#and I never said a bad word about anybody but everybody seemingly acts like I committed a heinous crime for doing something for the better

[gamerwoo]

[Tales from the Pack] Chan: Homewrecker (Part Four)

Characters: Chan x female reader

Genre/warnings: werewolf au, fantasy, angst, mention of attempted suicide, mentions of abuse, a tiny bit of fluff at the end

Word count: 2,410

Summary: Chan caught your attention as soon as your eyes met across the market. Something about him drew you to him, and you knew you were meant to be. However, you were already taken and arranged to be married on your next birthday, so you could never be together.

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“No,” Soonyoung stated.

Chan gave the alpha an incredulous look, “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“She’s engaged to the mayor’s son, Chan,” Soonyoung explained, rubbing his temples as he tried to figure out how to go about all this. “We can’t kidnap her, the entire town will be out hunting us. That fucking twerp already has hunters out in the woods every goddamn night.”

“Seungcheol would say--”

“Well I’m your original alpha; your real alpha,” Soonyoung snapped before the younger wolf could even finish his sentence. “Before we found them, I was the one who watched out for you.”

“Jihoon and Seungcheol are my alphas now too,” he stated. “I’d rather listen to them if they tell me I can save _____.”

“Ah, so you have selective obedience now? Fantastic. Well, if you get yourself arrested or tortured or murdered, you’ll know why.”

“I’d do any of that if it meant saving _____ from Donghae!”

Soonyoung sighed deeply, letting his head drop against the kitchen table, “Chan, you didn’t even tell her she’s your mate. You can’t just assume she’d want to stay with you.”

Chan frowned, getting more and more angry with the alpha by the second, “What do you know? You’ve never even had a mate!”

“You’re right, Chan!” Soonyoung stated, slamming his palms down on the smooth surface as he lifted his head up and smiled angrily at Chan. “You are absolutely right. I wish I had one so I wasn’t going out every other night just trying to find my mate, but we don’t always get what we want, do we? Ask Joshua about it, he knows better than anybody. In fact, if you act impulsively, _____ is going to end up like Lilly, too!”

Chan’s mouth closed, his jaw set as his eyes darted to the floor. He knew Soonyoung was right, and he also knew he shouldn’t have said what he said. He didn’t realize the alpha was so lonely and that was why he slept around. He thought maybe he just had a really high sex drive or something, honestly.

“Soonyoung, I’m--”

“I understand your frustration, Chan,” Soonyoung said, his voice much calmer now. “I know you want to protect her, but we need to wait until we have a solid plan. Especially with that tracker on her, we can’t do anything.”

“Her birthday in two weeks,” Chan reported, glancing up to look at the alpha. “Do you think we’ll have a plan by then?”

“Absolutely,” he nodded. “We’ll just need help.”

“Help?” Jia spoke up as she entered the kitchen, one arm hooked through Minghao’s while her other held her cane. “Help with what?”

“Chan’s mate is in a bit of trouble, and we need to get her out in two weeks time,” Soonyoung explained, giving a quick synopsis of the situation. “The problem is she’s engaged to the son of an important man in town, and she’s being tracked.”

“Tracked?” Minghao repeated, settling his mate down in a chair. “Tracked by who?”

“No, they…” Chan trailed off, not even wanting to think about what Donghae did to you.

“Her asshole fiancé put a tracker in her,” Soonyoung spoke up in place of the upset pup. “We need to get her out without anybody knowing.”

Minghao sucked in a sharp breath, “Ouch…”

“We’ll definitely need the assistance of Shua at the very least,” Soonyoung said, already trying to think of a plan. “I don’t know how he’ll feel going into town, though. After Lilly, he doesn’t like going unless he absolutely has to.”

“If it’s to help somebody, I think he’ll do it,” Jeonghan shrugged with a nod. “Especially if it’s to help a mate.”

“Who’s Lilly?” Eunjin wondered, suddenly appearing in the doorway to the kitchen.

The banshee was almost like a ghost, nobody even hearing her walk over or knowing she was listening, but she just appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Although, it was sometimes funny because she’d even catch the werewolves off guard and make them jump.

Soonyoung looked at Minghao, then Chan, then his eyes flashed up at the ceiling, knowing Joshua could probably hear them, “Ah…story for a different time. Is anybody hungry? I can make breakfast.”

“Everybody who can remotely cook is asleep,” Minghao pointed out. 

“Eh, it’s fine,” the alpha waved the concern away as he stood up from his seat. “Jia, how’d you sleep last night? Anything interesting happen?”

The blind girl let out a soft sigh, resting her chin on her palm, “Wonwoo had another nightmare, and Junhui had his bird dream again.”

“…Bird dream?” Chan repeated, quirking an eyebrow.

“Junhui has a reoccurring nightmare about a giant bird trying to feed him to its young,” Minghao explained, holding back a laugh. “Now he’s terrified of birds.”

“There’s also Josh’s dreams about Lilly,” Chan noted. “She says he dreams about Lilly a lot.”

“Seriously, who is Lilly?” Seungkwan’s mate pushed, wanting to know about the girl she’d never heard about. “You don’t have to tell me everything, I just want to know who she is. I have...a...feeling.”

“Feeling?” Jia repeated curiously, eyes darting over to where she’d heard Eunjin’s soft voice.

Soonyoung shrugged, “Eunjin’s part of the pack now. Might as well tell her.”

Minghao let out a deep sigh, running his slender fingers through his hair as he sat down beside his mate, “Lilly was Joshua’s mate.”

“Was?”

“She…passed away,” Chan replied awkwardly. “Joshua doesn’t like anybody talking about it, but that’s basically all you need to know.”

“Don’t werewolves die without their mate?” she wondered, settling in a chair and curling her knees to her chest.

“If their mate dies, a werewolf has another chance to find another mate. The heartbreak, though…” Minghao trailed off, remembering how awful it was to see Joshua that way.

“It’s difficult to live through,” Soonyoung continued where his brother had left off. “It makes you depressed as hell, but it won’t kill you like being denied will. I can’t even tell you how many times Joshua tried to kill himself because of it. The pain is too much to deal with.”

As the older wolves spoke, Chan just listened and thought about what Soonyoung had said. If Chan did anything wrong, you could end up like Lilly. Just imagining anything like that happening to you made his inner wolf whine softly. But the two werewolves just chalked it up to him being upset over their dead sister.

“I think that’s enough about her for now,” Soonyoung decided after hearing Chan’s whimper. “Back to breakfast. You’re all growing boys and girls.”

Chan just rolled eyes, trying to get out of the negative headspace, “Soonyoung, we’re all adults.”

Soonyoung turned around, pointing at the youngest with the tip of the knife he held in his hand, “No, you and Eunjin are our babies. So sit down and be quiet, pup.”

-

Donghae knew nothing of your meeting with Chan last night -- which you thought you had dreamed, honestly. The only reason you knew it was real was because he had left a note, promising to meet you again tonight. 

Once you managed to get yourself out of bed despite the aches in your body, your mother flashed you a worried look. You knew your family did care about your well-being, but their fear of Donghae’s power outweighed their care for you. Therefore, you felt they didn’t truly care enough about you at all.

Maybe Chan’s promise to get you out of there wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, you trusted the boy much more than anybody else at this point.

“Donghae requested to see you, _____,” your mother told you as she kneaded dough for bread, flour coating her apron, and making patches on her cheeks. “Do you need your father to escort you?”

“No,” you laughed dryly, knowing Donghae would know if you arrived without veering off course anyway, “I’ll be fine.”

“What’s so funny?” she wondered, pausing her actions to give you her full attention.

“Nothing,” you replied, shaking your head. “I’ll be back later.”

You slipped on some shoes before leaving the house, making sure the door was closed behind you before you let out a groan. Why would Donghae want to see you? Hadn’t he done enough? He’d left you alone after he hit you so what made him feel the need to bring you back all of a sudden? You didn’t have any answers he was looking for, so you were basically useless to him.

As you walked to his house, you made sure to avoid the marketplace, knowing he’d get upset if he saw you going through there even if it was just to get to his house faster. Instead, you went around, grumbling unhappily to yourself about how ridiculous he was.

You truly hoped Chan could save you from this life.

Before you could even knock on Donghae’s door, he opened it with a toothy smile that seemed too happy, “Ah, _____! I’ve been expecting you.”

“I know,” you muttered, but he didn’t catch it as he had turned away to walk back into his house. “Is there a reason?”

“Do I need a reason to see my dear fiancée?” he wondered, his voice laced with a charm that would’ve had any girl swooning.

Any girl except the one who knew what he was really like.

“No, I suppose not,” you replied, knowing if you talked back to him, you’d definitely be in for it.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs, turning to face you as he held an arm out to you, apparently wanting to take your hand, “I thought I could share something with you. Do you happen to know of Kang Soomin?”

Your brows furrowed as you cautiously took his hand, letting him lead you up the stairs to his office, “I believe so, yes.”

You knew Soomin was a kind girl who lived alone on the very edge of town. She used to live with a kind old woman -- strange, but that gave her charm -- until she unfortunately passed away. You used to see the pretty girl alone in the market, but you hadn’t seen her for a long time. So you were curious as to why Donghae brought her up so suddenly.

Donghae’s house had many stories to it considering his father was very wealthy, so he brought you to one of the windows that faced the direction of Soomin’s cottage. Even with her house being on the edge of town, you could clearly see the large pile of black ash from where you were.

You tried not to show any emotion, your gasp getting caught in your throat.

“She had run off with one of the brothers of your little...friend,” Donghae told you, his voice low and menacing as he stared out at what used to be Soomin’s house. “We had caught her and her mate before, but they escaped. Nobody knows where they went, but I can assure you that they will be found.”

He looked at you, expecting a response. You just nodded, not wanting to anger him more. If he thought you were on their side, he’d have you killed for sure.

“This is what happens to those who hang around with those monsters,” he warned. “It happened to Soomin, and it’ll happen to that pack and their disgusting mates when the hunters find them.”

“Good,” you gulped, unable to tear your eyes away from the ash. You had no idea that was what happened to Soomin, but you hoped she managed to get away safely, and that the pack had been protecting her, but you’d never say that to Donghae. “Werewolves are…bad…”

‘Very convincing, ___,’ you thought to yourself, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything awful about Chan.

“Of course they are,” he agreed, giving you a skeptical look. “You’d know better than anybody, wouldn’t you?”

As you finally turned away from the awful view to look at your fiancé, who was an even worse view, all you could think was, ‘I sure do.’

-

As promised, Chan showed up again that night. This time, though, he brought you ice wrapped in cloth; lots and lots of ice in cloth. You were sure you needed ice packs for your cheeks considering how warm they felt when he made you lay down so he could place them on your bruises.

“So,” he began once you were relaxed onto the bed, “we have a plan.”

“Already?” you asked, surprised the pack had managed to come up with a way to save you in one day. “That was…fast.”

“You said you get married two weeks from now,” he stated, kneeling on the floor, and resting his arms on the edge of your bed. “The night before, we’re coming to get you exactly at midnight. It’ll be the morning of your birthday, so we need to get you out of here before the ceremony. We just need the spare time until then to...figure some things out.”

You frowned, “Midnight? How will we manage?”

“We have fantastic eyesight,” he flashed you a cocky grin. “Plus, I’m quite fast. I’ll get you out of here in no time with a little help from my pack.”

“What about the tracker?” you asked slowly, almost forgetting the square chip in your arm.

Now, Chan was frowning, “Well…we’ll have to get it out.”

Your face contorted like you were already uncomfortable, “...How bad will it hurt?”

“We’re cutting open your arm and taking something out of it,” he sighed, not liking the idea of you being in pain. Quickly, he added, “But one of my brothers can heal you! It’ll only hurt for a minute, and then he’ll make it feel better. I promise.”

“I’ll do anything if it means getting out of here,” you admitted, your eyes looking toward the ceiling now. “There’s nothing worse than Donghae.”

“_____,” Chan’s voice was quiet and soft when he spoke to you again, but it grabbed your attention as if he had shouted, “if he ever hit you again…you’d tell me, right?”

“Would you want me to tell you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He was silent for a moment, just staring at you, “I just do.”

“Okay,” you nodded, “I’ll tell you.”

He smiled softly, a soft grumble sounding in his chest. He stroked your hair back, changing the subject, and talking with you until you finally fell asleep, listening to the sound of Chan’s voice.

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

Some People Wrap Their Lies Around a Cocktail Glass | Damian Wayne

Come. And Be My Baby

✦ pairing — older!Damian Wayne x female!Plus Size Reader

✦ word count — 3k

✦ fake dating AU

✦ summary — you need to cover up the fact that your boyfriend broke up with you a week before your step-father’s Christmas party, and Damian needs a date for his father’s New Year’s ball. Both of you are experts at pretending, what could go wrong?

✦ warnings — some angst (very light, blink and you’ll miss it), mentions of alcohol, a little awkwardness, fluff.

✦ author's note — thank you for reading this mini series! Most things had to be improvised because I couldn’t follow the plan I had for this story due to health issues. I hope you like it.

✦ mini series masterlist

════════════════════════

Turning the TV off, you found your own reflection ridden by guilt on the black screen.

You forgot to tell your mother you had plans for New Year’s that didn’t involve your father. You could blame Travis in your head and convince yourself that the stress of your fight with him had clouded your judgment, but it was far from the truth.

His attitude hurt, but you found it hard to feel too upset about it. Damian had been a good distraction which was a problem in itself — said problem would bother you furthermore if he hadn’t been so perfect at playing his role.

And now you would have to impress his father. Well, his siblings too, even if he wanted to act like he didn’t care about anybody from his family.

You really needed to talk to your mother.

There was no chance you would find your mother at home. Leonard liked to welcome the new year out of the country. Calling home would be easier, you could leave her a message with a maid.

Contacting your father first would open the possibility of your mother finding out from him and you knew better than doing something like that to her.

As if the universe was on your side, your mother didn’t pick up the phone and the perfect middle ground came to your mind.

Leonard answered at the third ring, calling you by your nickname as he greeted you.

“My mother isn’t answering her phone. Is everything okay?”

“She’s at the spa.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

“Did you need anything?”

You sighed. “Not exactly… but now that you mention it, I could use your help.”

“Is your father treating you badly?”

“No, no. It’s about Damian.” Before he could assume anything, you clarified, “He isn’t treating me badly either.”

“I’m all ears.”

You toyed with the tv remote, tracing the spaces between the buttons with your fingertip. “I… first, I need to tell you something,” you started, unsure. “But you have to promise mom will never find out.”

Leonard hummed. “Are you finally confessing that Damian isn’t your boyfriend?”

You winced. “Is it that obvious?”

“No. Harry told me about your fight with Trent.”

“Travis,” you corrected him.

“Him, yes,” Leonard dismissed the correction. “You didn’t have to lie to us, you know?”

“Mother was happy to know I was dating somebody,” you mumbled, “but Travis chickened out.”

“And Damian didn’t.”

“Exactly.”

“So? What’s the issue?”

Shifting, you rested your head on the arm of the couch. You felt like a teen again, telling Leonard about your day and the drama in your friend group. “I think I like him. I don’t know, I’m confused.”

“Give yourself time to figure it out.” It sounded easy coming out of his mouth.

“I wish I could. I have to get ready in like two hours to attend a ball with him, and I’ll have to pretend to be his perfect girlfriend like he pretended to be my perfect boyfriend.”

“You’ll do great,” he said gently. “You’ve pretended to enjoy events before.”

“I’ve never pretended to be perfect.”

“Because you don’t have to. Treat it like you used to treat the events you attended us. Why was that so easy to do?”

“Because I wanted you to look good.”

“Do you want Damian to look good?”

“Yes.”

“There’s your answer.” Good ol’ Leonard, always so patient with you.

“Will you help me get a new identity if I mess it up?”

He snorted. “Anything you want. Always.”

“I’m guessing you can tell my mother to call me?” You tried your luck, “Or let her know I won’t visit my father…”

“You’re not getting out of that one.”

“Fair enough,” you laughed softly.

Later, as you were getting ready, a question filled your mind — did Leonard imply Damian and you would be a good couple or did you imagine that?

════════════════════════

You jumped upon hearing the doorbell. Taking your clutch from the coffee table, you checked yourself on the mirror one last time.

Opening the door, you found an impeccably dressed Damian. His aftershave hit your nostrils immediately, mixed with his cologne.

“Ready?” he asked.

No. “Yes,” you assured him, watching him step backward to give you space.

You felt his eyes on you as you locked the door. Your eyes locked with his when you turned around, but neither of you said anything.

“My siblings might be too much to handle at first,” he warned you.

You shifted to look at him as he drove. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”

“I’ll let you decide once you meet them.”

“Oh, you’re cruel.”

He almost smiled.

This time the drive was shorter, and if Damian was nervous, he knew how to hide it to perfection.

His wall crumbled rather quickly. His eyes were fixed on the butler, gaze softening as he was greeted. You heard him refer to the butler by his last name, and introduce you.

“Please call me Alfred, miss.”

“Thank you, Alfred. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The old man smiled at you, bowing.

A commotion behind Alfred interrupted the butler himself who moved to the side. A blue-eyed man grabbed Damian by the shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug.

Damian inhaled sharply, patting the other man’s back a few times. “Richard,” he whined, “you’re ruining my attire.”

“Don’t worry. Jason isn’t even wearing a tux.” Hearing Damian scoff, Richard let go of him.

You stifled a laugh, watching Damian fix imaginary creases on his blazer. He sent you a glare, mouth twitching as he saw you pursing your lips.

“Hold it! You brought at date?!”

Standing straight, Damian introduced you to Richard as his girlfriend. You extended your free hand in a polite gesture that Richard almost found insulting.

You too were pulled into a hug. And welcomed to the family. “I can’t believe this!”

“Richard,” Damian gritted.

Ignoring his brother, the man hugging you said, “Call me Dick. Dami refuses to do it for whatever reason.”

You hugged him back, wondering if this was what Damian meant by too much. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dick.”

Dick shuffled, quite excited as he attempted to guide you towards the reception with an arm around your neck. “Come. Everybody will be happy to meet you.”

“Hey!” Damian exclaimed. “She’s my girlfriend, I should be the one introducing her!”

God. How many times would he call you his girlfriend? And how many times would you be able to take it?

Dick smiled, withdrawing his arm off you. “Of course.”

Damian lightly shoved Dick as he took your hand. His eyes found yours once again, silently asking you if you were ready. Gripping his hand, you lied by assuring him you were.

Two men and two women were in the living room. You recognized Jason immediately thanks to Dick’s comment about his lack of suit.

Chatter died down as four pairs of eyes fixed on you and Damian. You weren’t sure if they were shocked because Damian was there or because he had taken you with him.

“Hello,” Damian greeted blandly.

Jason snorted. “Definitely not a clone.”

The other man stood up, smiling at Damian. “Welcome home, Dami.”

“Thank you… Tim.”

Tim’s smile turned even brighter. He introduced himself to you unprompted, and he did a better job at hiding his surprise than Dick.

Everybody did, in fact. Jason winked at Damian as he congratulated him, Stephanie said she was happy for the two of you, and Cassandra stared straight into your soul before giving you a small smile.

Just when you thought things would go smoothly, somebody else entered the room and your stomach dropped.

Bruce stood in front of you and Damian, seemingly at a loss of words.

“I’m glad you could make it.”

Damian have his father a curt nod. Seeing his eyes deviate toward you, he opened his mouth to introduce you.

You were quicker. It was only fair, he hadn’t made you introduce him to your mother and he had already done the work with his siblings.

Bruce wasn’t interested in hiding his shock upon hearing you were Damian’s girlfriend. “You didn’t say anything about a girlfriend at work.”

“I didn’t find it appropriate,” Damian explained with ease.

“We should have dinner next week so we can get to know you better,” Bruce suggested, eyes solely on you.

“O—of course, sir.” What were you getting yourself into?

“I wish we had more time tonight,” Bruce continued, “but our guests will be arriving any moment now.”

Bruce was proven right as Alfred announced the arrival of a few guests.

Throughout the night, Damian watched you charm people he had never cared for and people he had once struggled to have in his pocket alike.

He felt you lace your arm with his and follow the pattern of his steps to walk in sync with him.

He heard you laugh with his siblings and gossip with Stephanie as if you had known them for years.

He became aware of the warmth of your palms and the coldness of your fingers as you danced.

And he couldn’t bear it.

Damian slowly slid his arm off yours and excused himself.

You decided to give him space. He would’ve asked you to go with him if he wanted your company.

It was clear that you weren’t the only one who was overwhelmed, and at the end of the night, he was the one who needed to look good. He deserved a break.

Damian roamed the main hallway, so familiar yet so foreign. Nothing had changed except for him and said changes weren’t unwelcome.

In hindsight, the only unwelcome thing he could find was how much he was dreading the end of the night.

He found his way back to the living room and stood in front of the window. He could see a couple hiding behind Alfred’s perfectly trimmed bushes, presumably making out.

Not many minutes passed before he heard approaching steps. He should’ve expected Dick to follow him.

“I didn’t think you’d show up,” Dick broke the silence. “But I’m glad you did. And I’m glad you brought your girlfriend with you.”

Humming, Damian continued staring at the greenery. “I always keep my promises.”

“And secrets, huh. We wouldn’t have known you had a girlfriend if you hadn’t come.”

“I suppose not.”

“You okay? I know you don’t want to be here, but—“

Damian interrupted him, “I am not uncomfortable here. Surprisingly.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my little brother?”

Damian tore his eyes off the window and glared at Dick.

“You know I’m joking.”

Sighing, Damian nodded. “I’m not used to… this.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“Not really.”

Dick stayed silent, respecting Damian’s line. The two of them enjoyed a silent moment together, staring out of the window.

A snicker blurted out of Dick as he caught sight of the couple Damian had spotted. Both were doing a poor job at fixing their attire.

Damian huffed a laugh, sharing an amused look with his brother.

“We should go back before Bruce starts the toast.”

Damian motioned for his brother to lead the way.

He took his spot next to you, snaking his arm around your waist. You leaned into his touch, feeling his steady breathing.

He didn’t give a single sign of being upset, so you asked him in a whisper, “Everything okay?”

“Don’t worry,” he answered in your ear.

You fought against the shiver the gesture sent down your spine.

════════════════════════

Leaving Wayne Manor was harder than you expected it to be. You would never judge Damian for wanting to be away from his family, he had his reasons, you simply didn’t share the sentiment.

You managed to fit easily with them, and what marveled you the most was how little you had to pretend to be somebody else.

The sight of your building saddened you. Everything would be over in a few minutes, just what you had wanted the day before, and you weren’t looking forward to it.

Walking down the hallway in silence, you were about to say good night as you approached his door when Damian asked, “Can you come in for a little bit?”

You nodded, not ready for the night to end. “Sure.”

Damian unlocked his door and allowed you to get in first, turning the lights on as he entered the apartment behind you.

“Do you want anything to drink?”

You shook your head. “I drank enough already.”

He shed his blazer, going straight to the point, “Travis was right.”

His comment took you aback. You didn’t expect this from Damian. You didn’t even want to believe it. Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt, you asked, “About what?”

“You should have been with me from the beginning. And I hadn’t even...” He made a face, as though the right words were escaping him. That was a first. “I can’t tell you I love you. Not now, that would be insane. But I’m pretty sure I’m halfway there.”

He undid his tie, speaking still, “I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I started falling for you, I just know it makes all the sense in the world.”

