them too, so there were five of us in the apartment. It was definitely a college boy’s apartment—the bathroom was pretty gross and they didn’t have many towels, but it was free! So thanks, Zach!

Ingvar and I dropped off our stuff in our room, changed, and then Zach took us to a neighborhood cafe that he likes, called Oscar’s. We both had some really yummy iced mochas and then decided to walk around the area, it was a really beautiful day.

We spent a while catching up while walking around Ealing. Zach and Ingvar had been friends since elementary school! The boys got some falafel at a stand, we saw the Gordon Ramsey restaurant we would be eating at on Monday, and some nice churches and buildings. We ended our Ealing tour at a local Irish pub, the Shanakee. We had a few beers there and hung out with some soccer on the TVs (excuse me, football, hahah). Each beer in England comes in its own glass, which is cool but sounds like a pain for the bartender.

Around 9, we took the bus back to Zach’s apartment. We decided we needed some dinner, so we all shared some fish and chips from a shop near Zach’s. We brought it up to Zach’s and laid it out on the table, with lots of napkins and ate our fill. The meal was yummy, but pretty greasy. I was really tired so I washed my face and brushed my teeth, then called it a night. Ingvar and Zach stayed up for a bit chatting, but I was out like a light. We were both so happy to be in London! :]

[jobean12-blog]

Barista!Bucky or Bookshop!Bucky?

I like the idea of both, a bookshop that also sells coffee and baked goods, with Alpine wondering around, and the Reader visiting everyday, Bucky recommending them new books and eventually getting stuck together on a rainy day and Bucky closing the shop early…

It did start of as a this or that, but I got carried away as I wrote… 😳😅

For the Love of Books

Pairing: Bucky x reader (Bookshop AU)

Word Count: 3,092 (I have no idea what happened!)

Summary: You're starting your first year of your PhD program in Literature and the first day is rough but thankfully you find solace in a lovely little bookshop/cafe and the handsome and sweet owner.

Author's Note: Hi my lovely!!! @sxbby-barnes I sat on this absolutely wonderful thought for so long because I just loved it so much but couldn't find the right inspo. Well thankfully the HBC @the-ss-horniest-book-club is hosting their Back to School week celebration and today's theme is the first day so I was able to come up with something. Whenever it comes to Bucky, books, and yummy things I tend to get carried away. Hope you enjoy this and thank you bunches for sharing it with me and your patience. Thank you all so much for reading! Much love always! ❤❤❤ Divider by the lovely @imerdwarf

Warnings: Soft and sweet fluff, cute animals, talk of books and just lots of love for books :)

It’s only the first day and it’s already the longest day of your life. You leave the doors of Philosophy Hall and head down Amsterdam Avenue, huffing as you stare down at your phone and search for the bookshop your professor insisted you go to immediately.

Once you have the address you figure out the easiest route to get there and grab the next train. It only takes you about thirty-five minutes but the train is crowded and you’re hungry and tired. When you step back out into the sunshine your stomach grumbles.

The bookshop is only a short distance from the subway station and you look over the course syllabus as you meander through the crowded street. When you reach the storefront you’re pleasantly surprised to see the large windows that show off the shelves and shelves of books inside.

You push open the door and before you can get both feet inside a huge white fluff starts bounding toward you. The dog’s tail is flying back and forth in sheer joy as he circles around you and pushes his butt into your thighs.

“Hey buddy,” you coo, leaning down to rub your hands over his softness. “Aren’t you a sweet pup.”

The dog’s feet dance up and down as he continuously smashes you with his large wagging tail and you feel the tension easing from your shoulders. You start scratching the dog behind the ears and hear a meow, which makes you straighten up and look around.

“You heard that too, right?” you say to the dog.

Just as you finish the sentence a cat, as equally white and fluffy as the dog, saunters around the corner of a bookshelf and rubs between your legs.

“Oh, look at you! So, I wasn’t imagining that!” you chime, now petting the cat with one hand and the dog with the other.

“I see you’ve met the welcoming committee!”

The smooth voice from above belongs to a pair of black boots and long jean clad legs. You let your eyes travel the length of them, silently admiring how well the fabric clings to his thick thighs, until you meet a pair of beautiful blue eyes framed by dark lashes.

“Hi, I’m Bucky and these two knuckleheads are Winter and Alpine.”

He holds out his large hand and you take it, introducing yourself.

“They are the cutest welcoming committee ever,” you gush. “I feel so much better already.”

“Rough day?” Bucky asks.

“First day of my PhD program in literature,” you sigh, dropping your bookbag to the floor.

“Well, you’re in the right place doll. I have plenty of books, coffee and even something to eat.”

“All of that sounds amazing!” you cheer.

“Good, come on in and I’ll get you set up.”

Now that you finally have a chance to look around the bookshop you notice there is a small section with tables and chairs and even a love seat and recliner near the windows, all made of polished wood and plush cushions.

The shelves are tall and lined with book after book, neatly placed with signs and labels to keep everything organized. Toward the back there is a counter with shelves behind it and a glass display case that shows off row after row of sweet treats and small snacks.

That’s where you find Bucky as he works a fancy looking coffee machine before grabbing a cup off the hook and turning your way.

“How do you like it?” he asks.

“Just a little sugar and milk please.”

He sets everything on a small tray and brings it around the counter, walking toward the seating area.

“I brought you a blueberry muffin and a scone but if you’re looking for something a bit more filling I have soups and sandwiches too.”

“This all looks perfect. Thank you so much. This should be good for now but I’ll let you know if I need more.”

Winter trots over to the table and sits at your feet, laying his head on your lap and looking up at you with his big brown eyes.

“I’m sorry about him. He usually doesn’t bother my customers this much. He must really like you,” Bucky says, grabbing Winter’s collar to pull him away.

“Oh no! It’s really ok. I don’t mind at all. In fact, the animals are a great way to relieve some stress,” you explain, rubbing along Winter’s nose.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asks, looking concerned.

“Definitely. I love them,” you assure him. “And uh, if you have a minute maybe I could bother you to help me with something?”

“I’d be happy to, no bother at all,” he answers, sitting in the seat across from you.

You take out your syllabus and fold over the page, searching for the list of books your professor instructed you to have ready to read.

“So, I need at least three books off this list. I’ve already read some of them but that leaves these and I don’t know which to pick. Any recommendations?”

Bucky takes the list and looks it over. You take the chance to look him over. His long chocolate brown hair falls almost to his shoulders and his strong jaw is lined with a dark stubble. He chews on his bottom lip as he reads and you can’t pull your eyes away from the motion, the impulse to reach over and pull it free of his mouth and brush your thumb across the softness making you hide your hand under the table.

“I’m going to get you my favorites off of here and then you can take a look and decide.”

“Huh?” you say, quickly dragging your eyes back to his. “Oh yes! That’s perfect, thanks.”

He smiles softly before standing up and walking to the back of the shop. Once he’s out of sight you look down at Winter and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Real smooth huh?”

The dog tilts his head and licks his nose, clearly not interested in your poor flirting techniques. You pat his head and try a bite of the scone, moaning obscenely when the amazing taste hits your tongue.

“Glad you’re enjoying that,” Bucky teases, winking at you before he sets down the pile of books.

You dip your head and wipe your mouth. “It’s delicious.”

He sneaks his hand over the table and breaks off a piece of the scone, popping it into his mouth. He moans loudly, smiling when you laugh at him.

“It’s the only reasonable reaction,” he states, folding his arms over his chest and motioning to the books.

You grab the top one off the pile and read the title then flip through the pages and bring them up to your nose, sniffing them. As if suddenly realizing that you did this in front of another human you cringe and fold your shoulders inward.

“Shit,” you mutter, lifting the book to hide your face.

Bucky’s fingers curl around the edge and pull it down.

“Doll face, I’ve literally sniffed every book in here, don’t feel bad. I get it.”

You exhale and the corner of your mouth lifts into a sideways smile.

“Every single one?” you tease.

“Well, maybe not every one of them, but almost.”

“Here,” he says, taking the next one off the pile, “smell this one.”

You giggle but open it up and bring the pages to your nose, giving it a good strong inhale.

“I love books,” you whisper, eyeing him over the top of it.

“Me too,” he agrees, grabbing one off the pile and opening it to smell the pages.

He stands and holds out his hand. “I have something to show you.”

You place your hand in his and walk to the back of the bookshop and around the corner of a bookshelf. A small wooden door sits at the end, adorned with an old-fashioned brass knocker.

“I already love this,” you say quietly, still clutching his hand as he opens the door.

“This is the rare and collectible section. The books in here smell the best,” he whispers.

He lets go of your hand and walks over to a glass case, opening the door and carefully pulling out a bright blue book. He hands it to you, his eyes scanning your face intensely.

You ghost your fingers over the dust jacket in sheer reverence and delicately slide it off, flipping open the book and turning each page individually before you slowly bring it to your nose.

“Is this a first edition copy of The Great Gatsby?’” you ask him, your eyes wide.

“It is,” he says excitedly, smiling when you close your eyes and take another deep inhale.

“Oh my god Bucky! This is amazing! What else do you have in there?”

You stand in front of the glass case and gently slide your fingers across the book bindings, reading the titles as your voice gets louder and louder with enthusiasm. Bucky chuckles behind you, his chest pressed lightly to your back as he leans over and points another one out.

“Are you a Tolkien fan?” he asks, his breath fanning your cheek.

“Yes,” you answer, the words coming out breathier than you expected.

“Then you’re gonna love this one,” he says as you turn around to face him.

His eyes drop to your lips as he brings the book between your bodies and leans in a little closer. A loud bark from the front of the shop breaks the spell and Bucky takes a reluctant step backward.

“Someone must have come in,” he says. “When you’re done just put that one back and close the door behind you. I’ll meet you out there.”

All you can do is nod as you clutch the book to your chest, your breath stuck in your throat. When he leaves you let it out and slump against the counter, dancing your fingers over your lips. Alpine twirls around the door frame and meows, hopping up next to you and rubbing his face on your arm.

“I bet your dad brings all the girls back here,” you scoff to the cat, inspecting the first edition of The Hobbit. “Amazing,” you gasp before turning and placing the book back on the shelf.

Bucky is by the tables serving an older couple some coffee and you take the time to mosey around the bookshop. It has a charming feel that is only intensified by the warmth of the lightning and the faint aroma of coffee and sugar that permeates the smell of old books.

You slowly make your way back to the table and continue to shuffle through the pile of books. By the time Bucky returns you’ve picked out the one you want to read.

“Looks like you’re all set,” he says, sitting back down.

“I’m going to start with To the Lighthouse.”

“Perfect. And uh…” he starts as he reaches into his back pocket, “here’s my business card. It has the website and phone number and I wrote my cell on the back in case you want to text me and tell me how much you’re loving it.”

He holds it out between you, his hand steady but his cheeks tinged pink as he waits for your response.

“Thank you so much Bucky. That’s great,” you smile.

He visibly relaxes and you can feel your own cheeks start to heat with what you’re about to do. You grab a napkin and your pen then scribble your number down and pass it to him.

“So now you’ll know it’s me when I text and tell you how much I love it.”

He stares down at the napkin and then folds it neatly before slipping it into his pocket.

“Anytime doll, happy to help and I hope you enjoy the book.”

You pack up your bag, taking the muffin with you.

“I’ll have this with my tea later,” you giggle, carefully tucking it into your bag.

“Let me know what you think of the muffin too,” he says, walking you to the door.

“Do you always walk your customers to the door?” you ask, smiling sweetly.

“Nah. And I never show them my rare collection of books either.”

You lean against the closed door, your bookbag slung over your shoulder and Bucky’s arm resting against the frame next to your head.

“Well, I’m glad I decided to spend my afternoon here. It really made this a much better first day,” you tell him.

“I’m glad you did too,” he replies as his tongue darts out to wet his lips. “I hope to hear from you soon.”

“You can bet on it,” you say, straightening up and rocking on your feet.

Bucky leans in a little closer, his hand reaching up until his finger presses on the pin stuck to the strap of your bag.

“Just one more chapter,” he reads aloud, laughing. “I like that one.”

“That’s me. All. The. Time.” you add. “I’ve stayed up way too late reading.”

He nods his head in complete understanding, sliding his hand slowly up and over your shoulder. He takes another small step forward and now he’s close enough that you can smell him and it’s better than any book ever.

Your name slips past his lips in a whisper just before he brushes them along your cheek, stopping at the corner of your mouth. Your eyes flutter closed and you reach for him, stumbling backward when Winter winds himself between your legs and pushes into you.

Bucky rests his forehead to yours and sighs in defeat.

“Damn dog,” he mutters.

“Maybe he’s jealous,” you giggle, patting Winter’s butt as he wiggles around.

“Probably is,” Bucky concedes. “Told you he really likes you.”

Winter paws at your legs when you turn to leave and you give him one last scratch, waving goodbye to both of the boys.

“Tell Alpine I say goodbye,” you tell the dog before stepping out onto the sidewalk.

Bucky watches until you disappear around the corner, his smile permanent as he cleans up the table and reshelves the books.

You and Bucky have been texting all week and you’re back in the bookshop Friday evening after your last class. You finished To the Lighthouse and you’re ready for your next book. It’s almost empty when you arrive so you sit at a table and hang with Winter and Alpine while you wait for Bucky to finish ringing up a customer.

He jogs around the tables and without hesitation he leans down and kisses your cheek, laughing when Winter barks.

“You already got to say hi buddy,” he says then plops down in the chair.

“So, you already know how much I loved To the Lighthouseand I want you to pick the next one,” you tell him.

He rushes off and quickly returns with another hardcover book from the list, opening it up and handing it to you to smell. You give him a knowing look and sniff the pages before closing it and inspecting the cover.

“Vanity Fair, by William Thackery,” you read. “I can’t wait!”

The two of you share a muffin and have some tea, all the while chatting about everything and anything. A few customers come and go, most of them complaining of the coming rain. You look out the large windows and notice the sky is black and the wind has really picked up.

“Wow, they weren’t kidding,” you say. “I hope I don’t get soaked on my way home.”

Bucky joins you at the window, his body close enough that you can feel his warmth.

“I know. It looks pretty bad. Maybe you should just…”

He doesn’t even finish the sentence before the first crack of thunder rumbles and the heavy drops of rain start to fall.

“I was going to say maybe you should just wait it out,” he chuckles.

“I think that’s definitely a good idea,” you agree, bending down to soothe Winter who ran over to you after the first clap of thunder.

“He’s a big baby, hates the thunder,” Bucky tells you. “I usually sit with him in the back because there is only one small window.”

“We can go sit back there if you want. I don’t want him to be scared.”

“That would be great. Just go down the romance aisle and make a left at the end,” he instructs. “You’ll know the spot.”

You follow his directions and gasp when you turn the corner and see a cozy reading nook under a small window. Winter trots over and circles around before laying down at the foot of the seat. Alpine is already resting under the window.

You sit down and curl your legs under yourself, enjoying the rhythmic sound of the raindrops hitting the window. Bucky shows up with a book, several snacks and a blanket.

“Be right back. Just have to grab the tea,” he says excitedly.

When he gets back you’re already under the blanket and chewing on a scone.

“You look comfy,” he says, sitting down across from you.

“I am, thank you for all this. It’s the best!”

“I love spending rainy days in here,” he admits as his eyes wander over your face.

You finish chewing and lick your lips, stilling when his thumb smooths over the corner of your mouth.

“You had a crumb right there,” he whispers.

His fingers linger on your jaw as he moves closer, cradling your cheek and tilting your head until his lips brush yours in a feather light touch. You lean into his touch, pushing a stray strand of hair away from his face and tucking it behind his ear.

“I really wanted to kiss you the other day. Before you left,” he whispers as his nose gently grazes yours. “I’ve been thinking about it all week and I kept reminding Winter to behave today.”

You smile, closing your eyes at the press of his lips, soft and sweet. His movements are tentative and slow at first but when your hands slide down his shoulders and fist into the fabric of his shirt he pulls you into his lap, smoothing his hands down to your waist.

He tightens his grip and parts your lips with his tongue. A soft moan leaves the back of your throat and you move your hands to his hair, combing them through the silky strands as the world around you falls away. The rain pelts the window, every drop falling hard against the glass, but not as hard as you’re falling for him with every touch of his lips.

@book-dragon-13 @hiddles-rose @jewels2876 @lookiamtrying @marvelgirl7 @nano--raptor @randomfandompenguin @mardema @bbl32 @tumblin-theworldaway @white-wolf1940 @musicalmuffindog1410 @dreamlessinparis

[carllisle]

In honour of @notquitetwilight ’s birthday, here is the latest instalment of the Cullanos prequel, the famous incident involving Esme, Carlisle’s second wife, and a motorcycle-shaped pizza slicer. 

For those who have missed the instalments so far, see below: 

The Second Mrs Cullano - Carlisle’s wedding to Wife 2

A Taste of Boston Part I - Carlisle and Wife 3 Esme take business with the daughter they are newly reunited with to Boston

A Taste of Boston Part II - Carlisle and Esme take on a hit job while their daughter Rosalie gets to grips with this new lifestyle 

More content can be found on @notquitetwilight ‘s blog under the tag the-cullanos and on my blog @carllisle under the tag the-cullanos. 

This instalment has content warning for sex (not explicit) and violence. Don’t get us wrong, this is still shitposting. But at this point we are really, really invested. Shout to @stregoni-benefici and @carlislesscarf who are screaming in the back of the clown car that me and Juliet are steering. 

The Second Wife and the Pizza Slicer

Esme liked the rain. She liked how the streetlights reflected in the water on the pavement, the neon colours lighting up her path. It didn’t lighten her black mood. The sound of her stiletto steps were lost in the rain as she marched down the street like she owned it. Half of it she did own, not that the IRS needed to know that. There was only one shopfront she was interested in tonight, though. Ahead, the pizzeria stood dark and empty, unassuming and inconspicuous wedged between a barbers’ shop, and a meat deli. Convenient for the pizzeria to have one of their suppliers next door. Those shops were closed too but that was to be expected; it was after 1am. 

Her heart raced in anticipation as she walked through the darkness. Between the buildings was a small alleyway and she slipped down it. At the back door of the pizzeria was Tony, the long-time security guard who took most night shifts on the property, and Esme forced a smiled at him. “Hey handsome. They leave you out here without an umbrella?” 

He grinned at her, rain dripping down his bald head and onto his coat. “I left it on the subway on my way in.” 

“Carl not give you a lift?” Tony lived practically on Carlisle’s route into the pizzeria and he often picked him up when they both had to come in. Tony glanced at the sleek Mercedes that was hidden at the back of the alley and shook his head. “The mrs came in with him today.” 

The mrs. Snakes writhed in her stomach. She couldn’t bite back her spite and it wiped the smile off her face. “Is the cunt with him now?” 

“Nah. She left ‘bout an hour after they arrived. Carlisle helped them out in the kitchen tonight and she didn’t much like being left alone.” 

“Heaven fuckin forbid she make herself useful. She’s only meant to be four months pregnant, ain’t she? Not exactly time for her confinement.” 

Tony’s smile faltered. “Something like that. You got any weapons on ya?” 

Esme frowned. “What if I say no? Ya gonna pat me down?” 

“No. Won’t let you in, though. You’re always packin’.” 

“You got me there.” Esme opened her coat, taking out her two handguns - white and inlaid with mother-of-pearl - and handing them over. Tony raised his eyebrow and she rolled her eyes. Knives were taken out of each shoe along with the two throwing-stars strapped to her thigh. 

“Is that everything?” 

“You know I don’t need weapons to kill him, right? I could kill him with my bare hands.” 

“I know.” He hid her weapons in his coat carefully. “But you won’t. So I don’t worry.” 

Fury rippled through her and her eyes went wide for a moment, but he held her gaze and she let out a hard breath through her nose. He was right. “You’ve worked for us too fuckin long. You can read me too well.” But her hard face broke and she gave him a genuine, albeit brief, grin. Anger had only flared in her because he was too right. “Here,” she gave him her umbrella. “You need this more than me.” 

Tony smiled. “Thanks, Esme. In ya go.” And he pressed his thumb to the scanner on the door and let it swing open. 

She lightly punched him on the shoulder as she passed, and waited for the door to close before making her way down the corridor. Ahead were the stairs to Carlisle’s office and she ran up them quickly, anger creeping back. It had been months since she had been here last. Since Mrs Cullano announced to the world her pregnancy, actually. Esme had cut off all contact with Carlisle that day. He had broken her goddamn heart and sadness hadn’t yet set in. She was still a raging fire and she was ready to burn down anyone who came too close. But when he had called her sounding unhinged and told her to meet her here, she couldn’t tell him no, cause she knew that tone he had - it was the same one he had had when, six months ago, they had been told that ten million had gone missing. Esme had recovered it from the 15-year-old hacking prodigy who had stolen it before adding her to the payroll, but before that Carlisle had been enraged and dangerous and he needed her to hold him back. Something bad had happened. 

“Carlisle?” The door to his office was unlocked but he wasn’t inside and it was dark. On the far side of the room was a wall of bookshelves and she quickly crossed to it and pulled on one book - The Godfather by Mario Puzo - and the bookshelf swung open like a door. Carlisle had always joked how cool he thought secret doorways were and they both thought the choice of book to be the secret lever was funny. It felt like a million years ago. It felt like yesterday. Behind it was another corridor and a metal spiral staircase that led down to the final door - that only opened one way - into the restaurant below. No one was allowed to use this but Carlisle and Esme, not even Mrs Cullano. Her heels clacked on the iron and her fur coat dragged out behind her. She tossed it aside on one of the booths close to the kitchen and she caught sight of her reflection in the windows. No, I don’t want to seduce my ex boyfriend, she had told herself earlier, but her wardrobe choice said otherwise. She wore the red satin dress he had bought her for his second wedding, backless save for chains of diamonds and clinging to every curve she had, and the ring he had bought her as a sign of their commitment still kept its place on her right hand. She looked away, embarrassed at how long it had taken her to make her hair so sleek and soft, or how long it had taken to slap on her face. It was exactly how she had looked at his wedding, like she wanted to punish him for marrying that bitch. 

“Carlisle?” 

“Kitchen,” came his reply. 

She strutted through the kitchen door and tried to keep her breathing under control. After not seeing him for so long, the sight of him was overwhelming. Carlisle stood at the salad bar chopping lettuce. On the counter behind him was a fresh pizza, the slicer forgotten next to it. 

“You didn’t sound right on the phone.” 

“I ain’t right.” He looked up at her and his eyes went wide. “Oh God, Es. You look…” 

“Whaddya want?” 

His jaw clenched. “It’s her.” 

“Her?” Esme heard the spite in that one word. “Your baby bank?” 

Carlisle turned to toss the knife he was using into the sink. “Don’t call her that.” 

“What? You don’t want me calling her what she is?” 

“She ain’t.” 

Esme laughed bitterly. “She got your baby in her, ain’t she? The fuck else you want me to call her? Yummy mommy? Mother of your child? Gimme a fuckin break.” 

“Es-”

“No, don’t! You called me out here in a fuckin storm to help with your marital problems? Get outta here!”

“Es-”

“I don’t wanna hear it! You dragged me out here in the middle of the fuckin night to tell me you got problems with your cunt of a wife? The one you knocked up who’s now shouting from every fuckin rooftop that Carlisle Cullano came in her! God, it makes me sick.” 