Damian never imagined his life going like this. Romance wasn’t on his list of priorities when he left the manor. Or ever. He wanted to know himself properly, to be his own person, to finally let go of the bottled-up resentment.

He liked to think he had accomplished those things, and he had done so on his own. He was proud of that — of himself.

“You made the bad days worth it without even knowing,” he continued talking. You had never heard him speak this much. “The days in which I believed there was nothing more to myself than what everybody wanted to believe, mostly. You didn’t know a damn thing about me, and if you did then you never showed it. I was just Damian, your neighbor.”

“I—“

He shushed so you would shut up. He wasn’t done. “I was just Damian to you even tonight, surrounded by people who only see me as an extension to my father.”

“I like being just Damian. And for a while, I thought that was it. We’re good friends, we feel comfortable around each other… but the fact that you are gorgeous was never going to help my case.”

He stopped you before you could say anything. Almost desperate as he said, “I didn’t offer to do this because I wanted you to like me, or because I wanted to know how it felt like to be your partner. I need you to know that.”

“I also need you to know that the only reason why I’m telling you all of this is that I wish I didn’t have to lie when I told my family you were my girlfriend, because I wish you could truly get to know my father… because my family likes you and you like them, and it feels good.”

Getting rid of your coat, you let it fall onto the couch beside you. “Can I talk now?”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

You nodded. “But I want to.” When you were sure he wouldn’t interrupt again, you spoke, “I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, I’m not blind, you’re handsome, and I like spending time with you...”

“But?” he asked, impatient.

“There’s not a but. Let me finish!”

He motioned for you to go on.

“This is new. And I’m... confused?” You shook your head. “Not confused. Maybe surprised?” Chuckling, you messed with your hair. “I was going to distance myself from you for a little while to figure things out. And now I feel like I wouldn’t bear it.”

He swallowed loudly. “I can give you space if that’s what you need.”

“No.” It wasn’t what you needed, it couldn’t be when you felt the most comfortable around him.

Damian sat down, watching you. He liked doing it, following the movement of your lips as you spoke, and the way your hands seemed to have a mind of their own.

“I like being just Damian,” he repeated. “But I would love to be your Damian.”

Flushed, you admitted, “I like the sound of that.”

“Would you like to be my (Name)?” he asked softly.

“I would love to.”

“We can take things slow,” he assured you, eyes dancing all over your face. “I don’t want to pressure you or myself.”

You sat next to him. “It’s fine by me.”

Damian softly smiled. He placed his hand on top of yours, gripping it as his warmth eased the coldness of your fingers.

You returned the smile. “What a week, huh?”

“Eventful,” he conceded, scooting closer to you.

“At least we had an exciting end of the year.”

He playfully narrowed his eyes. “Is the Venn diagram between your idea of excitement and your idea of anxiety a perfect circle?”

You elbowed him on the side. “It wasn’t that bad.” Turning to look at him, you added, “Was it?”

Shaking his head, he stared at your lips as he whispered, “Should we make it more exciting?”

You licked your bottom lip, lightly leaning in. “It’s only fair.”

Damian left the playfulness to the side and captured your lips between his. The kiss was short and chaste, a perfectly acceptable first kiss between people who hadn’t known what they felt for each other until a few days ago.

But you soon remembered that it didn’t have to stop there. That you didn’t want it to. So you kissed him again, and Damian allowed you to set the pace at first.

Withdrawing his hand from yours, he wrapped his arm around your neck and brought you closer, prompting you to place your farthest hand on his shoulder as you tilted your head.

You felt him smile against your lips before the pressure of his mouth on yours became harsher.

Thankfully, you wouldn’t need a new identity. You liked yours very much.

[ravenclaw-ftw]

February Formal

Prompt: None

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Ravenclaw!Reader

Word Count: 2,876

Warnings: Bad writing

Synopsis: You were both left without a date to the February Formal. With you being the quiet Ravenclaw who has been focusing on her studies, and him being the stuck up one that no one wanted to spend the night with, what will they do?

ONESHOT:

You were sitting in the library late Saturday, getting ahead on some studying for your O.W.L.S. coming up. The library was quieter than usual. Yes, it was a weekend, but there were usually some people, like yourself, still working hard to prepare for the weeks ahead. Looking up from your textbook, you observed the very few others around you, and noticed the subtly red and pink flowers around the library. Usually the library is adorned with flags of the different houses and some lanterns to light the area. Turning around you see some pink sashes covering the vaulted ceiling of the library. The girls around you are wearing more makeup and perfume than usual, you could smell it. Acting a little more flirtatious with their study group.

You had completely forgot.

Tomorrow was Valentine’s day, or better known around Hogwarts as the February Formal. Everybody who is anybody attends that ball. You knew it was coming up, but you had been so occupied with your studies that it had slipped your mind.

You hadn’t been asked to go with anyone either, so that had a helping hand in you forgetting about the formal.

You gather your things and begin the long walk to your dorm. You noticed the decorations around the corridors as well, just reminding you of what awaits tomorrow.

The last few years you have gone with groups of friends. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to do that, lots of people did. You’ve been wanting to get asked, to go with anyone really. But you did have your eyes on one Slytherin since Year 2.

The blonde headed Draco Malfoy.

Your friends have teased you before about your little crush on him, but it’s not like you could help it. Under all his attitude you knew there was some good to him. Behind that ice-cold stare, there was a soft center. You think back to that first day you really interacted with him in Year 2.

Rushing down the halls to your charms class so you weren’t late, you had tripped, and dropped your books and they scattered across the corridor. Draco, also on the verge of being late to charms, saw what had happened. He didn’t hesitate to help you though. He leaned down, picking up papers and charm books with you. He looked up and said, “Charms class eh? That’s where I’m heading,” handing you your books.

You both stood and began walking to your class. “Thank you, Draco, you didn’t have to help, now we’re both going to be late,” you thanked him. “That’s alright, I wasn’t going to make it anyways. But how do you know me? Have we met before?” he asked quizzically. “Well, no, but doesn’t everyone know you? You’re probably the most infamous Slytherin, other than your father,” you explained. “I guess you’re right, I never got your name,” he said as you stood outside of the Charms classroom, most likely late, as the door was already shut. “Y/N, my name is Y/N,” you answered. “Y/N, pretty name for a pretty Ravenclaw. Just about the most normal Ravenclaw I’ve met,” he said. You blushed and looked down, “Thanks for the, compliment?” you questioned. “It is, Ravenclaws are odd sometimes,” he chuckled.

It was a simple interaction, he even gave you a compliment, as much as a compliment Draco could give. You remember it fondly as you walked into your common room, seeing your friends lounging in the few chairs scattered around the common room.

“Y/N! You’re back, now you can help me pick out a gown for tomorrow!” Luna had yelled. “You’re telling me you haven’t had this picked out for months?” you laughed back. “Well, you know how indecisive I can be,” she said as she got up. The both of you walked down to your dorm, and to Luna’s wardrobe. She pulled out the options of gowns and laid them out on her bed.

“Which do you think I should go with, the Persian blue? Or the Egyptian blue? Oh! Or this sapphire blue!” she asked you as she felt the material of each dress. “You’re telling me those are supposed to be different colors?” you laughed at her. “Well, yes of course. Ugh, I don’t know which to wear, what color dress are you wearing?” she asked. “Honestly, I forgot the formal was tomorrow, I don’t have a dress to wear,” you explained as you walked over toward the window seat. “Y/N, how could you have forgotten? It’s all the whole school has been talking about the past week. Would you like to borrow one of my gowns?” she looked away from the dresses and toward you.

“Luna, I don’t even know if I want to go this year. I love going with you guys but..” you looked out the window, wishing to see a messenger owl with a note from Draco, asking you to the ball. “Oh, I have a date. I wouldn’t be able to go with you,” Luna said simply. You spun around, “What?! And you didn’t tell me? Who is it!” you jumped out of your seat and onto her bed, chin in your hands looking up at Luna.

“Harry Potter, I thought I told you this,” she said. “Oh girl, I would’ve remembered if you did, that’s so exciting! Do you know what he is wearing? You guys should match!” you rambled excitedly. Luna giggled, “I think just simple black dress robes, hopefully the Weasley’s don’t make him wear some of their homemade dress robes.”

“Well I definitely think you should go with the sapphire blue, it compliments your hair very well,” you explained. She nodded and tried on the dress, the sleeves drooped around her shoulders and framed her collarbones. The velvet material cascaded down her body in a mermaid shape.

“That’s the one,” you confirmed. “Okay, now your turn,” she turned toward you. “Luna, I said I don’t know if I want to go,” you explained. “What? Just because no one asked you doesn’t mean you don’t have to go! And you can’t wait around forever for Draco to get the courage to ask you,” she teased, “What you should do, is go to the ball, looking so beautiful, that he won’t be able to resist you.”

“Does he even have a date for the formal? I’m not trying to be a homewrecker,” you asked. “Y/N, no offense, but girls are really intimidated by him, I don’t think he has a date. But for some reason you’re brave enough to be friendly with him,” she explained.

“You know what, you’re right. I will go, who needs a date anyways?” you said, “do you have any other dresses that would fit me?”

“Oh yes! Of course!” she started rifling through her wardrobe. You saw a peak of a light blue sleeve tucked in the back. “Wait, Luna, what’s that one in the back there?” you asked. She pulled out the dress. A cascade of light cornflower blue tulle rolled onto the floor. “Wow, where did you get that one?” you asked Luna. “My aunt made it for me for a wedding we had to attend, try it on!” she exclaimed. You discarded your Ravenclaw robes in exchange for the gown. As soon as it was laced up in the back you turned toward the mirror. You touched the material as if it was gold.

“Wow, Y/N, now you HAVE to go to the ball, Draco will be drooling all over you!” she said.

“It’ll be an interesting night now,” you hoped.

___________________________________________________________

The next day, the day of the formal, everyone was excitedly getting ready. You and Luna helped each other with hair and makeup. She went with a simple natural makeup look, while you went for simple with a bold lip. Her silvery hair was in a braided bun, while yours was in a half up, half down look with the ends curled.

Harry came to the Ravenclaw common room to pick up Luna like a gentleman. You were excited for her as they looked good together. “Y/N, would you like to join us and walk down to the ball together?” Harry has sweetly offered. “Thank you, Harry, but you two go on and enjoy yourselves, I want to go on my own,” you explained. “Have fun, don’t wait on him to come up to you, be brave,” Luna encouraged you as they left. You nodded as you sat down on a chair, watching them leave.

You tried to hype yourself up to go down to the ballroom with everyone else. All you wanted tonight was the chance to approach Draco. Possibly to get the chance to talk with him, spend some of the night with him. Maybe even get a dance with your long-time crush.

With that, you stood up, leaving the common room. Luna was right, you are brave enough to go alone. As you walked through the corridors to the ballroom, you saw your favorite Slytherin outside of the ballroom. He was seemingly alone, leaning against the stone wall of the castle.

You stopped in your tracks, not expecting to see him so soon. You were taken aback by how good he looked. He wore all white dress robes, coincidentally matching very well with your gown. His blonde hair slicked back, and his eyes looking down. You gathered yourself and approached him, without a plan really.

As your heels clacked against the cold stone floor, he heard, and looked up at you, eyes wide.

“Hello, Draco,” you smiled.

“Y/N, wow, you look stunning,” he complimented, a full compliment this time.

“Thank you, you don’t look too bad yourself,” you said back.

It looked like he blushed, you made Draco blush. That gave the little bit of confidence you needed for tonight.

“Why aren’t you in there with everyone? Why are you out here?” you asked him timidly.

“Well, I didn’t want to show up without a date. Crabbe and Goyle both asked some Hufflepuffs to go with them to the ball,” he looked away, almost sad.

“Did you not ask anyone to go with you? I doubt anyone would turn you down if you asked,” you questioned. You wanted to know the reason why he was alone. Did he get rejected? Was he too nervous to ask someone?

“I- I don’t know. I had someone in mind I wanted to ask, but they probably wouldn’t want to go with an arse like me,” he explained.

“I highly doubt that,” you looked down kicking your feet, slightly disappointed. That someone probably wasn’t you, because you would’ve agreed to have gone with him in a heartbeat.

“Would you want to walk in there with me? You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to,” Draco asked, finally looking at you. He noticed how beautifully done your hair was, and the way your dress hung around your body, you looked like an angel. He had wanted to ask you earlier, but he didn’t think you would want to go with him. He’s asking now because, you didn’t show up with a date, and no one had come up to you yet.

“I would love to,” you smiled. He returned your smile and held out his hand, like a gentleman. You took it as you both finally walked into the ball.

The room was decorated beautifully, white and pink sashes hung above your heads and there were flowers adorning the tables. Loud muggle music bounced off the walls, it was hard to hear Draco ask you, “Do you want to sit? I can grab us some pumpkin juice,” he offered.

“I’ll grab a table,” you answered. He split off from you to grab the drinks. You looked around and saw Luna enjoying her time with Harry, she spotted you, said something to Harry, and ran up.

“Draco asked you?!” she yelled over the music. You laughed, “Kind of, we were both without dates, he’s grabbing us drinks right now, we’ll see what happens,” you answered. “Well, with you in that dress, you got the power to make him do whatever you want,” she winked as she walked back over to Harry.

Draco came back with the drinks and sat down. You smiled at him as he handed you the cup. Slowly sipping you looked around the ballroom, this is closer than you thought you’d be with him tonight. You were ecstatic. You could fall over on your arse and it wouldn’t even care you were so happy.

“Did anyone ask you to the ball tonight?” Draco asked hesitantly. “No, actually, the past 6 years of being at this place no one has asked me. I’ve always came here with friends. I only didn’t do that tonight because everyone else got a date,” you answered and looked down. “Are you kidding?” he looked baffled. “What?” you asked, nervous that he would make fun of you or something.

“I just-“ he was cut off by the DJ saying there would be a slow song playing next.

“Would you like a dance with me?” he stood and held out his hand. You nodded and took his hand, still curious about what he was going to say, but you followed him to the dance floor anyways.

He placed your hand on his shoulder and took your waist. You looked up at him and blushed. This has made your night, it could not get better than this.

After swaying to the music for some time, your head on his shoulder, you looked up and asked, “Why were you so surprised earlier when I said I’ve never been asked to a ball before?”

He looked down to you, noticing the height difference and smiling, “Well, I’m just surprised no one would ask someone as beautiful as you to the ball.”

With your newfound bravery, you asked, “Well, in that case, why haven’t you ever asked me?”

“I thought guys would be begging to go with you, that’s why I never bothered asking. Why would you say yes to me anyways?” he questioned.

“Well that’s a silly question now isn’t it? I’m here with you,” as you leaned your head back on his shoulder, still swaying to the music. “Admittedly I’ve been waiting years for you to ask me,” you mumbled into his shoulder.

“If I had known that I would’ve asked you the second I laid eyes on you during first year,” he lifted your chin up to look at him, “But I was such a child then, I didn’t have the guts to ever say anything,” he said.

You giggled, “Technically you still didn’t we ended up here together because we both didn’t have the guts to say anything,” you teased.

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing right now, it was like a dream come true.

“And what do you mean first year? We never even spoke back then?” you asked quizzically.

“Who wouldn’t notice a beauty like you from across the great hall? In the library? Bloody hell, I almost failed our Charms class together because I couldn’t stop looking at you,” he said matter of factly.

The slow music has long since stopped but both of you have been swaying in the middle of the dance floor while people danced wildly around you. But it felt like it was just you two in the whole ballroom. You smiled up at him, admiring his sparkling eyes in the dim light. He leaned down to press his lips to yours, in a tender, careful kiss, almost as to not scare you away. Pressing back, you leaned into his touch, wanting nothing more than this for the past few years.

The kiss was interrupted by a squeal near you, your broke the kiss to turn and see what or who, that was. You saw Luna and Harry dancing near you two, and Luna got overly excited seeing what just went down. Draco looked over and only saw Harry above the crowd.

“Potter… you won’t ruin this for me too,” he glared at him. “Draco don’t blame this on me, just go take your girl and enjoy the night, don’t ruin it for everyone,” he stated.

“He’s right, let’s go somewhere more private,” you tugged on his robes, drawing his attention away from his made up drama.

Draco grabbed your hand and pulled you out away from your friends and led you out of the ballroom. “What’s your favorite dessert?” he asked as he slowed down, turning toward you. “What?” you giggle. “I have the house elves wrapped around my finger, now what’s your favorite dessert so I can get it for you,” he answers simply. You ponder for a moment, before answering, “Bundt cake.”

“Very odd choice, but alright,” he answered.

The two of you enjoyed a small bundt cake in the courtyard that night, his jacket around your shoulders as it was a cool February night.

“Thank you for tonight Draco, it’s been a perfect night,” you looked up at him after finishing the cake.

He looked over to you, and smiled, “Thank you for being the perfect date,” as he leaned down to kiss you. A perfect ending to a perfect night, it all worked out as “planned”.

[teenwolffanclub-me]

Season 1, Episode 5: The Tell (Part Two)

Hey there beautiful reader! If you’re new here, this is a series I’m writing where each chapter is an episode from the first season of Teen Wolf. If you’ve been here before, hey! I missed you! Previous and future chapters are linked at the end of each part if you want to catch up.

Pairing: Stiles x Psychic! Reader (eventually)

P.S. Scott gets lost in la la land and Beacon Hills might have a mountain lion problem??

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

I sighed into my locker and let my head drop against the cool metal. I forgot to do my calculus homework. Again. 

I couldn't blame myself too much. I was still shaken up by the events of last week, although I’d done my best to forget about it. No one had seen any signs of the alpha since the video store. Jackson was acting really strange, though. Most of the time I saw him he looked sick and jumpy. Something was just off. He did get closer to the alpha than me, so maybe he was just processing in his own way. 

Lydia had been weird right after, but she seemed to push whatever remaining fear she had into the back of her mind. The strangest part, though, was that both of them had told people the animal that attacked was a mountain lion.

“Oh, God.” I heard Allison grumble from beside me.

I glanced over to see a bunch of balloons floating out of her locker. She tried her best to push them back in, and looked around nervously. She pulled out a card and read it over quickly before turning to glare at me.

“Really?”

I just grinned back. Lydia somehow knew it was her birthday today, so we filled her locker with all her favorites. Plus the balloons to embarrass her just a little. A moment later, Scott walked up.

He inspected the scene and put the pieces together quickly. “Is it your birthday?”

“No. No. Nope. I mean...yes.” She shoved the remaining loose balloons back inside the metal cage and frowned. “Please don't tell anybody. I don't even know how they found out.”

I avoided her glare and shut my locker before crossing my arms and leaning against it. 

“Why didn't you tell me?” Scott sounded a little hurt.

“Because...” She hesitated, looking between us. “I’m seventeen.”

Oh. That was news to me. Scott blinked, shocked. 

“That’s exactly the reaction I’m trying to avoid.” She muttered, pulling a textbook out before slamming her locker with a slam.

“Hey, I totally get it. You had to repeat a year because of all the moving around. Right?” That would've been my guess, too. It was pretty obvious if you knew her at all. 

But she looked surprised by his answer. So surprised that she rushed forward and gave him a kiss. I looked away quickly, clearing my throat awkwardly. 

“What was that for?” Scott asked, and I figured it was safe to look again. 

“For being the first person ever, literally, to make the right assumption.” She grinned at him, and he returned the look with a awe-struck expression of his own.

They were really good together. A little too easily distracted, maybe, but it was clear that they were in love. I just wondered if they knew it yet. 

“I’ll catch you guys later.” She walked away with one final wave. 

I moved to head toward class, but Scott caught my arm gently. I turned and looked at him expectantly. 

“You okay?” His big brown eyes looked at me with concern and I sighed. He always tried to take care of everybody. He’d checked on me a million times since the video store attack, and I’d told him I was fine, but he was relentless. 

“Yes, Scott.” I confirmed with a roll of my eyes. “I was okay yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, too. You don't need to keep worrying about me.”

He didn't look convinced. “Just...if you need anything. I’m here. We both are. Me and Stiles, I mean. You can talk to us.”

I felt my face grow hot at the mention of his name. Things had been normal after our weird almost kiss. Utterly and completely normal. We hadn't talked about it since. We hadn't talked much at all, actually. Just typical school stuff. Not that I minded. 

“Thanks.” I gave him a genuine smile and turned to leave. 

I really needed to get to class. I was already falling behind, since my mind had been preoccupied lately. By the time I was done talking to Scott, the hallways were empty. I picked up the pace, hoping I could still make it before the late bell. I glanced down, and almost immediately slammed into someone’s back. 

I raised my head quickly, ready to apologize, but stopped when I saw who it was. I let out a huff, my shoulders tensing. Derek Hale was standing in front of me, looking threatening as ever. I hadn't seen him in nearly two weeks, and I preferred it that way. He gave me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. 

“Why are you always here?” I found myself asking without thinking about the consequences. He was way too old to be in a high school. I was honestly surprised no one had ever called him out for hanging around here without actually being a student.

He took a step forward, and I took one back. His crystal blue eyes trailed over me from head to toe, and I shifted uncomfortably. “You don't need to be afraid.”

“Well, excuse me.” I scoffed. “The last time I saw you here, you tried kidnapping me.”

His head cocked to the side and his eyebrows rose in agreement. “True. But I’m not here for you.”

“Then why are you here?” I swallowed nervously. Trouble seemed to follow him wherever he went. Just his presence put me on edge.

He continued walking toward me, and I kept moving back until I ran into the lockers harshly. I gasped, surprised at the sudden contact, my breathing picking up with my rising anxiety.

He didn’t stop until he was only half a foot away. I watched him expectantly, waiting for him to grab me or rip my throat out or something. I hadn’t even been able to get away from him when he was almost dead, so I was very aware that my chances or survival if he wanted to hurt me were slim to none.

“If you ever want to learn some control, you know where to find me.” His eyes trailed over my face as he spoke. And then, he was gone.

I watched him walk away, more confused than ever. Control? Over what? I didn’t have much time to think about it, because Jackson came stumbling out of the boys locker room just in front of me. He looked sickly, his normally tanned skin white as paper, and he was sweating profusely.

He looked around nervously, itching at the back of his neck, before his eyes met mine.

“You okay?” I asked tentatively, not sure what was even wrong with him. Maybe he had the flu or something?

“Fine.” He muttered, his gaze flickering around the hallway almost obsessively.

He turned and stalked away from me with a shake of his head. That was odd. He’d been acting so weird ever since the video store. I watched his retreating back, then turned toward the direction Derek had gone. At once I realized that they had both come out of the locker room. So Derek was here...for Jackson?

My mind was swimming with possibilities as I finally made my way to class.

                                                   ————————

I walked through the school’s parking lot, trying to find Allison. I waited nearly ten minutes by our lockers but she never showed. I hadn’t seen her at lunch, either, come to think of it.

“Hey,” I jumped at the sudden presence beside me, but relaxed at the sight of familiar brown eyes. “I need you to do your witchy thing.”

I stopped and looked at Stiles with raised eyebrows. “My what?”

“Your thing.” He flailed his arms wildly, seemingly in a hurry.

“I don’t have a thing.” I said slowly, not sure what he was getting at.

“You have a thing.” He raised his eyebrows and huffed when I just stared at him. “Okay. Look. I haven’t been able to find Scott all day and his phone is going straight to voicemail. I just need you to tell me if he’s in trouble.”

I finally realized that he was talking about my visions and rolled my eyes before continuing on my way. “That is so not how it works.”

He let out a little ha and clapped his hands together with a jump. “So you admit you have a thing!”

“Can’t help you, Stiles.” I called over my shoulder and shook my head. I had no idea how my visions worked, but I knew I couldn’t just turn them on and off whenever I wanted. 

He let out an impatient groan and jogged up to my side again. “I’m worried, Y/N. Very worried.”

There was still no sign of Allison anywhere. I stopped again and turned all the way around, hoping to catch a glimpse of her car. It didn’t look like it was even in the parking lot.

“He’s probably with Allison.” I decided. “She’s been gone all day too.”

He hesitated for a moment, as if weighing various options in his head. Then he reached out and wrapped a hand around my wrist gently. Before I could even fully process that he was touching me, I was being dragged through the parking lot. I nearly tripped over my own feet as I tried to keep up with his quick pace. I swear, he never slows down. 

“What are you doing?” I breathed, dodging a few people as he weaved us between parked cars. 

“You're helping me find him.” He announced, not even bothering to phrase it like a question. 

We arrived at his Jeep a moment later and he pulled open the passenger door before looking at me expectantly. I stood firmly in place. 

“I have homework.” It wasn't even a lie. I was behind in almost every class due to the whole almost being attacked by a murderous werewolf thing. 

“I’ll do it for you.” He offered quickly, gesturing for me to get into the car. 

I mean, that didn't sound half bad...

“Fine.” With a resigned huff I slid inside. Stiles shut the door quickly and jogged around the front to get into the driver’s seat. 

Within minutes the school was long behind us. I didn't know where he was going, but I figured he had some kind of plan. He always did. We hadn't spoken since he turned the car on, and I was beginning to feel a little awkward. Should we talk about it? We should talk about it. Right?

I opened my mouth to do just that, but instead a totally different stream of words came out. “Do you think it has anything to do with Derek?”

Stiles’ head turned in my direction so fast I was afraid he may have given himself whiplash. “Derek?”  

“Uh.” Yeah, that was so not the right thing to say. I wasn't even planning on telling him about our weird interaction this morning. Why brain? Why?

“Why would Scott be with him?” He pressed, still looking at me. 

“Can you focus on the road?” My voice rose with worry and his eyes twitched at me before he complied with pursed lips. “I may have seen him this morning, and the last time he was at the school he was looking for Scott, so—”

He slammed on the breaks so suddenly that I launched forward, my seatbelt barely saving me from faceplanting into the dash. 

“Y/N!” He snapped incredulously. “You have to tell me these things!”

“I just did.” I looked at him with wide eyes as I readjusted myself in my seat. My gaze moved behind us to make sure no one was coming. This was not the first time he’d abruptly stopped in the middle of the road, and it really wasn't helping with my theory that every time I was in this car my life was somehow in danger. 

He scoffed and made a U turn, taking us back in the direction we’d just come from. “Did he say anything to you? What was he doing?”

“I don't know.” I decided to gloss over the fact that he had indeed said something very weird to me. “I think he was talking to Jackson.”

“Jackson? Why would he be talking to Jackson?” He, thankfully, kept his eyes on the road, but I saw them twitch again. I noticed he did that a lot. I wasn't sure if it was an anxious tick, or it meant he was thinking, or what. It was just a Stiles thing. One of his mannerisms that made him all the more endearing. 

I shrugged. “Like anyone knows what goes through that guys head. Maybe he threatened him or something. Jackson came out of the locker room looking pretty shaken up.”

“No. No, that doesn’t make any sense.” He mumbled, more to himself than me.

A few minutes later, we were sitting outside mine and Scott’s houses. We’d already driven past Allison’s, all of them proving empty. Her car was nowhere to be seen. Stiles started the Jeep again, and we were on our way to Beacon Hills Preserve. He was persistent about checking the Hale house, despite my efforts to convince him how utterly stupid that idea was.

Nothing good had ever happened there. I had no desire to go back, but I’d found out over the last few weeks that he could be even more stubborn than me—something I didn’t think was possible—so I didn’t push too hard. I knew it was a losing fight.

He slowed down at the entrance of the preserve when we stumbled upon Allison’s car parked next to a trailhead. I found myself chewing on my bottom lip, growing nervous. Stiles looked at me with raised eyebrows, and I frowned.

“That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe they went on a hike.”

He scoffed and continued driving as far as the Jeep would go. When Derek’s withered house came into view, we stopped.

“Do you always spy on your friends?” I tried to get comfortable in my seat, assuming we’d be here for awhile.

He shrugged from beside me. “Only with probable cause.”

Not more than thirty seconds later, we saw a woman who I recognized as Kate Argent approaching with two men flanked at her sides.

Stiles completely spazzed out and ducked down in his seat. “Who the hell are they?”

Each of the men were carrying large guns, and Kate had one strapped across her chest. They easily let themselves right in. I mean, there wasn’t much stopping them. There were more holes than not in that thing. You could barely even call it a house anymore.

“I know one of them is Allison’s aunt.” I breathed, not feeling any better now that they were out of sight.

“That’s bad. Very very bad.” His eyes practically bulged out of his head and his chest was rising and falling erratically as he started panicking. He moved to get out of the car and I jerked forward to grab his arm.

“What the hell are you doing? Do you have a freaking death wish?” For some reason, I was whispering. It just felt like we were going to be caught any second.

Then, the unmistakable sounds of struggling and gunshots echoed through the woods.

“Those are hunters, Y/N! Scott could be in there.” Stiles started pulling against me again, but I only tightened my grip.

“And we’re human. What are either of us going to do?”

He stopped struggling for a moment and glanced toward the back of the car. “I have a bat.”

More groans and shouts came from the house. Both of our heads whipped in that direction at the sound. I leaned forward in my seat, trying to get a better view, but it was too dark inside to see anything. Plus, the sun was going down, which didn’t help.

Suddenly, Derek came barreling out the front door at top speed. He was shirtless, for some reason, and looked really shaken up. He didn’t even glance in our direction as he sprinted through the trees. Stiles and I watched him pass by in stunned silence.

A few seconds later, Kate and the two men exited as well. Stiles ducked down beside me again, but I was too curious to move. What were they even doing? It didn’t look like any of them were hurt despite the gunshots and yelling.

My heart dropped into my stomach as they started walking our way.

“We need to go.” I breathed, tapping him on the arm quickly.

“It’s fine, you can’t see anything down here.” He shook his head, seemingly confident in the anatomy of his Jeep.

I looked at him with narrowed eyes. “They can still see the car, Stiles!”

His face dropped in realization and he sprang back upright. After fumbling with the keys for a few seconds, we were fleeing the scene quickly. I watched them the whole way and, thankfully, it didn’t look like they’d spotted us.

We’d barely gotten out of the preserve when Stiles’ phone chimed in his pocket. He rushed to pull it free, swerving into the wrong lane due to his frenzied state. I braced my hands against the dashboard and gave him an incredulous look as he checked the notification.

“God, Scott. Finally.” He breathed a sigh of relief, but his face quickly changed as he read the message.

“What is it?” My stomach tightened uncomfortably with anxiety. That look couldn’t be good.

“Allison’s dad shot an animal at the school.” He shoved the phone back into his pocket.

“Okay?” I was so beyond confused. Why was this a big deal? “What animal?”

He glanced my way briefly, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. “A mountain lion.” 

Episode 5, Part One            Episode 6

[lifeofresulullah]

The Life of The Prophet Muhammad(pbuh): The Battle of Uhud and Afterwards

The Incident of Ifk: Part 1

The group of munafiqs who seemingly believed in God but did not actually believe always looked for an opportunity to disturb the Messenger of God and his Companions. They resorted to all kinds of methods to attain their aims. They even slandered the privacy of the Messenger of God and acted arrogantly and meanly.

The Incident of Ifk is the slander by Abdullah b. Ubay, the leader of the munafiqs, against Hazrat Aisha. The incident took place as follows:

According to what we learnt from Hazrat Aisha, when the Messenger of God went on an expedition, he drew lots among the names of his wives and took that wife with him. On the expedition of Sons of Mustaliq, Aisha’s name was drawn.

Hazrat Aisha related the incident as follows:

“I was on an expedition with the Messenger of God. This expedition took place after the verse of hijab was sent down. Therefore, I was carried in a kind of chair and when we stopped for a break, I was put down in the chair. We travelled like that.  

The Messenger of God (pbuh) was returning from the expedition of Sons of Mustaliq. When we approached Madinah, we stopped somewhere for a break. We spent some part of the night there. Then, the Prophet ordered to set out.

When the order to move was given, I left the army alone to answer the call of the nature. After that, I went near the camel that I had ridden. When I checked my chest, I noticed that my necklace made of Yemen beads was lost. (That necklace had been given to her by her mother, Umm Ru­man.) I went back to look for my necklace. However, while I was looking for my necklace, I missed the army. I thought those who had joined the expedition would never leave before I was in my chair. However, those who served me had put my chair on the camel and made the camel move. They thought I was in the chair; the women at that time were very light; they were not large or heavy. They ate little. Therefore, when the servants lifted the chair to put it on the camel, they did not notice that I was not in the chair.  I was a small and weak woman. They moved the camel.

I found my necklace after the army left. I returned to the place where the army had stopped for a break. However, I could not find anybody there. Then, I went to the place where I had been. I wrapped myself in my sheet and lay down. I thought they would return and look for me when they found out that I was not in the chair. Meanwhile I fell asleep.  

Safwan b. Muattal always stayed behind the army and checked if there was anything left behind and then took those things to the army.

Safwan came to the place where I was toward the morning. When he noticed a sleeping person, he stopped and recognized me. He had seen me before the verse of hijab was sent down.

When Safwan saw me, he said in surprise, ‘Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun = To God we belong and to Him is our return’.

I woke up when I heard his voice. I covered my face with my sheet.

I did not talk to him and I did not hear anything but [“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun”].

Then, Safwan made his camel sit. He stepped on the front foot of the camel so that I would mount the camel. He said, ‘Mount’ and went back.

I mounted the camel. He held the halter of the camel and started to walk quickly to catch up with the army.

We could not catch up with the soldiers for a long time.

Finally, when the army stopped for a break, Safwan took the camel there”

The Leader of the Munafiqs Makes Use of the Situation

While Safwan b. Muattal was bringing Hazrat Aisha on the camel, Abdullah b. Ubay, the leader of the munafiqs, saw them and asked, “Who is that person?”

They said, “It is Aisha.”

Abdullah b. Ubay, who had been discredited among his tribe and who was regarded as a negative person, wanted to make use of this simple incident. He expressed his evil intention there:

“By God! Neither Aisha nor that man will be acquitted of this incident!”

He uttered many other mean sentences.

The rumor that Abdullah b. Ubay, the leader of the munafiqs, caused spread among the soldiers of the army.  

Hazrat Aisha said,

“The slanderers uttered many words against me  and everybody was talking about me. By God, I was not aware of any of them!”

Evil Slander

As it is seen, the incident happened without any blemish. Hazrat Aisha was left behind due to a reasonable and legitimate excuse. After a while, Safwan b. Muattal, who was appointed to check for the things that the army left and return them to their owners, who was a very simple-hearted man and who turned out to be infertile, found her and took her to the place where the army was.

According to the Quran, the prophets are more valuable to the believers than themselves. The wives of the Prophet are like the mothers of the believers. It was definitely forbidden to marry any of the wives of the Prophet even after the death of the Prophet.

Therefore, under the light of such definite and clear signs, it was impossible for a real Muslim who believed in God and His Messenger to say bad things or even to think of bad things about any of the wives of the Prophet both when the Prophet was alive or after he died.  

What could have been more natural and necessary for a real believer and Muslim who believed in God and His Messenger and who obeyed their orders and prohibitions to make the wife of the Prophet, whom he loved more than his own self, mount the camel with respect and lead her to the place where the army had stopped?

Safwan b. Muattal, who was a real believer and Muslim, and who was deprived of masculine characteristics, fulfilled that religious duty.

However, the munafiqs, who had illnesses in their hearts, who said, ‘we believed in God’ but who did not believe heartily and who always tried to set believers against one another, and especially Abdullah b. Ubay b. Salul, made use of this opportunity and slandered Hazrat Aisha. His aim was to be freed from the negative looks that were directed at him, to disturb the kind heart of the Messenger of God, to set Muslims against one another and to shake their faith to one another.

Hazrat Aisha is Unaware of the Rumor for a Long Time

For a long time, Hazrat Aisha was not aware of the incident of slander that was started by the leader of the munafiqs, Abdullah b. Ubay and that was spread by Hassan b. Thabit, Mistah b. Uthatha, Hamna bint Jahsh and some gullible Muslims that were deceived by the munafiqs. Hazrat Aisha narrates the incident as follows:  

“When we arrived in Madinah, I fell ill with a fever for a whole month. The inhabitants of Madinah were all talking about the slander, but I did not know anything about it. The Messenger of God and my parents had also heard about it but they did not say anything to me about it.

However, I was doubtful due to the fact that I did not see the tenderness I used to see from the Prophet (pbuh) while I was sick. He would enter upon us and ask, “How is the patient?” Then, he would leave. I did not know anything about what the slanderers had uttered.”

Although the Messenger of God, Hazrat Abu Bakr and Aisha’s mother heard the rumors, they did not say anything to Aisha. However, Aisha was worried about the attitude of the Messenger of God. Nevertheless, she did not know the reason.

How and from Whom did Hazrat Aisha Learn about the Slander?

Hazrat Aisha narrates from whom and how she learnt about the slander as follows:

“More than twenty nights had passed after my illness. I had got over the illness and I was in the period of recuperation.

We did not have toilets next to our houses like non-Arabs did due to the stink. We went outside the city of Madinah to answer the call of the nature. Women went there every night to relieve themselves.

One night, I went out with the mother of Mistah b. Uthatha to Manasi to relieve ourselves. When she tripped by stepping on her covering, she said, ‘May Mistah fall,’ or ‘Damn Mistah!’ I said,

‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son?’ She kept silent. She did not answer me.

She tripped for the second time. She said, ‘‘May Mistah fall,’ or ‘Damn Mistah!’

I said,

‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son?’ She kept silent again.

She tripped for the third time and cursed, ‘May Mistah fall,’

I said, ‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son? How can you curse a person who was present in the Battle of Badr? She replied,

‘I curse him due to what he said against you.’

I asked, ‘What did he say about me?’

Thereupon, Umm Mistah told me what the slanderers had said. I became extremely ill. I could not even relieve myself and returned home. I cried so much that I thought my lungs would break into pieces.”

[theultimatefanficwriter]

True Friends-Monodam x Reader

Completely platonic relationship Requested by Paigeloime on Wattpad

Trigger warning: Suicidal reader, angst

You were still in shock.

You still couldn't believe you were stuck in a...a 'killing game'. How could you accept such a fact? It was such a far fetched idea!

But regardless, here you were. And every day you were scared it would be your last. You stayed away from everyone, even the seemingly friendly Kaede, Kaito and Gonta. You couldn't be sure it wasn't just a cover to get close to you so they could kill you.

You couldn't trust anyone here, no matter how badly you wanted to.

Not to mention there were those annoying 'Monocubs' around that popped up randomly. They just made the situation even worse.

Well, the green one, Monodam, you think his name was, wasn't too bad. He was quieter than the others, and seemed to want peace, unlike his siblings who only wanted the killing game to continue.

Again, though, you couldn't be sure it wasn't a ruse. He was one of Monokuma's children, after all, and Monokuma wanted anything but peace.

Eventually you started to believe you were just being paranoid thanks to Kaede's constant optimistic attitude and her bringing everyone together under the shared goal of escaping.

Then she was found guilty for Rantaro's murder.

It seemed so unlikely. Kaede? Murder? You would think that the only way you could use those two words in the same sentence is if the words 'would never' between them. But here you were. Sure, she was trying to kill the mastermind to end the killing game, but still. That just strengthened your belief not to trust anyone.

From then on after that trial, you only left your room for food, and nothing else. You also tried to make sure only to go to the cafeteria when no one else was there, but you weren't always successful.

Kaito would attempt to talk to you, try to cheer you up and make you his 'sidekick', but you'd just cower away. Tenko would offer to protect you from the 'degenerate males', but you'd decline her offer and leave as quickly as possible. Kirumi would offer to make you something to eat, but you'd just grab something yourself and head back to your room.

Shuichi and Kaito still tried to include you in things. They'd knock on your door almost daily to ask you to join them in activities. Most of the time you'd stay quiet until they left. Eventually, even they stopped.

It's been a few days since then, and you were currently laying on your bed, staring at posters on the wall opposite side of your bed. They were of some movie you, as the Ultimate Actress, were in. You looked at yourself in those posters and thought back on the memories. You were happy then. You had no worries.

You let out a sigh as you picked at your skin anxiously. You hated being all alone. You preferred being around others. But you just couldn't risk it. You were too afraid that somebody would kill you.

"Rise and shine, Ursine!"

You jumped in surprise at the sound of the Monocubs' introduction words. Your head shot to the middle of the room, and there stood Monodam. You blinked, staring at him for a moment. "Um...h-hello?" You greeted him quietly.

"Why hello, bear." Monodam said to you. "I have noticed that you have not been interacting with your friends. Is there a problem?"

You continued to look at the small robotic bear as you slowly threw your feet over the side of the bed. "I...I don't have any friends here." You muttered.

"That is not true!" Monodam argued. "Everybody here is your friend!"

You shook your head. "I can't risk that belief." You told the Monocub quietly. "A potential friend is also a potential killer." You shook your head vigorously. "I'm way too scared to risk that."

Monodam let out a robotic hum, which you assumed was supposed to be equivalent to a 'hmm' sound. "What if I were to be your friend?" The green bear asked.

Your eyes widened. "I-I'm sorry?" You stammered. "You? My friend?"

The bear nodded. "Correct. That way you would not be frightened. I will make sure you are not harmed as we 'hang out'."

You stared at the bear for a long time, unsure how to process this information. Sure, the green Monocub was the one you would say you "trusted" the most, but that was a very loose "trust". You weren't sure if you trusted anyone. Although, Monodam did always seem to want everyone to get along, so...maybe this could be a good way to get out of your room for once?

You sighed and shrugged, standing on your feet. "Alright, fine." You agreed. "Are you sure you won't get in trouble with your dad or siblings for protecting me, though?"

Monodam shook his head. "If it is only for one day, everything should be fine." He hobbled towards the door, which you found kinda cute, causing you to cover your mouth to stifle a giggle. You walked over and opened the door for the small robot. He walked out, and you followed, closing the door behind you.

"So, where are we going?" You asked, looking down at your new 'friend'.

"That is up to you." Monodam answered. "We could head to the recreational room. Or the swimming pool opened up, as well as your research lab."

You stopped walking for a moment. "Wait, my research lab opened up?" You asked.

The robotic bear nodded. "Correct."

You nodded. "Then we're headed there." You told him. "Lead the way."

Monodam led you to a bright red door with a drawing of two stage lights crossing over one another. You placed your hand on the doorknob and turned it. As you opened it, your eyes widened as you took in your surroundings. At the back of the room was a stage, one that reminded you so much of your happiest memories. There were props and backdrops and cameras. It made you feel so...safe.

You walked slowly up to the stage, the soft metallic thumps behind you letting you know that Monodam was following you. You went to the side and walked up on the stage, turning and taking in your surroundings. You felt a smile start to form on your lips, for the first time in days.

"You seem much happier." Monodam pointed out in his usual robotic tone. You turned to look at him. The robotic bear was standing in front of a row of chairs that were placed in front of the stage.  

You gave the small robot a genuine smile and nodded. "I am." You confirmed. "This is the first time I've felt this happy since getting here." As you continued to look around, a thought hit you, and you gasped, turning to look Monodam in the eyes. "Oh! Let me re-enact a scene from my favorite movie I've been in!" You offered. "It'll be a bit difficult without anyone reacting to my line but-"

"Oh, we have a solution for that!" Monodam interrupted. He hopped onto the stage and went into the wings. He soon pulled out a rack of grey mannequins. With a bit of struggling, the small robo-bear managed to pull one off, getting it to stand on it's feet. "You just need to enter it's settings, and it will be your acting partner!"

You felt your smile grow even wider. "This...this is amazing." You told the green bear. "Thank you so much." You flashed him a grin. "So with this I can re-enact the scene perfectly! Go wait in the seats! I'll be ready soon!" You rushed off behind stage, grabbing the rack and pulling them with you.

About half an hour later you were ready, and preformed your favorite scene from your favorite movie you had been in. The acting bots were almost exactly like your costars in the actual movie. You had such a fun time re-doing the scene that when you were finished with it, you were smiling like an idiot. You heard a slow, rhythmic clang, and you saw that Monodam was clapping. You giggled and bowed, the acting bots following suit before walking back to their rack and deactivating.

"So, how was it?" You asked the green Monocub. "And be honest."

"It was spectacular!" Monodam praised in his monotone voice. Despite that, you could still detect the excitement in it, which made you smile. "I would expect nothing less from the Ultimate Actress!"

You felt yourself blush from the praise. "That's really sweet, Monodam." You said, smiling. "And...thank you. For taking me here. I really needed this." You hopped down from the stage and walked over to him, leaning down and giving the small robo-bear and hug. Monodam didn't react for a moment, seemingly confused. Eventually he placed his arms around you. You pulled apart from him, still smiling. "I think I might try hanging around the others again." You informed him.

The green bear's head shot up. "You mean you are going to make friends?!" He exclaimed.

You covered your mouth and giggled. "We'll see, Monodam." You said, making your way to the exit. "I had a lot of fun. Maybe we can hang out again if your dad and siblings will let you." You smiled and waved goodbye to him as you made your way to the cafeteria.

It was around dinner time, so your appearance in the cafeteria surprised everyone. They all stared at you, which made you feel a bit uncomfortable, but you simple swallowed back the feeling and sat down at the table. You were nestled between Kaito and Shuichi, and were in front of Keebo and Kokichi. Eventually everyone looked away from you, and Kirumi made you a plate to eat. The four around you, however, began to bombard you with questions.

"Where have you been all this time, Y/N?" Keebo asked. "Have you been feeling ill?"

"Have you been plotting a muuuurder?!" Kokichi accused in a playful tone. At least you think it was playful. You never knew with him.

"How come you never answered Shuichi and me?" Kaito questioned, placing a hand on your shoulder. "We've been tryin' to ask you to be apart of our nightly training sessions! It's a great bonding exercise!"

"It...actually is." Shuichi agreed quietly.

You looked between the four of, giggling. "Well, in order." You began. "In my room being scared for my life, so no, not ill." You answered, pointing at Keebo. You turned to Kokichi and pointed to him. "No." You turned and pointed at Kaito "I was scared to trust anybody after the whole thing with Kaede. I needed space." Lastly you pointed to Shuichi. "I'd love to give it a shot now." You looked between the astronaut trainee and the detective. "If you'll still have me?"

Kaito beamed at threw his arm around your shoulders, pulling you into your side. You let out a startled yelp as you fell out of your seat. You laughed along with the others, and for the first time in a while, you felt happy. You felt like you had real friends.

For a while, you were really happy. You became pretty close friends with Kaito and Shuichi, and you and Monodam actually hung out quite often. The two of you of you visited your research lab many times, and you performed scenes and sometimes entire television episodes you were apart of. You actually considered the Monocub a good friend. Sure, he was one of the ones who brought you here, but you felt like he was different.

The green robo-bear seemed to actually care about you. You've been able to read between the lines whenever he spoke, so now you could mostly make out which emotions the bear was expressing. Because of this, you could tell that whenever he spoke to you, he seemed to actually care about you, and actually consider you a friend.