“What the fuck is wrong with-”

“Shut up!” Esme stared at him across the kitchen. It was hard not to cry. It felt like her heart was breaking. When she had heard that Mrs Cullano was pregnant it felt like her world was collapsing. In the month and a half since then everything had gone black and white but that was what it was always like without her other half, just empty. Carlisle put colour into the world. 

“Weeks without contact and this is how we’re gonna start, huh?” His words weren’t gentle. He looked wounded. “Not even a ‘hello’?”

Esme sucked her teeth. “Hi.” 

Carlisle laughed humourlessly. “So we’ll cut the bullshit, will we? Right to it? Where the fuck have you been?” 

“On vacation.” 

“Where?” 

“Nowhere in particular. Just needed a break.”

“From what, Es? Me? What’s got you so bothered?” 

“Your kid, Carlisle! She’s having your fuckin baby!” Esme’s shout came short and furious and she threw a plate at the far wall. It smashed loudly. “D’ya know what that’s doin to me?”

He stared at her across the kitchen, mouth open and eyes wide. He looked angry. “Ain’t that what you wanted for me? To have a wife and kids, cause you knew it’s what I wanted? I did what you told me.” 

Esme threw her hands into the air. “Yeah, and?” 

“I’m not a fuckin mind reader!” He slammed his fists on the metal worktop, his voice getting louder. “‘I want you to have a wife and a family’, that’s what you said to me on the morning of my fucking wedding! I asked you to marry me on the day of my fucking wedding to her! And you turned me down again! I did what you told me to do and now you’re fucking punishing me! How’s that fair?” 

Blond hair fell into his eyes like it did when they fucked. His face was red like it was then too. Esme saw the pain in his face, the anger that matched her own. “You shoulda known.” 

“You didn’t even know. I can’t read minds and I can’t see the future and I can’t feel how you’re feelin unless you tell me!”

“Alright.” Esme stormed over to him and slammed her hand on the counter next to his. She raised her chin in a challenge. “I hate her. I hate her perfect face, her perfect fuckin body, every strand of hair on that empty fuckin head. I hate that you chose her.” 

“I didn’t!” He seemed to tower over her but she stood her ground. “I chose you! I choose you every goddamn time! But you don’t ever choose me! Do you know how many times you broken my heart?”

If it was half the number of times she had broken her own heart, Esme was sorry. She swallowed the lump in her throat. It was impossible to talk about right now. “You gonna tell me why you’re calling me out here sounding like that?” 

It looked like Carlisle wanted to shout again and his hands balled into fists either side of his salad.. “She ain’t pregnant, and if she was it wouldn’t be mine. Probably my cousin Renato’s.” 

That pulled Esme up short. There was too much to unpack. “Whaddya talkin about?” 

“She been fuckin him. For months, Es. Maybe a year.”

“Renato? But why? He looks so much like you but he’s got half the braincells and twice the idiocy. Why’s she fuckin a Dollar Tree version of you?” 

“Cause I weren’t gettin her pregnant.” He dropped his gaze. 

Esme blinked, trying to process it. Her lash extensions were heavy and made her vision go funny, so she fixed her gaze on Carlisle’s face instead. “How’d you find out about them?” 

“She kept sneaking off so I had her followed. Got plenty of photos proving it. I’ve seen way more of Renato than I’m comfortable confessing to Father Thomas, but at least he looks like me. Guess it’s kinda like watching my clone fuck my wife.” 

“That ain’t right. And why the fuck would she lie about being pregnant?” Esme’s hands were trembling. 

He sighed. “She knows I don’t love her and I think she knows I wanna leave but she would miss the money, ya know? So she wants a way to keep me tied to her.” 

Esme’s anger was bubbling beneath the surface. She hated that bitch more than ever for making Carlisle look like that. “How did ya find out about the faked pregnancy?” 

“Medical records are kept online now. Your little hacker found hers. Two weeks ago she had a negative pregnancy test at her doctors’, and another one twelve weeks ago. There was never a fuckin baby.” 

“That lying cunt. Why’d you think it’s your cousin’s if there had been one, anyway? Ain’t you hittin it raw?” 

“Yeah. But… I can’t have kids.” 

“We had one. Or did you forget?” 

Carlisle grabbed Esme’s wrist and roughly pulled her closer. “I think about her every day, Es. Every goddamn day, just like I think about you.”

“Don’t.” She tried to pull away half-heartedly, her voice angry. “I can’t.” He ran his fingers through her hair and she stumbled closer until their bodies were pressed together. Knowing the wife wasn’t pregnant had broken down one of Esme’s walls. “Why’d you say you can’t have kids?” 

“I got the snip.” 

“When?” 

“Two weeks into my first marriage.”

Esme gripped the front of his jacket in both hands. “Why?” 

He slid his hands to the small of her back and his fingers caught on the diamonds. “You look so fucking good, Es.”

She shook him lightly. “Why’d you do that?” 

Carlisle grinned half-heartedly. “Cause I knew I didn’t want no kids with no one but you.”

“I wanted to die when I heard she was knocked up.”

He stroked her hair again. “Don’t say that, Essie.”

“I mean it. I thought about it, ya know? I was gonna drive my car into the Hudson and let it drown me.”

“Hey.” Carlisle held her chin between his finger and thumb and tilted her face up to look her in the eye. “Don’t ever say that, baby. I ain’t livin in a world without ya, alright? You go, I go.”

She took his hand and kissed his palm, keeping her gaze locked with his. “You go, I go.”

“I fuckin love you, Es.” 

“I fuckin hate her.”

“Yeah, me too.” Carlisle sighed and ran his finger down her neck and torso, watching how the silk of her dress moved over her skin. “What are we gonna do?” 

“We? She’s your wife.” 

He chuckled. “My problem is your problem, ain’t it?”

Esme hit his chest again. She was still furious. “Unfortunately, yeah. Want me to kill her?” 

“Nah. I don’t want cops sniffing around ya. Someone else should probably do it.” 

“Tanya owes me a favour, what about her?” 

“Don’t trust her, Es, she’ll double cross ya soon as she’ll fuck ya.” 

She managed half a smirk. “Weren’t that long ago she fucked us. Guess we’re due for a double crossing, then. So not her. The Blacks?”

“They don’t trust us and I can’t blame em for that. We’ll think of someone.”

There was a long silence then. Esme pulled free from his arms and slowly wandered around the pizzeria kitchen. Her heels echoed over tile and steel. She was the other side of the industrial island counter and Carlisle was arranging his salad into edible art when she spoke again. “I wanna do it, Carl.”

“What?” He looked up at her with lettuce sticking out the corner of his mouth. 

“I wanna be the one.”

“I dunno if that’s the best idea.” He turned away from her to grab a slice of pizza that was on the counter behind him. 

“You married the cunt.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know she was gonna be this fuckin crazy!” Carlisle protested indignantly. He took a bite and wrinkled his nose. “Fuck. Why does my dough always turn out like shit?” 

“Cause you ain’t ever learned from the Old Country. You do it the American way.” 

“Shut the fuck up!” he laughed. “Most Italian place you ever been is the Shore!”

“That’s cause my cheap partner never took me on vacation anywhere more exotic than Miami Beach!” She strutted back over to him and took a bite from the slice. “God, it is shit. Reckon even Renato could do better.”

He laughed again and wrapped her in his arms and stroked the skin of her back. “I missed you, ya know?”

“Yeah, me too. But I mean it, Carlisle. I wanna be the one to pull the trigger.” 

Sweeping her hair over her shoulder, Carlisle kissed her neck. “You gonna shoot her?” 

It was impossible to keep her eyes open. “Maybe. I dunno. Fuck,” she sighed quietly when he bit where her neck met her shoulder. She had missed him more than words could say. “I want her gone. She betrayed you and she took you from me.” 

His kisses moved down her collarbones and to the neckline of her dress. “No one can ever take me from you, Esme. I’m yours.” When he grasped her by the waist and turned her, she knew what he wanted. He lifted her onto the counter next to the bad pizza and he kissed her mouth. She parted her lips and grinned when she tasted salad and pizza margherita on his tongue. It didn’t matter. It was him. 

After a while he sank to his knees in front of her and pushed up her red dress. “Fuck, Es. No underwear? Did you come here with an agenda?”

“Who says I wasn’t going somewhere else after here?” she asked, but her voice was shaky as he pulled her to the edge of the counter. She gripped the edge for support and the pizza slicer brushed her fingers.  

“You sleeping with someone else?” Carlisle murmured against her inner thigh. 

“Well since we stopped seeing each other, I have an opening available.” 

“No you fuckin don’t.” His blond head disappeared under the short hem of her dress and Esme wondered, in the back of her mind, if Tony would be able to hear her screams. Carlisle certainly liked her taste better than the pizza. 

Some time later they were both so lost in their passion that they didn’t hear the unlocking of the front door or the quiet steps in the restaurant. Esme’s face was buried in Carlisle’s neck as he pounded her on the counter and his eyes were closed in bliss. 

“What a fuckin surprise.” 

Both of their gazes snapped to the kitchen door that had swung open. Stood in the unflattering  industrial fluorescents stood Mrs Cullano, a pistol raised. It reminded Esme of the one she had taken to their wedding. Unreliable, difficult. Mrs Cullano was no shooter. Instinctively Carlisle shielded Esme with his body, still inside her. Esme couldn’t hold back a moan at his movement. 

“You’re dead, Platt,” Mrs Cullano hissed, her finger on the trigger. Her arm wasn’t steady. 

“Kill her and I’ll tear your fuckin throat out.” Carlisle’s voice was low and deadly. 

“And murder our baby?” 

“Give it up. There ain’t no baby. And if there was, it would be Renato’s. You think I’d let you have my kids? You’re mad.” 

Mrs Cullano’s face went red. 

“Carlisle,” Esme said quietly. She turned Carlisle’s face back to her. “She ain’t got the guts. Fuck me. Please?” It was a move of dominance to show Mrs Cullano, an outsider, that no one would ever come between them or their love. And that Carlisle would always choose Esme no matter what. He leaned down to kiss her and moved with her. 

The scream that Mrs Cullano let out haunted them both for years to come. Absolute grief and loss echoed in the kitchen, rage and delirium. When the gun went off the bullet went stray and was embedded in the wall over the stove. Without missing a beat, Esme grabbed the pizza slicer next to her and threw it with unbelievable precision. The only sound was that of the young woman’s body collapsing onto the floor, the round blade with a handle in the shape of a Harley-Davidson buried deep into her forehead. Instant death. Blood poured from the wound. Esme felt relief and pride wash over her. 

“Fuck,” Carlisle gasped, moving faster. He kissed her hard and gripped her hips and then rested their sweaty foreheads together. “That was so fucking hot. Marry me, Es? Marry me, please!”

Esme moaned and nodded, clutching his back to stop her from losing herself completely. They were both close, both more turned on by exacting revenge than they could handle. “Yes! Yes, Carl, I’ll marry you!” 

After they had finished and set their clothes right, Esme stood over the dead Mrs Cullano’s body. “Jesus Christ, what a fuckin mess. This blood is gonna take ages to clean, look, it’s gone all under the cupboards! Ugh. I don’t have the energy.” 

“What should we do with her?” 

“I dunno. She’s your fuckin wife.” 

“Was. She’s no one’s wife now, she’s fuckin dead.” 

“Well, yeah. Hey, d’ya mean what you said? To marry ya?” 

“Yeah. Did you really mean you would?” 

Esme stepped over the body and made sure not to get blood on her Jimmy Choos. “Yeah. I wanna be your wife.” 

Neither of them smiled, but they shared a long gaze. Then Carlisle pulled out his phone and quickly dialled a number. “Hey, it’s me. Get some of your guys down the pizzeria, we need some clearing up done. Yeah. Mhm. Three or four. Yeah. Platt’s with me. Ha! Yeah. Yeah, the Mrs found us. Esme put her down, though, so we need it sorted. Clean-up and removal, remember this is a working kitchen, alright? I want it clean of evidence and up to code, ya goddit? Okay. See ya in twenty.” 

Esme opened one of the cleaning cupboards and pulled out a spray and cloth. 

“Hey, don’t worry about that,” Carlisle told her and he waved a hand. “They’ll be here soon for her.” 

Esme looked pointedly at the counter where he had fucked her and grinned. “I was thinking more about cleaning that up. Don’t want extra flavour in the pizza tomorrow, do ya?” Bending over, she sprayed the wet area on the metal countertop. With great satisfaction she felt him press against her backside and stroke up her back. “Ready for round two already?” 

“You fuckin bet. D’you know how much it turned me on to see you like that?” 

“Yeah. But save it. Let’s not have our first time as an engaged couple be in front of your dead wife. Bring’s a whole new meaning to ‘the body’s not even cold’, don’t it?” 

Grinning, Carlisle kissed her back. “Or when she told me she’d let me keep you ‘over her dead body’, huh? Joke’s on her.”

Esme wiped the counter down thoroughly and threw the cloth in the nearby bin. She turned and loosely wrapped her arms around his neck. “Ain’t no one tell the Surgeon what he can and cannot do. 

“Nah, no one. No one but his Heart.”

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter nineteen: a lick and a promise

“So Scott’s leaving,” Marla started, out of breath.

The two weeks following the gig in San Antonio and the announcement was in fact official at that point, such that it left everyone in disbelief as to what would happen next. Sam and Marla had taken their seats on the small but trim porch outside of their brand new apartment together right as the summer rain began to fall around them: Belinda had gone down the block for some drinks and a third chair for herself. It had been a two day affair moving Sam down to Hell’s Kitchen and out of the Bronx, but they finally managed to have her settle into the cute little place with a view of the harbor.

Sam herself nodded her head and fanned the side of her face with a road map Belinda had lent her. Even though she had tied up her hair and wore a sleeveless top, she still found herself hot and sweaty from it all.

“Yup, he said it just yesterday,” she replied, “they got home from Finland real late last night, and the word from the label is that he’s going back home to Queens today. No idea what happens after that.”

“They get a new guitarist, I assume,” Marla followed along.

“Haven’t heard anything official yet but there are some rumors going around right now. Add to this, Aurora is knee deep in her own affairs so I can’t talk to her right now but I would hope so…” Her voice trailed off. “By the way, have you heard anything from Metallica’s neck of the woods? Like how Jason’s been doing lately?”

“I haven’t, no,” Marla confessed. “I think their tour actually wrapped up.”

“When?” Sam was stunned.

“It was a while back, I know that much. Wouldn’t it be something if Kirk filled in for Scott, though?”

“Who would fill in for Kirk?”

“Lars? I heard they were planning on ridding of him after this tour.”

“Yeah, I heard that, too. Does Lars even play guitar, though?”

“No clue. I know James plays drums.”

“He does?” Sam laughed.

“Yeah, that’s according to Charlie! James can drum, Jason can play guitar, and Lars can sing.”

“Who would play bass?” Sam asked her.

“Didn’t Greg audition for them after Cliff was killed?”

“Yeah, he did. I can’t imagine him being with them, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“I kinda like Greg. I can’t imagine Testament without him, to be completely honest with you, Marla. Greggy, as Zelda calls him.”

“Or—ooh, I know!” Marla snapped her fingers.

“What?”

“Scott and Minerva can swap places!”

“Hey, that’s a great idea! But that means she would have to leave it behind, though. The Cherry Suicides are on fire at the moment.”

“Oh, right, right…” Marla sighed through her nose. “Why doesn’t Anthrax just carry on as a quartet?”

“No idea. It sets them apart, I guess—“ Sam then stopped in her tracks, and she thought about Joey’s sentiments on learning guitar himself. An old wound about to be taken to a new level. She turned to Marla.

“Is the phone hooked up?”

“Yeah, it was one of the first things I did the very second I brought my stuff here, along with make our beds and get Genie situated. Why?”

Sam nibbled on her bottom lip.

“I have an idea.”

She ducked into the new apartment, through the small but cozy living room and Genie, who had taken her place atop the little plush couch against the wall close to the front door, and into the kitchen. The phone hung upon the wall over the sink: she took the receiver and dialed Joey’s number.

It rang once. Twice.

“C’mon, Joey, pick up—pick up, pick up—“

“Hey, this is Joe Belladonna, I’m either out drummin’ or singin’, or playing hockey, so leave me a message and I’ll get back to ya—“

“Damn it,” she muttered. There was a beep.

“Hey, Joey, it’s Sam. Give me a call back if and when you can—it’s kind of important. I’m living at Marla’s new place in Hell’s Kitchen.”

Without another word, she hung up and returned to the porch with Marla, who looked up at her with a puzzled expression on her face.

“You think Joey might be onboard with it?” she asked her.

“We’ll see,” Sam answered; she thought back to that night in Syracuse, in which Alex had inadvertently opened that old wound for him. Down below the porch, she recognized Belinda's head of golden blonde hair against the light drops of rain around them.

“Looks like she's got some good stuff for us,” Marla saw her as well, and right then she leaned forward so as to better watch her. They hung there for a moment as she crossed the street and rang the buzzer.

“I'll get it,” Sam offered, and she doubled back inside to unlock the door downstairs and she left the front door open by about an inch. Genie slunk over to her and rubbed against her ankles, complete with a soft little purr; Sam stooped down and pet the top of her head, and she squinted her golden eyes at the feeling. She thought about Joey and his wishes to learn the guitar: she knew it would be a golden chance for him, and for Anthrax to take things to the next level. Genie's little black tail formed a little hook at the end and she stopped right underneath her knees, and she gazed up at Sam with those squinted eyes. She gave her a soft little meow and she pet her head again.

Belinda pushed open the front door with her hip and she showed Sam a grin, and she handed her the white cup in her right hand.

“Nice fresh limeade from the shop down the street,” Belinda said.

“Yummy.”

“Also, I just ran into Frankie down the block and he told me to tell you that they're doing auditions later today,” Belinda told her, “and I mean later today. Like within a couple of hours.”

“Which means we can walk on down to the rest of Manhattan and poke our heads in there if we so damn well please,” Sam followed along.

“If we wish, maybe. Although—it's hard to say 'cause we're not part of the band.” Belinda stopped right in her tracks. “Why, what's up?”

“She wants Joey to take Scott's place,” Marla joked from the porch.

“Why Joey exactly?”

“He's told me about wanting to play guitar at some point.” And she left it at that, lest she dig up something more by mentioning the whole thing between Joey and Alex.

Genie slunk over to Belinda and rubbed on her ankles as well; Belinda bent down to her and stroked her head and her back, and that little black tail shot straight up, complete with a slight hook near the end.

“So a couple of hours, you said?” Sam asked her as she took a sip of the limeade.

“Yeah. We can hustle on down there if we'd like. The rain's not so bad right now so we can boogie on down there right now if we'd like.”

“Hey, Marla, you wanna come along?” Sam called back out to the porch.

“Nah, it's been a long couple of days. I'll just chill out here and get myself settled in.”

“I'll come with ya, though,” Belinda offered as she set her limeade down on the box next to the door and scooped up Genie, whose purr grew louder at the feeling.

“So sweet,” Sam declared as she pet her head again and she pinched her eyes shut. Belinda then set Genie down on the couch and she picked up her limeade once again.

“It's a little further than you think, though,” Belinda pointed out. “So we can take the bus—and we've gotta get moving, too, 'cause I saw it on the way back here.”

“We're students, remember?” Belinda said to her as she took her card out from her jeans pocket.

“We are!” Sam turned to her purse, which she had hung up on the wall next to the door, and she took her student card out of her wallet. She spotted the Polaroid of Joey on the inside there, and she was quick to close the top so Marla wouldn't happen to look over and see it. The two of them bowed back out to the hallway and then back to the staircase. The rain had dissipated a little bit by the time they reached the sidewalk outside, and they strolled towards the stoplight up ahead of them.

“So where is it?” Sam asked her as she tilted her head back a bit to better take on the cool breeze around them.

“Right up here.”

Belinda hurried forth and Sam followed. Indeed, the latter spotted a sign on the curb in front of them with a bus inscribed on the front. She peered over her shoulder and the bus lumbered up to the curb behind them.

They reached the sign in time; Belinda climbed aboard first, and then Sam followed suit, and they congregated to the rung behind the driver once they showed off their cards.

“You girls are gonna drink down those things, Miss Grimes?” the driver asked them.

“We're not going far anyways, Jim—just a few blocks down towards Sixth Avenue,” Belinda assured him as she sipped on the limeade with a bit of haste so he couldn't ask her anything more. Sam turned to her and showed her a little smirk.

“You're good,” she remarked in a low voice.

“That's what I get for growing up down this way,” Belinda said with a shrug of her shoulders. They lurched forward to the light once it turned green and they lumbered forth; she turned to Sam again. “We're gonna be about two blocks away from Radio City Music Hall.”

Sam gaped at her.

“Wow, I had no idea they lived that close to that.”

“That, and Times Square, too. But I guess the room they're gonna be literally right there by Radio City. I can imagine life in L.A. being like that, too.”

“Kinda. You need a car to get around anywhere in L.A., though. It's not like you can just hop on the subway and go somewhere willy-nilly. Lake Elsinore is also a ways away from somewhere notable like Hollywood or Fontana.”

Within time, they reached Sixth Avenue, about two blocks from Radio City Music Hall; Sam pictured Anthrax playing there at some point in the future. The concrete building before them stood behind the curb in nondescript fashion, and Sam recognized Charlie's head of curls right outside of the door.

The bus pulled up to the curb right down the sidewalk from him, and the driver pulled on the parking lever for them. Sam stepped first and she was greeted by the little grin on Charlie's face and the new round of rain over their heads.

“Hey, girlies,” he proclaimed over the noise on the street.

“So auditions in an hour or so?” Sam asked him.

“Oh, yeah—got a few guys here already if you girls wanna see what's about to go down here—”

He held the door for them and Sam stepped inside of the small white walled front room first; beyond that was a carpeted space with a pair of large rugs suspended from the ceiling. They had been arranged into a semicircle over one spot on the floor: and right on the spot stood a low dark stool and a couple of amplifiers. One guy stood close to the rugs, and Sam recognized his long disheveled black curls down past his shoulders. The black hair dye had all but vanished, and so his little silvery plume stood high over his brow, despite it being a little bit on the thin side: but it seemed larger that time around, more of a plume rather than a small sliver the size of a silver dollar. His deep eyes stared back at her and his facial expression hardened.

“Oh, hi,” she greeted him in a soft voice; Alex flashed her a cold look and then he bowed away into the next room. She sighed through her nose: Zelda's words echoed through her mind right then. If only there was a way she could in fact talk to him about all that had happened between them. Here, she was bestowed a chance, and yet she had no idea if she could at that point.

“What's he even doing here?” Belinda asked her in a low voice.

“No idea. Hope he's not leaving Testament, though.”

“Yeah, talk about being on fire. Have you listened to their new album yet?”

“Nah, I probably should.”

“Okay, so we have Dave Mustaine coming—” Charlie was saying right behind them. “—he should literally be here like any minute now. Gus Pepa from Death Angel, Alex Skolnick from Testament, Minerva and Rosita both from the Cherry Suicides—and—then that's it. Alex is here, Gus is down the hall right now, and like I said, Dave should be coming like any second now. I think the girls'll be here any second, too.”

The front door opened right then and the three of them turned to find out who had just walked in: Sam recognized Dan's crown of hair upon his head, followed by Frank's lush dark hair, and then—

“Joey,” she muttered to herself, and she hoped that he wouldn't go off the handle at the sight of Alex being there at the moment. Zelda's words continued to run throughout her mind. Alex had gone off into the next room.

She had to do something right then and there should Alex be a part of Anthrax. She bowed into the next room after him; he stood there before his little black amplifier on the floor with a little red guitar before his little body. He raised his head and he showed her another cold look.