At the moment, you had just finished re-enacting an episode of a soap opera you had been in. You smiled and bowed as the acting bots returned to the rack as normal. Monodam clapped as normal. You hopped off the stage and sat beside him. "You know, I never thought I'd become friends with a Monocub." You admitted. "But you're really nice, Monodam."

"All I want is for everyone to be friends." The robot responded, looking up at you. "You are the first one to take me seriously."

"Well, I can understand why." You sighed. "You are one of the ones who brought us here, so trusting you might be a bit hard." You smiled softly at him and pat his head. "But I'm really grateful you came to me the other day. I'm not scared anymore. I mean, I'm still a bit paranoid that someone will kill again, but I've spent so much time with everyone, I'm starting to think that won't happen."

"That makes me happy to hear." Monodam gave you what you had come to understand to be a smile. "I hope that is the case. I just want everyone can be friends."

"That would be nice." You agreed, leaning back in the chair. "I really hope it can happen."

Of course, that was just wishful thinking.

The next day, Ryoma was found dead during Himiko's magic act, which you had only now heard about. You stared at the bones that were once the Ultimate Tennis Pro as the blood stained water pooled around everyone's feet.

And you passed out.

The rest of the students noticed as you fell to the ground. Kaito and Shuichi got to you first, Kaito frantically checking for a pulse. When he found one, he let out a relieved sigh. "She's alright. Just shocked, probably." He informed everyone. He turned his gaze to Gonta. "Hey, Gonta. Mind taking her to her room?"

The bug lover nodded, gently picking you up bridal style. "Of course! Gonta gentleman! Gonta make sure Y/N gets to her room safe!" He headed out of the gym and made his way to the dorms, where he entered your room, placed you on your bed, and quickly left, like a true gentleman.

You blinked open your eyes, finally coming too. As you opened them fully, you noticed a certain green robo-bear sitting at the foot of your bed. "M-Monodam?" You asked, rubbing your eyes.

The Monocub turned his head to look at you. "Rise and shine, Ursine." He greeted you, though his usual tone was more solemn than usual, even through his robotic voice. "I am happy to see you are alright. When you fainted I got concerned."

You frowned as you finally recalled what you had witnessed.

Ryoma Hoshi was dead.

You grabbed your arms and shivered. "Yeah, I...I'm fine." You muttered. "Just...I was starting to trust everyone, and suddenly someone gets killed again." You felt tears threaten to spill from your eyes. You sat up in your bed and hugged your knees. "Monodam...why did you bring us here?" You asked the Monocub quietly.

You didn't get an answer for a long time. "I...cannot tell you that, Y/N." Was his eventual reply.

You sighed in annoyance. "I figured you'd say that." You mumbled. "But...I thought since we'd gotten close..."

"We have become very close friends, indeed." Monodam let out a robotic sigh. "But I am forbidden from revealing that information. I am truly sorry."

You gripped your knees tighter as the tears began to fall slowly but surely. "I...I'd like to be alone, Monodam." You said quietly.

"Are you sure, Y/N?" The Monocub asked you, walking over to you and tilting his robotic head. "You seem to still be in shock. Perhaps having a friend would-"

"I said leave me alone!" You screamed, pushing Monodam away from you before burying your face in your knees.

Monodam stumbled back. When he caught his footing, he watched you for a few minutes as you sobbed softly. Eventually he let out a robotic sigh. "So long, bear well." He said sadly before disappearing.

When you heard the telltale sound of the Monocub's leaving, you glanced over to where Monodam had been. Seeing that he was gone, you grabbed your pillow and clutched it to your chest, sobbing louder, tears flowing freely now.

You had no one left. Sure, Monodam still seemed to be on your side...for the most part. But even he is putting this killing game before you. So maybe your friendship with you isn't as important as he had made it out to be.

And now another one of your 'friends' had killed someone. You really couldn't trust anyone. Could you?

You stayed in your room the whole time everyone else was investigating. The others occasionally came to check up on you, but you waved them off quickly, until you eventually told them all to just leave you alone.

You didn't want to go to another trial. You didn't want to watch another execution. You couldn't take it.

You slowly stood from your bed and made your way to your door. Slowly opening and peeking out it, you didn't see anybody, so you quickly left your room and began to make your way to you research lab. You managed to get there without being spotted. You closed the door behind you and quickly made your way to the backstage. Grabbing some rope you found in the prop section, you tied the rope into a noose and made your way to the catwalk and tied the end of the rope around the railing. You made your way back down and grabbed a step ladder, placing it under the noose.

You swallowed as you climbed up the ladder and placed the rope slowly around your neck. With shaking legs, you kicked the step ladder out from under you, and gasped as you felt the rope begin to suffocate you.

Your vision was starting to go black when your lab doors were suddenly kicked open. You heard running footsteps and shouting footsteps, but you couldn't make any of them out from the ringing in your ears. You noticed shapes run up to you, but they were only shadows. Then suddenly, you fell to the ground with a thud, and you sucked in a large gulp of air.

"...hell....here?!"

"Did someone...her?!"

"She's...alive, so if it was...murder they must still be here."

The voices were slowly becoming audible, and the shapes were coming together. You saw Kaito crouching above you, worried eyes looking at you as he kept turning to Kirumi to ask what to do. You coughed, which earned everybody's attention. Suddenly you saw not only Kaito and Kirumi in front of you, but also Shuichi, Maki, and Kokichi.

"Y/N!" Kaito said, relief in his voice. "What the hell happened to ya? Are you alright?!"

"Y/N, who did this to you?" Shuichi asked, the detective on the verge of panic.

"Did anyone do this to you?" Kokichi questioned, placing a finger to his chin. "Or was this your doing?"

"Why would she have tried to kill herself?" Maki snapped at Kokichi. "She has no reason."

The Ultimate Supreme Leader shrugged and continued to look at you. "It's just a thought."

You propped yourself up on your elbows and looked between them all, anger building up in you. "Why..." You muttered.

"'Why'?" Shuichi repeated. "'Why' what, Y/N?"

You clenched your fists. "Why...Why did you cut me down!?" You screamed, taking them all aback. "I want out of this place! I want out! Why do you keep me here?!"

Everyone looked surprised, except for Kokichi, who looked at the others smugly. "I told you."

Maki shot him a warning glare. "Do you wanna die?" She snapped. "This isn't the time for that."

"Why do you want to kill yourself, Y/N?" Shuichi asked softly, reaching a hand out to place on your shoulder.

You jerked away from him, and jumped to your feet as fast as you could. You backed away from the circle of people. "Don't touch me!" You hissed. "None of you actually care about me! One of you killed Ryoma, so why would I think you wouldn't kill me?!" You backed up as Kaito stood up from his crouching position, his face contorted in confusion. Shuichi continued to approach you slowly, his arm still outstretched to you.

"Y/N, calm down." He tried to soothe you. "No one here is going to hurt you."

You shook your head vigorously and continued to back up, making your way to your lab doors. "I can't believe that. I just...can't trust anyone." You muttered. You looked between Kaito, Kirumi, Maki, Kokichi and Shuichi before turning around and sprinting out of your research lab. You heard them shout your name, but you ignored them in favor of running back to your room.

When you got back in there you slammed the door and quickly locked it. You pressed your back against the door as you felt tears began to fall down your face, a familiar feeling to you by now. You slowly slid down to the floor, your knees pressed closely to your chest as you buried your face. You stayed that way for a long time, sobbing into your knees.

After a while, you felt something touching your leg. You slowly looked over, and saw Monodam. You glared at him and drew your leg in away from him. "Leave me alone." You muttered. "I don't want to talk."

"Why did you try to do that?" The Monocub asked you.

You sighed in annoyance. "I want to be free." You said quietly. "And that's the only way to do it."

Monodam tilted his head. "This is not the way to be free." He insisted.

You turned your head away from him. "Whatever. Like you'd understand anyway. " You murmured. "How did they even know what I was doing? I was so careful. It should have worked."

There was a long silence.

"I informed them of your situation."

Your head shot over to the green robo-bear. You stared at him before your eyes narrowed. You pulled yourself to your feet and walked closer to him. You glared down at him, your fists balled up tight. "...why?" You growled. "How could you?"

Monodam looked up at you. It was hard to make out emotion on his robotic features, but you swore you could see...sadness? But at the moment you were too angry to care. "You are my friend." The bear answered you, his monotone voice quiet. "Even though father and my siblings were angry at me for interfering, I could not let you die like this."

"You should have." You snapped. "I don't want to be here. And I'm not your friend." You walked around Monodam and sat on your bed, still glaring at the Monocub. "You bring me here against my will, then when I try to escape this hell you force me to stay? How could we be friends?"

The robot looked confused. "But I thought we had become good friends?" He said to you, his head tilted. "Is saving your life not what a good friend would do?"

You sighed in annoyance. He had a point, that is what a friend would do. But it isn't what you wanted him to do. "I just can't go through another class trial, Monodam." You muttered. "That's too much stress."

"You are strong, Y/N." The Monocub assured you. "You just need to believe in yourself and your friends." Monodam hopped up onto your bed beside you and placed his small robotic paw onto your leg. "And despite what you say, I am your friend."

You felt a smile form on your face despite yourself. You looked down to the green robo-bear and pet his head. "Yeah, fine." You relented. "...Thanks for saving me, Monodam."

The green bear nodded and turned to look up at you, the widest smile you've seen him produce yet on his face. "Anything for my best friend."

[forever-alone-su-au]

Chapter 1 The Wait (The Wake)

I, Steven Quartz Cutie Pie Demayo Universe, found myself alone in a strange, featureless room. There were no doors or windows or any indication of where I should go next. I wanted to know where I should go, so I could do what I came here to do. Face the music for my mother’s war crimes. Determined, I declared to the world, “I know my mom did something bad. Whatever Homeworld has in store for me... I'm ready!” There was a slight echoing in the room, but other than the sound of my voice, nothing.

“I said, I’m ready! It’s me, Rose Quartz!” The floors and walls were bright and uniform, and distantly reminded me of fluorescent lighting. All of the corners were perfectly rounded, and I didn’t think there was anyway out. Unnerved, I started to look around, and explore the room. Perhaps there was something to push or somewhere to place my hand, so a door would open up?

“Hello? Anybody?” I called out, despite knowing that no one was likely to answer me. “Lars? You there?” I didn’t even know what happened to Lars since we were separated. Was he taken to the zoo, after all? Or somewhere even worse?

Personally, I couldn’t think of anything worse than this, however. Trapped in a room with nothing to do, and nobody else to talk to? Was this it then? “Is this the punishment?” But it couldn’t be! “Come on! I know it's going to be worse than this!” Rose Quartz, mom, had shattered Pink Diamond. Wouldn’t the consequences be greater than this!?

I had no other choice at the time, there wasn’t any other way to save everybody from my own past mistakes, but now that I had the time to think… I didn’t want to pay for my mother’s crimes. But how was I ever going to get back home? Back to dad and the Gems? Back to Connie? “So whatever you're going to do…” Or was this how I tempted fate? In the entire place, there was only one wall with a bit of color on it. It was pink, and I slumped against it for the comfort of having my face squished against something. “Would you just do it already?” I couldn’t help but sound defeated.

Despite facing the other way, immediately, I knew what that ridiculous sound meant, and almost couldn’t believe my ears. It couldn’t be as easy as a door magically opening, could it? Of course, the door didn’t just magically appear by itself, but opened at the appearance of a blue Homeworld Gem, one I’d never met the type of before. She looked kind of like Pinocchio, but with a crescent hood, sort of like a crescent moon really, and surrounded by a multitude of screens suspended mid-air, which followed wherever she went. Also, she was sweating quite profusely; the Gem seemingly preoccupied with the digital panel floating directly in front of her. I don’t think she even noticed I was there, she was so nervous, practically muttering to herself the whole time. “This is ridiculous!” Well, that was fine. I almost didn’t notice her either, if she hadn’t just come in through the new door in the wall. The door that closed just before I could escape through it, too.

“4,000 years of loyal service to the court, and this is what I get? Oh, I'm the unluckiest Zircon in the galaxy!” 

Thoroughly disappointed at this turn of events, I turn towards the apparent Zircon, who gasps as she realizes I was there all along.

“Wait, are you…” Zircon starts, looking back to where she’d just come through, as if she came through the wrong door, and was checking to see if she was where she was supposed to be. “Rose Quartz?”

Reluctantly I answered her, because it was true in a way. “Yeah…” I might’ve been a hybrid, and I wasn’t actually my mom, but I was still a Rose Quartz… More importantly, I ‘was’ the infamous Rose Quartz, leader of the Gem Rebellion, or at least, I did possess her Gem. Even if I didn’t have her memories. “...Really.” Zircon drawled, sounding more than a little doubtful. Well, I was Rose’s son, but I didn’t think Homeworld Gems even knew what a son even was, so I didn’t even try.

“It’s a long story,” I told her. It felt like I’ve had to try and explain myself every time I met a new Homeworld Gem. Usually this was the part where I gear up to tell the new Homeworld Gem my backstory, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to hear it either.

“Don’t. Ugh! I’ve read the case files. Let’s just use this time to prepare your case.”

“Case?” I repeated, turning it into a question in the hopes that she’d answer me, however. She ignored this, and started ranting instead. It was familiar in a fashion, she was getting to be almost as neurotic as Pearl tended to be. “Ugh! What’s the point? This case is a sham! We’ve all heard rumors of Pink Diamond’s demise, but I can’t believe these case files—” Zircon frantically scrolls though the front most screens. “Shattered by one of her own Quartz soldiers- Ugh! In front of her own entourage!? If it weren’t for all of these official documents meticulously filed and carefully collected reports from multiple eyewitnesses, I’d say someone must be tumbling my rocks with these absurd claims.”

Unsure of how to respond to her rant, I kept my mouth shut. Y’know just in case. It could all turn out that mom wasn’t a war criminal, after all. And that I could just go home… Now if only that were true, or if I even knew what was going on.

“You know,” Zircon pointed at me, looking me in the eyes. “You’re lucky you have a character eyewitness willing to take the stand for you, ‘Rose Quartz.’”

“Eyewitness? Take the stand? What does that mean- What’s going to happen!?” What did all of this have to do with my looming punishment?

“What did you think was going to happen, ‘Rose Quartz!’” Why does she keep doing that? I could practically hear the quotes around Rose Quartz. Does she actually believe that I’m not my mom? “As soon as that door opens, you’re going on trial!” Mouthing the word, hoping to make the concept of going to trial make any sort of sense, but before I could even begin to process it, I’m rocked to the core by the next words out of her mouth.

“And then there’s the claim that the Gem calling herself Rose Quartz, leader of the rebellion, isn’t even Rose Quartz.” My eyes turned as large as saucers, and my mouth fell open. “Or even a Rose Quartz for that matter.

“What!?” That couldn’t be right! I am Rose Quartz! ...Right? Maybe it was a clerical error? I know I have a Rose Quartz Gem since I’ve seen what other Rose Quartz Gems are supposed to look like. Or, at least, I’ve seen them before, briefly, in Pink Diamond’s old bubble room on the Zoo ship.

“I know I don’t look like a,” and here, Steven lifted up his shirt to reveal what was most assuredly a “Rose Quartz—” “Even ignoring your ridiculous disguise-” Zircon folded over to get a closer look at my Gem, peering at it with squinted eyes. “Yes, just as reported and corroborated by two Rubies assigned to the Jasper retrieval mission- Your Gem is more of a pinkish red than the reddish pink of a true Rose Quartz.” Or am I wrong? Did the bubbles I saw Rose Quartz Gems through only make them look similar to my own?

A flash of bright light stuns my sight for a brief moment, “Wha—” and then when my sight clears, I realize Zircon, using her monocle, had just taken a picture of my Gem without asking my permission. Rude.

Making a little whooshing motion, I guess she filed it away into her monocle.

Ah. “Wait! I’ve told Navy my Gem looks like this, because my body isn’t made out of hard light, so—” Zircon turns towards me to speak, giving me her full attention, instead of continue fiddling with one of her screens.

“Yes,” Zircon elucidates, articulating clearly, without a slight lisp for the first time since I met her. “Who hasn’t heard of what happens to a Gem when she doesn’t get enough solar power?” Zircon asks me rhetorically. “The dimming of a Gem isn’t unheard of, but it doesn’t change a Gem’s hue. Now dim lighting is a whole nother situation.” Turning away, Zircon briefly glances back to her files on the screens suspended mid-air, skimming the text in front of her before turning her attention back to me. Pointer finger pointed upwards, Zircon affected a familiar and nostalgic lecturing tone. “Lighting and other environmental factors can affect the cast of a Gem, and can make her temporarily look a different color, but take her out of such an environment, and the problem is solved.”

“For example, blue lighting can make a yellow Gem look green, but it’s purely superficial.” Still facing the screen in front of her, finger posed in front of the screen, she glances back to look me in the face. “Yet a yellow Gem is still a yellow Gem, no matter what it looks like, in certain lighting. And a reddish pink Gem shouldn’t look pinkish red.” Spreading her arms out, Zircon indicated the wider room, the room which reminded me of fluorescent lighting with it’s walls emitting bright white light. “Especially in the light of this waiting room where there’s no red light to give your Gem a reddish cast.”

Just as Zircon looked about to speak up, to ask me what kind of Quartz I really was perhaps, I accidentally spoke over her. “Well, if I’m not a Rose Quartz than what am I!?” Too impatient to glean the answer from her, and acting rude, I could feel myself adopt a blush.

Expressing just how ridiculous she thought I was being, Zircon gave my face a hard search, expecting me to be ‘tumbling her rocks’ maybe. “Are you being serious right now?” My face must have been communicating how Serious Steven I was being, because she looked to finally be taking me seriously. Which could only be good, because by this point, I was completely lost. “Of course you are.” Plus she sighed after looking at me again. “Just… don’t expect me to know either! I’m a Zircon, not a Kindergartener. It’s my job to defend your case in Court, not find out whatever cut and facet you could possibly be.” “Just-” Here, Zircon closed her eyes, looking weathered, and rubbed her tired eyes. “Tell me what you’re going to say in Court, so I can help you make your case.”

Going over what I planned to say in court seemed perfectly reasonable, so I started to tell my new friend what exactly it was that I planned to say… “I’m-” Looking to my right, I suddenly felt embarrassed, but I was going to be determined, I reminded myself, comfortingly. “I’m guilty! Everything you guys said I did, I did. And I did it by myself. And I'm sorry. I'll accept any punishment you want to give me.”

“Whoa! Stop, stop!” Frantically, Zircon made a crossed out gesture with her arms. “Don’t say that! That’s the worst possible thing you could say in Court.” Zircon thought to herself that it also sounded absolutely ridiculous! “But I am guilty! So what if my mom- So what if I’m not a Rose Quartz!? I’m still guilty!” Opening her mouth, it looked like Zircon wanted to refute what I’d just said, but suddenly decided against it. Did she change her mind? Squinting her eyes at me, Zircon leaned into my personal space a little bit, which made me feel extra nervous, and lean backwards a tad. After a moment, she asked me, “Than how?” In the sanctity of her own mind, Zircon was starting to have her own suspicions about this strange, erratic Gem.

Not expecting the question, I could only let out a confused, “Huh?” Real smooth Steven. At least, this was just a practice run and not the actual trial.

“You can’t expect to say all of that, and not be questioned on how you did it. This is a trial, after all.” Zircon didn’t repeat what she’d said earlier about how much of a sham this trial really was, however.

“Um… Okay. It was in front of Pink Diamond’s palanquin. I was probably like, "Stop!" and she was all like, "No!", so we fought, I think. And she probably did some cool moves. I probably did some cool moves too, some jump kicks and stuff.”

“Stop, stop, stop!” Zircon made an abortive motion with her hands. “What are you saying!? "Like" this, "probably" that! Oh, what are you thinking going "I think"!?” The more heated Zircon became, the more her hands waved about. It looked like Zircon was at risk of having a stroke. …Or a caffeine overdose.

But Zircon couldn’t help herself, she found the Gem in front of her beyond frustrating.

“Some jump kicks and stuff!?” Exasperated, Zircon lifted her head back, and raised her hands imploringly. “Please work with me here.” She could only hope for the ground to open up and just take her now.

“What do you think this is? An imperial trial or some back alley reenactment!?” Zircon placed her hands on my shoulders, and squeezed, just a little bit. “Please choose your words more carefully, both our Gems are on the line here!” Okay. Her words made me feel a little guilty, but I could tell it wasn’t on purpose. She really thought she might be shattered if she didn’t do well. “Look I... I just don't know how it actually happened, okay!?” …At least, her hands didn’t hurt, and instead felt sort of comforting to the touch.

“You don’t know!?” Zircon gripped the front of my shirt again, lifting me up more easily to her eye level this time. “Don’t tumble my rocks! Did you do this or not?” Seeing the look on the other’s face, Zircon lowered the other back down, but didn’t let go of the shirt. “Why are you so insistent on pleading guilty if you don’t actually know how it went down?” Did she want to die? “I’m not her, okay? But I’ve got her Gem, and she doesn’t exist anymore, so. In the end, I’m the one who’s got to pay for this!” It was so frustrating, having to explain myself like this. It often made me want to tear up. I looked away, so I didn’t have to look Zircon in the eyes, so she didn’t have to see my face. “She made me for this, to fix the problems she didn’t want to deal with.” “Oh,” Zircon’s breath left her, her mouth forming a little o. That, that was a lot to unpack right there. “Yeah, ‘oh,’” I mutter, ignoring the way my throat hurt, instead focusing on the floor. I wish I could see dad.

At first, Zircon had thought the weird little Gem in front of her was some sort of patsy. Her words had a certain polished quality to it, as if since her emergence, she’d been coached on what to say for just this sort of situation. It’d just made sense to Zircon. Some sort of neo-rebellion seeking legitimacy through a scapegoat Rose Quartz, ill-disguised to make her look guilty, and to cover up the fact that the Gem wasn’t a Rose Quartz. Stir up Homeworld and the rest of the Empire with rumors of the trial and summary execution of Rose Quartz, leader of the rebellion. Immortalizing her in stone, a martyr. The perfect conclusion to such suspicious circumstances. After all, Zircon had read the reports on how exactly the rebellion ended. How could there have been any survivors? But this? The more time Zircon spent talking to this Gem, the more—

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense?” I felt too emotionally drained for anymore of this back and forth, but it always seemed like there was something more. “It just doesn’t make sense! That’s not how it works.” Zircon waved her arms around, trying to emphasize what she meant. “Only Diamonds can make—” Zircon was interrupted by the ridiculous sound of a door opening, causing the both of them to look towards the now looming, open door way. “...more Gems.” Zircon belatedly finishes, the two of us sharing a look. It was finally time to face the music. I, Steven Quartz Cutie Pie Demayo Universe, was going to trial… as daunting as that sounded.

[alivehahahafuck]

Things We Become In The Dark

Chapter 2 The Doctor

They arrived at the Capitol Event Center slightly on the early side, which suited both August and Elliot, because this kind of thing gets on their nerves. As they approached the seemingly abandoned building they saw that there was an open set of double doors off to the side a little ways away, but still adjacent to the entrance. There was an attendant in a grey pantsuit next to the doorway carrying a clipboard. Her grey pantsuit was the same color as August’s dress. It’s the grey that they make all of the Assignees wear to the Assignment, it’s supposed to symbolize how everybody is equal and undesignated, until they get their job and their colors. August was pretty sure it was a way to repress people and make them love their jobs too much, so they are content and don’t rebel. But, honestly, if it works, August was happy and decided to go along with it. 