“What're you doing in here?” he demanded, and she moved closer to him.

“I wanna talk to you about something,” she started without a moment's hesitation.

“Are you going to give me another halfhearted apology?” he demanded, cold. He looked down at the amp again complete with a scowl on his face.

“No. You deserve better.”

He stopped, and then he raised his head and frowned at that.

“What do you mean?” he asked her. Sam sighed through her nose.

“I just—want to get to know you better,” she explained, “and I feel like I was way too over the top towards you each time we got together. Like, I want you to know that—” She paused for a moment in search of the right words. “—that I don’t mean to upset you or do anything like that. It’s just… I’m part of the fan club, and I’ve seen you guys—I even got to poke my head in on the recording process, too! And you gave Cliff that piece of paper.” Alex lowered his gaze to the floor and he stayed still, with his fingers across the fretboard.

“You’re still mad at me,” she muttered, to which she shook her head. She gave it a shot courtesy of Zelda, but it all came from her in the meantime.

Sam turned away from when he touched her arm: even with the calluses on his fingers, he had a soft touch.

“No,” he said in a low voice.

“No?” she stammered. “No what?”

“No, that—that’s very kind of you.” He showed her a thoughtful look. “Really, that's—nice of you.” He glanced past her to find if there was anyone else behind them. Belinda laughed at something Charlie said; another woman's voice floated in right then, but Sam couldn't tell if it was Rosita or Minerva. They had a few minutes for all she knew.

She returned to Alex, who had crouched down to his amp on the floor.

“I feel like—I'm kind of alone here,” she confessed to him.

“Why is that?” he asked her as he kept his eye on the dials.

“'Cause—I'm a California girl. I moved cross country a couple of years ago and even though I feel like I'm still an outsider here. So—if I seem a bit too much up to this point, it should be from that.”

He stood back up and about a foot from her. He gave his long hair a little toss back with a flick of his head, so it all rested about his head like a full mane from his crown. He was silent as he plucked at the strings a bit, such that hardly any sound came out.

“I mean, if there’s anyone who’s to blame here, it’s me,” he told her still with his eyes fixed on the amplifier. “I can be cold and hard, and… if I’m honest, I don’t really want to come off unbearable. Kind of like how… you feel.”

He turned his attention to her, and then he looked past her again.

“Looks like Dave's here,” he declared. Sam turned her head and she spotted that head of reddish orange curls in the next room.

“Looks like he might be going on first,” she told him as she returned to him.

“You know, I was a complete outsider growing up,” he started.

“You?” She was stunned.

“Oh yeah.” He set his left hand over his fretboard and then ran his fingers through his hair: the plume had a little bit of a shine to it. “The grays here are just tip of the iceberg. I think I told you this at Kirk and Rebecca's wedding, but my parents are collegiate professors. And add to this, they’re way older than my friends’ parents.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember you talking about that one time,” she recalled with a wag of her finger.

“Well, add to that, they both graduated from Ivy League schools and they're teachers, too. My mother is a professor at Yale and my father is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley. I mean, that in and of itself is isolating on its own…” His voice trailed off a bit, and then he cleared his throat. “Now take that and combine it with their being close to forty when they have me and my big brother. Also combine that with the fact they're both non traditional Jews, who've moved out to the San Francisco Bay Area. Not completely out of place, but still very strange, especially for me. All of my friends back home are born to hippies, you know, those ‘flower children’ of the Late Sixties—all the Grateful Dead and music of the Sixties you can possibly imagine. And then you get to my parents and like Sinatra and Dean Martin.”

“Wow.” She raised her eyebrows at that. “So—you pretty much grew up on a totally intellectual scale.”

“Yeah, I really did.” He shrugged at that. “I actually had a few people think I’m gay when I was in school, believe it or not.”

Sam chuckled. “Why? ‘Cause you’re smart?”

“Yeah! I’m more interested in expanding my horizons and my mind than my genitals. They were like 'yeah, that Skolnick kid, think he's a little gay boy' and I'm like, 'what, 'cause I like to read?'”

She giggled at that.

“How long have you been playing guitar?” she asked him.

“How long? 'Bout ten years at this point. I started when I was just shy of nine years old—properly taught, too. My teacher was like a children's folk musician. And I'm sure you know by now of my actual teacher, Joe Satriani.”

“Yeah, he taught Kirk.”

“And how. Him, me, and also another guy named Steve Vai—I dunno if you've heard of him or not, but he's just fantastic. I was one of the youngest ones in that class, too, like fourteen. Kirk was almost twenty at that point and Steve was twenty two. I was just this teenage kid who had just entered high school taking lessons from this mysterious, like godfather type character in the back room of this music store in Berkeley, where I'm from originally.”

“How'd your parents take all of it?”

“They did it kinda—I want to say reluctantly. Like they weren't, and still aren't, a little too keen about it.”

Sam tilted her head a bit at that. “So—they're not musical?”

He shook his head.

“Nah. They're collegiate professors who teach—social sciences. Not so much music.”

“Well, what about your brother?”

“He kinda is musical, like I got my first taste of bass guitar because of him. But he's not so much dedicated to it like I am.”

“So—you're bit of a lone wolf. Like the oddball.”

“Pretty much, yeah. Especially at this point in my life. I just want to make music and add something to the world, but—” He shrugged his shoulders. “—I'm pretty isolated with it all. You got your friends and the people who follow you when on tour, but I go home knowing my parents aren't sure of it all. I mean, don't me get wrong—they are supportive of it, but they're just—”

“Reluctant,” she filled in.

“Reluctant. Very much so.”

She pressed her hands to her hips at that: Dave's laughter in the next room caught her ear, but she was more fixed on this boy before her.

“I was wrong about you, Alex,” she confessed.

He shrugged again. “I’m just kind of a tough nut to crack us all,” he said. “Why do you think my parents called me ‘meshuggah’ when I was first starting out? They're like 'my kid's meshuggah!'”

“And Lars is right about one other thing,” she added.

“What's that?”

“It sounds like a good band name.”

“Meshuggah?”

“Yeah.”

“I agree.” He showed her a friendly little smile. “I was wrong about you, too, Samantha. Although—if I'm being perfectly honest, I'm still a little unsure of you. Just—out of caution and thinking about everything you've said to me so far. It's just—how I am and how I was raised, too. But this was a nice little insight to you, though.”

Charlie poked his head into the room right then.

“Oh, there you guys are,” he proclaimed. “Joey's got a little treat for us.”

“For what?” Alex asked him, baffled. Charlie never answered, but he did gesture for the two of them to follow him back out to the main room. Joey walked up to Dave, who took his white flying V guitar off of his shoulder and handed it right to him.

“There's no way I can leave behind Megadeth, to be perfectly honest,” he confessed with a shrug, “but there's something about this boy here.”

Sam turned back to Alex, who gaped at her.

“So he pushes me onto grass but he gets honors from Dave, what the hell?” he muttered, to which she shook her head.

“Yeah, I don't get that, either,” she confessed.

“I'm gonna try it out here,” Joey declared as he slung the guitar over his shoulder and he took the little royal blue pick out from in between the strings. His arched his back a little bit and lowered the guitar down towards his waist. He set his fingers on the strings; Sam looked over at Alex and the curious expression on his face. He slid his fingers up the fretboard a little bit and he strummed at the same time. He went faster and faster and it took her a moment to realize that he was playing that song “I Am the Law.”

“Wow,” Frank remarked; Joey nodded as he played along, and his long curled black hair sprawled down his chest.

“Could you play 'A Skeleton in the Closet'?” Dan asked him.

Joey moved his hand up towards the head and he strummed faster that time around. He moved up all the while with those bars.

“My god, he's fantastic,” Dan declared.

“It's what I get for watching him when I first auditioned,” Joey told him over the noise of the guitar.

“Think we found our new guitarist!” Frank said. “Right on, Joey.”

“I will also say this, though,” Charlie began, “Scott left behind a couple of lyrics for us. One for a song called 'Who Cares Wins' and another called 'Now It's Dark.' I might have to save these for later because we're still focused on Among the Living.”

[withabackpackandcamera]

July 5th, 2021

Day 10: Meeting Up With A Friend Before A Sprint To The Finish Line

This morning, because my parents had an earlier flight home than we did, we woke up to drop them off at the airport before coming back home to finish some last minute laundry, packing, and cleaning up. The only real thing on our last day’s schedule was a meet-up with Kristin Julia Erlingsdottir (pronounced “Christine” in Iceland), a pediatric resident in Iceland who I met 4.5 years ago when we were both medical students doing rotations at Landspitali. Even though we didn’t rotate together at Landspitali, we met each other in the cafeteria through other students who went to school in Slovakia with Kristin and since then, we have kept in touch via Instagram. So the plan this morning was to grab a quick breakfast with Kristin before flying home. 

Because Minh didn’t want to join for breakfast, he ended up doing his own thing for an hour or two while Cynthia and I went out to meet with Kristin at a cafe nearby. Along the way to the cafe, because we wanted to load up on yummy pastries to take home from Sandholt, I dropped Cynthia off to buy them while I went on ahead to Grai Kotturinn, a cafe down the street, to meet with Kristin first. But before I left, we learned that Sandholt wasn’t selling any almond croissants today. So sad. But I did get a chance to take a look at and pick out the pastries I was interested in trying, with Cynthia eventually settling for a cranberry scone, two cinnamon rolls, a brown sugar roll with cream cheese, and a pain au raisin. That’ll probably do the trick. 

So after I left Cynthia, I walked over to Grai Kotturinn, a cafe that Kristin had suggested nearby, to meet up with her after her night shift at the hospital. I was very grateful to Kristin for making time to meet up with us despite her busy residency schedule, and I was glad that I could actually fit her into my tight schedule as well. Anyhow, once I approached the cafe, I recognized her standing outside in her stylish all-black outfit and greeted her. It was so nice to see her again after all these years, even though we weren’t best buds but just quick friends from a brief time together. 

Because there was a line at Grai Kotturinn, we stood outside for a bit and started catching up about our individual lives in medicine in our respective countries while waiting for Cynthia to join up. Before long, Cynthia had arrived but the line hadn’t really budged. Because of how tight we were on time and how I didn’t want to make Kristin take too much time out of her morning waiting in line for food, we pivoted and changed course with regards to where to eat. Because both Grai Kotturinn and Sandholt had waits due to the recent influx of tourists, Kristin suggested that we drive over to a spot further from downtown called Kaffihús Vesturbæjar to skip the lines. We agreed, and she drove us over to Kaffihús Vesturbæjar for breakfast. 

We arrived at Kaffihús Vesturbæjar pretty early so their lunch menu wasn’t yet available. So, despite all the great suggestions that Kristin had on food options, we ended up having to choose some breakfast items from their simple breakfast menu, with me and Cynthia ordering a ham and cheese croissant to go with our pain au raisin we bought from Sandholt earlier. The cafe meet-up wasn’t really about eating so much as it was about finding a comfy place to catch up and share stories. And even though the food at Kaffihús Vesturbæjar was OK, the cafe was the perfect place to sit and chat for a little less than two hours. And Cynthia and I had a terrific time chatting with Kristin and learning more about her life before and during residency (like how she grew up briefly in Oklahoma, how she was sort of out of place as a returning Icelander once she was back in Reykjavik, about her doctor boo, how her pediatric residency has been, and about traveling, education, Icelanders, real estate, tourism). We also enjoyed sharing our stories with her too and I could tell that she really enjoyed the company. It was really great to find yet another opportunity to catch up with a local friend. Trips are always so much better when you can do something like that. Thank you again Kristin for making time after a busy night shift to meet up with us! 

Before we knew it, we were running tight on time because of how much fun we were having with Kristin at Kaffihús Vesturbæjar . Luckily, we saved some time when Kristin offered to drop us off at home. Once we were home, we thanked her and said our goodbyes. With Minh already home and relatively ready to go, Cynthia and I quickly finished packing our stuff before loading all of it into the car. After one last sweep of the flat, we left for one more quick visit to downtown for last minute souvenirs. Cynthia and I ran through downtown looking for things we thought we might want to buy but eventually decided not to buy anything at all. So we hurried back to the car where Minh was waiting and headed for the airport. It was nice to get a last jog in through Reykjavik before flying out! 

Once we were close to the airport, we made a pit stop at the grocery store where we had previously stopped on the first day to buy some chocolates for friends. Then we stopped by Subway to buy some subs for the long trip home before driving to Blue Car Rental to drop off our rental. Funny enough, we ran into Will and Mary again at Blue Car Rental and shared stories about our respective trips while walking over together to the departures terminal. Once we were in line (it was a very long check-in line at Icelandair because of all the Americans heading home after the long weekend), we had this awkward “see-you-every-few-minutes” situation with Will and Mary because of where we were positioned relative to them in line. So we didn’t get to catch up much after that. After chowing down on our food and getting through the line, security, and passport control, we finally made it to our gate, where we waited longer than expected to finally board our long flight home. 

Iceland, it was great seeing you again. And it was great finally introducing you to my parents and Cynthia. I’m not sure when I’ll get to see you, your beautiful landscapes, and your nice people again but when the time comes, I’ll be excited to come back for my fourth visit. Till then! Takk takk! 

5 Things I Learned/Observed Today:

1. It takes a lot of years to finish a pediatric residency in Iceland. Per Kristin, you can only do two years of training in Iceland (after one required internship year) before having to apply to pediatric programs outside of the country to complete your five years of pediatrics training (six years including the one internship year). The reason why pediatrics residents have to leave Iceland for their last three years is because the program is small and because the hospitals in Iceland see such small volumes of kids that residents don’t get enough exposure to be properly trained. Therefore, they have to get more exposure in other countries in other programs. For example, most people, if good enough, will go to Sweden to continue their training or they can go to a different Nordic country. Surprisingly, the Iceland peds program has a partnership with a Connecticut pediatrics program and they send one or two students a year there. 

2. In the Icelandic pediatric program, when you’re working nights, as Kristin was doing, you work the pediatric wards as well as the NICU (there is no PICU at Landspitali). Luckily, the ED has their own resident so they don’t have to cover that at the same time. Very fortunate. 

3. Interestingly enough, pediatric illness in Iceland came about very late this year as a result of the COVID pandemic and restrictions that came with it. For example, from what Kristin saw, RSV cases peaked in June instead of way earlier in the year in winter. And they had zero cases of the flu (though I’m not sure if that was just among kids or among both kids and adults). And pediatric gastroenteritis was only starting to appear in early July, which is a bit delayed as well. I’m sure public health and epidemiology data from this COVID period will be fascinating to look back at and study in every country.

4. Here in Iceland, people are primarily vaccinated with AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Janssen vaccines. And unlike the case in America, most people in Iceland are itching to get their vaccinations and are ready to run up when their name is randomly drawn. Additionally, it sounds like Icelanders have vaccine envy of others. That’s crazy and so good! And the great thing about all of this is that around 80% of the country is at least partially vaccinated against COVID, which is the best percentage among all EU related countries. Good for you, Iceland! Keep up the great work! 

5. At this time in Iceland, the government is pushing Icelanders to buy homes instead of renting. To incentivize people to buy, banks and other financial institutions are offering ridiculously low interest rates for home loans with rates at a historic low. And people have been able to borrow significant amounts of money for their home. For example, Kristin was able to get a loan with a really low interest rate that covers 95% of the cost of the home. Her flat is a 2-bedroom apartment located in downtown Reykjavik (close to where Sveinn lives). Cost: 53 million Icelandic krona (around $420k). That’s insane! Especially compared to the hellish housing market in Los Angeles. I wish it was that cheap in Los Angeles...

[what-is-your-plan-today]

CSI: Rogers and Barnes Ch11- When You Gotta Blow...

Part 1

Co written with @icanfeelastormbrewing​

Episode Summary: It’s the day after their date and Steve is brought crashing down to Earth when Fury gives him some information about the case that shocks him to the core. Meanwhile, poor Bucky is left attempting to stop Katie from murdering Wanda, which is a lot harder than it looks.

Oh, and Captain Raymond Holt’s in this one too…

Episode Warnings: Bad Language words.

Episode Pairings:  Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Song for Episode:  Just The Way You Are by Billy Joel

A/N: This is another LONG chapter guys, but there’s a LOT going down, and we couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to see a Raymond Holt Vs Madeleine Wuntch showdown. I can’t claim credit for any of the wonderful insults that they trade, I just took them from the best eps of 99 and mashed them together for utter comedy purposes.

We’ve split into 2 parts for you to read either all at once or separately, however you wish.

As always we live for re-blogs and comments

Series Master List  // Main Masterlist 

I said I love you, and that’s forever, and this I promise from the heart. I could not love you, any better, I love you just the way you are.

"You look tired. Have you seen those bags under your eyes?" Steve asked Bucky from his spot in the passenger seat. Seeing as both his and Katie’s cars were at the station as they had taken the subway to go on their first date the previous evening, Bucky was driving them in for a change.

"Yes, I have. Thanks for reminding me, punk." Bucky groaned, shooting a glare at Steve as Katie snorted from the back seat. Steve had at first suggested riding in the back with Katie, and whilst he had only been joking at first, he had then realised it would be a great way to spend every second he could before arriving at work clinging to his girl. Bucky, however, had fully refused stating he wasn't a fucking cab driver.

"You should stay in tonight. You've been out for what? Four? Five nights in a row?” Steve chastised.

"Just two" Bucky protested "I remind you I stayed in on Sunday listening to Carrie Bradshaw here." he added, jerking his head toward Katie in the backseat.

"Eat your plums and shut up, Buck. Your system needs vitamin C" Katie deadpanned, lifting her head from her phone. She leaned forward to squeeze Steve's left shoulder "Don't worry, Stevie. You're my Mr. Big." she said in an over the top soppy voice, smiling flirtatiously at him before turning to Bucky and giving him a playful stare "Pun intended." she added.

"Happy to comply, sweetheart." Steve said as he squeezed her hand which was still on his shoulder.

"You two are gross." Bucky scoffed, shaking his head.

"What can I say, he looks yummy in that uniform." Katie said, licking her lips.

Steve couldn't help but smile remembering the look in Katie's eyes as he had stepped out of the closet of his bedroom dressed in his Captain uniform as he was due to report to Fury that morning. He only wore it on special occasions and when being summoned to HQ or Police Plaza, and he didn't quite feel comfortable in it as it tended to attract a lot of attention but this morning he had developed a sudden fondness for it.  Of course, his sudden found affection for said uniform had absolutely nothing to do with the fact Katie had been clearly very appreciative of it as she had run her hands over his tight shirt... or the sparkle in her eyes along with the sight of her teeth grazing her lower lip while making sure his tie was well tied and straightened….or the fact that they had had to break a very heated kiss before things got a little more serious which would have resulted in them both being late for work…

Nope, nothing to do with any of that, at all.

With a grin Steve turned to look at his girl, and flashed her a wink "Thanks, doll." he said, pecking her lips.

"Anytime." Katie said grinning at him with loving eyes.

"Hello, I'm here. And I feel ignored." Bucky scoffed.

"Aww. Don't be like that, jerk." Steve said ruffling his best friend's hair.

Bucky groaned again as he slapped Steve's hand off his head. "Back off, punk."

"You're particularly grumpy this morning, Barnes." Katie noted and she smiled locking eyes with Steve before turning to Bucky and adding "Maybe you need to get an autopsy done."

There was silence for a couple of seconds before Steve and Katie burst into laughter seeing the expression of utter exasperation on Bucky's face at the mention of Sam.

"You two are hilarious." he scoffed.

"Yeah. Do Sam’s gloves tickle? That why you're so prickly?" Steve quipped.

At that Bucky couldn't help but laugh with them. He supposed he had it coming. He had been bad enough with them, even before they got together, constantly teasing the pair of them. And, to tell the truth, he was secretly enjoying it. He liked the good natured sniping and banter. The three of them had struck up a good friendship.

"All right, doll face. This is your stop." Bucky announced as he pulled over at the curb a couple of blocks from the station.

"See you in a minute, boys." she said grabbing her purse and leaning forward to kiss Steve softly before opening the door and stepping outside.

"See you, doll." Steve whispered.

Both of them watched her walk away mingling with the people that crowded Brooklyn's sidewalks that morning. Bucky glanced at Steve and saw his head tilt to one side.

"Are you checking your girl's ass, Punk?" Bucky asked Steve as he moved the car again.

"Are you?" Steve asked back frowning at him.

Bucky just laughed and shook his head. "Jerk."

With that Bucky swung the car into the entrance of the parking lot and into a spare space a few down from Katie’s BMW.  Together they headed up to the elevator and Steve selected their floor.

“Ready for another day of pretending you don’t wanna jump Stark’s bones every 5 minutes?” Bucky looked at Steve who gave a roll of his eyes, but didn’t respond.

The doors pinged open and Clint's wolf whistle could be heard all through the main office as Steve and Bucky made their entrance.

"Whoa Rogers. You look great in that uniform. Has Stark seen you yet?" Natasha asked Steve.

Bucky scoffed at Natasha's teasing. She wouldn't let the opportunity pass to pry some information out of anyone or anything, and she was determined to discover if Steve and Katie were a thing or not. If she didn't know already, which Bucky suspected, despite all his efforts to not to give in to her constant questionings and traps.

"Why would Stark have seen me?" Steve replied not taking the bait, but blushing visibly.

"You tell me, Rogers." she replied, slurring her words

Damned, Romanoff. Bucky cursed in his mind as Wanda's expression changed from utter adoration to boiling anger at Natasha's mention of Katie. But as quick as it had soured, it reverted back and she began strutting towards Steve.

"Wait. Your tie isn't straight." she said. Steve frowned and looked down at his tie to check it was impeccably arranged, just as Katie had left it an hour prior.

Don't bother, punk. It's perfectly straight, just Wanda being a hoe. Bucky thought to himself.

"My ears burning? What exactly should I have seen?” Katie asked as she entered the main office, startling everyone. Especially Steve who looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"You look like you're being strangled, Rogers" Natasha deadpanned.

Uh oh Bucky thought when he heard Katie. But he was surprised, as he observed her take her jacket off and switch her computer on. She was playing it pretty cool and doing particularly well in hiding her rage against Wanda when he was sure she was plotting a hundred different ways to kill her and dispose of her body. And yet she was still able to fake surprise when her eyes set on Steve, admiring him in his uniform.

"Looking good, Captain. Meeting someone important, are we?" Katie said smiling at him.

Bucky had to look away, the woman deserved a damned Oscar. She knew exactly where he was going.

"Thanks." Steve smiled swiftly, "And yes, I'm meeting Fury today so..." he cleared his throat before continuing "... no briefing this morning. Just keep on working on what you were doing and we'll catch up later in the day or tomorrow depending on how my meeting goes."

They all nodded in agreement and started organizing their own work as Steve went into his office to check his mail before leaving for HQ. As he emerged from his office 20 minutes or so later, he was met with Wanda who immediately proceeded to brush his shoulder pads to make sure his jacket was neat and tidy.

"It's ok Wanda, thanks." he said stopping her as cordially as possible so as not to spike her. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Katie’s expression, and his heart sank. She was upset, he could tell, even though she was doing her best to hide it as her eyes hastily diverted away from him and she went back to examining something on her computer.

"Do you remember where your car is, Rogers?" Natasha asked as Steve moved away from Wanda and passed by the detective’s desk.

"What?" Steve stopped and asked, not understanding.

"I mean, it was already in the parking lot when I arrived this morning. Curiously it wasn't the only one." she explained with a side smile, her eyes flicking to Katie.

"The early bird catches the worm, Cap." Clint added.

Steve looked at his watch while he shook his head and sighed, ignoring them, although if the burning in his cheeks was anything to go by he was redder than a glass of fucking tomato juice.

"I'm leaving or I'll be late. Barnes, you're in charge!" he shouted for everyone to hear before he crossed the doors of the main office, heading into the elevator without a backwards glance.

Bucky watched him go before he turned back to his emails as Clint and Natasha struck up some conversation about something on TV. Katie, at her desk opposite him, was stoic and still focussed on her screen although he could see her eyes weren’t moving. She wasn’t reading anything, simply pretending. Bucky could see. But before he could say anything she stood up and started to grab some files, sorting them into a pile. Then, her phone went and she reached for it absentmindedly, glancing down at it and Bucky saw the smile spread across her face.

And he wasn’t the only one…

"Storm?" Nat asked Katie who continued to grin her phone's screen while typing a text back.

"No" she replied, not lifting her eyes from the phone.

"Jensen?" Wanda insisted but Katie just blanked her as she put the phone in the back pocket of her jeans.

"Ok. Who moved Dot out of her spot?" Bucky asked in an attempt to divert attention towards him.

Not that he really needed to, Katie was behaving impeccably, too much so if you asked him, and simply picked up the pile she had organised on her desk and announced she would be in the incident room if anyone needed her.

"Good try, Barnes" Clint said looking at Dot who obviously was in the same spot she had always been.

******

Steve maintained his indifferent Captain appearance until the doors to the elevator shut, at which point he let out a loud groan. That was all he needed, Katie to walk in at the exact moment Wanda was straightening his tie, especially after what they had talked about on their date. He wasn't stupid, he knew Wanda was overstepping the mark. There was nothing wrong with his tie and he didn't appreciate Wanda invading his space that way. But the worst thing had been the look on Katie's face. He would have been happier to see anger or jealousy but the look of pure upset, almost resignation she had been sporting had almost crippled him, and he knew it was because she was powerless to stop it for fear of blowing their cover. Deciding to give her a little bit of comfort, reassurance maybe, he pulled out his phone and sent her a simple message: "Love you, Doll.", before he stuck his phone back in the inside pocket of his jacket, his foot tapping on the floor as he continued his previous train of thought. Steve knew Wanda had gone too far now. He was going to have to tell her to back off one way or another, and made a mental note to ask Bucky later about the best way to do so.

The elevator hit the ground floor he stepped out and headed towards the parking lot, nodding to the other officers that were arriving as he went, and as his phone vibrated against his chest he smiled to himself, the smile growing even bigger as he read Katie’s response: "Love you too, and you do look incredibly handsome in that uniform…”

By the time he had arrived at HQ his mind had switched to why Fury wanted to see him in person. He'd called his boss the day before to inform him that he needed to discuss a few things on the Cereal Serial Killer case with him, but hadn't gone into details...and then a message had arrived early that morning to tell him to report at 10-hundred sharp. He flashed his ID badge to security, went through the usual process of stripping down to pass through the metal detectors and scanners, before he headed up to the 20th floor where the Commissioners' Offices were. He walked down the corridor and headed straight to the two offices at the end, greeting the secretary at the desk outside, who told him to take a seat as Fury was in with Deputy Commissioner Wuntch but wouldn't be long. Steve nodded, and turned to do just that, smiling as a familiar face greeted him.

"Captain Rogers..." Raymond Holt nodded, standing up as he stuck out his hand towards him "It's been a while." "It sure has Ray." Steve smiled, "How you been?"

"How have I been...hmm, let's see. I'm here to see Wuntch who is circling me like a shark frenzied by chum. The task force is turning into a career-threatening quagmire. An Internal Affairs investigation has been casting doubt upon my integrity. I, a Captain, am no longer able to command my vessel, my precinct, from my customary helm, my office. I've worked the better part of my years on earth overcoming every prejudice and fighting for the position I hold, and now I feel it being ripped from my grasp, and with it the very essence of what defines me as a man. But other than that, I've been fine..."

Steve eyed the captain, not quite sure if he was joking or being facetious. But then again, there were only 2 people he knew that could read Holt fully, Peralta and Katie. And the line about Wuntch was probably true. It was a well-known fact across the entire NYPD that Raymond Holt and Madeleine Wuntch had beef. Big beef, and now she had made Deputy Commissioner, Steve had no doubts in his mind she would be making Holt's life hell at every given opportunity. He knew only too well from personal experience that the woman could be a nasty piece of work when she didn't get her own way. She'd made life very difficult for Steve himself at one point after he had turned down her advances at one Christmas Party. She'd set out to block his promotion to Lieutenant, that is until Howard had stepped in and pushed it through. Another reason he would be eternally grateful to his late mentor.

"Sounds exhausting... “ Steve replied with what he thought was an appropriate comment. "Yes, it is." Holt nodded "You know she was apparently supposed to take a position up in the Boston PD...but it's so close to Salem, and we know what they do to Witches up there so she turned it down..."

Steve let out a snort and he could have sworn he saw the corner of Holt's mouth twitch slightly but as he looked again his fellow Captain's face was as grave as ever.

"So what are you doing here?" Holt asked and Steve took a breath.

"Fury called me in. Think he wants a detailed briefing on the Cereal Serial Killer case." "Ahh, yes..." Holt dropped his voice "How is it going on that?" "Well..." Steve looked around "Can't say too much but we're working on something, well, Stark is should I say..." At the mention of Katie's name there was a definite flicker of a smile on Holt's face as her one time boss asked after her "How is she doing?" "Oh, good...” Steve smiled, unable to stop himself "She's great. You know, professionally...well deserved promotion and all..." "She's one of the best." Holt nodded, "I told you that when she moved. She left a big hole in the team..." At that point the door to Fury's office opened and Madeleine Wuntch walked out, immaculately presented as always.

"Speaking of holes..." Holt turned his attention to the woman "It’s a shame we would never find one deep enough to hold you Madeleine..."

"Hello, Raymond. How do you like my new office?" She asked, gesturing to the door at the opposite side of the room to Fury's "Twentieth floor"

"Yes, I never thought I'd see you this high without a broom under you..."

Steve cast his eyes down, a smile on his face as he desperately tried not to laugh. Unlike Steve, who merely kept his head down and ignored Wuntch as much as he could, Holt enjoyed baiting her, because he didn't give a shit. He was too well respected and thought of for her to even try and get rid of him, not whilst Fury was in charge anyway. And it was funny as fuck. His attempt to remain inconspicuous, however, failed as Wuntch’s gaze turned to Steve and he met her eyes for a second before she blatantly looked him up and down. Steve shifted slightly, his hands falling to the buckle of his belt, his stance changing from open to challenging, but before he had chance to say anything Holt was there again.

"My God..." he said, shaking his head "He's half your age you shrivelled up old prune...have some dignity before the Flying Monkeys turn up to drag you away."

"Sticks and stones Raymond..." Wuntch sang.

"Describing your breakfast?" Holt looked at her, his face completely deadpan.

"How's the Internal Affairs investigation going?" Wuntch shot bac

"You tell me. You spend so much time with your ear to the ground...it's a pity a truck hasn't run over your head." Holt said simply

"You can fight with me all you want..." "I'm not fighting you. I learned a long time ago not to dance with the Devil for fear of getting burned. Also, in your case, you have no rhythm and your hands are like little rat claws" Holt held his hands up and contracted them slightly, curling his fingers into his palms slightly to illustrate his point.

"Keep going and soon I'll have you demoted." "Or perhaps you could transfer me to the swamps of New Jersey so I can patrol the sinkhole where you were spawned..."

"I actually called you here to give you some important news." Wuntch said, gesturing to her office "Shall we?" "Of course." Hold said, and with a nod to Steve he began to follow her to her office "Wait, are you going to inform me you're a Cheuksin?" "A what?" Wuntch frowned and stopped, turning to face him.

"A Cheuksin." Holt repeated "A Korean toilet ghost, lives in an outhouse, wraps her hair around your throat and chokes you to death whilst you move your bowels." "Don’t you find this exhausting?" Wuntch sighed, walking into her office

"Thinking of fresh insults?" Holt asked following her "Not at all you coffin cave mould beetle...now tell me, what revenge do you intend on taking on Dorothy for killing your sister?" Wuntch closed the door behind them, leaving Steve unable to hear the rest of the argument which he had no doubt was continuing inside the office, and he snorted, shaking his head. Looking up he saw Fury stood in his door, a smirk on his place.

"If I didn't know Holt was gay I'd swear he was in love with her. It's like watching two school children with a crush, both being mean to one another to hide their true feelings." Fury said, as Steve stepped towards him, shaking his hand. “Nice uniform, not seen you in it for a while.” “Funnily enough the team said the same thing.” Steve said, with a good humoured sigh as he dropped into the seat Fury was directing him to take.

“Soo you must be wondering why I called you here…” Fury looked at him as he closed the door behind him, and Steve nodded.

“Well, I wanted to dig into what you said on your call yesterday.” Fury looked at him, sitting down in his chair at the opposite side of the desk “You’re having trouble locating Rumlow?”

“Sir.” Steve nodded “As I told you at the last update, we know the alleged rape case has links to both Sitwell and Schmidt, and we can link Ross to both of them too. Our next step was to go and speak to Rumlow, see if we could get anything out of him but…well, he seems to have disappeared.” Fury took a deep breath and looked at him “From Prison? That’s…inconvenient.” Steve snorted “Stark seems to think there’s some kind of conspiracy, higher up…”

“Prisoners sometimes get moved Captain…” Fury looked at him and Steve nodded.

“I appreciate that Sir, but it doesn’t explain why there’s no record of him ever being in Cedar Junction in the first place…”

“Shoddy organisation, paperwork losses…could be a number of things…” Fury said, before he dropped his voice “And if you believe that you’ll believe anything.”

Steve frowned “What exactly are you implying Nick?”

“When you called me yesterday, I did a bit of digging of my own. I was curious. And you’re right. No records of him serving time…anywhere. Ever. No records of him ever being convicted of a crime. Ever. No record of any allegations either. Ever.”

“But…how…” Steve frowned

“You mentioned Stark said something about a conspiracy…” Fury looked at him, “Let me guess who she fingered for it… Ross.”

“Yeah…” Steve looked at him, his brow furrowing even more.

“And she thinks that because of the suspected blackmail you told me about.”  Fury continued, “And as crazy as that is, Rogers, it’s crazy enough to make sense, because whoever is protecting Brock has to have the power, the sway, to be able to do something like this…”

“Nick, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying…” “The way that little shit weaselled out of that rape allegation never sat well with me…nor did what happened to Stark.” Nick frowned, “I always suspected some kind of foul play. What’s more is I don’t think Ross was acting alone, I think someone in the force is involved too.”

“What makes you think that?” “Whoever coached Sitwell on that alibi did a damned good job, told him exactly what to say…and it wasn’t Rumlow because he was in a cell being questioned.” Fury looked at Steve.

“So you’re telling me the NYPD is compromised?” Steve frowned “And no one noticed?” “Why do you think we’re meeting in here?” Fury looked at him, gesturing around his office. “I noticed. And what’s more…for some reason, I believe it somehow involves Stark…” “Katie?” Steve frowned

“Howard.” Fury said.

At that Steve’s mouth fell open. He stumbled for words a little before he shook his head furiously “No, I mean…Howard’s been dead for years!”

“Yes. An unfortunate accident…whereby he choked on something…sound familiar?” Fury looked at him and Steve felt his blood run cold, was he seriously implying

“You think…you think Howard and Maria were murdered?” Steve whispered, his eyes wide.

Fury nodded.

“By our current killer?” “That, I don’t know for sure…but I’m not a huge fan of coincidences.” Fury said, looking at Steve for a moment.

“No, I can’t…” Steve shook his head, furiously, his mind whirling “That…I mean…”

He trailed off, searching for something to say, but he was utterly dumfounded. Instead he turned his eyes back onto his boss, and Fury met his stare before he looked down and reached into his desk drawer. He pulled out a silver pen drive and placed it on the desk, sliding it over to Steve.

“What’s this?” Steve asked.

“It arrived yesterday.

“What’s on it?”

“No idea.” Fury said. “It arrived simply with a note which instructed me to plug it in and key in a 4 digit number. When I did so I got a timed message. It stated that the drive contained key information that with regards to Howard, the Cereal Serial Killer, and that it was to be passed to Katie Stark only…and that she would know the passcode. When that message disappeared it simply began to run a jumble of numbers, the same numbers over and over again in different sequences. My guess is it will be a date or a combination that means something to Stark…”

“Why didn’t you just get tech to crack it?” Steve asked.

“Because whatever is on there concerns Katie.” Fury said, “And most likely her brother too, for that matter. They deserve to see it first.” “This is…this is big, Nick.” Steve sighed, and Fury nodded. At that point there was a knock on the door and his secretary poked her head in, telling Fury that his next appointment was here.

“Thanks Eva, we’re done now anyway.” Fury said, standing up. Steve looked at him, before he reached out for the pen drive.

“Trust no one Rogers…” Fury said simply as Steve picked it up of the desk, turning it over in his hands. **** Katie came back from the incident room her mind whirling over something, Bucky could tell by the way she seemed to be biting the inside of her cheek.  Clint raised his head from his computer and sighed with frustration as he checked his phone once more.

"Anything on tracking down Rumlow, yet?" she asked him.

"No, he said. It's a dead end on this side. You got something?"

"Not yet..." Katie mused, “But maybe…”

"What's on your mind, Stark?" Clint asked.

"Maybe that’s why Fury’s called Steve in���” she trailed off “I know Steve called Fury yesterday before we went…before we all went home.” she corrected herself and gestured to Bucky to include him in the ‘we’. He smiled and nodded. “Maybe he has some information…” "I'm surprised you don't know where Rumlow is, Stark." Wanda quipped, earning a murderous glare from Katie. “Wasn’t he another one of you various flings?”

Clint and Natasha exchanged a glance before looking at Wanda.

"Wanda" Clint warned.

"Shut up." Natasha added.

Bucky scoffed. All right, now he was pissed. But he decided on not biting at Wanda's taunting and kept watch on Katie instead

"Ignorance is reckless. Shut up your fucking mouth, you don’t know what you're talking about." Katie hissed between gritted teeth.

"What?" Wanda asked surprised and with fake concern.

"We know exactly where he should be. In prison. For robbery. Mind you, he should actually be serving time for..." Clint started to explain was cut off by Natasha.

"Rape."

"And sexual assault." Bucky added angrily.

Clint and Natasha looked at Bucky who nodded slightly confirming what they were suspecting. Steve had told him about Rumlow and Katie.

"Who? I mean, who did he rape and...?" Wanda asked hesitantly.

"Does it matter? Why are you so fucking interested?" Katie asked back visibly angry at this point.

Bucky decided then to handle the question himself, Katie was angry enough as it was and the situation could go south any moment.

"He raped a woman called Sara Klein." he offered

"Who?" Wanda asked again.

"A translator at the German Embassy, she worked for Schmidt" Bucky explained, keeping an eye on Katie who was starting to get fed up with so much curiosity on Wanda's part, he could tell.  "And assaulted..."

"Me." Katie said not letting Bucky finish.

There was silence for a minute, everyone could hear the ticking of the clock on the left wall of the main office, until Katie sighed.

"So, we can drop it now?" she asked looking at Wanda, her voice faltering a little.

"Ok. I'm going to grab a coffee from the kitchen." Clint announced. "Want some?" he asked looking at Natasha, who refused it with a shake of her head, her eyes never leaving Wanda.

There was silence for a while, Katie dropping into her chair as she bit her lip, looking down at her keyboard. No one said anything for a while, and eventually Natasha’s eyes flicked back to the pile of paper on her desk, and they all continued with their work. But Bucky had a feeling Wanda wasn't going to let it go, encouraged as she was by her advances, or so she thought on Steve and Katie receiving what she supposed to be love text messages from Storm or Jensen she surely wasn’t going to miss a chance to dig deeper into this, anything to make Katie feel uncomfortable…

And he was right as a few minutes later when Clint returned with his drink, Wanda sighed and leaned back in her chair.

“Sorry, but…didn’t you report it?” she asked, frowning.

"Of course I did." Katie raised her voice, her head not looking up from her computer. "They dropped it.” “Dropped it?” Wanda asked. “Why?”

Katie took a deep breath, but it was Natasha who answered for her. “They said there wasn't enough evidence. It was her word versus his. Same as the rape case, well, until his supposed alibi anyways." Nat explained to Wanda, shrugging at the last part.

"If Cap had gotten his way there wouldn’t have been anything left of him to go to trial anyway.” Clint mused, leaning back in his chair. “When he found out he was apoplectic, kicked the shit out of Rumlow. Both Peralta and I tried to stop him but it took Sergeant Jeffords to pull him off …”

Bucky snorted, remembering how big Jeffords was from the time he met him a few weeks back. It didn’t surprise him in the slightest, he’d seen Steve in a few fights and even before he had bulked out at University he never backed down. Throw Katie into the equation and, well…

"We should have let him break his neck, not just his nose." Clint finished, stirring his coffee.

There was a brief moment of silence everyone pondering Clint's words. Bucky saw Wanda furrow her brow at the mention of Steve beating Rumlow on account of Katie and didn't like the look in her eyes. His attention then turned to Katie and he saw she was shaking. Feeling a spike of protectiveness towards her, he decided he wasn't going to let Wanda exert more pressure on her. Over his dead body. The little bitch was starting to piss him off big time as well, and he was willing to bet Clint and Natasha felt the same way.

"Hey, why don't you take 5?" he said, standing up whilst he searched for some coins in his jeans pocket. "Here. Take this and grab us both some coffee from the machine in the lobby." he added handing her the money which she took nodding and giving Bucky a quick sad smile.

But as she passed Wanda, the assistant snapped again.

"Well, there must not be much evidence if they said it was simply your word against his…"

Katie stopped dead in her tracks and Bucky groaned.

"What are you implying?" Katie hissed turning to look at Wanda, her eyes blazing with rage.

"Oh Oh" Nat warned standing up.

"Serge, do something." Clint demanded at Bucky as he too rose from his seat.

But it was too late.

"I mean... Are you sure you didn't lead him on? Because that's what you do." Wanda delivered the final strike.

"Excuse me?" Katie snarled back. “That’s what I do?”

"Yeah to make Steve jealous. Or try anyway."

"Listen you little bitch..." Katie began to say approaching Wanda but Bucky quickly moved towards her and grabbed hold of her by her arm.

"Hey. Don't" he warned Katie.

"What?" Wanda scoffed, looking up at her "It's true. You parade all your fucking latest conquests around in some pathetic attempt to rile him in the hope that he comes crawling back to you."

At that Katie let out a bark of a laugh and Bucky saw her eyes flash as she shook her head. "I don’t need him to come crawling back, honey.”

Bucky smiled proudly at Katie's comeback and softened the hold on her arm, expecting her to stop there, leaving Wanda as confused as ever over her love life, but then Katie leaned down, placing her palms flat on Wanda’s desk and gave her a smug smile.

“Because he’s already there…”

Bucky inwardly let out a groan. Ok, she said it…way to go, you just outed yourself...

“What?” Wanda’s mouth dropped open and Katie smirked at her, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re late to the party, sweetheart…mind you, you always were a bit slow on the uptake.” Katie snorted and at that point Wanda made a noise in her throat and pushed her chair back, standing up.

Natasha made an attempt to go grab Wanda only to be stopped by Clint's hand on her shoulder.

"Don't. Let her. She deserves what’s coming…" Bucky heard Clint mutter as Wanda stepped towards Katie.

“You’re lying…” Wanda’s face slid into a smirk. “Lying so that I’ll back off because you know he’s interested in me. God, how pathetic!”

"Last weekend, you thought I was with Storm? Well breaking news. I was with Steve." Katie said coldly looking straight into Wanda's eyes letting her words sink in and erase the smirk on the other woman’s face before continuing, a grin of her own crossing her face "Actually, I was more underneath him than with him, then on top of him, then back underneath. And I would continue but I don't think you want to hear the extended version. Because, believe me, it is extended. As. Fuck." she added making a little pause between the last three words.

Wanda looked like she had been slapped and Bucky thought that was it. He could see Wanda’s body language was shifting and he didn’t trust her not to snap and lunge at Katie, so he made a smooth movement of his body to try and place himself in between them, but Katie wasn't done.

"So next time I catch you touching my boyfriend's fucking tie or any other part of him for that matter, I will rip your hand off." she continued her rant against Wanda. “Because he isn’t interested in you. He is mine…”

"When hasn't he been?" Clint mumbled, and Bucky let out a soft groan.

"In fact, if you so much as look at him in a way I don't like, I'll scratch your eyes out too.” Katie said, smiling sweetly at Wanda.

Great… Katie, not only have you just outed your relationship to the poisonous little witch, you threatened her. Twice…

At that, Bucky decided to put an end to it there and then so he moved directly in between the pair of them, turning to look at Katie.

"Ok, that's enough doll face. You made your point clear." Bucky said gently, pushing her out of Wanda's reach.

Katie held her hands up, palms open, and glared at Wanda who took a deep breath, before she turned and stormed out of the office leaving everyone else stood frozen in place. Nobody moved for a good 20 seconds until Natasha turned to look at Clint.

"Nope. I'm not going after her, you go if you wish.” He shook his head “It's not like we didn’t warn her a thousand times" he shrugged. As the two of them began to bitch, Bucky turned back to Katie and saw the realization wash over her face.

“I just…oh shit! Steve’s gonna…” she began to panic, her voice quiet. “"Oh fuck... Bucky…what did I just do?"

“Hey…” Bucky looked at her as she started to hyperventilate slightly "It's all right, doll. Just...breathe…”

"I need....I need to go." she looked at him, her eyes wide, wet with tears “I can’t be here…”

“Want me to come with you?" he asked concerned.

"No. I'm ok... or I will be. I need... I need to think, I guess.” she barely managed to say as she grabbed her purse and jacket from where they had left them, hanging on the back of her chair.

"Ok, but call me if you need anything. You hear me?" he asked and she nodded before leaving the office in a hurry.

"Shit" Bucky cursed as headed for his desk.

“Serge, she ok?” Clint asked, rising from his chair.

“No, not really…” Bucky said, snatching his phone from it, scanning through to Steve's number.

“Well, should one of us go and…”

“No.” Bucky said, shaking his head as he raised the phone to his ear “She won’t be hanging around…just leave her…”

A couple of minutes later Bucky was still, frustratedly, trying to get hold of Steve on the phone but to no avail. He must have still been with Fury. He decided he would try again after a few minutes or leave a message on his voicemail if he still didn't answer. Just as he lifted his head from the phone he saw Natasha taking $20 off Clint.

"Did you bet on them being together?" Bucky asked the pair of detectives.

"Nope." Clint answered and he wasn't lying but Bucky didn't seem to believe him as he tilted his head at him.

"We bet on who would blow cover first." Natasha quipped "I went Stark, coz ... well, coz of her…” she nodded to Wanda’s desk “and he went Cap, because he can't lie for shit."

Natasha then paused watching Bucky.

"Take it you knew." she asked.

Bucky just sighed and nodded, relieved to not having to put up with Clintasha’s scrutiny anymore. Something good had come out of all this mess.

"For fuck sake." Bucky heard Clint groan as he fished another $10 note out of his pocket and handed it to Natasha who was now sporting a smug smile.