The unnamed attendant waved the Braxton’s over, and they obediently followed, more than happy to have somewhere to go and something to do, as opposed to just milling around in such open spaces. Sontharian’s naturally don’t like open spaces. Gives them a weird feeling on their back. That’s just what happens when your entire life is underwater. The lady got August signed in on her LightPad. Now all she had to do was head inside and wait. 

Inside, it was essentially empty, with the exception of random workers hustling about making last minute adjustments to things, trying to get the place ready. There were a few other Assignees floating around, mostly standing by themselves awkwardly. There were two people who had drifted a little too close together and were forced to make polite, but very awkward and forced, conversation. There was one girl who stood out from the rest.

She was this blonde girl, who looked a little nervous. Not nervous in the same way that everybody else was nervous, it was more like her resting facial expression and general temperament was ‘drowning in anxiety’. August couldn’t blame her, seeing as how she herself has a resting face that scared people away. But it wasn’t just that she seemed scared. She appeared to be at least two years younger than everybody else, which indicated to August that she shouldn’t be here. But at the same time, all the workers who were scurrying by nodded at her and smiled, seeming to not have any sort of problem with her presence. 

Subconsciously, August started slowly migrating towards the scared girl, trying to observe her more carefully and figure out what she was doing here. The more she stared at her, the more she realized that the girl was not at all nervous about being here. She acted like she was supposed to be here, among the hustle and bustle. Her nervous expression seemed to be the overflow of the constant thoughts that were running behind her eyes, as if she was thinking about every possible scenario of what could go wrong, and what could succeed.

It didn’t take long until August’s wanderings brought her face to face with the girl, who has acknowledged her presence but didn’t say anything, or diert any attention from her mental simulations to her. Feeling very awkward about the fact that she was standing three feet away from a girl she walked up to, and still hadn't said anything, August opened her mouth hoping her brain would spit out the appropriate words. 

Unfortunately, August was still focusing too much on what the actual hell the girl could be thinking of, and why didn’t she say anything first, that August’s brain more vomited the words out in an incoherent mess. “Hi, umm, I was just wondering, not to sound rude, sorry if I’m coming across rude, some people think I’m an anti-social bitch, well, not that they’re totally wrong. Ha! Actually, they’re kind of right, I really don’t enjoy social functions. Anyways, I’m sorry, I was wondering, again, not to sound rude, exactly what you’re doing here? I couldn’t help but notice that you seem significantly younger than everybody else, also, the workers seem to know who you are and you don’t seem to be nervous about everything like the rest of us…”. August didn’t end up finishing her ramblings with a complete thought, she just left her confusion out in the air. 

Thankfully, the girl didn’t seem to mind, and her lips broke into a timid but amused smile. “My presence here is just a formality. I already know my assignment, I’ve already been working for a year. I’m a rising surgeon in the public hospital system, I mostly do sutures and stupid stuff like that because for legal reasons I cant perform actual surgeries yet. But I’m consulted on a lot, if not all, difficult and bizarre cases,” she replied.

“Oh.” August let the noise out softly, with her lips still pursed into a little “o” shape, hanging on the edge of the next few words. “So you’re a child genius?” she asked, great that’s not intimidating. The girl chuckled softly, looking down momentarily and blushing a bit, a little bit more on her left cheek than on her right.

“That’s a generous way of looking at it,” she replied, “I have an aptitude for medical sciences…”, she trailed off wondering if she should continue, but the girl felt oddly and comfortable around August despite this being the first time they've met. However, despite the sudden trust, the girl got softer and sounded a bit more unsteady, “I can see the entire human body in my mind… every muscle, every nerve, where every last vein and artery should be.” That explained what she was distracted by, probably running through problems and solutions for the human body, all in her brain, “That, and I’m a natural problem solver. Between the two of those I’ve gotten pretty good at fixing all bodily problems: surgery, physical therapy, treating diseases.” Seeing August's look of surprise and inferiority the girl added, “Of course all blessings come with a curse… That’s about all I’m good at. I can’t fathom the mental aspect of humans,” She was still looking into August’s eyes, and August could see the sudden shift from poise and professionalism into unsurety and desperation, “emotions are so hard to predict and control. You never know what a human can do next. I can fix any external pain a human can feel. I can fix any problem. But I can’t fix what’s going on inside their brain, I can’t know what anybody is going to do next, and I don’t know how to fix it..” she trailed off, and August felt bad to see such a young girl have such a dark look in her eyes. 

Trying to lighten the mood, August tried to keep the discussion moving in a more positive direction. “Well that’s fine. Nobody’s perfect at everything. And I’m more than positive you have other skills to make up for it. I mean, apart from the fact that you’re a medical prodigy, I’m sure you have an affinity for other academic subjects too. History doesn’t change, I’m sure you have no problem memorizing dates and events!” she said, realizing she was slipping into the same tone of voice she used around Elliot.

“Actually,” she said, raising her eyes to look up at August, “I’ve never taken any other subjects. I’ve been taught math, biology, chemistry, biochemistry, human physiology, the list goes on. But the Counsel realized very early on in my life that I had the strongest aptitude for medicine that they have ever seen. They paid for me to be sent to the best medical institutions from a very young age, and they never taught me anything else other than what would apply to my job,” Upon seeing August’s confusion and disbelief that the Counsel could be so stupid and restricting on such a young girl, “It’s like how after Assignment, you only get training for the field you’ve been assigned to. The difference being They gave me my Assignment when I was 10. So I’ve taken ‘all of the subjects’, but only to the leel a ten year old would know.”

“Wait. Pardon my speech, but what the actual flying fuck? For the love of Quarre, who does that to a kid! Ten years old?!? And they constricted you to learning what 18 year olds would learn?!?

Wait. If you were 10 when you started.. That’ll mean you’ll be a full fledged doctor when you turn 18, the same time that kids your age will be starting their medical education…” August trailed off and now it was her turn to have her eyes zone out as she got lost in her own alarming thoughts, only to be interrupted by the young girl.

“Yes, it’s unfortunate, but ultimately beneficial. Younger children have an amazing capacity to pick up information at a faster rate and deeper understanding than we give them credit for.

They have such an educational advantage, in fact, that I will complete my learning two years earlier, when I turn 16. Meaning that if things continue the same way that they have, I’ll be a head surgeon by the time I turn 20, and I will be the most accomplished young doctor on the whole planet. My advisor likes to build me up and say that I’ll be the best in the entire Jurian System; but I doubt I’ll even be the best on Sonthar by the time I’m 20. But I will be the best at some point,” she said confidently, “....once everyone who is more experienced than me dies of old age” se clarified under her breath.

“Wow.” August just stared at the young blonde girl who talked more professionally and matter of fact-ly than most adults she knew. “So… child prodigy, huh? Does “child prodigy” have a name, so I can start placing bets on you well in advance, and make a shit ton of money?” August didn’t feel bad about swearing in front of her anymore, seeing as how her age was clearly only an indication of her body's physical boundaries.

“Oh. Yes. Sorry.” She blushed a bit, almost being embarrassed she didn’t introduce herself earlier on in the conversation, “I’m Katarina. Katarina Fox.” she said whilst holding her pale hand out. 

“August Braxton,” she introduced herself, extending her hand back at Katarina for a friendly shake. Although at this point, August wanted to pull her into a tight hug and stroke her hair like she would for Elliot, because this poor girl seemed to have even more worries, pressures, and anxieties than Elliot. Nevertheless, she shook her hand, “Nice to meet you, Dr. Fox” she said with a bit of a coy smile.

As August was shaking Katarina’s hand, she realized that Katarina’s pale pure white skin was different from her own. August’s skin looked as if the blood underneath was metallic and grey. Katarina’s on the other hand (ehh, get it), looked as though her blood was a silver iridescent lava that shone through the paleness of her skin.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” August inquired, “but what race are you? Your skin seems to glow and have a hidden color and life to it. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Even though she was addressing Katarina, she might as well have been addressing the hand itself because her eyes were still entranced in her iridescent shimmer. She realized her impoliteness and forced herself to look at Katarina’s face, and noticed that now she was aware of the iridescence, she couldn’t unsee it. Her face was dewy with a slight internal shimmer, and her blushing cheeks were a collection of the pink and purple iridescent bits that were typically more dispersed with the rest of the silver. Her eyes were a pale icy blue, but something also shifted behind her eyes, like translucent pools of a dark blue swirling around in her eyes.

August’s trance was broken when the Doctor interrupted her with her answer once again. “Oh yes, right,” she blushed a little bit again, still getting embarrassed by forgetting little formalities. “I’m from pod Sol-.”

“Holy shit, you’ve seen the sun?” Everything was clicking into place for August, of course, she has the Sonthar tan, duhhhh, of course she’s from Sol “Wait.” She came upon another realization, “If you’re from Sol, what the hell are you doing in Dal?” The confusion of August’s face was soon replaced with stunned horror, “...how long have you been in Dal?...” with every passing word her blood began to boil and her words were spit with her disgust. “Did they take you away from your family when you were TEN!?!” 

August understood the pain of being young and having an older sibling taken away from you, that might happen to Elliot at the end of today. But to have a child taken away from their family and brought to a completely unfamiliar place.... “My parents separated when I was nine,” Katarina explained, “When I was put into the family relocation facility, they had to run a bunch of testing to fill out the adoption forms. Families want to know a child’s abilities and qualifications before they take them in.” August hadn't known that about the system. That’s sick! Why is it once I have to start working for these people I realize exactly how immoral and cruel they are? Katarina continued despite August’s horror, “That’s when they realized my gift. They ran more intense testing to see my limits, and sent me to live with a family who had been trying for a child for years. I stayed with them for a few months while the Science Executives filled out forms and convinced the Counsel that they should be allowed to take a ten year old away from their family.

“Obviously, they won their argument and I was taken away from my adoptive family two days after my tenth birthday.” Before August could interject with her disgust and fury, the workers called over the loudspeaker that all of the Assignees need to line up in two lines, male and female, by last name. When August turned around to line up, she realized that she was so invested in what the Doctor was saying that she didn’t realize that the room had become filled with seventeen and eighteen year olds. August and Katarina said their farewells and went to line up. 

[thewalkingdead-imagines]

TWD - Negan Imagine ~ “Ghosts”

Imagine for episode 3 of season 10

Summary: After crossing Alpha’s border, the communities have to deal with the consequences and both Negan and the Reader have to find their roles in fighting the new threats

the last part /all other previous parts (You don’t have to read any previous parts to understand the plot! Hope you all like it and enjoy reading)

Crossing Alpha’s border had consequences, consequences Alexandria quickly got to experience the hard way. It started at sunrise, not more than a few days after the fire at Oceanside, when the first wave of walkers hit Alexandria. It wasn’t a horde, yet still big enough to need more than ten people to get it under control and kill every last one of the decaying corpses. More followed, sometimes after only a half hour, other times after up to three hours but they came, sometimes more, sometimes less but each time enough to stir the whole community up. At first you stayed at the infirmary, the threat manageable enough to not pull more people from their tasks but in night two of the walker waves, you got pulled in and it only seemed to get worse from that point on. The span in between the waves got shorter, the amount of walkers grew oppositely to the amount of sleep you’d got and that got it’s revenge as you found yourself at the walls, only half awake and exhausted after the last wave of walkers had been managed, only a few lonely dead stumbling over the streets that had been attracted by the sounds of their companions. Running your hand over your face you tried to work against the weight that got heavier on your eyelids and the urge in you to fall into the next bed. Only from the corner of your eyes you caught Negan as he heft one of the dead walkers into a wagon, letting the pile of corpses grow bigger before a small yawn left his lips as soon he turned around as got back to picking another up. He’d gotten some more sleep than you last night, still not enough to be well rested, though you envied him a little for just those few hours he got more. Yawning yourself you walked along the wall, tossing bloody crowbar you’d just used to kill one of the last walkers to the side, hoping to find something with more grip for the next wave as your shoe suddenly hooked against a sward and nearly made you trip over your own feet for a second, bringing you back on alert for a second as adrenaline rushed through you. ”Shit”, you grumbled, getting steady on your feet again before you felt a large hand gently wrapping around your wrist. ”Hey, you okay?”, you heard Negan’s voice ask as he shifted next to you, letting you meet his concerned glance as soon as you looked up at him and felt his hand slipping from your wrist to your neck, raising your jaw with his thumb to get a look at you. ”Yeah, just tired”, you said with a small, exhausted smile, giving him a nod that got slightly mirrored by him. ”Alright”, he said, his eyes still wandering with some worry stuck in them over your face as you leaned a little into his touch, trying to let his warmth work a bit against your exhaustion though it elicited more the wish to fall into bed with him and get more of that comfort. You sighed, trying to force your eyes to stay open as Negan leaned in for a second, pressing a quick kiss to your temple before he leaned back, giving you a small smirk as his hand dropped from your neck. ”Gotta get back to work. Still can’t wait for that bed though”, he chuckled, giving you another grin before he urged himself to finally walk past you. Still feeling his touch on you for another moment you glanced back up to the wooden spikes, suddenly flinching as your eyes caught Daryl’s who’d been carefully watching you, and most certainly your moment with Negan as well. He didn’t say anything, he just stared for a second longer before he got back to the spikes, leaving you glued to the ground for a moment. 

You still didn’t talk much and that little situation right there displayed your relationship at the moment pretty well. Though his small apology after the storm  for what he’d once screamed at you all this time ago had been a beginning, oppositely for what a tiny part in you had hopped, it didn’t flourish in something bigger yet. Your half brother was still keeping his distance, talking to you mostly only when it was necessary but at least he was and even though it seemed like nothing to others, it was still something good for you. Sighing you shifted from foot to foot, fighting the exhaustion as your eyes laid on Daryl a little longer and just as they swayed from him again his voice made your glance suddenly snap back to him again. “Hey, heads up”, he called out, his eyes fixed to something on the road, and while you first thought it would be another wave of walkers and already made your way tiredly back to the pikes to get rid of them, you startled as you saw one person walking towards the wall that only looked like the dead with the mask she was wearing over her face. “The north border. Now”, she demanded, staring at Michonne as your eyes wandered over her, over the torn clothes and the rotting skin and hair that was covering her head as she stood there like it was no big deal to show up at your doorstep. “Call off your walkers”, Michonne said as she joined Daryl’s side, glaring at the women as she remained weirdly calm. “Not us”, she insisted, an odd monotonous sound in her voice as Daryl huffed thickly. “Yeah, right.” “Not. Us.”, she said with more force now, though neither you nor anybody else at the gates seemed to believe any word that slipped out of her lips. “Go to the border, lay down your weapons, and wait”, she said, her pair of blue eyes staring though the holes in the skin at Michonne and Daryl, only the spikes parting her from them. “Wait for what?”, Michonne asked, her eyes not moving from the Whisperer as the Woman’s eyes narrowed for a small moment. “Her.” With that, she turned around, and shuffled down the street, fitting into the dead she completely resembled as soon as she reached them until she slowly made her way back into the woods, leaving each and everybody speechless for a second, an atmosphere laying in the air that seemed to be more than icy until the silence got broken by Michonne. ”Community meeting, now.” The meeting room was filled up to the rim with people, some of them talking, whispering to each other, while others stayed completely silent, occupied with their thoughts. You shifted over your chair next to Siddiq by the other council members, noticing him fumbled nervously on his hands before Michonne finally rose her voice as he glanced at Lydia at the first table in front of you. “Alright...is this your mother?” “No. I don't think it is”, she shook her had, leaning a little back into her chair as Daryl leaned against the wooden pillar next to her and glanced down at her. “Why'd she want to talk with us?”, he asked, seemingly all eyes in the room on them as Lydia shifted a little over her chair, just before glancing up at Daryl. “You crossed into her land. Again. You have to answer for that.” “We don't have to do anything. We could just not go”, Aaron said, his voice tense, the blood splatters of the dead still sticking to his face as Lydia shook her head again. “That's a bad idea.” “We're already under attack”, Dante spoke up from a little further back, his voice calmer than usual, completely oppositely to what those few words of his elicited within the crowd. “Yeah!”, screamed one before a couple other voices joined in, only shut down as Lydia raised hers again. “It isn't her. If she wanted you dead, she'd send the horde. All of it, not just a few waves at a time.” “Maybe she's trying to wear us down first”, Carol said, shifting uncomfortably as she glanced into the round before the eyes wandered to Eugene as he pushed his chair with a squeaking sound back and stood up. “Or, as I relayed to you all at the beginning of this meeting, there's plausible reason to believe that the satellite and fire -” “I don't want to hear about the damn satellite anymore, Eugene!”, the woman next to Carol called out, Margo, someone you’d never seen with something else than a frown on her face but the one today was especially bad ,”My friends died trying to save yours and ended up with their heads on spikes.” She glared at all of you, as if you were the enemy while you could feel Siddiq shifting uncomfortably next to you, so much that you were nearly about to ask if he was okay before Margo shot up from her chair and screamed through the room. “The Highwaymen want justice!” “Yeah!”, some more of them joined in, their voices pitching so high it almost hurt your ears while her eyes scanned over you and the rest of the council, especially Michonne with a look in her eyes as if she was ready to tear you apart if she didn't get the answer she wanted. “So all I want to hear from you is that you're gonna take a dozen of us to meet these freaks at the border and that we're gonna take that lead bitch's head off!” “We cut it off!”, “And then we'll put their heads on spikes!”, those were just a few of the calls that echoed through the room, almost giving you the feeling as if you weren’t in some actual town meeting but rather a medieval movie that was about to get a bit too much out of hand.  Your eyes were stuck to Margo for a moment, already deeply annoyed by her, her claims and her acting as if she knew it all even though a dozen people would barely stand against the army of undead and fake undead Alpha had. They stayed there just before their corners suddenly caught Siddiq rushing up from his chair, clutching his chest. ”You’re alright?”, Michonne asked, concerned as she glanced up at him while Siddiq nodded, even though there was definitely not everything alright. ”Yeah, yeah, just need some fresh air”, he nearly panted before he rushed outside, the echoes of the voices still sounding through the room as you watched him disappearing, right before Michonne stood up from her chair and silenced the room just with that Movement. “How many walkers did you see in Alpha's horde?”, she asked, looking at Daryl as she propped her hands on the wooden surface of the table. “Tens of thousands.” “Ah. So What's your plan for taking them out?”, Michonne asked as she looked from Daryl to Margo, who suddenly got real quiet and lowered her eyes, confirming that anything that had just left her lips was nothing but hot air. “Oh, that wasn't rhetorical”, Michonne said, her voice firm and though you couldn’t do it outwardly, inside you were cheering for her to but that woman back on her butt. “I don't have one”, Margo said as she shifted over her chair, glancing up Michonne like a pouting toddler. “Ah. Does anybody else? “I just think it’s odd that we have this council and yet no one else says anything”, Margo suddenly spoke up again, glancing into the round, a bit too snotty again for your tired out mind, fed up with her bullshit and just as her eyes met yours, you finally opened your mouth. “Because we agree”, you said calmly yet with enough pressure to sound firm, feeling your dislike against her growing even more and it just continued to grow as she shot you a glare and a sarcastic grin. “Oh because you’re such an expert”, she hissed, narrowing her glance as he looked at you,”As far as I know did you end up in bed with the enemy last time” “Enough!”, Michonne shut her down again just as you could feel heat boiling in you up again, being confronted with that fucking ol’ lyre you couldn’t hear anymore that felt even worse now that Negan was trying his best to somehow integrate himself into the community. A part of you wanted to say something, but instead you stayed quiet, unsure what to say, unsure what to exactly tell her that wouldn’t end up in a backfire. “If she sends that horde, that's it! Right now, all she wants to do is talk. And we are going to listen”, Michonne said, slowly letting you calm down again and stay silent, trying to not meet Margo’s glare to not get yourself upset over that bitch again and instead trying to pay attention to what Michonne added, “Now, while we are doing that, everyone here needs to focus on what's coming in from the north and the south. We're tired. We are on edge. And it is going to get worse before it gets better. But we aren't gonna get through it at all if we do not act as one.” No one said anything after that, didn’t try to talk back and you were glad about it, even more so as the room finally emptied and you walked back into the fresh air along with Michonne,  ”Thank you, didn’t really know what to say”, you mumbled as soon as you stepped down into the soft grass, strolling over the the street as she shook her head softly. “All good, thanks for jumping in”, she said, giving a slight smile before she let out a small sigh,”Stay put, alright? We’ll head out later, I want you to join the group, keep walkers off our back as soon as we’re at the border.” “Okay”, you nodded as you stepped onto the blacktop stopping as Michonne halted for a moment while you actually couldn’t deny that part of you was almost something like glad for that task that would be something outside the infirmary and a bit more in the active fight against the threat. “We’ll meet at the gates later, alright?” “Yeah, gonna get a bow and then I’ll wait there”, you nodded, just before Michonne gulped thickly and slowly shook her head. “No, we have to go unarmed, can’t take the risk, only knives”, she said, still a little restless and tense, maybe even expecting you to question her for going unarmed but instead you nodded again, understanding her plea even though you couldn’t say you were completely comfortable with it, especially not with the waves of walkers that were still coming and that you’d for sure meet on your way to the northern border. “Okay, gotta get to Judith and RJ, see you later”, she finally said, suppressing a yawn as she slowly forced herself to get going. “Yeah, see you later”, you said, nodding as you felt a yawn coming up as well, pushing it’s way up your throat as you finally made your way down the streets and to the gates, while a part of you asked yourself how the hell you were going to stay awake all night.