"Told ya. Pleasure doing business with you, Francis."

Part 2

[mcheang]

Social codes

I should think this counts under crack fic. Although this wasn’t based off an episode, I realize this reminds me of Big Time Secret. Takes place during Chat Blanc right after Marinette dumps Adrien.

Adrien’s warning surprises Marinette but she flees to the subway and escapes the akuma. Adrien follows her downstairs and transforms out of sight, he cataclysms the butterfly.

Adrien texts Marinette, who was about to transform, that the butterfly has been handled by Chat Noir. Marinette does not reply or respond to any of his calls.

Heartbroken, Adrien gets Alya to help him learn why Marinette broke up with him. Nino is currently with Adrien.

Alya agrees to help because she is so surprised and curious. Why would Marinette break up with her dream boy? (Not to mention after all the work Alya invested in their relationship, and having to listen to Marinette moan about her love life, Alya feels kind of cheated that all that would be for nothing.)

Alya leaves their phone call open as she interrogates a sobbing Marinette.

“The *sniff* the other day, Mr Agreste came to the bakery. *sob* He said I was ruining the Gabriel Agreste brand image and that I had to break up with Adrien or...or he would pull Adrien out of school!” she falls back into sobbing.

Adrien is stunned. Their BFFs are furious.

When Marinette explains that she couldn’t tell Adrien because he would confront his dad and get pulled from school, she begs Alya to keep it from Adrien.

Alya guiltily turns off her phone.

Adrien is stunned and very pale.

Nino is sympathetic and sorry for his friends, but also angry at Gabriel. Banning him from the house and refusing to let Adrien have a birthday party is one thing. But blackmailing his son’s innocent Girlfriend to break up with Adrien is another.

Nino gets reakumatized into Bubbler via his glasses. He doesn’t have a weapon. Bubbles just appear when he visualizes them.

Bubbler orders the bubbles to go after the adults again.

When he goes to Marinette to tell her the problem has been solved, Marinette’s alarm is derailed and she asked who told him that.

“Did Alya tell you that? Ugh! Does she tell you everything I told her? What happened to the girl code?”

Bubbler realized he messed up. He decides to send a ranting Marinette in a bubble to go join Adrien. Hopefully his bro can cool his angry ex-Girlfriend down.

Too bad Chat Noir was present when his Best Friend got akumatized. (The Bubbler left Adrien alone, with the promise that he’s Adrien’s wingman and will ensure Adrien and Marinette will get the happily ever after his bro keeps talking about.)

Marinette turns into Ladybug and summons a lucky charm. A magnet. She uses it to stick to a metal pole till Chat frees her. They both hide and wait to discharge.

Ladybug’s anger has cooled and her sadness has returned. Chat asks her what is wrong but she is unsure whether she should tell him.

Chat: I’m always here for you Milady. You know I would never betray your secrets.

At that Marinette sobs again. “I have to break up with my Boyfriend because his father won’t allow it. And it’s not fair because I haven’t done anything wrong!”

Children crying snaps Marinette out of her funk and she pulls herself together.

Fight yada yada yada. Timers prevent Chat from further talk with Ladybug.

When Nino is deakumatized, he comes across Marinette confronting Alya and she is furious to know Alya pulled a 3-way conversation on her. Does privacy mean nothing to the journalist?

Nino just got rescued and now his Girlfriend looks like she wants to murder him. Where’s an akuma when you actually want one?

“What’s next? Does Adrien tell you my secrets too?” This is to Nino.

Nino is freaking out and starts babbling. (Hell hath no fury like a Marinette). “No, no, dudette. Adrien has never spilled any secrets. He only asked me for advice. You know, like about Kagami and how to get you to accept expensive gifts, you know like that charm bracelet...”

Alya shuts Nino up who realizes belatedly he should have kept his mouth closed, but not before he reveals that Adrien told embarrassing moments on their dates that Marinette had wished confidential.

Marinette is mortified. “You know, breaking up with Adrien doesn’t feel so bad now because right now I can’t face any of you.”

Marinette runs up to her room to cry into her pillow, feeling betrayed and mortified. Nino is left to face the wrath of Alya.

Nino’s brain: meep

Later, Nino facechats Adrien and warns him that things got messed up.

“I’ve got good news for you. Marinette’s not breaking down now over your break up.”

Adrien perked up, “Did she find a loophole?” If anyone could find a way, it was his Lady.

Nino winced. “It’s more like she feels better about breaking up with you after you broke the Boyfriend code?”

Adrien was confused and cursed his homeschooling. “The what?”

“Yeah, Marinette’s not happy about some of the stuff you told me about. Apparently they were supposed to be just between the two of you.”

Adrien is confused before Nino’s earlier words settled in. Marinette was happy about breaking up with him? Why? Adrien was panicked. “Can’t Alya help us?”

Nino sulked, “Can’t. She’s mad at me because I broke the Boyfriend code too, and now Marinette’s mad at her for breaking the Best Friend code.”

Adrien was confused. Too many codes. “Slow down and break it down for me please.”

After Nino does so, Adrien regrets Chat’s words to Ladybug. He did betray his princess’ secrets. Adrien starts sobbing dramatically into his pillow.

Plagg rolls his eyes. Kids these days. He eats his cheese and offers some as consolation to the inconsolable Adrien.

The next day, the girls ignored Nino’s hopeful smile and Adrien’s kitten eyes. Alya just got back into Marinette’s good graces by giving her those pens with invisible ink that only show up in blue light.

Nino makes it up to Alya by proclaiming he got her an interview with Chat Noir. (Thank you Adrien!) Nino just assumes Adrien has connections and uses them. I mean Marinette got Alya that private interview with Ladybug...

Adrien is in a funk and it clearly affects his work and studies. When Gabriel threatens to pull him out of school, Adrien retorts that is his threat for everything, so what is the next threat once that carries out?

Gabriel doesn’t want to deal with teenage drama and instructs Nathalie to handle it.

Nathalie figures out Adrien is depressed that Marinette has broken up with him and this leads him to not care about anything else.

The evidence was obvious: she found Adrien staring dreamily at a shrine he dedicated to his Girlfriend. As well as stuffing his face full of the bakery’s pastries (courtesy of his friends who also unknowingly bring Plagg yummy cheese danishes) to try to deal with his heartache. Adrien doesn’t even get up early anymore.

Nathalie gets Gabriel to allow them to date but Adrien still isn’t happy because Marinette won’t even look at him anymore, and he blames it all on them. (Marinette refuses to look at Adrien so she won’t get her heart broken or she still feels some lingering mortification and betrayal.)

Nathalie sighs. Dealing with Dramatic Duusu is actually simpler than dealing with Adrien for once.

Nathalie brings the tablet with Gabriel’s face on it to apologize to Marinette so they can actually get decent work done. But Tom still forbids them to enter. Gabriel has to apologize in public to Marinette outside the bakery, admitting his wrongdoing.

This situation is actually more awkward for Nathalie.

Marinette is stunned by what just happened that she actually breaks her rule and calls Adrien.

He picks up immediately.

“How did you get your dad to agree to let us date?”

Adrien himself was baffled. He had been too depressed to pay attention to anything except akuma attacks since that was the only time Marinette would talk to him. “I have no idea. Maybe he had a change of heart?”

Marinette’s brain: unlikely

Adrien’s brain: Hello my love. You are as beautiful as ever, your radiance outshines the sun...

Adrien: does this mean you’re willing to talk to me again?

Marinette: I don’t know. Are you live-streaming our video conversation right now?

Cue Adrien begging for forgiveness.

Adrien: Apologies, Princess! I swear by all the Camembert in the world to never let one word between the two of us slip through without your explicit permission....(yeah, Plagg is going to hold him to that.)

Marinette: (laughing) Sheesh, you are such a dork.

Adrien: (kitten eyes activate) but I’m your dork.

Marinette: you are so lucky you’re cute.

Adrien: cute? Marinette, I am a model. I am not cute. I am beautiful.

Marinette laughs. “Ok, fine. Beautiful Adrien. How about you make it up to me? You can treat me to dinner.”

Adrien’s face lights up. “I’ll come over right now.”

“...Adrien...it’s only 2 heures.”

Adrien pouts. “But I miss my princess so much.”

Marinette giggles and admits, “I’ve missed you too, my prince. But I have work to do. You can come pick me up at 6.”

Adrien nods eagerly, looking more like a puppy than a cat. “Very well. See you then, Princess. I love you.”

“I love you too.” And you can just hear the sincere emotion in Marinette’s words.

End call.

Adrien sighs and falls back into his bed. His lady still loves him. She forgives him.

Plagg hovers over the teenager, cheese in his paws. “You are embarrassing.”

“I don’t really care right now.” Adrien sighs.

Eventually he gets down to planning the most romantic date yet.

Nathalie comes home to find Adrien focused since...well, since Marinette dumped him. She informs Adrien that she already booked a private booth for them at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant: Le Jules Verne.

Adrien happily thanks Nathalie and goes off to prepare his wardrobe. Thank God! It had been a disgrace to the brand to see Adrien walk outside with bed hair, shadowed eyes, rumpled clothes, and a distinct odour of stinky cheese. Gabriel about had a stroke at the sight of his Son in such a state.

The evening had been a success. Adrien had romanced Marinette that the night had ended in a very long makeout session that poor Gorilla had to wait through. Good thing he could just play Miraculous Crush.

All was right in Adrien’s world again. All breaches in codes had been forgiven. (Chat had been presentable for the interview in the hopes that a happy Alya would be a helpful Alya. It was a vain hope since Alya was wary of risking Marinette’s anger so soon after the former was forgiven.) Marinette was his Girlfriend again. And Plagg got to try restaurant-quality cheese too.

One week later, Gabriel questioned why Marinette seems to be a constant presence in his house when Adrien has Chinese right now.

Nathalie gives a helpless shrug. “Your Son claims it was our fault Marinette ended their relationship and he had been deprived of his girlfriend’s presence for long enough. He drags her everywhere now. To photo shoots and fencing practise where she and Adrien’s bodyguard play some app games. When Adrien has piano rehearsal and Chinese class, I’ve seen Marinette playing video games quietly in the background.”

“And this doesn’t interfere with his concentration?”

“Surprisingly, no. Adrien only gets distracted when she leaves the room.”

“And doesn’t Miss Dupain-Cheng have work at her family’s bakery.”

“Your Son has paid off his friends to work her shift...using your credit card, I might add.”

Gabriel is alarmed. Has his perfect son turned into a thief? “When did I give him that!?”

“When you told me to let Adrien know that Le Jules Verne was on your tab.”

Gabriel regrets breaking them up so much.

[andrebeltis]

“SOUTH KOREA” the country I want to visit someday

South Korea is one of the many countries I want to visit in the future. I fall in love with its culture,food and the country itself. I really want to experience the weather in South Korea.South Korea has four distinct seasons which are the spring,it begins on March and end on May. Summer,will start on June and ends on August. Fall will start on September and ends on November. And lastly the season which I think is the best since I really wanted to experience it winter, it will start on December until February.The changing of seasons also means changing of attires. I really think that this is very interesting since I really look up how high quality Korean fashion is. Based on the videos that I have watched in youtube. Koreans really has a good taste in fashion styles even they are in streets, parks or just going outside to go somewhere, they really are serious on what they wear. Korean Fashion was influenced by big brands and runway styles but the best feature of Korean Fashion is that it adopted to suit the streets. I heard that the clothes in South Korea are very cheap,I think that is the reason why they are really fashionable people.

South Korea is greatly influenced by the Chinese and Japanese cultures. That is why I think their cultures are almost the same. This influence can be seen by Confucianism, which established many traditions that can be seen and equip in modern Korea today. These traditions include the ethical code of conduct in social life and showing respect to the elders and family. Based on my knowledge about their traditions is that Koreans shake hands and bow at the same time. The bow is the traditional greeting although it is more develop and used by a handshaking among men. When you are shaking hands with an older person, you should use two hands. To show respect when shaking hands, support your right forearm with your left hand. Confucianism tradition also demands that elderly be treated at all times with respect. While the South Korean women usually nod slightly and they said that they will not shake hands with western men. This informations I have learned from watching videos in youtube about South Korean cultures, by watching kdramas and lastly based on the articles that I have read.

In one article that I have read, its stated that using one hand especially if it is your right hand is considered to be rude, so we should try and get in a habit of always using both hands to give or receive a thing. Is hugging a big deal in Korea? Well to answer that question hugs are just so nice and instinctual, but Koreans do not seem to agree. They do not go around hugging people after meeting them only once. Some articles said that in Korea, hugging is reserved for family, close friends and significant other. I do not see any problem about this at all, since it looks weird if you hug a person you just meet. Here in our country hugs are very used and common everywhere you see people are hugging when they see each other. But in Korea, I think that they are not used to it based on the dramas and videos they do not really hug each other.

This traditions seems very new to us but what we should do is to understand that culture and traditions of them since we all know that culture and traditions shapes our identity and influences our behaviors and cultural diversity makes us accept and even to extent, integrate and assimilate with other cultures. As a traveller,or a person like me who dreams to go to Korea, we should know their traditions because we have the responsibility to adjust to their culture since we are just a tourists ti their country. It is better to know this before we go their so for us to not be ignorant and if the time will come that we are already there, at least we already have a background knowledge about their culture and traditions.

What I also love about South Korea is their foods. Based on the picture and videos that I have seen in social medias, it really looks very yummy like it makes you want to eat or buy that food. In South Korea, there are a lot of foods you just have to pick or choose anything you want to eat. The texture of their foods ae very unique to me, because it has various of colors and it really attracts me. I really wanted to try all of their foods, hopefully one day I can be able to go there and eat all those foods. The best foods that we must try in South Korea are Kimchi, this dish gas been around for more than 2,000 years and it consist of Korean cabbage, radish, pumpkin, onions, ginger, scallion with chili powder, crushed garlic, and salted seafood, which is then left to ferment. This is actually a spicy dish, Koreans really loved to eat spicy foods that is why Kimchi is very common to them. Most videos of Korean vlogs, dramas and other videos like mukbang, they really have this everytime they eat, I think that this dish is like an appetizer for them. Second is Bibimbap, this is a filling and a nutritious dish that can be served as a meat based or vegetarian dish. Third is Red rice cakes also known as tteokbokki, this is a traditional Korean street food that is made with slices of boiled rice cake, fish cake, onions, diced garlic, salt, sugar and assorted vegetables that are stir fried in sweet red chilli sauce. This food is very popular and usually sold at street vendors and snack bars. Fourth is Jajangmyeon, this dish is made of thick handmade wheat noodles topped with raw cucumber slices and a mixture of salty back soybean paste, diced pork and vegetables. This dish is very cheap and If I need a quick meal if I’m in Korea, this surely my first pick since this dish does not break my wallet. This four dishes are one of the best foods that we must try if we travel to South Korea, actually there are lots of foods that we can try in South Korea but we should pick those foods that suits your taste. You will not be worried on where we can tr this foods since there are lots of restaurants and street food vendors that can be seen in South Korea.

The famous tourist attraction in South Korea that I dreamed to visit if I travel their, first is Namsan Seoul Tower, this is Seoul’s landmark attraction located at top of Namsan Mountain in the center of the city. This is famous tourist attraction because of its nightscape view of the city. If I travel to South Korea this will be the first place I wanted to visit, since it showcase the beauty of the city and the buildings. I have seen a lot of vloggers going in this place and also it was been featured in dramas that I have watched like “My Love From The Star” and “ Legend Of The Blue Sea”. Second is Myeong-dong, this place is filled with unique street foods and plenty of things to see. This is a district of fashion and shopping, many Koreans and international tourists go to this place. The streers are lined with department stores, free stores and various brand shops. If your thing is shopping like me then this is one of the best place to go, we can still enjoy Myeong-Dong by trying the street foods and many famous restaurants in this area. To all the women who loves make ups, beauty products and for those people who likes to buy skin care products then this place is also for you, since there are also lots of shops here at Myeong-Dong where you can buy your needs. I have seen a lot of videos of vloggers, they said that Myeong-Dong is a highly recommended place to visit.

Third is Han River, if I visit Seoul, they said that it is hard to miss the Han River, since it flows through the city itself and runs alongside are some of the best attractions in Seoul. Han River Park, is located on the bank of Han River, and it actually contains twelve different parks. In this park you can picnic with your family, friends or someone. If I go here I wanted to try biking since bicycle is also the best way to enjoy river views, native trees and gardens. There was a Korean Youtube channel, they are couples and their contents are pranking the people there in Han River Park. As I watched their videos there are really lots of people going their most commonly are couples and group of friends. And I really fell in love in that place, if you need fresh air and have a river view then this is one of the best place to go. Fourth is Jeju Island, it is one of the beautiful places in South Korea and one of the most famous Island there. Based on the videos that I have watched about Jeju Island, it really take my breath away and it really amazed me. White sand beaches, surrounded by pine forests, beautiful botanical gardens and a rich culture, this are the some of the high points of this paradise. There is a video of a Filipina youtuber/actress named Kristel Fulgar, she has a vlog where she went to Jeju Island, while watching her vlog, it really makes me wanted to visit there someday.

South Korea was hailed as one of the advanced and high technology country in the world and ranked first as the fastest internet connection in the world. That is why I want to go here since I want to experience a fast internet connection and I heard that there are free internet in eveywhere you go, like in the subway,bus,park and many more. All of the videos that I watched about South Korea speaks a lot, their subway stations are one of the best in the world but what makes you hard is that you can’t understand the signs since most of it are written in korean. But we should not be worried about that since Koreans are kind you can just ask any of them but do not forget to say Annyeonghaseyo it means hello and bow to that person to show some respect especially if its is older than you. Their language is one of the hardest languange to study and learn since there are many words that have the same pronuoncation but has different spelling, I actually started learning Korean language it is really hard but it is fun to learn new things. Their hand written are very unique it is actually almost the same to Chinese and Japanese but it also not that same. Because of watching kdramas and watching videos about them it makes me really wanted to visit there.I want to strive hard and study hard so that someday I will have a good job and I want to travel not just in Korea but also all around the world. While writing this, it really motivates me to study smart and finish study since I know to myself that we can’t travel if we have no money or no job. Hopefully someday I can travel to another countries and make good memories.

@queenlupitajones

[nicole-lynne]

My hero, Peter Parker

Summary: Peter Parker saves you from a scary situation at your coffee shop job. 

This was part of @sovietghoststories‘s 3k writing challenge! Congrats for hitting 3K!

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader 

Warnings: Violence, abuse

It was almost silent in the small coffee and book shop. The only sound was the clinking of glass and your co-worker, Taylor’s voice as she ranted about her roommate. You were trying to stay focused on your friend, but your eyes would occasionally dart to the door, desperate to see the boy who came in every day around this time.

“-and then I flew to Jupiter in my neon yellow spaceship.” Taylor said and your eyes snapped back to focus on her. She smirked as the look on your face turned from confusion to embarrassment that you’d been caught.

“I’m sorry, Tay. I guess my mind is on other things, today.” You said sheepishly.

She gave you a knowing look, “It wouldn’t happen to be that cute boy from your school, would it? Ya know, the one that you practical knocked me down to serve last week.”

Heat rose to the tips of your cheeks but you tried to hide it by acting ignorant. “I have no id-” Ding. Your head snapped back to the front door with excitement but were let down by the sight of two girls walking in. Taylor burst out laughing, and you rolled your eyes as she leaned against the counter chortling. “Okay, so I might have a tiny crush on him. But he’s... I don’t know. He’s always busy with this Stark internship and he never really seems to recognize when I flirt with him.”

“Well have you tried asking him out?” Taylor asked like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

Your mouth gaped open. “Um no, no way. I have no idea if he’s even interested.”

Taylor knocked your hip as she walked by, “There’s no way to know unless you try. And he’d be crazy to say no.” Then she disappeared into the back. You stared at the space where she had stood, your mind full of thoughts about Peter Parker.

You had liked him since he had joined the debate team. He had gotten every question right at the tryout and you loved seeing how confident he was in intelligence. The more time you spent with him, the more you fell. He was sweet and kind, and god, you could look at his big brown eyes forever. But every time you tried to hint at anything romantic, it went over his head.

Another ding of the front door brought you back to reality. You internally groaned as a guy walked in with a cocky grin on his face. He had been coming in here to harass you every so often. And usually you could avoid him by forcing one of your male co-workers to serve him, but it had been a slow week and you and Taylor had taken most of the shifts.

He sauntered up to the counter, delight glistening in his eyes as he spotted you waiting. “How ya doing, baby?”

Your stomach churned with disgust. “Welcome to Cup of Knowledge. What can I get for you?”

He scowled slightly. “What, is that all I get? I know you’ve been missin’ me, sweet stuff.”

The overwhelming urge to roll your eyes came over you, but you pushed it down, and forced a smile onto your face. “We���ve got a really yummy caramel campfire mocha for our special today. You should try it out!” You tried to keep the venom from your voice.

The guy perked up a bit then said, “Well if you recommend it,” he squinted at your name tag, “Y/N, it must be...yummy.” Your throat burned with bile. Oblivious to your revulsion, he winked at you and moved on down to the waiting area.

You sped through each step with the idea that the sooner his order was ready, the sooner he would be out of the shop. You plopped the finished drink on the counter and pushed it in his direction. “Thanks for stopping in, have a nice day.”

You turned around and frantically started to wipe down the counters, praying that that would be the end of your interaction.

“So,” your brows pinched together in frustration, “you should let me take you out on a real date. I’ll take you out for some food and then we can go to my place...”

You took a deep breath and turned to look at the guy. He was cocked over with a creepy smile plastered on his face. His hair was spiked up in the front like he’d tried to look like he hadn’t spent an hour on it. His shirt was one size too small for him and he was flexing his arm for show.

“Well that’s nice of you to offer, but no thank you.” The words tumbled out of your mouth.

Immediately, the guy puffed up angrily. “Why not? You’d be lucky to get a date with me.”

“I-I’m just not interested.” You stammered uncomfortably. Your gaze was flickering everywhere but at his face.

“What, you think you’re better than me?” His face was pinched up like he’d eaten something gross and he was starting to turn as red as a tomato.

You stepped forward and put your hands flat against the counter separating you and him. “N-no, that’s not it-”

He reached forward and gripped your wrist tightly making you gasp in fright. “Listen here, you little bitch, I was doing you a favor by going on a date with you.” His fingers were digging into your wrist and you were starting to panic.

“Please, please let go. You’re hurting me.” Tears were stinging your eyes now.

“Not until you agree to go out with me.” His voice was harsh and unrelenting.

Vaguely, you could see Taylor barge out of the back room out of the corner of your eye. But before she could intervene, the guy was yanked off of you. He stumbled backwards and knocked into a gift card stand.

“She said she wasn’t interested, you brainless dolt.” Peter Parker stepped forward to block you from view. Your heart rate skyrocketed at the sight of him.

The guy moved closer to Peter, trying to intimidate him. “And who the hell do you think you are?”

Peter stood tall without batting a lash, his shoulders tense. “I’m the guy who’s telling you that she’s not interested.” He took a step forward, boxing the guy out. “And if you ever come near her again, or dare to lay a finger on her, I’ll make you regret it.”

The guy puffed up like an angry rooster for a moment, but something in Peter’s eye must have told him to back off, because he quickly deflated and slunk out the door like a wounded dog.

As soon as the door slammed shut, the tension left Peter’s shoulders and he let out a deep breath. Your immediate desire was to reach out for him, but instead you cradled your wrist against your body insecurely.