You felt like you had taken way longer than usual to reach the gates as you finally got to them, searching for Negan to make sure you got to talk to him before you had to head out. Your tired eyes were scanning over the cars, the piles of corpses and boxes, until you caught him a bit off from everybody else, barely visible from your spot between the wall and the fence. As fast as you could you moved over to him, passing through the men and women who either got read to head out or were dragging corpses to the piles until you finally reached Negan who stood with his back to you, on his way to collect some utensils by the fence. “Negan?”, you said, watching as Negan turned around as you gave him a soft smile ,”Wanted to see you before going outside...gonna join Michonne’s group.” His eyes softened for a moment as he leaned in, pressing a quick kiss over your lips before he let out a thick sigh and ran his hand over his jaw. “Well, news flash, Gabey boy made me join team with fuckin’ pouty pout Aaron, can place my ass the whole damn night at the south border”, he said, his voice annoyed by the Gabriels crossing of his plan to keep his head low and instead, putting him right into the battle. “Just think of it as an opportunity”, you tried to put some positive light onto that situation as you wrapped your arms around his torso and stepped a little closer as Negan slowly nodded. “Mhmm”, he grumbled, slinging his arms around your figure and quirking a corner of his mouth a little up before he nodded to a stick behind him that leaned against the fence,”Ain’t nothing gonna go wrong cause I get to fight with that great ass broom stick here.” “Maybe you’ll find something better outside”, you said, giving him some kind of mix between a soft smile and a crooked grin to cheer him a little more up. “Hope so, feel like that thing’s gonna break first time I’ll crack a skull...for sure isn’t as hard as some other wood”, he said, responding with a bigger grin as he squeezed your waist teasingly.  “Probably”, you chuckled, grinning right back at him before you could feel his mien growing a little more serious again as soon as you could hear the people behind the cars and boxes of utensils beginning to move out. “Take care, alright? Need ya back safe and sound”, Negan said, pulling you a little closer, holding you tight as his eyes flooded with a bit concern as you slowly nodded. “You too”, you mumbled before he leaned in to press another kiss over your lips, deepening it for a moment as you huddled closer, trying to get the most of him before you had to leave until you slowly parted lips again. “I love you”, Negan rasped against your lips, pecking them once more as you gave him a soft smile back, feeling as if those three words were giving you another little boost for the fight outside. “I love you too”, you mumbled, before you finally urged yourself to step away and let him loose his hold on you, reluctantly even though you knew you had to leave. “See ya in the morning, Baby”, he said, giving you a small grin as his arms slowly dropped from your body.  “Yeah, can’t wait for you and that bed, really”, you chuckled, yawning a little as Negan let out a soft laugh just before you heard Diane calling out for you, “Shit, gotta go.” You let out one last sigh and smiled at him, quickly moving towards him to steal another small kiss before you finally peeled yourself off him and rushed through the boxes and cars, to your group that was becoming bigger as you and a couple more Alexandrian’s joined in just waiting for the last ones until you could get going. The sun had long vanished behind the skyline of the trees and darkness had begun to settle in the sky as you walked off the road into the woods, heading closer to the northern border with every single step.  There was an odd tension stuck in the group, an uncertainty of what to exactly await at the border and for you, it was a bit more suspense on top of it since the very moment you realized Daryl joined in too.  Step by step you made your way further into the dark, taking care to not trip in the underwood before oddly familiar growls and groans began to sound through the air, foreshadowing another wave of walkers coming towards you, only now in the woods with no walls around you, no protection from one side. It took only a second for each and every one in the group to reach for their knives and drag them up, just moments before your eyes captured the first dead stumbling towards you, bumping past the trees and beginning to raise their arms towards you, ready to grab you and rip you to their rotting mouths. Your whole body was on alert, though you could still feel the exhaustion lingering within you as you stepped towards the closest walker and let your knife shoot up, digging it through its jaw into its head, letting its body go limp within a second while you could catch the others doing the same.  Just as you watched Carol smashing a walkers head open at a tree you forced yourself to snap back towards your side and focus on the threat that was stumbling right towards you, taking it out as fast as you could before slowly, the inrush slowed down, giving you some time to breath as you glanced around trying to see if more threat was coming from any other side. At first your tired eyes caught nothing alerting, everybody managed their part until your heart suddenly skipped a beat as it landed on the person only a couple meters to your right, Daryl. He was shoving one large walker to the ground that was eyeing his throat, throwing it off to take care of it later just so he could pay attention to the next walker that was coming way too close to him, stretching his arms out to grip him just as he let his knife shoot up into its skull. Blood was flowing over his hand as the walker put on a fight, not completely gone yet while the one on the floor began to reach towards his ankle while more walkers streamed out of the forest towards him. “Shit”, it fell from your lips as you found yourself rushing towards him, following your instincts and the inner panic that fueled your fear of seeing him hurt. Your knife was still securely in your hand as you reached him and moved down, gripping into the rotting flesh of the walker’s shoulder to turn it away from Daryl, quickly turning its attention from your half brother to you. Its dead eyes met yours just in the very moment you rose your knife up, feeling your hand that was still gripping it slipping through the decaying mix of blood and muscles, enough to get you off guard for a bare second and give the walker the upper hand. Your exhausted mind made you witness the next moments only in a blur until you found yourself on your back, pressed against the cold forest ground, feeling how the protruding innards of the walkers stomach dripped against your body as it snapped with its rotting teeth towards you, snapping you back into the survival modus.  Groaning you gripped your knife harder, pushing the dead away with your other hand, trying to not slip again until you could free your arm enough to reach up and dig your knife into its skull, letting the tense body on top of you go limp as more dark red blood flowed down your arm before you pushed the walker off you, still breathing so heavily your breath seemed to cut crannies into your throat. “Fuck”, you exhaled, lifting your upper body up as you first caught Daryl staring down at you just as he let go of another dead walker, the last one for him, while his eyes wandered between the dead one beside your body and you, almost as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Still breathing heavily you gulped thickly, unsure what to say as you slowly bobbed yourself back on your feet, wincing a little as you could feel your body taking revenge on you for that fall against the ground. “Why’d ya do that?”, Daryl finally grumbled as soon as you dared to glance back up at him while his eyes were scanning carefully over your face as you stroked the dirt off your pants,”Thing could’ve gotten you” “It didn’t”, you just mumbled, gulping thickly as you glimpsed at him, putting your knife back into the holster as Daryl remained quiet, his eyes still stuck on you as if he didn’t know how to interpret your action yet while all those thoughts and emotions you’d bottled up over the years were beginning to poke you again, and with the exhaustion stuck within you, they had an easier game than usual. And not even the small part in you that meant to hold you back couldn’t do much against it as the hurt grew a bit more within you, watching him look at you with suspicion. “I’d still risk my life for you”, you finally mumbled, not loud, but enough for him to hear you as instead of stopping there, as you wished, the exhaustion was allowing more emotions to slowly break through as you glimpsed at him in the faint light,”Daryl, I know I made mistakes, I probably could’ve handled things back then way better, I could’ve said things better but I didn’t know how, I still don’t know, It’s like walking through a mine field...but I’m sorry.” Your voice was a bit shaky, scared to trip on one of the mines again while Daryl just glanced at you, completely still while the bottled up thoughts found more and more of their valve paired up with the desperation to finally get a reaction from him. “You’re still one of the most important people in my life”, you softly, yet reluctantly mumbled, even more hesitant and most of all filled up with a stinging pain as you raised your voice for the next words, ”I know I’m not one of yours anymore...but that doesn’t change that I’d do anything to keep you out of danger, believe it or not.” It got silent, and suddenly your tired mind realized that not only you but every one else in the group had killed the walkers from their sides once for all as well, leaving them to capture the little scene between Daryl and you, or at least its end, though that was enough to let goosebumps of discomfort rush over your skin. You could tell they were trying not to stare at you both and make the situation more awkward, completely beside the fact that they were all too tired to grapple with that additionally to the meeting with the whisperers, still it didn’t let the heat in your cheeks weaken.  “We should keep going”, Michonne finally said, freeing you a bit from that awkwardness while you nodded along with the others, glad as they finally began to walk again as you inwardly still half cringed, half hurt as that suspicious glance in Daryl’s eyes creeped back up in your head. Thickly gulping you stumbled through the dark, following the others as someone caught up on you, letting you flinch slightly as soon as you felt their hand wrapping around your wrist. “Thanks...for that walker”, you heard Daryl grumble soon as your eyes caught him by your side, letting go of you again in the very second your eyes met his while some of the hurt beat retreat as his glance grew a little softer, no suspiciousness of before left.  “Anytime”, you mumbled back, trying to put a sleepy smile on your lips as he slowly nodded while you emerged deeper into the woods.

“Just a couple more meters”, you heard Michonne mumble after a few more minutes, her voice low and tense as you finally approached the clearing, closer with each step until you made your way carefully out of the woods. It was a spooky atmosphere there on the foot of the hill, the pikes siting enthroned on its peak while mist surrounded them, enlightening them a little in the light of the moon. With that one step, that step that put you on the clearing, the suspense within the group rose even higher, growing continuously as you made your way through the damp grass up the hill. A bit after its middle, Michonne glanced back at you, giving you and two others the signal to stop and make sure to keep your guards up at this spot, while the others walked a bit higher, halting only just before the pikes before they seemed to freeze to the spot. Exhaling a little shakily you stared up the hill, wondering when they would come, when you’d see the woman who was putting you all into this awful situation for the first time before you suddenly caught some of the others flinching, just as quiet groans began to echo through the night. Almost, you moved to grip your knife before you caught the direction they were coming from, catching the tiny yet noticeable difference in the groans if you listened close enough and that let you realize that they were here; the whisperers had arrived. 

Goosebumps covered your body as you stared up the hill, through the others that were lined up in two rows at the pikes, in the first Carol, Daryl and Michonne, behind them more Alexandrians that didn’t let you see the Whisperers and their leader at first, before you suddenly did. You didn’t know how you’d imagined her to be, only heard a couple remarks here and there about her shaved head and the torn clothes that all of them wore but still, for an odd reason you hadn’t imagined her like that. Like a predator she was creeping along the pikes as you heard Michonne talking to her about crossing their border, her eyes blinking up here and there in the moonlight despite the dirt that was smeared around them and her lips, the only parts that weren’t covered when she wore the mask.  Her voice really rather was a whisper, a threatening, blood freezing whisper, too silent for you to figure her exact words out, yet loud enough to let the sound of it and the odd accent that was lacing her voice spread more goosebumps over your body. You could see the others in front of you growing more tense as you tried to keep yourself on alert to keep your guards up for actual walkers until Alpha suddenly stopped in front of Carol. A shudder ran down your back as they faced each other, the pike Henry’s head had must have stuck on between them while a heavy breath fell from your lips as you felt like you could cut the tension in the air. You could feel yourself fumbling on your wedding band, trying to figure out what they were saying before you suddenly froze again as your eyes caught Carol reaching back, grabbing something out of her back pocket before a loud shot sounded through the dark. Flinching, you widened your eyes, nearly gasping and expecting to see a body fall but instead your eyes caught Michonne by Carol’s side, still holding her arm that now aimed at the ground where the bullet must be buried that was supposed to stick in Alpha’s head.  “We apologize for out friend!”, you could only hear Michonne call out, her voice nearly panicking as you stared at the scene in front of you, feeling more suspense rising in you as you felt like you could already see the whisperers attacking, but instead they remained silent as you could hear Michonne apologizing, her voice growing quieter again, so quiet that you had trouble hearing them. “Shit, this is it”, the guard next to you mumbled, gulping thickly as he stared worriedly up the hill, guiding your eyes for a moment from the scene before another voice, the awful voice that had made your blood freeze already minutes ago suddenly sounded louder through to you. “What are they still doing in the back? I hope you have nothing planned”, you heard Alpha say, anger soaking her voice as it snapped your eyes back up, your glance meeting hers for a bare second but it was enough to give you the chills all over again.  “We don’t, they’re guarding us from walkers from the woods”, Michonne said, glancing down at you, talking just loud enough for you three to hear her as Alpha’s glance swayed over you again, her eyes narrowing before they fell back on Michonne. “I will not continue until they are not up here”, she said, stepping closer to the pikes as she shrugged her shoulders slightly ,”After what your friend just did...you have to understand, we have to be sure they hear what I have to say.” It took nothing more than a second for Michonne to glimpse down at you again, nodding to tell you to follow Alpha’s order this time and so you stomped up the hill, gradually while the Whisperers’ eyes followed you, step for step until you reached the group.  An odd grin flashed over her lips, giving a hint of how much she seemed to enjoy the force she was holding over you all before she glanced back to Carol who was one bundle of tension. “I forgive you”, Alpha said, the grin forming into a smile so disturbing you could barely describe it while the next words that fell from her lips let a shudder of the ugly kind run down your back,”Mother to mother.” She almost seemed theatrical, in a way ridiculous with this threatening yet syrupy accent that made the feeling you had about here even more odd, so odd that you couldn’t even describe what to think of her other than a weird mix of confusion, hatred and disgust. Within a bare second the smile snapped off her face as she stepped towards the pike, grabbing the one that was parting her from Carol as the other whisperers followed, ripping each one out of the ground before her voice sounded one last time though the dark. “This is my land now. You better run”

The night was still young when you found yourself back on the road, only with your two guard companions from the hill, heading towards home again. Michonne had insisted to stay outside with some others, make sure everything was fine while you could walk back to Alexandria and be there if Siddiq needed you. It was still pitch black as you walked back inside the gates, a part of you glad the you could go back home instead of spending the night in some warehouse or any other shelter that would have you and your tried head on alert all night, even though you knew that you had to stay up either way. You parted ways with the others quickly, watching them taking up spots at the walls for more guardshifts before you made your way down the street and towards the infirmary where the lights were still burning and you could see Dante and Siddiq standing inside while you climbed up the porch. “Hey”, you mumbled as you finally slowly opened the infirmary’s door, watching as Siddiq and Dante turned around to you from their spot at the counter, their eyes widening a little as they caught the blood that was still all over your clothes. “Just walker blood...Michonne wanted me to head back and help here”, you said, slowly walking in and closing the door carefully behind you as Siddiq nodded. “Good, we can need another pair of hands”, he said reaching for a cup that rested on the counter, probably another coffee to keep him awake before he his eyes wandered back to the blood on your clothes, just the sight enough to let him gulp thickly and grip the mug tight enough to let the white of his knuckles show, and you could tell there was more behind it than just the sight of blood. “Well, I better get cleaned up”, you said, letting out a small chuckle, trying to loose the tense atmosphere a little up, “Gonna take a quick shower if that’s okay, just need to wake up again.” “Sure, sure. After that we’ll just pump you full with coffee, you got a lot to catch up there”, Dante laughed as he raised his cup while Siddiq remained dead silent, enough to let you decide to quickly vanish out of the room, to not whirl him up more than he already seemed to be. As fast as you could you hauled the bloody clothes off your body and onto the bathroom floor and slipped into the shower, groaning softly in delight as soon as the hot water hit your skin. Closing your eyes you enjoyed the sensation of it for a moment, before you dared to fall asleep as the hot water seemed to wrap around you like a warm hug and instead forced yourself to rub the last remains of blood and dirt with some soap of your body while your thoughts got easily distracted again through the exhaustion of your whole mind and body. For a moment, you asked yourself what Negan was doing right now, if he was still killing walkers or if he was maybe in some shelter by now, keeping watch or trying to catch a tiny bit of sleep until the next wave of walkers hit.  And Negan kept occupying your mind, mostly the most innocent thing of just yearning to cuddle up in bed with him and falling asleep like that, until you wrapped towels around your body and hair before stepping out of the shower though you missed the hot water the second it had turned off. From that moment on, as you could hear the Doctors’ voices again they slipped back into your head, along with Siddiq’s odd behavior that had been flaring up since the whisperer mask washed up by Oceanside’s beach. You could only imagine that it brought back the pikes to him, the day only he survived and had to watch them all die, and this left scars, traumatizing scars that slowly and with the deadly threat around the corner again, manifested into something that couldn’t just be brushed off again. You hadn’t seen enough of him to know for sure, but this wasn’t just the coping all of you did in these times, if your guesses were right, he was either on his way or already deep in the ptsd hell that would only get worse as long as he’d try to shove it away. You sighed as you dried yourself off, too exhausted and with too much weight resting on your eyelids to properly think about it further, nor of a possible way to be at least a little help for him with what you knew about this shit, but you postponed this part to some time in the next days, when you were more well rested and no shallow figure that just yearned for sleep. Nearly in slow motion like movements you finally stroked your clothes over your body, actually struggling to not lose balance until you were all ready again and slowly made your ways down the stairs, anticipating your well deserved coffee more than ever. You were already on your second cup as a bunch of sudden and harsh knocks on the door made you flinch up and put the mug for the first time in minutes down, though Dante, fueled with more caffeine, acted faster than you and rushed towards the door, nearly ripping it open as your heart skipped a small beat as soon as you caught was laid behind it. “She fell, cut herself real bad”, Daryl panted as he already carried Carol with Michonne inside, the clothes at her back soaked with blood while some glass shards that still stuck in her skin flimmered in the light. “Easy, easy”, Siddiq said as he rushed towards them while you got wide awake for a moment, falling back into the usual routine as you grabbed all utensils you could need as fast as possible while you could only catch from the corners of your eyes how the lowered Carol stomach first onto one of the cots. “I’m gonna need you all to leave”, you heard Siddiq say as you hurried with the utensils towards the cot, placing them beside Carol as you caught Daryl’s glance for a bare second before it swayed back to her right as Michonne placed her hand on his back and lead him outside, though only reluctantly. The door fell back into it’s lock as you shifted closer watching as Siddiq took a deep breath and glanced at you, then Dante.  “You’ll pull out the shards”, he nodded towards the man before his eyes fell back on you, “And we two open the wound, go in and close it up, alright.” “Alright”, you quickly nodded, only hearing Dante agree as well as you grabbed the right tools and leaned over Carol, getting ready right as Dante placed his forceps at the first shard that was bored into her back, “Okay, here we go”, Dante slowly mumbled, just before you suddenly heard Siddiq’s breath speeding up, forming into pants while his eyes widened before shut them tightly, trying to fight his way back from what seemed to torment him. “Siddiq”, Dante mumbled, moving his hand from the shard as the other man shook his head. “I’m fine.” “No, you’re not”, Dante said while you slowly nodded, glancing at Siddiq who was trying to keep his cool as best as he could. “I can open them with Dante if you’re alright with that, you pull the shards, it’s okay”, you said, catching his glance before he slowly nodded, gulping before he mumbled a soft “okay.” From this moment on it slowly began to work out as you all pushed the best you could through your exhaustion, until Carol was fully patched up and ready to be carried to Michonne’s house, a quieter place to recover than the infirmary.  Time flew whenever someone came in and slowed down to the bare minimum as soon as it got quiet again until you finally caught the sun rising behind the horizon, enlightening the infirmary and putting an end to the night, giving you hope that soon enough you’d be able to fall into bed and give in to the weight that kept pushing down on your eyelids, begging you to close them and get some rest.

Just as the whole infirmary was filled with morning light you gulped the last sip of your coffee down that was already awfully cold, leaning against the counter and letting your eyes wander over the room, trying to keep it busy enough to not fall into a second-sleep, just before footsteps outside made brought more of your consciousness back. “Ya still got time for more patients?”, you suddenly heard a familiar deep voice say, snapping you wide awake as your glance rushed to the door. “Negan”, you breathed out as soon as you caught him in the door, propping Aaron over his shoulders while he shifted to keep him steadily upright. “This one’s got hogweed in his eyes and my arm got it good too”, Negan said, shifting inside the room as you finally could let your eyes sway further over him, catch the blood splatters on his face and clothes and the exhausted look in his eyes. “I’ll take Aaron”,Dante quickly said as he rushed towards the two men, taking Aaron out of Negan’s grip and instead wrapping an arm around him to guide the man who was still blinking and rubbing his eyes with his hand,”C’mon buddy.” Dante groaned a little as he got him over to the hallway, about to lead him to one of the other patient doors, shooting both Negan and you a wide grin before he vanished in the hallway. “Let’s leave those two lovebirds alone, huh?” “What the-”, you only heard Negan grumble, looking a little confused, chuckling though as a laugh fell from your lips as you reached his side. “Yeah, that’s what I meant”, you chuckled, shrugging your shoulders as Negan leaned himself against the nearest cot, reached out for you and slowly pulled you closer ,”But turns out he’s alright so it’s okay.” “Hmm okay”, he said, nodding as you gave him a soft smile, simply relieved to have him back again as you cupped his jaw with your hands, stroking over the stubble before you leaned in to caress your lips over his, quickly receiving a deep, content hum from him as he pulled you closer, wrapping his arms tighter around you as you slowly melted into him, relishing in his touch before you slowly let go again. “Needed that”, you mumbled against his lips, humming as he leaned in to peck them one more time. “Fuck, me too”, he groaned, the exhaustion deeply stuck in his eyes before he suddenly grimaced in pain as soon as he shifted his forearm a little too much. “Oh shit, the rash, we gotta get to that”, you said, only reluctantly peeling yourself from him as you moved to the counters and grabbed the right utensils and wetted a towel to get the blood off him, hearing Negan’s voice again as soon as you closed the drawers again and strolled back to his side. “Shit grew out of the walkers, there was a ton of them”, he huffed, pushing his shirt up, revealing the reddened skin before he nodded at you as soon as you’d placed the meds next to him on the cot ,”Doesn’t look like you got so many though.” “Oh I did, was covered in blood, just got back a couple hours ago and took a shower right away. Figured the patients wouldn’t like that too much...or my nose”, you mumbled, chuckling softly as Negan slowly nodded. “Wouldn’t mind if you’d get some of that crap off my face too, fuckin’ dead assholes”, he huffed, giving you a small smirk though as you grabbed the wet towel from beside him. “Yeah, that’s the plan”, you chuckled, reaching up to dab the wet cloth over his face, your other hand cupping his jaw to keep him still as he slowly closed his eyes as soon as you ran your thumb over his stubble and got the last bit of blood off his skin. “Do that a little longer and I’ll fall asleep right fuckin’ here”, he mumbled, keeping his eyes closed as he leaned a bit more into your touch. “Me too...can’t wait for bed”, you said, unable to suppress a big yawn to fall from your lips as Negan slowly opened his eyes again. “Fuck...let’s get that rash done before I fall asleep”, you said, another tired chuckle falling from your lips as you tossed the towel back to the cot and grabbed the disinfection spray instead and some clean cloth before glancing at Negan,”Alright, gonna burn a bit now.” “Alrighty, guess-...fuck!”, he called out as soon as the spray hit his reddened skin, his relaxed even a little cocky face grimacing in a mix of surprise and pain as you already began to dab the cloth softly over his wound, sure to get it all clean and ready for a salve. “Told you”, you said, giving him a small grin as he shifted uncomfortably over the cot, gritting his teeth and looking more uncomfortable with some disinfection spray on his reddened skin than any time you’d seen this man suffer from something that actually deserved that reaction, but that had been downplayed instead.  “C’mon big man, you want me to blow on it?”, you chuckled, immediately loosening his tense face up that had a big grin form quickly on it instead.  “Nah, but you could head a little more south for that”, he chuckled, as you let out a laugh that quickly paired with a yawn again as you set the disinfection spray and the cloth aside. “Yeah, I’ll definitely do that when I’m awake enough again to not fall asleep while I’m at it”, you joked back, receiving another grin from him as he let out a just as big yawn as you had just seconds before. “Yeah, good idea...fuck, I’m tired”, he groaned, rubbing his eyes with one hand as you forced yourself to keep going and not forget any step as you reached for the right salve and raised it up so Negan could take a look at it.  ”Gonna get better as the disinfection stuff now, the salve cools so that should be nice.” “Sure as shit hope so”, Negan chuckled, as you swirled the cap off and leaned a little closer in.  “Well, then lets get started.” You kept going, step by step treating Negan’s rash as you began to talk about your nights, about the walker incident with Daryl, about the whisperers and Alpha at the old border and their move to make a new one. And after you finished the version of your night, Negan started with his, rambling about the damn broomstick that broke and the crowbar he hadn’t been allowed to use and about the hogweed walkers that turned the undead into a nastier threat than they already were, and about his fight with Aaron in the dead of the night. “He told me to fuck off after those crappy comments of his so I did”, Negan shrugged as you wrapped the bandage around his arm, listening to him as he rambled on, “Got myself comfy in some armchair in that cabin we were staying by...well, no one could know he got that hogweed crap in his eyes fighting those dead assholes and so Aaron boy stumbled in that damn house like some idiot.” “And you did what? Just watched him?” “For a bit”, Negan grumbled, his lips forming into a small roguish grin as your lips fell open for a moment. “Negan, you petty bitch”, you could only chuckle, eliciting a throaty laugh to fall from his lips as he shrugged his shoulders again and reached his free hand up to run it for a second over his beard stubble. “Were only few moments, I was pissed, but I didn’t let anything happen to him. Soon as walkers got in and tried to turn him into some late night snack, I killed ‘em and took watch the whole damn night till the asscrack of dawn. Even let him sleep on that comfy armchair”, Negan said, reassuring in a way as you slowly nodded. “I know, you did good saving him there”, you said, stopping to wrap the bandage for a moment to give him a small grin, watching as he shifted a little uncomfortably over this spot on the cot, enough to show that there was a little more to the one part he had brushed over. “What was the comment?”, you finally asked, glancing at him as you finished the bandage up and heard him sigh, hesitate for a moment before he let his eyes meet yours. “About Lucille“, he mumbled as he scratched his stubbly jaw, reluctant as he raised his voice again ,“and you.” He exhaled thickly, letting his eyes run over the room for a moment before he glanced up at you again. “Said I failed her and she died hating me....fuck, and that I’d fail you too, sooner or later.“ He shifted again, visibly bothered that Aaron’s comments made in rage bothered him so much and it got only confirmed as he shrugged his shoulders once more. “I know he was just pissed off and those remarks are boiled up shit but that crap just rubs me the wrong way“, he scoffed before clenched his jaw slightly,“‘specially cause I got no clue how Aaron got that info, probably Gabey boy that gossipy bitch.“ “Mhmm“,you mumbled, reaching up to cup the sides of his neck with your hands, make him look at you as you caressed him softly,“ Either way, his info was wrong.“ He looked up as you gave him a small smile, stepping a little closer. “Cause I got a much more reliable source“, you said, nodding towards him as your voice grew a little gentler,“ She didn’t die hating you, that’s bullshit.“ “And you won’t fail me, that’s not even possible“,you added, giving him another small, uplifting smile as you stroke your thumbs slowly over the skin of his neck ,“in no damn way.“ Negan nodded, giving you a small but warm smile back before wrapping his arms around you as he pulled you closer, enough to lean his head against your shoulder, hold you close as you hugged him back,  moving one hand to let it caress through his hair. ”Been waiting for that all night”, he grumbled, holding onto you a little tighter as you chuckled softly and slowly nodded, nuzzling your nose into his hair. ”Mhmm, me too”, you said, leaning into his touch before another yawn slipped out of your lips, reminding you of the place you’ve wanted to slip in with him for way too long already. “I’ve been waiting for something else too all night”, you chuckled, feeling Negan backing a little away, a small grin on his face as he pulled you closer. “It’s not your dick, I’m sorry”, you mumbled with a laugh, teasing him only to feel him pinch you in the side as revenge, before he pulled you a little closer.  “Gonna get back at ya for that when we’ve had some fuckin’ sleep, be sure of that”, he teased back, though he couldn’t keep another big yawn to fall from his lips. “Head to bed?”, he asked, gesturing outside as you nodded, giving him as much of an enthusiastic smile as your exhaustion allowed, already imagining to finally cuddle up in that bed with him. “Yes!” Part 55 / “Silence The Whisperers”

(The gif isn’t mine/ it was originally posted by dancing-at-the-funeralparty) tagging: @agespenst @imaginesforthepeople @porgs-r-us @squidgy84 @toxic-ink@Nobodylastname @nice-shoes-nerd @thegirlwiththelyrics99 @tolieboy @writteninthestars288@magical-spit @straightestgay-voice @xsnak-3x @myrabbitholetoneverland  @dasani-saraai @negan-is-god@harry-titss@traumbruch @negans-network@theblankestostares @amysuemc@ashzombie13 @trashimaginezblog @jeffreydeanneganstrash @sweetwittlebosco @futureofdestiel @bananakid42 @dragongirl420 @kalliewinchester-queenofhell@futureofdestiel @timeladyrikaofgallifrey @osakamilk @kattyshea20 @dinodiegos @missmotherhen @kinkygamertrash @beahippie23 @xabeautifultragedyx @negansmagic@starwarsandstufff @bdohe21 @lovesjdm @vanilla-negan @to-pick-ourselves-up-7 @roselover159 @mamarhee @the-writingdead @traumbruch @bellawindixon @dlb1999 @thelittlewolf45 @collette04 @ask-kakashihatake @princessbelgoof@adixon13@botanicalthoughts @nijiru@cheyanhicks @jtklover123 @twentyonewalkerss @originalwinchestervamp @readytourie​ @ijashanaa @i-am-lady-anarchy @marauderspads@humble-thumb @hp-hogwartsexpress @mydeliciousdandelion @warriorqueen1991 @unholyjs @kentuckywalker @mydeliciousdandelion@dancing-in-embers @gackts-guwashi @ugh-abbyxx @frozenhuntress67 @hela-rious48 @thoughtfullyoptimisticgalaxy @xojeffreydeanmorgan @thelittlewolf45 @babygirlmeepi @thehybridsqueen@blueeyedsoutherngal @naniky @negans-network @the-wintergirl @fangirl-and-medstudent-help@lovesjdm @oofasaurus @putnamjessie @escaping-reality-22(In case you want to be tagged or untagged for specific things or everything I write, just let me know!)

[milomeepit]

Diamond In The Rough: Chapter Sixteen

Roman has always wanted better. Has always believed that there’s a better life, a better world, just out of reach. Just beyond the veil of shitty teachers who don’t care, angry classmates that scream insults and slurs at each other all day, and drug-hazed parents who are more concerned with their next hit than looking after their ten year old son.

When he runs away after a particularly bad night at home and finds a quiet little cafe/bookstore tucked away in a back alley of the city, the sweet couple who run the joint (an odd pair; a quiet, gloomy man with a wry sense of humour and a cynical gleam in his eye, and a bouncy man who smiles like sunshine and laughs like a storybook king) help show him that maybe- just maybe- he really can have the life he always dreamed of.

Masterpost (to be added soon!)

Word Count: 1391

Chapter Warnings: Anxiety, court, lawyers, CPS, abusive parents, arguing, yelling, legal paperwork,  

Patton watched as Virgil paced back and forth in front of him. Tension rolled off of him in waves, and Patton was reminded of a tiger stalking the length of its enclosure at a zoo. The flimsy paper cup of coffee Duck had offered him sat abandoned at the base of his seat, quickly growing cold.

“I can’t believe this. Why do we have to jump through all of these hoops?” Virgil ranted. His hands were shoved in the deep pockets of his jacket, but Patton could picture them; tight fists, white-knuckled, practically shaking with irritation and anxiety. “You heard what Logan said about his parent’s house! It’s fucking trashed! There’s no way a kid should be living there. It should be a cut-and-dry thing, right?!”

“I know,” Patton agreed softly. “But we need to keep it together. It’ll all work out, I know it will.” It kinda has to, he thought as Virgil flopped into his seat, his knee bouncing rapidly. He wasn’t sure what would happen to them if it didn’t.

“Uh-huh,” Virgil grunted vaguely. His head flopped over to land on Patton’s shoulder, and Patton slipped an arm around his waist.

He sighed and pressed a kiss to Virgil’s forehead, then glanced around the large room that they had been sitting in all morning.

The huge windows at the end of the hallway showed a picturesque view of the city streets, dusted with snow that sparkled in the sunlight. People scurried down the sidewalks, jackets tugged tight around them, scarves pulled up against the chilly air.

Despite the frosty weather, it was a warmer scene than inside. There was a heavy cloud of dread and desperation that hung over the people sitting in the rows of chairs around them. It was thick and heavy, and seemed to drain energy from the crowd. It felt... bleak. Hopeless. Patton shivered slightly.

Virgil twitched suddenly and raised his head, looking behind them. “Did you hear-?” He cut himself off with a sharp intake of breath, and the next moment he was just gone.

Patton twisted in his seat to see Virgil practically sprinting down to the other end of the hallway. His heart seemed to leap out of his chest as he spotted what Virgil had; a faded red hoodie and a dark blue backpack.

“Ro!” Virgil called out, and the boy turned, his face an almost cartoonish expression of surprise. He broke away from the man he’d been walking with- a friendly-looking fellow with brown glasses- and ran towards Virgil.

It was like a scene from a movie, Patton squealed internally. The two of them running to meet each other, reunited at last. Everything really was okay. They had him back, and he was safe, and Patton was never going to let anyone hurt him ever again.

That hope cracked like glass as a blonde woman leapt to her feet and intercepted Roman, sweeping him up into her arms. “Oh! Roman, baby, I missed you so much! Are you okay?” She chattered. Her voice was sickly-sweet, and it immediately set Patton on edge.

“Let go of me!” Roman shouted as he squirmed in her grip, trying to shove away from her. “Put me down!”

Virgil skidded to a halt in front of them, and Patton winced a little, half expecting all that coiled-up stress to explode like a bomb. But, no, Virgil simply scowled at her. “Put him down, you’re stressing him out,” He bit out.

Patton could see Roman’s lawyer jogging towards them, and quickly got to his feet to approach, as well. Hopefully he could help diffuse the situation.

“And who the hell are you supposed to be?” A large man appeared next to the woman- Roman’s parents, Patton realised with no small amount of distaste- and glared at Virgil.

“Virgil. What about you, brute squad?” Virgil snapped as he crossed his arms.

“We’re his parents!” The woman pursed her lips, seemingly oblivious to Roman’s distress. “What does it matter to you?”

Virgil scoffed. “Yeah, I should’ve guessed, with Ro’s reaction.”

“And what is that meant to mean?” The man scowled.

“It means,” Patton frowned as he reached them, “Roman’s told us about you, and we’ve heard some things from a social worker. I’d hardly call you caregivers.”

“Emile, help!” Roman whined as his lawyer drew near.

“Alright, everybody, let’s just calm down for a minute, huh? Fighting doesn’t help anybody.” Emile said chipperly.

“So you must be the ones who kidnapped my baby!” The woman ignored him, glaring sharply at Virgil and Patton. “Of course you look like that.”

“Look like what?” Virgil challenged, taking hold of Patton’s hand and gripping it tightly. “Better guardians than you two could ever dream of being?”

“Come on, now, folks, you’re upsetting Roman,” Emile reached out towards him, but the woman jerked him away.

“Like a pair of lazy retail workers with more fat than sense!” She snapped, her gaze lingering on Patton.

Patton felt Virgil tense beside him. “Bold of you to insult my husband about his appearance when you’re walking around looking like a painted whor-”

“Everybody, quiet down, right now!” Emile roared. They all fell silent and looked at him. His eyes flickered with protective fury as he held out his arms towards Roman. The woman released him, and he scampered over to cling to Emile, his eyes wide. “Everyone is going to go back and sit down back where they were, on opposite sides of the room, and let the lawyers do the talking and negotiating and problem-solving.”

“Don’t talk to us like we’re goddamn children-” Roman’s father started to say, but Emile rounded on him, his face stony.

“If you want to be treated like mature adults, you’re going to act like mature adults,” He said firmly.

Mr Gorgon went quiet and nodded.

Emile sighed and turned to Patton and Virgil. “Mr Sanders, Mr Sanders, please go back to your seats. Duck should be back with the paperwork he went to fetch shortly. Mr and Mrs Gorgon, please stay here, and your own lawyer should be back from... whatever they’re doing soon.”

Patton watched as Roman’s parents slowly sank back into their seats. He tugged gently on Virgil’s hand, then jerked his head back towards their seats.

Virgil frowned and glanced back towards Roman. “But...”

“Later, love,” Patton murmured. He looked down at Roman, who waved shyly, still clinging to Emile’s shirt. He smiled and nodded, then turned away.

Virgil allowed Patton to lead him back towards their seat, where Duck was waiting. He was a thin fellow, with large wire glasses that gave him a permanently bewildered look, and a dark green suit. He seemed a little unsure of himself, but Patton had faith in him, and had told him so.

“I see you, ah, I see you met the Gorgons,” He said awkwardly.

“Fun couple,” Virgil drawled as he flopped into his chair. “I can see why Roman likes them so much.”

Duck sighed. “They... yeah. We generally try to keep guardians and birth parents... apart, during the process. It’s a very tense time for everyone involved, and it can lead to some... less than pleasant interactions.”

Patton nodded. He gripped the hem of his sweater, twisting it in his hands. “Um... so, what did we need to do next?” He asked, then winced at how forced his enthusiasm sounded. “P-paperwork wise, I mean.”

Duck glanced down at the sheaf of papers in his hands and shuffled them. “Oh! Uh... follow me into one of the interview rooms, and we can go through it all. This one’s probably the thickest- background and history check information and financial history and stability stuff, all that kind of thing- but it shouldn’t take too long. I think we should be finished with it before lunch time.”

Virgil groaned and dragged himself to his feet again. Patton frowned at the dark circles under his husband’s eyes. Neither of them had been coping very well in the past two weeks, but he wasn’t sure Virgil had slept much at all in the past few days. He was worried.

Virgil met his gaze and flashed him a tired grin. “Nothing good ever comes easy, huh?” He muttered, taking Patton’s hand again.

Patton hummed in agreement and squeezed his hand before turning back to Duck and nodding. “Let’s do this.”

[buzzdixonwriter]

You Don’t Say

For me, one of the unforeseen benefits of Facebook and other social media is that it gives me a chance to do rough drafts of ideas, assembling my thoughts and getting feedback before committing to more permanent form.

And sometimes, like asteroids colliding in space, two separate ideas / posts slam into one another and either create something new and unexpected, or else shatter themselves and reveal interesting aspects of their nature heretofore hidden from view.

That happened recently with a pair of Facebook posts I made on Dennis Prager and Harlan Ellison.

Let’s get the turd out of our mouth first.

. . .

Dennis Prager is a purveyor of herpetology lubricants admired by many on the right-leaning-nazi side of the spectrum, primarily because he keeps his mouth closed when chewing.  Half of what he says is repackaged self-evident truths of the “Don’t eat the yellow snow” variety, a quarter is opinions that if not startling original are at least not genuinely harmful, and the remain quarter is egregious bullshit for which he deserves a public pants down spanking.

Hmm, what?  Oh, yes; purely metaphorically, of course.

I long since wrote off Prager as a. utterer of inanities, but recently his turdmongering was forced on my attention by someone who posted a link to Prager’s argument that the “left” (i.e., basically anybody who thinks Auschwitz was a Bad Idea) is inflicting harm on both the American body politic and the universe at large by denying people like Prager the right to drop the N-bomb whenever they feel like it.

As some of you no doubt already knew, Prager is a member of what polite bigots used to refer to as “those of the Hebrew persuasion”.

That a person from an ethnicity that historically suffered hatred so vicious and specifically targeted that a special word had to be created for it (“anti-Semitism” because the original word -- “Jew-hatred” -- was too damned ugly even for bigots to use) now has his knickers in a twist because he’s “not allowed” to use the only other word of equal or greater impact -- also coined specifically by oppressors for expressing unrestrained hate and contempt against those oppressed -- is so rich in irony that all I can do is swipe a phrase from Jim Wright over at Stonekettle Station and say Dennis Prager has “all the self-awareness of a dog licking its own asshole in the middle of the street”.

First off, he’s lying: Neither the “left” nor American law prevents him from dropping the N-bomb whenever he feels like it and I invite him to go down to the intersection of Normandie and Florence in South Central and drop it at the top of his lungs for as long as he is able and please make sure to take plenty of video recorders along because I really wanna see what happens next.

Second, why the fuck would you want to say that? Seriously, other than in an evidentiary context (a cop giving testimony in court, a journalist reporting what some bigoted politician says, etc.), who today gains anything from repeating the word other than inflicting unjustified distress on people who have done nothing to deserve it?

(This is the point where a bunch of alt-right trolls are gonna jump up and say “but whatabout all the times when black people say it?” and to those trolls I’m gonna say STFU & STFD; if you can’t grasp the difference in context then you’re too damned stupid to be allowed out in public except at the end of a leash and with a ball gag in your mouth.)

It’s a word specifically created and designed to be used to brutally oppress people who did nothing to deserve that brutal oppression.  Why would anybody outside that group use it except to participate in that brutal oppression?

. . .

Least there sit any in the cheap seats who presume the above rant was targeted at Dennis Prager simply because he was Jewish, guess again, ya yutzes.

Few writers enjoyed as brilliant and as incendiary a career as Harlan Ellison, and I count myself privileged to have been one of his friends.

Ellison, as many of you know, also was Jewish, a damned tough little bastard, singled out for hatred and abuse as the only Jewish child in his backwater Ohio school, growing up with nerves & balls of chromium, a bona fide Army Ranger, and a writer so honest and fearless that when he wrote about juvenile delinquency in the 1950s he did so by infiltrating and joining a street gang to get first hand experience and insight on the kids who ran in that crowd (and as icing on the cake, James Caan played him in the TV version!).

Top that, Dennis.

Harlan’s electric eclectic career features many highpoints, but the one I want to focus on is his brief 4-year run as TV critic for the legendary Los Angeles Free Press (a.k.a. The Freep) from 1968 to 1972.  

What’s interesting is that Harlan did this while at the same time at the height of his demand as a TV writer.

You got any idea how hard it is to make a living while you’re gnawing on the hand that feeds you?

Harlan may have been crazy, but damn it, he was honest.

Back to the issue at hand.

Recently I’ve been re-reading his TV criticism columns, collected in two volumes, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat.

The depressing thing is that all the evil we see today was in place back in those days, and the same smug pious frauds and their dimbulb marks kept congratulating themselves how wonderful they were as things continued to spiral out of control.

Oh, we've had good moments when we made changes that improved the lot of people who'd previously been marginalized, but the core cancer is still there. Harlan was no cock-eyed sentimentalist -- he was often filled with anger and could vent it spectacularly at deserving targets -- but he did have hope that somehow we could keep nudging the ball further towards the goal lines.

The columns make fascinating reading; they are nowhere near as dated as one might suspect. Sometimes they offer diamond-like brilliant dissections of a particular instant in the cultural gestalt, other times they examine the unseen (well, to most audiences, that is) tides of Hollywood that shape our media, sometimes he turns his attention to bear on seemingly insignificant and forgotten local programming only to show with McLuhan-esque clarity how that tiny piece of seemingly insignificant fluff is symptomatic of a much wider, much vaster, and far more serious problem.

One entry caught my eye in particular, the March 7, 1969 column on a failed ABC pilot called Those Were The Days.

Harlan sat in the studio audience watching the taping of that pilot, and his column praised the courage and insight of producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin, the brilliant performances of Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, and the raw honesty of the pilot’s sharp comedy and writing.

Those of you not in the cheap seats have already realized this was the second failed pilot for what would eventually become All In The Family over at CBS (there was an even earlier original pilot called Justice For All back when Archie and Edith’s last name was Justice, not Bunker.)

I remember the hoopla when All In The Family finally aired in January of 1971 as a mid-season replacement.

You might count Archie Bunker as the white Dolemite insofar as the comedy sprang from the shock of all the crude and vulgar things he said.

Lear and Yorkin were mocking that mindset, belittling bigotry, exposing the Babbittry of millions of “good” Americans who lacked either the self-awareness or the courage to take a long introspective look at themselves and realize how badly they were failing as citizens of this country.

Audiences weren’t supposed to like Archie Bunker.

And that’s where Lear and Yorkin made their fatal mistake.

No, audiences didn’t like Archie.

They loved him.

. . .

Asteroids collide, and sometimes they form new planets, and sometimes they shatter and expose what lies beneath.

Prager’s modern day Babbittry crashed into Harlan’s half-century old anti-Babbittry, and from the explosion a stark truth revealed itself.

It’s almost impossible to make an outlaw a villain in popular media.

No matter how many banks they rob, stages they hold up, sheriffs they shoot, the mere fact that somebody wrote a song / dime novel / movie about ‘em makes them into heroes.

Demi-gods.

People to be admired.

Emulated.

Professional wrestling knows this.

You can never be so big a heel that you won’t have a legion of followers.

And you can turn a heel into a baby face in the blink of an eye and none of the fans will remember the despicable acts the wrassler did just last week.

You put an Archie Bunker on TV, you do not get millions of people to recognize themselves in his hateful / hurtful behavior and change their ways.

Oh, hell no; you get millions of people to applaud him for saying and doing what they say and do in private.

And now that it’s all big and bold and brassy on TV, why it becomes even easier to say it in the privacy of your own home, then over the fence with the neighbors, then in the bar down the street, then on the street itself, and then against people who have done you no harm, who have committed no sin other than the heinous crime of not being exactly like you.

I remember watching and liking All In The Family when it first came on because I, like millions of other Americans, got the joke:  Archie was no hero.

But it wasn’t long before the voices cheering Archie began to drown out the voices laughing at him.

Lear and Yorkin tried undoing their damage with Maude and The Jeffersons and Good Times and other spinoff shows, but the bigot was out of the bottle.

Archie Bunker, even though written in a way to ridicule his use of bigotry and stereotypes, became a champion and defender of those who clung to said bigotry and stereotypes.

So tell me again why you want to drop that N-bomb, Dennis.

Explain to me -- even while you talk out of both sides of your mouth and claim even if everybody can use they word maybe they shouldn’t use the word -- how that does anything to help anybody…

…other than bigots and hate mongers.

Your argument is as circular as the thumb and forefinger gesture white supremacists use to signal one another, a gesture deliberately chosen because it lets them transgress openly by lying about the truth meaning of their gesture.

And Harlan, you were right about Those Were The Days as it began evolving into All In The Family.  Absolutely brilliant -- but absolutely deadly.

Not airing All In The Family wouldn’t have eliminated racial / ethnic / sexual prejudice in the United States…

…but it would have denied those ideas a voice.

The narcissist always proclaims, “I don’t care what they say about me so long as they spell my name right.”

Well, that’s what we got with Archie Bunker.

None of the bigots cared if we made fun of their ideas…

…just so long as they got their ideas out there.

Because ideas are made legitimate by their presence.

Now clearly, this is a bade that cuts both ways.

Ideas once unthinkable -- liberty and justice for all in the form of racial and gender equality, f’r instance -- need to be championed in public.

But we need to shout down and stamp out the bad ideas.

The United States took their foot off the neck of the defeated white racists after the end of the Civil War, and as a result jim crow came roaring back, and things did not change for millions of Americans for another entire century.

We allowed bigots and hate mongers and slavers to be whitewashed and glorified and forgiven for their crimes against humanity…

…and in the process we allowed them to continue victimizing African-Americans more and more.

Every song about the Ol’ South, every novel glorifying plantation life, every movie showing happy field hands, every statue commemorating murderous traitors as men of honor and principle, every single iteration of that idea made millions of people’s suffering not just possible but inevitable.

. . .

Now this is the point where the alt-right trolls are gonna jump up and ask “did you ever drop the N-word?”

Not in casual conversation, no.

I was born and raised in the South (Appalachia, mostly); my father’s side of the family were almost all Southerners.

Almost all.

My paternal grandmother was born and raised in New Jersey and met my grandfather when both served in the U.S. Army medical corps in WWI.  When my grandfather died in his 40s, my grandmother originally moved back to New Jersey, but her three children (dad and two aunts) felt heartbroken at having to leave their Southern cousins and friends behind so even though she carried no particular love for the South, my grandmother moved her family back and stayed there for the most of her life (she and one of my aunts moved out to California to be near us, but that’s another story for another post).

One thing my grandmother absolutely refused to tolerate was use of the N-bomb anywhere near her, especially under her roof or in the homes of her children.

This included both the -er and -ra variants, because Southern racists who didn’t want to appear as uncultured and as boorish and as bigoted as their backwoods cousins preferred the second pronunciation because they could claim they were actually speaking respectfully about “colored people”.

So I grew up in the rare white Southern home where the N-bomb merely wasn’t used, it was actually denounced as wrong.

Now, don’t go thinking my grandmother was some great paragon of virtue; she wasn’t (she was hell on wheels, in fact, but that’s another story for another post).