Slowly, Peter turned and his stare fell on your wrist. Sorrow clouded his features as he noticed it starting to bruise already.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Y/N. I-I should have been here sooner, I just got caught up talking to Ned and then as I was on my way, the subway had a delay and so I tried to get off at an earlier stop but there was this-” You reached out and laid a soft hand on his forearm, stopping him mid-ramble. He gave you a bashful grin and sighed. “Think you could take a break?”

You glanced over at Taylor and she nodded eagerly at you. You pulled your apron off briskly and joined Peter at his booth tucked in the back corner.

There was an awkward silence between you two. Peter was twiddling his thumbs and you were nervously twisting the hem of your shirt. Finally you broke the ice. “Peter, I can’t thank you enough for saving me. You were...just so amazing.”

“Ah gee, Y/N, it was nothing. I just couldn’t stand seeing that jackass putting his hands on you. It made me just want to rip his arms off and slap him around with them.”

You erupted into a fit of giggles and Peter watched you with fascination. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s just...this new-found heroism is making me very attracted to you.” The words burst from your mouth before you realized what you were saying. Peter’s jaw dropped and your eyes grew to the size of golfballs. “Oh my lanta, please forget I just said that out loud.”

Peter smiled across the table at you joyfully. “I’m glad you did, Y/N.”

Timidly, he slid out of his seat and into the booth next to you. Your heart was slamming inside your chest.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Peter’s body was right next to you and he was smiling down at you with pure happiness. “I just wanted to be next to you.” He reached up and his fingertips brushed your cheek as he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

“I-I didn’t think you even noticed me.” Your voice was barely above a whisper, but Peter was so close that he could hear you with no problem. His thigh was pressed against yours and heat was radiating around your bodies.

“Y/N, why do you think I come to this coffee shop every single day?”

His minty breath fanned against your face and your stomach fluttered. “Um, because the coffee is really good?”

Peter hung his head and chuckled, “No, you dork, I come here to see you.”

“But you’ve never said anything before, when I’ve flirted with you, you just... Well you never said anything.”

“Because I’m an idiot. I was just too scared to tell you how much I like you. I was scared I might scare you off. My life is kind of a mess.” Peter met your eyes and you could see how vulnerable he really was. “But then I saw that guy hitting on you-hurting you-and I just lost it.”

You were speechless. Your mind was foggy and all you could focus on was Peter’s hand resting on your hip, his stray curl hanging in his face, and his perfectly kissable lips that were inches away.

Before you could let another moment pass by, you closed the distance and brushed your lips against his. You hesitated, giving him enough to pull away if he wanted. When he didn’t, you pressed closer. Peter’s arm snaked around your waist and he pulled you flush against his chest. His other head cupped the back of your head, holding you tenderly. You gripped the front of his shirt loosely and let him mold himself around you. His mouth was warm against yours and occasionally your tongues would sweep against each other.

Suddenly, someone cleared their throat and you both pulled apart to see Taylor looming over you wearing a look of approval. You both beamed up at her realizing you’d been caught in the act.

“Alright, Casanova, Y/N has to get back to work. You can pick this back up later.” Taylor teased before disappearing again.

Peter smiled cheerfully at you and pecked your lips once more. “I like the idea of getting to do this more often.”

You giggled and rested your cheek into the crook of his shoulder, trying to commit this moment to memory. The feeling of his skin against yours, the words he said, the smell of his cologne. This was the type of thing you wanted to remember for the rest of your life. The feeling of how perfect he fit with you.

Finally, you gave him one last squeeze, kissed his cheek lightly, and slid out of the booth. Then you turned to whisper in his ear, “You can be my hero any day, Peter Parker.”

[itsbuckysworld]

HELLO SPRING: DAY 1

Pairing: none but the interaction is mainly bucky x reader Category: N/A Warnings: None i think Word Count: 1.3K           ---         no one cares but i thought this was interesting: songs played on repeat when writing this piece: Riders On The Storm - The Doors | Breathe In The Air - Pink Floyd | Meet Me In The Hallway by Harry Styles with rain sound effects in the background. (and yes i’m aware of the similarities of those last two songs)

Day 1: Reencounter after three years for my Spring Short Story Writing Event.

Mid-June. Osaka, Japan. 7:46 PM

The skies were a dark purple-ish, red in the horizon, clouds thick and huddled together, sun hanging very very low. A threat of light rain and winds all too well known. Neon signs, passersby minding their own business. The mix of rushing, working locals and tourists making the most of their day, the sweet scent of tempting street food filling your nostrils on your brisk walk back to your place.  Faces, faces, faces. Some familiar, some odd, some nerve-wracking, some completely still.

“Arigatou!” You thanked the man in front of you for the delicious to-go box as he handed you the familiar bag. You placed exact change and a little tip. The hood of your jacket was down, allowing you to feel the first few drops of rain, still gentle, but promising to shower. A metaphor for the night ahead, you discovered right away, as the small hairs at the back of your neck stood up, sending shivers down your spine at the feeling of being... observed. 

Your careful steps became a little more hasty, but still, your composure remained. To any onlooker, you were just another person on their commute to wherever was your destination. No one but you could know you were going three blocks further down the path you were supposed to take if you meant to go home. The signs were still familiar. It’d be a shame if you didn’t have all of the small city mapped out in your brain by now. You wouldn’t call yourself a spy if you didn’t.

Looking up before crossing the street, the familiar strange face was somewhere to your left. Quickly your brain told you to take advantage of the sea of people to weave in and out of sight, and you would have stopped right after losing the face at the crosswalk, had your senses not told you that somehow, someone was still hot on your tail. At least that’s what it felt like and you hadn’t lived as long as you had by ignoring that gut feeling that had been drilled into you all those years ago in training. 

Damn it. The footsteps were familiar, but not enough so that you’d feel at ease. They disturbed you more than anything. Your hood was thrown up over your head as a mere hiding instinct as you turned corners, your feet dragging you through paths without your eyes needing to see them, as they were busy scanning for easier escapes and the looming figure that was close enough to make you want to run, far enough to make you nauseous with suspense. Jumping over fences, almost tripping over rocks, spewing semi mute apologies as you tried to leave people behind, take the silent empty routes, the white bag with bold kanji was forgotten, the sourness in your mouth present at the lost of your yummy Takoyaki dinner. 

Mr. Kimura would surely give you more, and for free, that is if you could ever return to his small stand. 

Looking over your shoulder was something you thought you could leave behind, but much like right now, the feeling of a chase never stopped, and so your ears, perking up at every sound, they never rested. Marrakesh, Budapest, Milan to name a few, and now Osaka. You never fully rested. 

Running now. The strong pitter patter of your light shoes echoing in your head, scaring you somewhat, that you didn’t know what chased you, yet you knew something was there. Absolutely disturbing. And then it stopped, but you didn’t. 

You didn’t until you were blocks away, regaining your breath as you slowed your steps and descended into the first subway station you came across. Brain working overtime, the job of a thief, an agent, a spy, an assassin, to plan everything ahead, leave no trace. A quick trip uptown to throw anyone off, a change of clothes at a random souvenir shop, and then you’d catch three cabs; the long way home, make sure you didn’t hint anyone towards your actual place. 

But why was the station so... quiet. Empty.

The train breezed by on the other side of the tracks, going downtown. You hid your hands deep in the pockets of your raincoat, hair blowing with the breeze from the speed of the wagons. Still looking behind you, but the looming feeling that had stopped was now creeping back in, as through the small windows, a shape appeared on the other side of the station, making your eyes widen in realization, your breathing reduced to short jagged gasps. The black cap, longish strands of dark hair and ever present gloomy stare more familiar than you’d like. As the last wagon flashed before you, it left the clear image, his stance similar to yours, with hands deep in his pockets and light stubble coming to view as he eyed you down. 

His right hand, slowly coming out of hiding, moving as if time had stopped, flicking nonchalantly over to you, and the distinct clatter of something hitting your shoe. 

A red poker chip. The memories immediately flooding back. Thankfully, good ones, with the faint, distant howl, of all the bad they hid. You stared at it, not needing to look up to feel how he illegally ate the distance between you in three strong strokes, avoiding the dangers of the train lanes, and standing at a mere 7 feet away from you. Whistling from the coming train that whizzed by, not even bothering to stop. The station long forgotten at this time of the day.

“Y/N” his voice was just as you remembered, as if you could forget. Husky, breathy, deep and so enticing. “James...” you look up at him, the bags under his eyes were more prominent, the clear indicator that he, much like you, couldn’t stop. Couldn’t rest. “You’re hard to find” “For you?–” you scoff lightly – “Allow me to doubt it. It’s been what? Four years?” He takes a deep breath, coming just a little closer. “Three” You knew, but somehow it was easier to act as if you didn’t remember all those things. “Only took you that long to call in that favor” you bit your lip, trying to keep a shocked gasp of a laugh at bay. “I’m not.” your head’s shooting up, eyes looking between his blue ones, you’re confused, he’s determined and there’s something else there you still haven’t placed. But the chip... He shakes his head as if reading your mind. This wasn’t about the poker chip. This wasn’t about that past. This was not the favor. At least not yet. 

You knew he was enhanced, but his ability to read you like a book did not come from any serum or junk put in his brain. Your ability to read his mind didn’t come from any training either, no matter how hard anyone tried you can’t beat super powers into a person. No, this ability came from the same place as his. Familiarity. 

It had been three years for a good reason, but you understood back then, and it came to bite you back right now as you looked around, much like running away, you couldn’t outrun your past, you would never fully leave James and all that came with him behind. Considering all your options - none - and noticing the two men that stuck out like sore thumbs coming down the steps on the other side of the station – Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers – things fell into place, as they always did when James Buchanan Barnes was involved. No wonder they felt like familiar strangers. No wonder this was all Bucky after all. And you knew. Sighing, you unclenched your fists by your side, mimicking James’ stance as you cracked your neck. He gave you a grimace, he hated this as much as he knew you would, but his hands were tied, and suddenly so were yours. It was as if no time had gone by at all. 

You zipped up your hoodie and leaned against the wall crossing your arms and closing your eyes “What’s the mission?”

feedback is greatly appreciated and encouraged, and i don’t mean to get anyone’s hopes up, not all of my entries for this event will be this long, or this decent (because i actually like this one). You have been warned. 

[deliciouslesbianism]

The one where they become ballet dancers

Pretentious as fuck NYCB crossover, other tags may get added later(other major content notes are not planned).

Dina Saijo has just become a primary dancer for the NYCB, putting behind her the final year of seishou accademy. Godfrey is looking for a headline about the ballet which makes them look very feminist, very quickly. Maya tendo is a world class dancer who made her name playing male roles.

Little knowlege of ballet fandom is needed- you might want to google "NYCB Scandal" if you find yourself lost.

Claudine splashed through a puddle, eyes fixed on the new york skyline as she lengthened her stride and began to fall back towards manhattan. Running was a guilty pleasure, supposedly too much impact on her already overworked joints, and the off season, without the constant training pressures, was her last chance to enjoy the city like this before the curtain raised once again.

Soon, she'd be back in class, and then on stage again, with more eyes on her since her last performance at seishou.

Claudine splashed through a puddle, eyes fixed on the new york skyline as she lengthened her stride and began to fall back towards manhattan. Running was a guilty pleasure, supposedly too much impact on her already overworked joints, and the off season, without the constant training pressures, was her last chance to enjoy the city like this before the curtain raised once again.

Soon, she'd be back in class, and then on stage again, with more eyes on her since her last performance at seishou, since she ran away from

First back to paris, hoping to recover the person she'd been before the accademy, before the unrelenting pressure of auditions, of rivalry, of her. But there hadn't really been space there, and paris had been was a bad place to recover from a broken heart.

New york though. New york was all about broken hearts, about hurting and healing, falling and rising, shining bright and burning yourself up at once. She'd stepped off the plane for a christmas shopping trip, descended to the A train, felt the rough edges of the city- Where paris had elegant silk and polished mahogany, and tokyo bright neon and age worn maple.She heard a young woman singing for her supper on the floor and joined in under her breath, growing in confidence until it had become a duet and then an impromptu performance.

She thought she'd found a new rival there, a replacement, for something lost, and vowed to come back another night and reflect and amplify the shine of another, just for one performance.

It wasn't until later, when she saw the cautions against dancing on trains that she began to hope that it might be what she now has- a city to challenge her, not a single star, but a constellation, in which she was now just one of many stars, reflecting and challenging one another to shine brighter.

When she climbs out of the subway, she's got a smile that reaches her eyes for the first time in months.

That christmas she returned to paris, lost herself in melancholy and christmas, gave small trinkets to her parents, a CD she bought from that first woman, who'd taught her what new york meant, to her sister. On the 27th she was on a plane again without a plan beyond a return to the city where she could once again be a star. Her parents fretted, her therapist sent her along with a stern reprimand to be careful, a referral and a glint in her eye. The referral sat in her inbox- she didn't need it, she was here to become someone else, not saijo claudine, of japan, or Ms.Saijo, the lost girl with the sad smile, but Dina, another(remarkably skilled, but rust) hopeful coming into new york on a jet plane.

The first thing the new life came with was a haircut, before she even checked into the airbnb.

She walked back out onto the streets with asymmetric and far shorter hair that she would later realise flagged her as both new and getting over her first serious lesbian relationship.

Rivals appleanty aren't all the city provides- she crossed the city like a comet, swinging close to other celestial bodies- and, what bodies she orbits, in the back rooms of clubs and expensive hotel rooms and cramped apartments- but never lingering, always moving on.

She began performing in her apartment, but quickly realised that neighbours who work nights are not the happiest to be woken up by an out of practice voice, and began paying for access to a small dance studio under manhattan bridge, frequented by yummy mummies and off broadway performers. She's not ready, not yet, to shine again with the brightest stars. When their requests for advice and not so subtle social climbing become unberable, she crosses the river to broadway, first to the musical stage, her first home, but soon once of the bodies she's orbiting for a time takes her to the fall gala, and a month later she's auditioning for the corps.

A run of clear crosswalks ends, and she snaps out of her thoughts to spin right up 5th avenue, watching the sunset through the trees, and then for a final sprint across the park, walks across to sit in front of the theatre, and collapses to lie on her back.

Tomorrow, she begins her first season as a principal dancer at the new york city ballet. It's been a long five years, recovering from seisho, and she knows some of her classmates have risen faster, but she also knows none shall shine as bright as she knows she will.

She rises off the pavement, begins heading north to her apartment and nearly falls again when she catches sight of a head with a purple ribbon disappearing down to the subway. Her breath catches and she steadies herself, breathing slowly and gripping her knees. When she looks up, the memories have gone back to the past and her breathing is steady. Maya's in tokyo, living the life she's always been destined to live- lead roles, adoring fans, the support of her classmates. She's no reason to come to new york, to break everything dina has built for herself.

Godfrey leans back in his chair, looking out of the theatre across the plaza.

"You understand, this company- and my role in it- has not been without scandal?" He asks "and you understand why you're here?"

Maya doesn't relax her posture, shoulders set and back stiff. "you want me because I'm a clean face." she says "and because I'm always perfect"

"that would be a... Polite way to put it"

Maya just smiles. "And while we-I- need you to do this, you do not have free reign over the stage"

"I will bring a shine to your stage, not burn it down"

His head nods back and forth on his thin neck.

"Well then if that's it..."

"Actually, a question?"

Maya shrinks, internally scolds herself, looks up and meets his eyes- Tendo Maya does not shrink from an audience, no matter how small or prestigious.

"One of your Ballerina- A Dina Saijo?"

"Yes?"

"We trained together,"After what's gone on the last few years here, he does not need to know the full story "I wondered if she knew of my appointment?"

"I'm afraid not." He looks down "We've had to do this very quietly, given the circumstances. Would you like us to ask her to come in early? We could have her show you the theatre?"

"I wouldn't want to be a bother, I'm not even sure if she remembers me." She looks away- maya is an excellent actor, but even she can't pass off such a blatant lie.

"Of course"

They exchange a few strained pleasantries, and Maya signs a contract as a principal dancer for the new york city ballet, retrieves her coat and heads for the subway.

[sarahtaylortraveladventures]

Beijing, China (May 12 - 15)

Nǐ hǎo! At the end of my program, I visited my boyfriend, Austin, in Beijing where he had spent the past semester studying abroad. It was so so much fun to explore such a cool city, especially with such a helpful tour guide!

On Saturday, I left Berlin for China, with a layover in Moscow. I arrived Sunday morning, and was greeted by Austin at the airport. It was so so great to see him because we hadn’t seen each other in five months! I gave him a gingerbread cookie that says I love you in German - it’s an old tradition in Germany for girls/guys to give them to their sweethearts to wear:)

We took the subway to our hotel. On the way, we got green tea ice cream because I was a little hungry. It was so yummy! I’ll probably be documenting almost everything I ate in China because the food was so good and unique.

Our hotel had a beautiful courtyard that I wanted to share. Very zen.

Next, Austin took me to 798, which is an area in Beijing with a lot of galleries and artists. They are former warehouse spaces that have been converted into showrooms. It was so much fun to look at all the art - there was traditional Chinese art as well as more contemporary items like what’s in the picture. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon because I was feeling a little jet lagged.

There were also these colorful steps.

Afterwards, we got these sesame bun thingies as a snack.

I also got my picture taken with one of the stone dragon sculptures. They’re all over Beijing and I thought they were so cool! My tourguide Austin told me that the female dragons are the ones with the lion cub under their paw, while the males usually have a ball. 

On our way home, we also saw this big panda statue in the middle of the road. so cute!!

That night, Austin took me for one of  his favorite Chinese meals. It’s called Hot Pot, and I think the best way to describe it is like Chinese fondue. We had to wait for our table, so we got a snack. Neither of us really know what this is, and I’m not sure that I was really a fan of it. It looks like a blueberry muffin but it didn’t taste like it.

The Hot Pot restaurant/experience was so cool!! You get to pick the broth and what you want to cook, so we chose some meats and veggies and noodles. The noodles are called “dancing noodles” and they make them in front of you an stretch them out. It was so so yummy!

Afterwards, we went to an area along the river than had a lot of bars. We found one with live music, which was really interesting to hear the songs in Chinese!

The next morning, we woke up very early for a special trip! Our hotel had included breakfast, so we enjoyed a really yummy frittata and sausage and eggs meal. 

Next, we headed to the Great Wall of China!!! We took the subway to a bus, and then took a bus to the area where the wall is, and then a taxi to the main entrance. Next, you take a ski lift thingie to the wall, which sits in a mountainous area. I’m definitely glad I had Austin as my tour guide because it was a journey to get there, but it was so much fun and so cool to see something so historical.

I like the picture below because it shows how lush the area around the wall is, and how long the wall is. You can see it towards the middle top of the photo.

The mountains and hills are also very beautiful! This was taken inside one of the guard towers.

At the entrance, there are also these beautiful temples.

That afternoon, we went to the Pearl Market. This is a huge market where they sell a lot of the fake merchandise, along with a lot of souvenirs. It was really interesting to see everything, including how real I thought all the fake stuff looked. But my favorite part was when I wanted to buy this Beijing t-shirt with pandas on it and Austin bartered with the woman selling it in Chinese. I was really impressed with his Chinese abilities and it was hilarious to watch the two of them argue over the price. In the end we got a good deal! :)

On the way back to the hotel, we walked along this little park area. It was so beautiful!

I also wanted to share what the subway looks like, not that much different from others subways but definitely more crowded!

For dinner, we went to a dumpling restaurant! It was really cool because they make each dumpling a different color so you knew which fillings were which. They were so so good!

That night, we went to a rooftop bar that overlooked Beijing. It was really cool and showed how big the city is!

The next morning, we of course had our breakfast at the hotel. That morning it was granola with yogurt and toast with jam and cheese.

That morning, we went to the Temple of Heaven. They previously used this temple to pray and make sacrifices for a good harvest. Outside the temple area is a park, and Austin told me that a lot of older people really take advantage of parks because that used to be the only place people were allowed to congregate. 

The Temple of Heaven is so, so beautiful! I couldn’t get over the details.

This is the inside of the temple, and the second picture is where they would sacrifice different animals in hope of a good harvest.

Next, we took a a tuk tuk to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was wild to ride through the city on just a little moped thingie.

Tiananmen Square is really interesting. We weren’t able to go inside or closer than the other side of the street, but Austin told me a lot about the history of the area. 

Next, we went to the Forbidden City. This is where the Imperial Palace was and where emperors lived from 1420 - 1912. The area is huge!

This is the throne room.

Next, we went to Baihai park, which has a beautiful lake and really cool structure called the White Pagoda. We had a picnic in the park for lunch!

The area around the White Pagoda is really beautiful. There are a lot of temples and gardens as you walk up to the top.

And we saw real bamboo!!

The art in the temples was so beautiful.

The White Pagoda was cool from the top and offered a beautiful view of the park!

Next, we walked around the Hutong that our hotel was located. Hutongs are common in Beijing, and are like little neighborhoods of alleys with houses and restaurants and shops. They’re really cute and fun to just walk around in. Ours is also near the Drum Tower. You could hear the drums being played! There were also these beautiful gates that lead to different alleyways.

For dinner, we went to a traditional Chinese restaurant that Austin liked. The restaurant was beautiful and it was so much fun to try different Chinese foods. They also served this honey tea, which was so so yummy! My favorite dish we had was the Beijing/Peking duck - omg, so so so amazing.

Afterwards, we stumbled on this little festival near the restaurant which was cool. We also got drinks at a brewery/bar restaurant that were really good!

The next morning we had our final breakfast at the hotel.

Austin also showed me around his campus and I got to see his dorm, which was really cool!

We also split a Jian bing for lunch on the way to the airport. It’s kind of like a Chinese burrito. We only got one because my stomach wasn’t feeling great, but after I took a bite I regretted not getting another because it was so yummy! Definitely one of my favorite snacks in Beijing. After, we got on our flight to Thailand!

I had such an amazing time exploring Beijing with the best tour guide! It’s such an interesting city with so many cool things to do. China is a very different culture, and I was really glad Austin knew his way around a could communicate in Madarin, but it was such a great experience and I’m so glad I got to go.

Stay tuned for the Thailand blog!

[spinachdrum]

Day 10, 11, 12...13? 14? I’ve started to lose count. JYP Building and my 25th birthday!

Howdy! Super late post, and the combination of a couple days. This post might be a little shorter and more picture heavy since I’m combining a lot! 

JYP BUILDING:

God, I was so excited to go to the JYP building!! Last time I came to Korea I didn’t get a chance to see it, and now that they have a new building and a public cafe in the bottom I was super excited.

You can take the bus to get there, but tbh, it’s really not that far away to walk from the station! There’s an easier way to get there than the way we went; come out of exit 3 (I think) at Dunchon-dong Station (purple line, number 5). This is the subway map and I circled the station. 

Some other post I saw said that you can take the bus closer to it, but honestly it’s not that far of a walk from the station, maybe like 10 minutes or so! Download Kakao Maps, it’s super helpful. But I think the easiest route is to come out of Exit 3, and walk straight until you get to the really big intersection. There’s a Kia Motors on the corner and a place called The Zoo! Turn right and then walk straight until you see Soul Cup :) 

However, we went a different way according to Kakao Maps--and it was nice! There’s not really a lot of English in this part of Seoul, so be prepared for that. Hardly any foreigners so we got lots of stares. We went down some side streets and look how pretty! 

We were super hungry so we ate before we got there. We found this cute little place on a corner called Happy Together! 

The food here was so good and it was SO CHEAP. Kimchi jjigae, shin ramyeon, two cokes, and banchan was only W16,000. CRAZY.

After we ate, we kept heading for the JYP Building. The wind was SO BAD this day, I was so cold!! But as soon as we turned a corner and saw this I got so happy. We came up the back way and saw the driveway to get in--a van pulled up and picked up someone but they were covered so I don’t know who it was 👀

The outside of Soul Cup! It’s sooo cute.

I love this sign! They have mugs and stuff you can buy as well but they’re a little expensive, my black coffee mug wa sW15,000. Worth it though. I GOT IT AT JYP! 

The interior of the cafe is seriously so pretty. It was pretty empty when we arrived although it started to fill up toward 3 pm or so. 

They were playing Miracle when I took this, lol.

It was so surreal seeing JYP employees just walking around with their lanyards on!! I got the Darjeeling Milk Tea and omg it was so yummy. The drinks here are so good, and they have ice cream too but we didn’t try it! 

Obviously they played their artist music videos! We sat through JUS2, GOT7, TWICE, 2PM, DAY6, and Stray Kidz!! We stayed for like an hour and a half. It was really calm and laid back, I loved the atmosphere so much and everything was so pretty.

The sun started to go down when we were leaving and I had to take another photo of this sign, LOL.

We finally decided to leave after hanging around for nearly two hours. Sadly a JYP artist did not decide to show up :( LOL.

MY BIRTHDAY

I’m going to keep this section short, since I’m sure most people will be getting more out of the JYP building and how to get there. But on Wednesday the 13th, I turned 25! 

My best friend really cutely decorated the apartment we’re staying in with green streamer rings since I’m an ahgase! She put a banner above the bed that she thought said happy birthday but it actually says HAPPY PARTY, lol. It’s still super cute though. She bought me a ribbon and a birthday hat! 

While I was getting ready, she said she was going to get a snack but she really went and got me a cake. A RYAN CAKE!!! 

It was so cute I almost cried.

Since it was my day, we went and spent the day in Hongdae--I wanted to go to a cat cafe and hang out with kitties and that’s what we DID! I found this place online and we got lost looking for it because sometimes Kakao Maps can be a LITTLE confusing--sometimes it won’t update your location and you’ll go too far! 

THERE WERE SO MANY KITTIES!!!!!! THERE WERE SO MANY!!!!! MY HEART WAS SO HAPPY!!!!! I WAS BURSTING!! 

This place was really cutely decorated. If you look closely there’s actually a cat sleeping in the pipes LOL.

The admission fee was W9,000 but you get a free drink! The peach iced tea was so yummy. The cats here (for the most part, some just slept LOL) were really active and really playful!! They have toys you can play with and the kitties were so active.

The way that Siamese was sleeping was cracking me up.

Pretty window and sleeping kitties! 

THIS CAT. THIS. CAT. I fell in love with this cat. This sweet baby played with me for a little bit before it curled up in my lap and slept there for like 40 minutes while I sipped my drink and played one handed with the other kitties that came by. God, I was living my best frickin life.

After we (reluctantly) left, we got dinner at Meating again! I drank 2 beers and felt super good, LOL. We went to noraebang after since there’s one across the street from us! 

You guys, we went nuts in here. LMAO.

First of all, we started at an hour and it ended up being THREE. I got another beer and then Nichole bought soju which was trouble. I got SO DRUNK. SOOOOOO DRUNK. I’m pretty sure the ahjussi at the front wanted to kill us because we were just. HOWLING in this room. We did Celine Dion, My Chemical Romance, FALL OUT BOY?! OASIS?! BON JOVI?! I sang a Pearl Jam song for my dad! Seriously we did so many songs and we were yelling and laughing and mumbling our way through Korean songs too LOL. I got a 100 on Passionfruit by Drake though, hehe.

Then we stumbled our way back to the apartment and fell asleep, concluding the best birthday. 

Next up: Yogurbara! 

[aerikimi]

Just Breathe | 1

➵ min yoongi was a bad guy with expensive taste. eight months from your return to daegu, things start to get strange and dangerous again. nobody falls for the same fuckboy twice, specially if he’s your friend.

➵ pairing: yoongi x reader;

➵ genre: friendswithbenefits!au, fuckboy!au, smut, angst, a bit of fluff;

[1] [2] [3] [4] -

1 • The Issue

“Frankly, Y/N.”

Yoongi pushed his tongue on his cheek, scanning you as if you were some nasty piece of bubblegum he has just found sticking on the back of his shoe.

His mood dropped from a 3 to -3 very quickly only in the thirty minutes of waiting for the train to Seoul city. Of course the Min Scale goes up to 10, but Min Yoongi never went beyond 6 and he’s almost always between 4 and 1, -1 when he needs to socialize pretty much like tonight. And finally, -3 when you wore tiny skirts at the peck of winter.

“What? You said you wanted to go” You blinked slowly, pretending not to understand the reason for such annoyance as you calmly analyzed Yoongi’s angry face enlightened by the subway’s parlor light.

Although your voice was muffled by the thick scarf wrapping your neck and mouth, Yoongi could cap every word of yours with absolute despise on his face.

“‘I’d rather die than leave home Y/N’ is not exactly the definition of wanting something. Are you deaf?” He grunts, throwing his head back and squeezing the top of his blonde hair, his eyes tightly closed in a clear sign of frustration.

Min Yoongi could only think about how hard he’d fuck you after all this bullshit ends. He was the kind of guy who would always bring his frustrations to bed, and believe, it was far from being a bad thing. ‘I’d rather stay at home, Y/N, I’m not going at all. I don’t like crowded places and you know it. Stop looking at me like that, it’s making me uncomfortable. Are you dumb?’ were the exact words, but you decide not to contribute to Min Yoongi’s bad mood and remain silent as he kept his grumpy-pouty face on.

You knew underneath all that annoyance was a far greater reason than Taehyung’s birthday party, and you, as always, were painfully one step ahead of it all.

You knew Yoongi had planned to spend the rest of the night off watching the worst of South Korean TV, asking for delivery every two hours after an incredible round of the best kind of fuck. It could be brutal, depending on the volume of sexual tension hovering the air in the past few days or how much you’ve been naughty to him — walking around his studio in spectacularly tiny lingeries while he tried to work, or not using one at all, as you sat on his lap like he always liked when he was too stressed to move from his studio chair; everything could turn into a hot, punishing foreplay with Yoongi —, or it could be slow, slow and lazy and yummy, the one that makes your stomach chill through the whole thing; Yoongi wasn’t much of a fan of this one, and that was probably one of the reasons why it was so good and special when he wanted to do it with you.

Although he usually doesn’t appreciate food a lot — and runs the risk of starving to death if no one checks on him in Genius Lab every now and then — this was the kind of night both of you were craving so much the past weeks. Yoongi doesn’t like things he isn’t able to understand, and at the moment he didn’t understand why should he exchange a night of overwhelming sex with you for anyone’s birthday party, specially Taehyung’s. To be honest, Yoongi would trade pretty much nothing for any activity involving you and multiple naps on his couch.

The issue always started with dinner; If you two didn’t come up with an agreement between noodles or Japanese food, Yoongi would rather starve to death than go out for dinner, anywhere. “It’s too intimate, Y/N. And what if I suddenly feel like fucking you?” Yoongi had an argument there, even though you usually would fuck long before ordering anything to eat. You understood with that grotesque comment Min Yoongi was trying to say, 'I can’t kiss you in front of everybody, sorry’. Min Yoongi wasn’t the kind to be affectionate.

Friends with benefits seemed to be a very unfortunate term to define what you meant to each other; it’s not just sex. The sex could end or not even exist, and yet you still would be Y/N and Yoongi, without strange silences, awkwardness nor embarrassment. It just became inevitable and the tension was nothing less than excruciating. Painful, in his words, — “Congratulations, you’re the first woman to give Min Yoongi blue balls”. There is no reason not to have sex if its existence does not make things any more complicated — in fact, for you and Yoongi, sex only made you two more human.

Now, inside the train, Yoongi was leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he played with a piece of paper between his fingers. Seeing him sitting on the red seat of the train, wearing black pants with holes in his knees and an earring in the first of his three spaces, so calm and serene in one of the rare moments his hermetic mind isn’t working on wire, you were sure Yoongi definitely didn’t belong there; he wasn’t even human. Min Yoongi belonged to distant afternoons of spring when you both took the train in Daegu on the way to school, or the ride back, when your mom would expect him with rice cakes for luch just as she knew he liked so much. Min Yoongi was now dark. And since you’ve came back from Seoul University eight months ago after three years far away from Daegu, — and from Yoongi —, things have quite changed. Not just the fact that you both started to fuck (it was quite predictable it would happen once you’ve left for so long), or that you came back and found a relatively well known producer, whom it’s mental health has always been in the middle of his way, unbelievably stable, but Min Yoongi was a completely different whole now. You still hadn’t figured out what was it yet, though. Min Yoongi was just... different. Less kind. Less open.

Still, he was the most magnificent and mind-blowing handsome human being you’d even laid your eyes on.

You’d give the world to know if he still writes.

•••

“Well, the truth is, once you start having sex it’s not friendship anymore, and if you’re not smart enough to run away when the right time comes in, one of you will eventually go nuts. If you aren’t the one developing feelings, good, as long as you keep it that way. On the other hand…”

Yoongi was now sure, Taehyung sucks at giving advice. His knuckles, already white with the tightness he’d put around his beer grew even whiter and more painful as he spotted you, a few tables away, and the idea that he had really refrained from fucking you to be at someone’s party whom in addition to all the inconvenience entailed couldn’t articulate a single useful word to Min Yoongi’s ears would certainly perpetuate the list of choices which he deeply regretted, Volume 5.

How many times had he seen you dancing like that? Ten? Twenty? You always did it the same way, and every single damn time Yoongi felt his chest pinch. No, not romantically speaking, really pinching, as if someone really poked him inside with a needle. He swears to God next time he fuck you he’ll make you dance like this on his lap.

“It shouldn’t be allowed to have you two in the same campus, though. Thank God Yoongi hyung stayed in Daegu. How many places they would’ve baptized? I’d be scared just to sit in the waiting room there” Jimin smirked as he intruded the conversation, making Yoongi munch his cheek in annoyance.

“Don’t be fucking stupid, Y/N will never be anything but a friend, either me fucking her or not. Are you deaf or just stupid?”

You definitely noticed Yoongi’s deadly gaze watching you from afar. Now, in the bathroom, listening to Aeri blabbering through every sniff of whatever she was doing behind the door did not seem so bad after all.

“The truth is, Y/N” Aeri interrupted herself after a long final blow, finally opening the door shortly afterwards “Is that there is no next step for girls like us. This is all a big fucking lie.”

You rolled your eyes, propped up beside the sink while your friend adjusted her blue fringe in the mirror. Aeri had spent no less than thirty minutes talking about how her relationship with Taehyung would never improve, because Taehyung would never see her beyond an easy girl and a casual fuck (a divine one, she said, but casual), and how girls are always the most impaired part of the relationship, despite what kind of relationship they are in.

You didn’t even bother trying to explain that with Yoongi things did not happen that way when the friend let out a spiteful “You’d better do something, before it’s too late for you too”, cracking her tongue between her teeth before leaving the bathroom.

•••

“Taehyung told me something really funny tonight. You wanna hear?”

Seoul has some great avenues, but hundreds of smaller boulevards. Everything the avenues had in extravagances — lights, signs, advertisements, buildings, big screens, movement — the little streets had in mediocrity. Poorly lightened, sometimes tortuous. But don’t fool yourself — it’s where the best of the city is hidden.

The walk back home was always incompatible. Even though you two were strangely connected in a freakish mental bond during your time together, sometimes being around other people seemed to pull you two apart, just like you were any other girl casually coming out with a boy, and honestly, it was frustrating.

At that point of the night, you weren’t even able to decipher a single expression on Yoongi’s face, and it felt as if he had left forever.

Not in a literal sense, of course, Yoongi’s presence has always been strong — he was not the type of guy to go unnoticed. It was unanimous that Yoongi’s singular dark and tuff appearance ripped off any woman’s panties whenever that rare and precious gummy smile decided to appear. Not being able to feel the usual bond between you and Yoongi made you feel like one of the other women — and it sucks.

Despite your frivolous silence, Yoongi continued, not even bothered. “Taehyung said the world has a bad sense of humour.”

“What’s fucking new?” you mumbled to yourself. Yoongi stared at the floor, hands in his pockets and a sneering smile lifted the corner of his red lips. It’s not like he’s going to remember anything the next morning.

“I know, right? He’s fucking pathetic, Y/N” Yoongi laughed behind his scarf, turning slightly red from the neck to the tips of his ears, part from the cold, partly from the amount of alcohol in his veins. You couldn’t help but find it extremely appealing, something you would never say out loud, fearing running the risk of not seeing him like this ever again. Knowing Yoongi, he would never smile again if he knew you admire him so much when he does. It’s not like he’s an asshole about it, it’s just his shy perspective of things. “Apparently, the world has a bad sense of humor because people like us are together.”

“What?” A cloud of steam escaped your lips to collide with the cold air. “What are you talking about, we aren’t even—”

“In his thesis, and apparently another twenty-one people in his shitty art class agreed with this bullshit” Yoongi stated, bittersweet “Besides the ridiculous amount of people who fall for someone who doesn’t give a fuck, the world places those who don’t want to be loved face to face, and then split up the lovers.”

Yoongi glanced at you just to see you wasn’t picking up anything. “Look, as far as he told me, it works like that, it’s simple unfair. He even used us as an example. You see—”

Hearing him referring to you two as us sent chills down your spine. Of course you two were a thing, everybody knew it. Maybe not everybody, at least not in your social lives; but your friends did. Hearing him affirming the fact and being so soft about it for some reason was just beyond pleasing to you.

“—there’s Jimin, right? Who broke up with that Eun-Ji girl after three months because she was getting on his nerves and vice versa. They do still love each other. Well, at least he loves her or whatever, the fuck I care anyway. But then there are us, who don’t belong to anyone but ourselves, we have an understanding and we still get to fuck. Got it now?”

You couldn’t help but smirk under your breath, you two now close to the subway. Knowing Taehyung well, he probably did a whole explanation on his point to Yoongi.

And besides, you could really understand what he was saying. It was a point, though.

“So am I glued to your crotch my whole life?” Your question made Yoongi frown his forehead. “What about the moment I find someone, like, romantically speaking, everything starts crashing down? Because, you know, it’ll eventually happen.”

Yoongi takes a few seconds to think, his usually annoyed resting face really pale as a ghost under the subway parlor light. “The fuck would I know?” He looks drunkenly pissed off as he takes off the tickets from his pocket. “Call him. And also use the opportunity to ask him why being glued to my crotch didn’t seemed to be a problem yesterday.”

Smart, you didn’t stick around to hear the rest, Yoongi was done with all the explanatory stuff and would probably start randomly cussing at anytime. But now, as you patiently waited for your coffees a few meters away, the view of a sleepy sluggish Yoongi melted yourself inside, badly. He was lazily propped on the wall, his tiny, cold eyes looking forward the rails. Yoongi was stunning, and no one could say otherwise. His frivolous angst from early that night hadn’t eased not even a little, though.

“Aeri told me something funny too” you cautiously mumbled as you approached the wall handing one cup to Yoongi, his venous pale fingers full of rings immediately wrapping tight around the plastic.

“Taehyung knows she’s madly in love with him, he’s not fucking blind” he sips his pure black coffee without hesitance as you set yourself beside him, shrinking.

“And don’t you have any empathy for her?”

“Of course I have, it’s fucking stupid and sad.”

“And where does his thesis come in? You know, with his and Aeri’s relationship. Because, you know, despite anything they are in one.”

Yoongi suddenly tilts his head a bit, only to look at you. For maybe a second you think he’ll kiss you, but he just remain silent, watching your face. His earnestness became goneness, the buzz of the train echoing and its blinding lights coming off of the tunnel straight to his face. It was heartbreaking seeing him drunk, tired and distant.

“I don’t know, Y/N”

A/N: Things start to happen next chapter! Thank you for reading! & feel free to leave some feedback here :D

[0613fancafe]

CHATTING ROOM

BTS_Rap Monster, BTS_Jin, BTS_SUGA, BTS_j-hope, BTS_지민 , BTS_V, BTS_정국 / 13.09.20

→ JIN

Jin: We've reached our 100th day, but isn't it fascinating to think that it's been 100 days since our first performance?

Jin: It's really cool but...I'm in menboong* mode right now because there's so many people ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

*menboong = mental breakdown

Jin: Now, I'll be randomly answering some questions.

Fan: Oppa, how do you feel?

Jin: Oppa's feelings. Oppa's feelings; I'll talk about that one first. I feel like I can fly right now. When we were entering the company building, there was a banner that said "Bangtan, congratulations on your 100th day ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠcrycry"

Jin: After I saw that, I was like wow....wow///////

Jin: I want to share this feeling with you all ㅠㅠ

Jin: Next question.

Jin: Wow (Fan: I can't see [because the chat is moving too fast] ㅠㅠ)

Jin: You can't see? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ(Fans: Oppa, did you eat lots of yummy food on Chuseok? / Who are you closest to? / Did you eat songpyeon? / Oppa, what movie genre do you like best?)

Jin: Have mercy on me

Fan: Oppa, are the members playing pool right now?

Jin: Are the members playing pool right now?

Jin: No. Everyone's at the office right now. Now, next question.

Fan: Oppa, you're the worst at pool, right?

Jin: Yes, oppa is the worst at pool.

Another fan: I thought that they weren't going come because they were too busy playing pool.

Jin: What. Go to Hope oppa.

Fan: Typing speed of 600 characters per minute.

Jin: Pretty camel.

* In Korean, the word for typing speed is 타. Jin was playing around with this word because 낙타 = camel in Korean.

Fan: Does Hope oppa -

Jin: Go to Hope oppa.

Jin: Wow, she really left...

Fan: How did it feel getting tricked by a hidden camera prank on Rookie King?

Jin: How did I feel after getting tricked by a hidden camera on Rookie King?

Jin: To be honest, I knew it was a hidden camera. (Fans: Sure you did... / Lies!)

Jin: Fine. I didn't know.

Jin: She suddenly started crying so I said "Excuse me..why are you crying....ah......" "I broke up with my boyfriend." "Ah......okay......I'm sorry....."

Fan: Oppa, did you eat songpyeon* on Chuseok day?

Jin: Did oppa eat songpyeon on Chuseok day?

Jin: Yes, I did. I bet you're jealous. I bet you're jealous.

* Songpyeon = a type of rice cake.

Jin: Did oppa play yut* on Chuseok day? Nope, I played pool.

* Yut = a type of Korean board game traditionally played on Chuseok/New Years day.

Fan: Oppa, are you good at making songpyeon?

Jin: Am I good at making songpyeon?

Jin: How do you make songpyeon? I only make things that I like to eat..ㅠㅠ

Fan: Oppa, did you play Go Stop?

Jin: Did I play Go Stop?

Jin: ......no answer.

Fan: Oppa, I think you're the type of person who would put chicken tits in songpyeon.....

Jin: Chicken tits in songpyeon

Jin: How could you suggest such a disgusting thing

Jin: Yes..I think there's somebody here who's celebrating their birthday today. Happy birthday.

Fan: Oppa, you have a drivers license....have you ever driven?

Jin: DrivingJin: I'm the god of driving

Jin: It's just that I can't park

Jin: Oh, right. We've gone off-topic. Let's talk about our 100th day. How is it? Honestly, I'm very thankful for my ARMYs right now.

→ RAP MONSTER

Rap Monster: Oh. Wow. Hello. Rap Monster: Everyone, it's already been 100 days since we've been against school and society. And 100 days since we've started looking for happiness.

Rap Monster: The most important thing is that it's been 9 days since my birthday.

Rap Monster: Hello, everyone.

Rap Monster: What is everyone doing? It's Chuseok. (Fans: Thinking of oppa ♥ / Chatting you / Eating shrimp / Eating songpyeon / My hands are sweating)

Rap Monster: Wow, there's a wide variety of answers...

Rap Monster: I'm looking for happiness..by breaking through the suppression and prejudice in this world and am escaping..

Rap Monster: Do you want to come with me? ㅎㅎ

Rap Monster: ㅎㅎ the sound of hot water exploding from Onsu* Station ㅎㅎ

* Onsu = hot water + also the name of a subway station in Seoul.

Rap Monster: Hehe what should I be saying..

Rap Monster: Everyone! A long time ago, when a baby reached its 100th day, people would celebrate and pray for him or her to grow up healthily...but I don't know what they say these days. Anyways.

Rap Monster: If a bear wants to become a human, they have to eat mugwort and garlic for 100 days*. So..but instead of mugwort and garlic..I broke through the suppression and prejudice and to protect profound meanings..anyways.

Rap Monster: Everyone, we must find happiness! We can't forgive schools!! Hey you, what's your dream?

* A Korean legend.

Rap Monster: Everyone, where are you right now? (Fans: Home / Grandmother's house)

Rap Monster: Oh right, it's Chuseok. I'm..at the office. I want to go home cries ㅠㅠ

Rap Monster: Question time? Ask me questions. Come at me.

Fan: Oppa, what's your typing speed?

Rap Monster: My typing speed

Rap Monster: Is a 1,000 characters per minute. It really is. It's gotten lower now, but it used to be 1,000 characters/minute for Korean and 600 characters/minute for English.

Rap Monster: Everyone keeps asking me to say puns whenever they see me but

Rap Monster: Are you all baristas?* Is this a cafe? ㅠㅠ Oh right. This is a (fan)cafe..

Rap Monster: Everyone, you're all my baristas ㅎㅎ? * 드립 (pronounced "drip") is the shortened version of ad-lib, but in Korean, it's basically the same as a pun.

Fan: Oppa, which community (site) does Netizen Kim go on most!!!?!!

Rap Monster: Community (site)? Hehe I'm not telling you ㅋ

Rap Monster: I go on most sites. Kimtizen. I remember a lot of our fans' usernames, also.

Rap Monster: People who come to our fan signings are always surprised by my memory. I can remember how many times they've come. Shaman Kim.

Fan: Oppa, do you have any dreams that you've had recently that you remember?

Rap Monster: A recent memorable dream? Hey you, what's your dream..

Rap Monster: Wow..I'm sorry.

Fan: Oppa, do you remember the ARMY that made a fan song for you?

Rap Monster: I listen to all fan songs. I also watch all the videos ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I also read all the mentions we get.

(Fans: Do you read all your fan letters? / Oppa, what do you think about younger fans? / What kind of meat did you eat yesterday?)

Rap Monster: Oh..what should I answer first..hehe. This is chaos.

Fan: Oppa, what are your standards for the songs you recommend [on Twitter]?

Rap Monster: My standards? Ah..I just look through my iPod, pick a random song and think "Ah..this one is good for today.."

(Fans: Oppa, please just pick one person's question / Everyone, calm down / Calm down, calm down!!! / Please calm down)

Rap Monster: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Calm down ㅋㅋㅋ I like it, you all have some calmness in you. I'm okay. I'm really not crying. It's the first time I've been confused. You've all been affected by my puns after being with me for 100 days.

Fan: Who do you admire most?

Rap Monster: Who do I admire most? All of you? ㅎ Hehe ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Rap Monster: These days I really want to eat meat..meat..meat..meat..

Rap Monster: I want shank meat, beef ribs and bottom sirloin steak ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Fan: Oppa, what do you eat to maintain such a good figure?

Rap Monster: Just..starving is the best. I don't know if I should be saying this to our fans, but starving is really the best. Don't do anything weird and just starve.

Rap Monster: Everyone, isn't it nice that I'm promoting without sunglasses? I didn't know I had eyes. That day when I went on stage at M! Countdown..ah..the light.

Rap Monster: The company staff worry too much about my eyesight. My eyesight isn't that good, you see. That's why they made me wear sunglasses. But my eyesight is getting worse these days, so it's kinda good. (Fans: Oh no ㅠㅠ / Why is your eyesight getting worse? ㅠㅠㅠㅠ)

Rap Monster: What? I'm just kidding ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Rap Monster: Ah, what should I say! Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fan: How old is Rap Mon?

Rap Monster: Rap Mon is my dog.

Rap Monster: If you want to be happy

Rap Monster: Everybody say NO

Rap Monster: Let's break through the suppression and prejudice!

Rap Monster: Everyone, you know I'm really thankful all the time, right? ㅠㅠ Always ㅠㅠ This is so sudden so I don't know how to explain but I always love you all. I like that you're all so fierce.

Rap Monster: I'm actually a really fast typer but I'm being careful right now because I'm scared that something weird might come out of my pocketful of puns.

Rap Monster: Ah, I just used a period after my sentence and thought it was Jeongguk who was writing ㅋ

Rap Monster: Call me oppa.

Rap Monster: Jeongguk. Scale is nationwide.

Fan: Oppa, I want to become a singer. Can you give me some advice???ㅜㅜ

Rap Monster: Some advice for someone who wants to become a singer. This doesn't apply to only those who want to become a singer, but everyone: don't be lonely just because you're choosing a path unrelated to education. Everything will work out if you just try hard. The most applicable thing I've ever heard is this: "If you try anything for 10 years, it'll always work out in the end."

Rap Monster: I've only rapped for 7 years, so I've got to try for 3 more. If I try for 3 more years, I'll be able to see if this works out or not. So no matter if you choose an education-related career or not, don't lose hope.

Rap Monster: Let's just try for 10 years and then see if we need to give up or not. (Jeongguk tone)

Fan: Oppa, how do I become prettier?

Rap Monster: To become prettier, you must first buy a pink mirror. Then, look in the mirror and think "What an attractive person ㅋ" (Jin tone) "So handsome."

Fan: Oppa, what will you do if you win the rookie award?

Rap Monster: I'll eat mugwort and garlic and become a human. From monster to Rap Human. Rap Person. Hm, Rap Person sounds good.

Rap Monster: rapperson wow hiphop

Rap Monster: Do I like things if they're pretty? Yes. (Jeongguk tone) I like everything that's pretty.

Rap Monster: Just kidding. If you yell out NO, you'll all become happier, prettier, grow taller and -

Fan: So you don't like ugly people?

Rap Monster: No.

Fan: Oppa, how tall is your ideal type? \

Rap Monster: What do I think of short girls? Height doesn't matter. I'm telling you ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ ^^ (skips)Rap Monster: Just kidding. If you're an ARMY, you've already passed the first round. (claps) (claps for self)

Rap Monster: Don't forget to buy a pink mirror. I think I should give up on Bangtan and should sell pink mirrors. They'd sell really well.

Fan: Oppa, you're handsome.

Rap Monster: I'm handsome. Yes, I'm handsome ㅎ

Fan: What did you do on Chuseok day?

Rap Monster: On Chuseok..hmm, what did I do..I edited some photos..thought about Twitter..thought of some Kim-puns..mom ㅠㅠ It's so hard to make a living.

Fan: What do you think is the real ranking of Bangtan?

Rap Monster: Bangtan ranking? Everybody is 7th except for me. Leader Mon on top. I'm giving Jeongguk a lot of love. Suga hyung is just salt. Salty like salt. Jim*...Jimin is just luggage. Taehyung can't do anything** Jin is just a pink princess..Jeongguk is just..ㅎㅎ Jeongguk is just a sweet pumpkin*** You can eat him, yumyum.

Rap Monster: So between Pink Princess, Sweet Pumpkin, Luggage, Can't-Do-Anything-Taehyung, and Salt, who has the most charms? Ah, it's hard to pick if you ask me this kind of question so suddenly..ㅎㅎ

*짐 (Jim) = shortened version of Jimin and can also mean luggage/extra weight.

** 태형 (Taehyung) = sounds similar to 해용, which is the cuter way of writing "can do" Rap Monster said "못태형", which is a play on V's name and means "can't do anything"

*** Fans say that Jeongguk has a 단호 (flat) personality. 단호박 means sweet pumpkin, so Rap Monster made a pun out of that.

Rap Monster: I'm the cutest member.

Fan: Rank the members based on their looks!

Rap Monster: Why do you keep asking me to rank everyone based on looks? Everyone is obviously 7th - except for me.

Rap Monster: Everyone, when you go into another member's chatting room later on, please don't tell on me. (honestly scared)

Rap Monster: When I go to Jeju Island, I want to ride J-Horse instead of a pony! Come here, Hoseok-ah. Neighs. Hope-neigh.

Rap Monster: Wait, someone uploaded a photo of me chatting right now? Oh my god. But I'm wearing a shirt that says Leader Mon right now. Apparently a fan gave it to me. Oh my god. It would've been nicer if it said God of Destruction.

Rap Monster: I would wear it around [in public] if it said only Leader Mon, but it says "Property of My Loves" on the back. So it's a bit....ㅋ

Rap Monster: I'm going now ㅎㅎ Bye bye! I love youehehhehhe

Rap Monster: Bangtan's ARMYs. 100 days. It's funny, isn't it? Let's all just give up after 10 years. (Jeongguk tone) Bye bye!!

→ J-HOPE

J-Hope: I'm really nervous right now. What should I do?? Wow..this is my first time..

J-Hope: We've finally..reached our 100th day!!! Kya~~ kyo!! Kya~~~

J-Hope: Wow, this is really cool. I'll do this more often in the future.

J-Hope: Everyone, it's our 100th day today. How do you feel?? Do you like it? Kya. I also like it. I feel like I'm getting older~ haha..wow..my hands are sweaty.

J-Hope: Everyone~ lots of things have happened in the past 100 days~ but what is your favorite memory?? Kekeㅋ @_@! (Fans: Fan signings / fan meetings / showcase / debut performance)

J-Hope: Our debut performance is also the most memorable thing for me. I was really nervous that day...sniff..

Fan: I'm happiest right now ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

J-Hope: I'm also happiest right now

J-Hope: I'm so happy that I can chat with ARMYs like this. I like it~

J-Hope: Wow, you're all so fast. Everything's flying by~ @-@

J-Hope: Is there anything you guys are curious about? Kekekekeke

J-Hope: I'll take three questions kekekekeke

Fan: Oppa, how fast is your typing?

J-Hope: I type..really slowly..my hands are shaking...@_@)

Fan: Oppa, what is your favorite non-title track on this album?

J-Hope: My favorite non-title track song on this album is hm..~ hmhmhm~~ hmhmhmhmhm...~~ The Rise

J-Hope: of Bangtan!!!!!!!!!

J-Hope: Now, I'll take one last question! Throw me an interesting question.

J-Hope: Hmhmhmhmhm

J-Hope: An interesting, interesting question~

Fan: What kind of existence are ARMYs to you, oppa?

J-Hope: What kind of existence are ARMYs to me? Another heart? Pit-a-pat.

J-Hope: Can you smell something burning?

J-Hope: My heart is burning [for you all]. Kekekekeke_keke?

J-Hope: This is embarrassing.

J-Hope: Anyways. I really like that I can chat with everyone like this.

J-Hope: 100 days 100 days 100 dasy

J-Hope: Oh no, I made a typo. My hands are shaking. I think I'm always nervous when I'm with ARMYs. Wow. 100 days.

J-Hope: I'm practicing right now...even though it's our 100th day, Hope & Children are practicing hard kyakyakyakyakya

Fan: Please rest~

J-Hope: If we keep resting, we won't be able to win the rookie award!!!! We have to work hard. But yes, health is always first. Everyone, take care of your health! BAM here's a health drink!! Drinking~ Hope Restorative.

Fan: I haven't opened my Hope Restorative yet ㅠㅠ

J-Hope: But I took so much time packaging that..

Fan: Make a rookie award promise ㅠㅠ

J-Hope: Promise? Hmhm~~~ what should we do?(Fans: Rip open your uniform? / Show us your abs / Come to my school)

J-Hope: Should I rip open my uniform kekekekekeke during my part ㅋㅋㅋ Really, I'll rip open my uniform...ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ that will be awesome..

Fan: Get all the members to show their abs.

J-Hope: Abs..abs hm..hm...pass.

J-Hope: What kind of existence is Hope to you all? Snort...(Fans: Hope / Smile / Our hopeful existence / My love / J-Horse / Wings)

J-Hope: Did you know that we have wings on our backs..you all are my guardian angels.

J-Hope: Cough I'm embarrassed.

J-Hope: Did you all come to our Inkigayo fan meeting?? I was so happy happy because lots of people came wow

J-Hope: Those who couldn't come, don't cry..because you have Hope here right now~

J-Hope: Seniors, find strength!!!! You're taking your college entrance exams soon, right?? Good luck on your exams!! Good luck to Bangtan, also!! Also, good luck to ARMYs.

J-Hope: Everyone, what kind of emoticons do you use? (Fans: ^^ / ~,~ / ㅇㅅㅇ / -3- / :-D / @_@)

J-Hope: Wow, there are so many emoticons that are cooler than mine. Cute. I'll use this as a reference. I've been thinking a lot about emoticons lately..

J-Hope: Everyone! Our 100th day..

J-Hope: Our 100th day

J-Hope: Our 100th day..

J-Hope: Our 100th day...

J-Hope: I like it so much....I have tears in my eyes.....ㅋㅋㅋ

J-Hope: I've changed so much in the past 100 days. First of all, I've gotten much cooler!!!

Fan: Oppa, how much do you weigh?

J-Hope: How many kilograms?? Hm. The person who guesses correctly will receive Hope's love~(Fans: 61 / 57 / 60 / 111 / 74 / 1 / 23234)

J-Hope: 74....

J-Hope: Is definitely not the answer....

J-Hope: 60!!! I gained 1 kg~~

J-Hope: Everyone, you know that I love you all, right

J-Hope: I miss you all, really really

J-Hope: I hope you can receive my hopeful thoughts wow

J-Hope: I'm going~~~~~~~~~~~

J-Hope: No, please stop me

J-Hope: Hurry and hold on to me don't let me go ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

J-Hope: I've been caught!! I'm not going

J-Hope: Please come to our music show performances~~ music showsJ-Hope: I love you all bbyong

→ V

Fan: You have to become taller than Seokjin.

V: I WILL become taller than Jin hyung I WILL

V: If we win the rookie award, the first thing I want to do is dance like crazy. I also want to go fishing.

V: I want to ride a plane.

V: Hope hyung and I have never been on a plane. V: The important thing is that I've never been on a plane.

→ SUGA

Suga: Euhaha hello. What day is it today? (Fans: 100th day!)

Suga: Yes, it's our 100th day~ It's been 100 days since Bangtan entered the world, I think? Euhaha

Suga: It's Chuseok and also Bangtan's 100th day, what are you all doing

Suga: Have you all eaten?

Suga: In celebration of our 100th day, I'll answer some questions eungkyakya

Fan: Oppa, do you read the letters on the fancafe?

Suga: 1, I always read letters on the fancafe ㅎㅎ

Fan: Suga oppa, can you fit coins into your nostrils?

Suga: 2, I can't fit coins into my nostrils

Fan: Oppa, can you rank the members based on looks?

Suga: 3, Of course Suga-nim is first in team ranking

Fan: Do you read all the letters you get????? Please answer ㅠㅠㅜㅜㅠㅜㅜㅠ

Suga: 4, I also read all the letters we get ㅎㅎ

Fan: Do you check mentions frequently?

Suga: 5, I read all our mentions ㅎ

Fan: Oppa, I think you would've been very pretty if you were born a girl

Suga: 6, If I were born a girl I wouldn't have been able to join Bangtan

Fan: Oppa, then can you fit coins on your eyes?

Suga: 7, I can't fit coins on my eyes

Suga: I've been alive for 8,7500 days..this moment is very moving. I'll continue to be a hardworking Suga.

Fan: What will you do if you win a rookie award? Make a promise!!!

Suga: If we win a rookie award..hm...if we win a rookie award..hm..if we win a rookie award, what should we do? I'm thinking hard about it.

Fan: Oppa, why do you take your selcas with a silent camera?*

Suga: Oh my god, how did you know I take selcas with a silent camera. Oh my god. That's scary.

* In Korea, the cameras on all phones make a clicking sound, whether it's on mute or not. You have to download a separate silent camera app to take photos without a clicking sound.

Fan: How are your cuticles* these days?

Suga: I'm trying to collect my cuticles but it's not working out as well as I hoped.

* Look here. http://bts-trans.tumblr.com/post/60638366849

Fan: What is your ideal type?

Suga: My ideal type? ARMYs.

Fan: When will you update 슈가의 시선 (Suga's Eyes)?

Suga: I'm not updating 슈가의 시선 these days ㅠㅠ When will I get the chance to update..I'm not able to take a lot of photos these days because I don't have a camera right now. There's a new model out now, so I'm waiting to buy that.

Fan: Oppa, do you really not take care of your skin? Be honest!

Suga: I really don't take care of my skin.

Fan: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Suga oppa, I'm really curious about this but do the [Bangtan] oppas epilate their leg hairs?

Suga: Why are you asking me about leg hair epilation ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Fan: Oppa, why are you so white

Suga: I'm white for no reason at all

Fan: Flat

Suga: But what would happen if Suga was flat

** Referencing to the first line of The Rise of Bangtan

Suga: I haven't eaten dinner yet, what should I eat. I'll be thankful if someone suggests me a meal. (Fans: Meat / chicken / pig trotters / duck meat / husband)

Suga: Euha I can't see anything because everyone's typing too fast ㅋ

Suga: Will the person who suggested husband please leave this chat room ^^

Suga: It's our 100th day. Thank you to everyone who congratulated us.

Fan: Oppa, if you were tanned, what would your name be?

Suga: If I had tan skin, I'd be called Black Suga

Suga: 끝판왕 (King of the Last Round) is a conspiracy by the producers. It's a trick by them. A trick to kill me.

Suga: I use whatever shampoo is rolling around [the bathroom]. I'm not as exhaustive as you guys may think. I'm good at cleaning myself, though ㅋ

Fan: Oppa, what cologne do you use?

Suga: I use Ferrari Blue.

Fan: Oppa, you're going to live with your bandana forever

Suga: I'll marry my bandana

Fan: Oppa, I look like you

Suga: If you look like me, congratulations. It must be hard to live life looking like me..??

Suga: I read everything in TO.BTS. ARMYs are love, I like all of you ㅋ

Suga: I'm preparing a mixtape euhaha I'm using the beats I couldn't use in the album and might use some Choongchung-do satoori. I'm getting the hang of Seoul satoori now. Pyotoori*

Suga: I heard that all you have to do [to speak in a Seoul accent] is to raise your voice at the end?

*** Standard language = 표준어 (pyo-joon-uh) - Suga combined "표준어" and 사투리 (satoori) together.

** Reference to this Gag Concert corner.

Suga: Everyone, it's our 100th day today so let's talk about that, shall we? What's your most memorable day [with us] from the past 100 days?? ㅎㅎ

Suga: When my hat flew off while I was on stage, I was like "Ah..." inside my head. From that day on, we tripled the amount of hair clips on my hat so it wouldn't fly off again.

Fan: Nosebleed

Suga: Those who have a nosebleed, please go get treated right now.

Suga: Everyone, you must follow my instructions haha I can't stop chatting with 99 other people just because of one person ㅠㅠ

Fan: Has Bangtan ever done any arm-wrestling competitions?

Suga: We haven't done any arm-wrestling, but I'm first in foot-wrestling.

Suga: ARMYs who dream of becoming a singer!! If you try hard, you'll achieve your dreams!!

Suga: To the ARMYs who said they want to marry me. I'm going to send you to military prison.

Suga: Everyone, was the chatting event fun? Suga's crying because it's our 100th day. Just a second, I'll wipe my tears first..crying.

Suga: Thank you so much for congratulating us on our 100th day ㅎ Let's be together on our 1,000th and even our 10,000th day~~ I love you. Kisskisskissㅋㅋㅋ I love you. See you next time~~~!!!

→ JIMIN

Jimin: Hello I'm Jimin > today is our 100th day!! 

Jimin: I can't believe it...it's already been 100 days since we've started dating...agh...that was greasy//sorry!! Haha

Jimin: I'm going to raise my attractiveness level up >

Jimin: Please type slowly, I don't know which ones to reply to..ㅜ.ㅜ(Fans: Everyone, hush~ / Shhh~)

Jimin: Heehee you guys said shhh..you're all so cute ㅎㅎ

Jimin: Is there anything about me that has changed in the past 100 days? (Fans: You've lost weight / You've gotten cooler / You lost your cheek fat)

Jimin: Cheek fat..yes, I've lost a lot of my cheek fat! Hehe. Should I gain it back?? Hahahaha. Comeback of my cheek fat? (Fans: Yes!)

Jimin: Then I have to say goodbye to you all forever..

Jimin: Our ARMYs have suffered a lot in the past 100 days ㅜ.ㅜ(Fans: Oppa, you must have been more tired ㅠㅠㅠ)

Jimin: I haven't done anything that difficult, I haven't suffered ㅠ.ㅠ When I think about everything our ARMYs have gone through, my energy goes up!

Jimin: I want to chat with you guys all day but I also want to meet everyone right now..shall we meet right now? Okay, let's..

Jimin: ..not meet right now. Because first, we need to celebrate our 100th day.

Fan: Oppa, did you listen to the Beenzino album I got for you?

Jimin: Yes, I did!!

Fan: Oppa, what snacks do you like eating?

Jimin: I like all...snacks!!!

Fan: Oppa you're cute

Jimin: ARMYs are also cute

Fan: Oppa, which member do you like best?

Jimin: I like Jiminnie the most..

Fan: When are ARMYs prettiest?

Jimin: ARMYs? ARMYs are always pretty~~~♥

Fan: Please do some aegyo ㅜ

Jimin: Aegyo? Haha you won't run away if I do aegyo? (Fans: Of course not / Gwiyomi player!! / Do some aegyo!!! )

Jimin: I'm sorry./..I don't know why I said that...I'm sorry!!!!~♥

Fan: Your whole existence is aegyo-y

Jimin: Oh someone just said that my whole existence is aegyo-y. I love you.

Fan: Oppa, your whole existence is flawless

Jimin: I know

Fan: Why did you smile in the elevator in the first episode of Rookie King? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Jimin: Everyone. I want to explain something. The only reason I laughed inside the elevator is because it was so awkward and because I was so proud of my pose in that situation. It was also because I was so proud of the fact that I had the guts to look into the camera..I paused the video and checked but that arrow was pointing? at the wrong place....everyone...everyone...really...really..that video is wrong...editing..what do I do...

Fan: What do you usually do in the waiting room? 

Jimin: I've received a question asking what I usually do in the waiting room! Yes~!~! I practice..for the live..and dance and talk~~ of course, with the members.

Fan: Do you use satoori?

Jimin: Someone asked me if I use satoori. What do you think? Do I use satoori? Sigh how do I write in satoori sigh..everyone have you eaten~~ (satoori) how do you write in satoori .ㅜㅜ

Jimin: People are saying shhhh but the typing just keeps getting faster oh my god this is so funny my belly button is going to fall off

Jimin: Everyone, I really have to go now but thank you for congratulating us on our 100th day and let's continue to be together!!! Ah I really smile all day because of ARMYs, I'm so excited right now...

Jimin: Who will be the next person? I ask questions like this and don't leave, I don't want to leave sighs. Everyone, I really love you from my head to toes but I really have to go now! I love all the ARMYs who have been here with us today!! Good?!!

→ JEONGGUK

Jeongguk: Hello. I'm Jeongguk. Have you all had dinner?

Jeongguk: Do you know what day it is today? Yes, it's our 100th day. Time goes by so fast, doesn't it? I bet our 1,000th day will come really quickly too, right?? ARMYs, let's always be together even until our 1,00th, 10,000th day ♥

Jeongguk: Everyone, did the past 100 days feel long or short?? (Fans: It was extremely short!)

Jeongguk: Haha, it also felt short for me ㅎ Because time went by so quickly whenever I thought of our ARMYS. Haha.

Jeongguk: I worked really hard for the past 100 days. Can you see the effort I put in? ㅜㅜ(Fans: Of course!! / I can see it ㅠㅠㅠ/ Noona is so proud of you ㅠㅠ)

Jeongguk: I wanted to show all of you a cooler side of me. Thank you.

Jeongguk: In our new album..how was my song...(Fans: I loved it ♥♥ / It was the best / I died at the satoori part)

Jeongguk: Ah, our ARMYs, I love you. We worked hard to produce a good album ㅜㅜ It was difficult but thinking about our ARMYs gave us strength. I promise to work harder to show better performances in the future.

Jeongguk: Ah. Which song did you like best from this album? We On? Coffee? N.O?! Outro?!!

Jeongguk: Girl

Jeongguk: Do you want to date me?*

Jeongguk: V hyung is practically losing his hands and feet right now [because it's so greasy]. Ah, this is fun.

* The very last line in OUTRO: LUV IN SKOOL (done in satoori by Jeongguk)

Jeongguk: Our choreography is cool, isn't it? Which part is the coolest? (Fans: When you rip open your uniforms! / When you kneel!! / "This is police, put your hands up!")

Jeongguk: ㅋ to be honest, it doesn't hurt that much when I kneel..because I'm a man. I think I feel the least amount of pain. It doesn't hurt so don't worry.

Jeongguk: In celebration of our 100th day, I'll answer three questions.

Fan: Why do you like the color red?

Jeongguk: What does the color red mean to oppa? What do you think it means? Red symbolizes passion for me. It's better to die than to live without passion.

Fan: What do noonas mean to Jeongguk?

Jeongguk: What do noonas mean to Jeongguk? What do you think they mean? They're just noonas.

Fan: Do you like sweet pumpkins?

Jeongguk: Do I like sweet pumpkins? To be honest, I do. The end.

Jeongguk: This chat was supposed to be about our 100th day but we've gone off-topic. Everyone, have you been happy these past 100 days? (Fans: Yes, of course!!!)

Jeongguk: I've also been happy ㅎ I want to continue being happy with ARMYs.

Jeongguk: There's been a lot of things that have happened these past 100 days, but what's the most memorable thing for you all? (Fans: Daejeon fan signing! / Showcase!! / Debut performance~)

Jeongguk: Oh, there's a lot. For me, it's right now ㅋI like it.

Jeongguk: When will we meet again?~ We'll meet soon. You'll come to our music show performances, right? If you don't come, you don't come. I won't be upset because we have the fancafe. I go on the fancafe and Twitter frequently so please write lots of posts and tweets.

Jeongguk: I need to go to practice now. It's all to show you a better side of us so don't cry and cheer for us.

Jeongguk: 4

Jeongguk: 3

Jeongguk: 2

Jeongguk: 1

Jeongguk: 0.5

Jeongguk: 0.4

Jeongguk: 0.3

Jeongguk: 0.2

Jeongguk: 0.1

Jeongguk: 0.♥

cr. http://jeongguks.co.vu/