But she did recognize there was something wrong with the use of the N-bomb, and whether she demanded her children never use it in any form to keep them from appearing to be boorish, bigoted louts, or whether she just thought it was simple good manners of the golden rule variety not to use it, I dunno.

But I do know we never used it, and when my parents heard our neighbors or schoolmates use it, we were reminded in no uncertain terms that we were never to use it.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t used it.

A couple of decades ago I wrote a screenplay based on the life of Robert Smalls, in particular his incredible escape from Civil War Charleston by hijacking a Confederate gunboat and sailing it right past Ft. Sumter to join the Union fleet, bringing his wife and several other escaping African-Americans with him.

As a skilled harbor pilot, Smalls enjoyed certain privileges other enslaved African-Americans didn’t.

For example, he was allowed to go about the streets of Charleston unescorted…

…provided he wore a big diamond shaped brass tag around his neck.

Like a dog.

The tag indicated to slave catcher patrols that he was one of the “good” ones, that he could be trusted because he was helping his masters in their struggle against the Union by guiding blockade runners into the safety of Charleston harbor.

But knowing Southerners the way I do, and knowing the kind of low class good ol’ boy types they recruited for such jobs, I couldn’t imagine the slave catcher patrols being particularly courteous to him, even when they knew they had to let him pass because clearly he had the protection of some high positioned muckamuck.  

And I could easily imagine them flinging the N-bomb at him with great glee, taunting him, daring him to act “uppity” so they could beat the crap out of him and teach him some manners and remind him of his place.

So I used the word in their dialog in my script.

Would I use that word today?

Probably not.

It’s not that crucial to the story, and if the viewer doesn’t grasp the concept that these are bigoted bully scum from their actions and attitude, then I’ve failed my job as a writer.

Have I ever quoted people who dropped the N-bomb?

Yeah, I have, in the past.

I’ve quoted Richard Pryor and Blazing Saddles and Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

I would excuse it then as the aforementioned evidentiary context but ya know what?  I don’t quote those lines anymore.

I still think Pryor is hilarious and will recommend his routines to anyone I think might be interested, but he as a member of the African-American community at large (because like any other ethnic group, African-Americans have numerous sub-cultures and sub-communities among them), he could say things in a way neither I nor any other white person could say them.

(And, yeah, there’s a big debate going on to this very day among African-Americans about the appropriateness of that word and you know what?  Whatever decision African-Americans reach for themselves is their business and should not involve any input whatsoever from we white folk; we not only can’t use the word, we can’t even comment on how they choose to use it.  Period.  Full stop.)

Blazing Saddles when it came out used the N-bomb to be deliberately transgressive, to make a sympathetic point re how unfairly African-Americans were treated.

All well and good.

But nine years earlier there had been a movie called A Patch Of Blue and while it wasn’t a raucous comedy like Blazing Saddles it tried making a point about race relations in America and it was a really. Really good movie and it made some important points but today is virtually unwatchable not because of any flaws in it but because the times have changed.

Ditto Blazing Saddles.

We don’t need to approach the problem that way any more.

Quentin Tarantino?  I really like what he does as a director and a screenwriter but his use of the N-bomb to show us how transgressive his characters are is really shallow.  I have a strong feeling his movies are going to be considered embarrassingly passé’ in a generation or two, much the same way as benign-yet-stereotypical characters in 1940s movies render many of them passé’ today.  

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction lose nothing by changing the N-word to something else.  

Maybe an argument could be made for its use in Django Unchained or The Hateful 8 but even there I think substituting another word wouldn’t significantly change the tenor or tone of either movie.

So I stop quoting those lines from Tarantino’s films, at least not fully.

I can admire his skill / talent / craft without signing off on his problematic elements.

Let me offer an analogy: If a creator can get the same dramatic effect by pretending to shoot somebody but not actually blasting them with a gun, then they can get the same dramatic effect by using something evocative of the N-bomb without actually dropping it.

(By the way, for those who may be curious, my mother was from Naples and a bona fide card carrying member of Mussolini’s Fascist Youth Brigade, but that’s another story for another post.)

. . .

We are plunging into a new cultural conflict -- and while I think there will be violence, I don’t see it being violence on the scale or level of political organization as the Civil War -- and we can only win by refusing to let the bigots and the hate mongers spew their bullshit in the marketplace of ideas.

There is no compromise with an oppressor.

Stand up to it every time you encounter it.

Make it unthinkable, never acceptable. 

  © Buzz Dixon

[kpopchangedme]

Starboy III: Instability

Your night at the club turns sour, all thanks to that baseball player...

Mini-Masterlist || M A S T E R L I ST

Protagonists: Im Jaebum & You

Word Count: 1,7k

Genre: SFW – University!au – Baseball!Au  – Slight Angst – *Socially offensive language* – Mini-Series

Lysandre’s note: Is it you or Jaebum that’s acting like an ass?

Makayla shakes your shoulder to bring you back to the reality of the club, away from your first night with Jaebum. “Ever thought that maybe… Maybe, you’re so good in bed that he can’t stop thinking about you? It’s probably why he’s looking like a lost pupp–”

You almost spit your beer out, laughing. “No way! I bet he just can’t believe I’m not begging for more.”

“Yeah girl, why is that? I know I would.”

“He’s a fuckboy, I don’t need it that bad right now. Besides you’re the one who taught me all about the golden rules of hookups!” You shake your head, giggly.

“You hadn’t gotten laid in forever before I saved you and turned you into a wanton sex predator!”

“Hey! Lower y–”

“Who’s a sex predator?”, Sungjin reappears, with six shots full of clear alcohol and crashes your conversation, “Me?” You threateningly glare at Makayla as a warning, but she just shrugs it off and giggles with him.

Post-shots, you decide it’s better to give them both intimacy since he’s clearly into her and head towards the dancefloor, mind buzzing from the booze. After a few minutes of dancing alone to the beat, a stranger comes to join. Anything – anybody – to keep you away from that damn baseball player.  The man’s hands find your hips and you let him touch you, numbed by the Tequila, the beer flowing in your veins and the loud bass. Everybody around you two are grinding on one another, painted by red, blue and green spotlights. The whole scene is looking like a strange Warhol work of art. Eventually, after several songs, the stranger’s hands become too ambitious and you take your leave, heading to the bar.

Dropping your tipsy ass on a stool, you glance at the squad of baseball players to see what Jaebum is up to and if he’s still there – not that you care or anything. He’s drinking a pint of beer and you shake your head, disapproving. Drinking multiplies the risks of dumb injuries and poisons the body.

“A pint of red Keith, please” You request, thankful to the barman – Hey, you’re not an aspiring professional athlete.  

From the corner of your eye, you spot a tall model-like girl talking up close to Jaebum who’s ignoring her, surveying the crowd. That’s it, you think: his world. It’s full of lustful giant blonde cheerleaders. She’s like a Victoria Secret Angel, if you stood next to her, you’d look like a girl straight out of a cheap retail catalog… Even in Makayla’s dangerous dress. One of his friends, wearing the obligatory baseball jacket, leans between Jaebum and the bombshell.

“Hey man, we should go back before midnight!” He yells, loud enough so you hear him over the deafening music. Then again, there’s only one occupied stool separating you from the squad, you’re glad Jaebum doesn’t seem to have spotted you yet. He has power over you, it’s better if you avoid him altogether. Otherwise, you might betray yourself and try to jump him again. “You know, the rule–”

“Shut up, Jackson!” You lean closer to listen – healthy curiosity – and watch the teammate wince at Jaebum’s harsh reply.

The tall girl giggles stupidly. “There’s no curfew back at my place, Jae.”

“Do you think she left with that gross dude?” You almost choke on your beer when Jaebum ignores lanky-legs’ open invitation. You look up again, his eyes are wandering on the crowd, searching, but you don’t allow yourself to believe it’s for you.

“Well, I’m right here…” The girl pushes her boobs forward, annoyed by the lack of consideration and you smile in your glass. You’re weirdly entertained by all this, it’s clear he isn’t interested. Girl, move on.

“I don’t know dude, just text her.” The one named Jackson runs a hand through his dark brown hair, discouraged.

“I can’t.” At this, the girl rolls her eyes and leaves, although both guys don’t seem to notice at all.

“Go talk to her then, we only have half an hour left! Jeez, why do I even try?”

“I should – I mean... I will but-”

“Yeah, we’ve already had that talk, JB. I can’t tell if you’re drunker than I thought or actually nervous? Stop overthinking and do som-”

“I would, but I don’t see her!”

Frowning, Jaebum reaches for his almost empty glass of beer. Halfway to his mouth however, it happens.

Time slows down as you watch the scene unfolds.

In slow motion, you watch as Jaebum lets the pint slip out of his fingers. You stand up stupidly like you’d have the time to catch it before it shatters on the floor. There’s something odd about the whole scene as if he dropped it voluntarily. His hand completely opens when he bends his left elbow and the glass slips of his palm, before his arm falls back to his side, completely motionless. The pint explodes on the ground making everyone around him take a step back, laughing at his clumsiness.

“JB”, one of his other teammates with lighter hair chuckles, slightly embarrassed, “I think you’ve had enough!”

You frown when Jaebum stares at the mess he made in awe, clenching his left fist repetitively. Something feels horribly wrong, clearly, he didn’t drop that beer on purpose.

“I don’t u-unde–”

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you’re already crossing the few steps separating you, careful to avoid the glass shards. “Jaebum, are you alright?”

“No, I–”, the pitcher looks up, startled by the question, gaze hardening as he recognizes you. “Why do you care?”

Grabbing his jacket on his stool, he runs out, leaving you behind with his equally shocked teammates. Without thinking, you run after him, pushing a few people out of your way. When you exit in the parking lot, you easily spot him against a wall. He’s still staring at his hands, something is off.

“Jaebum...” He clenches his jaw and rubs his face irritated when you call him out. “What was that? Is something wrong with your hand?” “Just leave me alone y/n, please?”

“Does this happen often?” You ignore him, running diagnostics in your head. He’s a pitcher. It’s very demanding on the body, it could just be fatigue. It looked like a dead arm, one of the symptoms of shoulder instability. “Was it your pitching shoul–”

“What the fuck are you insinuating!?” He snaps coldly, making you wonder why you even considered he might be looking for you earlier. He’s hostile, you’ve never seen him like this. He’s normally polite at worse, playful at best.

“Your arm, Jaebum. Did it just simply stopped responding–” You try to reach for his left arm, but he instantly retreats.

“Don’t touch me!” For a second there’s something scary in his eyes, but then he softens, calming himself. “Listen, y/n, this is nothing. I’m sorry, I-I’m just – I must be really drunk that’s all…”

You smile reassuringly taking a step closer. “I just wanna help you.”

“I just shouldn’t have been drinking. You always say that. This is nothing.” He repeats, sighing, seemingly more relaxed.

“Jaebum, I don’t think that was nothing. I’m a professional, can I look at–”

“Don’t!” He quickly snaps, switching to angry again. He kicks himself away from the brick wall. This time he takes a step towards you and you back off, startled by his unexplained animosity. “You know, you’re really hard to read y/n? One minute you ask to fuck, the other you act like you don’t even know me!” He scowls, the scary sound making shivers run down your spine. “Then fast forward a few months and you’re after me again – but God forbid I actually ask for your phone number! After all that you were here tonight – hitting on guys whilst sneaking looks at me – Isn’t at least one of them waiting for you back ins–”

“JB, stop! What are y–”

“SHUT UP, Jackson!”

You glance behind, realizing two of his teammates followed you, witnessing his wrath. Biting your lips, you push the thought of them knowing about your hookups to the back of your mind, the opinion of his friends shouldn’t matter to you. Jaebum inhales sharply, picking up on his rant again.

“Look, I don’t want you to come acting like you care. This is nothing. My arm is fine. We are nothing.”

“WOW! I know that!” You shake your head in disbelief, you didn’t expect anything from him, but his words still hit hard. Then again, since you witnessed that incident, you can’t just walk away. You’d feel horrible if there was something wrong with him. “I just came to make sure a stranger’s pitching arm is–”

“Don’t touch me!” Jaebum backs off again, alarmed when you take a step forward with every intention of examine him. “You say you don’t know me – You don’t even want to know me. I bet you don’t even know my last name!” He pauses but you don’t say anything, desperately searching for the appropriate answer in the back of your mind. He needs to calm down, you need to make sure he’s alright. “...So, don’t ask me about my arm. My arm is perfectly fine–”

“JB… If she’s a professional, just let her have a loo–” Jackson tries to intervene but gets ignored again.

“–I’m fine!” Jaebum blurts out for all of you, the statement sounding more and more like a lie. “So just quit being a hypocritical bitch and leave me alone!”

You bite the inside of your cheek, more hurt by his words than you’d like to admit. Most of the things he said are true, but… Aloud like that… It does make you sound horrible.

“Right.” You turn around, hating yourself for tearing up over someone like him. He’s right, you guys are nothing, not even friends. Just two strangers with separate lives who had awesome sex – twice. You begin to walk away, accelerating when you realize the tears will really slip out and betray you. Briefly you slow down, hesitating for a second, facing away from his teammates. You’re still a responsible professional, working at the clinic… Well, at least you tried.

“Just make sure he drinks a lot of water. You all have a big game next Thursday.”

Mini-Masterlist || M A S T E R L I ST

[lifeofresulullah]

The Life of The Prophet Muhammad: The Battle of Uhud and Afterwards

The Incident of Ifk: Part 1

The group of munafiqs who seemingly believed in God but did not actually believe always looked for an opportunity to disturb the Messenger of God and his Companions. They resorted to all kinds of methods to attain their aims. They even slandered the privacy of the Messenger of God and acted arrogantly and meanly.

The Incident of Ifk is the slander by Abdullah b. Ubay, the leader of the munafiqs, against Hazrat Aisha. The incident took place as follows:

According to what we learnt from Hazrat Aisha, when the Messenger of God went on an expedition, he drew lots among the names of his wives and took that wife with him. On the expedition of Sons of Mustaliq, Aisha’s name was drawn.

Hazrat Aisha related the incident as follows:

“I was on an expedition with the Messenger of God. This expedition took place after the verse of hijab was sent down. Therefore, I was carried in a kind of chair and when we stopped for a break, I was put down in the chair. We travelled like that.  

The Messenger of God (pbuh) was returning from the expedition of Sons of Mustaliq. When we approached Madinah, we stopped somewhere for a break. We spent some part of the night there. Then, the Prophet ordered to set out.

When the order to move was given, I left the army alone to answer the call of the nature. After that, I went near the camel that I had ridden. When I checked my chest, I noticed that my necklace made of Yemen beads was lost. (That necklace had been given to her by her mother, Umm Ru­man.) I went back to look for my necklace. However, while I was looking for my necklace, I missed the army. I thought those who had joined the expedition would never leave before I was in my chair. However, those who served me had put my chair on the camel and made the camel move. They thought I was in the chair; the women at that time were very light; they were not large or heavy. They ate little. Therefore, when the servants lifted the chair to put it on the camel, they did not notice that I was not in the chair.  I was a small and weak woman. They moved the camel.

I found my necklace after the army left. I returned to the place where the army had stopped for a break. However, I could not find anybody there. Then, I went to the place where I had been. I wrapped myself in my sheet and lay down. I thought they would return and look for me when they found out that I was not in the chair. Meanwhile I fell asleep.  

Safwan b. Muattal always stayed behind the army and checked if there was anything left behind and then took those things to the army.

Safwan came to the place where I was toward the morning. When he noticed a sleeping person, he stopped and recognized me. He had seen me before the verse of hijab was sent down.

When Safwan saw me, he said in surprise, ‘Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun = To God we belong and to Him is our return’.

I woke up when I heard his voice. I covered my face with my sheet.

I did not talk to him and I did not hear anything but [“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun”].

Then, Safwan made his camel sit. He stepped on the front foot of the camel so that I would mount the camel. He said, ‘Mount’ and went back.

I mounted the camel. He held the halter of the camel and started to walk quickly to catch up with the army.

We could not catch up with the soldiers for a long time.

Finally, when the army stopped for a break, Safwan took the camel there”[3]

The Leader of the Munafiqs Makes Use of the Situation

While Safwan b. Muattal was bringing Hazrat Aisha on the camel, Abdullah b. Ubay, the leader of the munafiqs, saw them and asked, “Who is that person?”

They said, “It is Aisha.”

Abdullah b. Ubay, who had been discredited among his tribe and who was regarded as a negative person, wanted to make use of this simple incident. He expressed his evil intention there:

“By God! Neither Aisha nor that man will be acquitted of this incident!”

He uttered many other mean sentences.

The rumor that Abdullah b. Ubay, the leader of the munafiqs, caused spread among the soldiers of the army.  

Hazrat Aisha said,

“The slanderers uttered many words against me  and everybody was talking about me. By God, I was not aware of any of them!”

Evil Slander

As it is seen, the incident happened without any blemish. Hazrat Aisha was left behind due to a reasonable and legitimate excuse. After a while, Safwan b. Muattal, who was appointed to check for the things that the army left and return them to their owners, who was a very simple-hearted man and who turned out to be infertile, found her and took her to the place where the army was.

According to the Quran, the prophets are more valuable to the believers than themselves. The wives of the Prophet are like the mothers of the believers. It was definitely forbidden to marry any of the wives of the Prophet even after the death of the Prophet.

Therefore, under the light of such definite and clear signs, it was impossible for a real Muslim who believed in God and His Messenger to say bad things or even to think of bad things about any of the wives of the Prophet both when the Prophet was alive or after he died.  

What could have been more natural and necessary for a real believer and Muslim who believed in God and His Messenger and who obeyed their orders and prohibitions to make the wife of the Prophet, whom he loved more than his own self, mount the camel with respect and lead her to the place where the army had stopped?

Safwan b. Muattal, who was a real believer and Muslim, and who was deprived of masculine characteristics, fulfilled that religious duty.

However, the munafiqs, who had illnesses in their hearts, who said, ‘we believed in God’ but who did not believe heartily and who always tried to set believers against one another, and especially Abdullah b. Ubay b. Salul, made use of this opportunity and slandered Hazrat Aisha. His aim was to be freed from the negative looks that were directed at him, to disturb the kind heart of the Messenger of God, to set Muslims against one another and to shake their faith to one another.

Hazrat Aisha is Unaware of the Rumor for a Long Time

For a long time, Hazrat Aisha was not aware of the incident of slander that was started by the leader of the munafiqs, Abdullah b. Ubay and that was spread by Hassan b. Thabit, Mistah b. Uthatha, Hamna bint Jahsh and some gullible Muslims that were deceived by the munafiqs. Hazrat Aisha narrates the incident as follows:  

“When we arrived in Madinah, I fell ill with a fever for a whole month. The inhabitants of Madinah were all talking about the slander, but I did not know anything about it. The Messenger of God and my parents had also heard about it but they did not say anything to me about it.

However, I was doubtful due to the fact that I did not see the tenderness I used to see from the Prophet (pbuh) while I was sick. He would enter upon us and ask, “How is the patient?” Then, he would leave. I did not know anything about what the slanderers had uttered.”

Although the Messenger of God, Hazrat Abu Bakr and Aisha’s mother heard the rumors, they did not say anything to Aisha. However, Aisha was worried about the attitude of the Messenger of God. Nevertheless, she did not know the reason.

How and from Whom did Hazrat Aisha Learn about the Slander?

Hazrat Aisha narrates from whom and how she learnt about the slander as follows:

“More than twenty nights had passed after my illness. I had got over the illness and I was in the period of recuperation.

We did not have toilets next to our houses like non-Arabs did due to the stink. We went outside the city of Madinah to answer the call of the nature. Women went there every night to relieve themselves.

One night, I went out with the mother of Mistah b. Uthatha to Manasi to relieve ourselves. When she tripped by stepping on her covering, she said, ‘May Mistah fall,’ or ‘Damn Mistah!’ I said,

‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son?’ She kept silent. She did not answer me.

She tripped for the second time. She said, ‘‘May Mistah fall,’ or ‘Damn Mistah!’

I said,

‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son?’ She kept silent again.

She tripped for the third time and cursed, ‘May Mistah fall,’

I said, ‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son? How can you curse a person who was present in the Battle of Badr? She replied,

‘I curse him due to what he said against you.’

I asked, ‘What did he say about me?’

Thereupon, Umm Mistah told me what the slanderers had said. I became extremely ill. I could not even relieve myself and returned home. I cried so much that I thought my lungs would break into pieces.”

Hazrat Aisha is in her Mother’s Home

When Hazrat Aisha was ill, Umm Ruman, her mother, looked after her.

One day, the Messenger of God entered the house, greeted them and asked, “How is your patient?” without mentioning Aisha’s name. He did not say anything else.

Hazrat Aisha said,

“(Thereupon) I could not help saying, ‘O Messenger of God! I have been suffering so much. Will you let me go to my Mother’s house? I can be looked after there.’

The Messenger of God said, ‘You may go!’

I wanted to go to my parents and find out about the news against me.

The Messenger of God sent me to my father’s house with a servant.

My mum asked, ‘O my daughter! Why did you come?’

I said, ‘Mum! People have been talking against me but you did not mention anything to me.’

Mum said, ‘My daughter, take it easy. By God, it hardly occurs that a wife is so beloved to her husband, and she has co-wives at the same time, except that they talk about her!’

I asked, ‘Does my father know about it?’ She said,

‘Yes, he does.’

I asked, ‘Does the Messenger of God know about it?’ She said,

‘Yes, he does.’

I could not help crying.

My father was reading the Quran upstairs. When he heard my voice, he came downstairs. He asked Mum, ‘What is wrong with her?’

Mum said, ‘She heard about the rumors against him.’

My father started to cry too.

I cried and cried until the morning came.”

The Prophet Consults his Companions

The Messenger of God spent most of his time at home and did not go out very often during the days when the slander against Hazrat Aisha was prevalent.

When revelation regarding the issue was delayed, he talked to his Companions and asked them about their views.

Hazrat Umar’s View

Hazrat Umar said, “O Messenger of God! This is a big slander. I definitely know that it is a lie of the munafiqs. God protects you even from flies. Is it possible that God, who protects your body from flies that land on dirt and keeps them away from your body, will not protect your family from such disgrace?”

Hazrat Uthman’s View

Hazrat Uthman expressed his view as follows:

“O Messenger of God!  God protects your shadow from being on the ground so that people will not step on it or dirt will not land on it. Is it possible that God, who does not let anybody step on your shadow, will let anybody blemish the honor of your family?”

Hazrat Ali’s View

Hazrat Ali said, “O Messenger of God! Once, you were leading the prayer. You took off your shoes. We took off our shoes following you. When you finished the prayer, you asked us why we had taken off our shoes. We said we had taken them off to follow you. Thereupon, you said, ‘Gabriel ordered me to take them off because they were not clean.’ Is it possible that you were informed about the dirt that polluted your shoes and you were ordered to take them off but you would not be ordered to remove something that blemished your honor?”

The View of Hazrat Aisha’s Maid

Meanwhile, the Messenger of God called Aisha’s maid servant, Barira, and asked her view.

Barira said, “O Messenger of God! I swear by God, who has sent you as the true prophet that I have not seen anything from her but goodness.  I can only say one thing that can be regarded as a fault about her:  one thing.  She was a young girl. She sometimes used to fall asleep when she was kneading the dough; and when she fell asleep, the lamb would come and eat the dough.”

Hazrat Zaynab’s View

Hazrat Zaynab regarded herself equal to Hazrat Aisha among the wives of the Prophet in terms of her beauty and position; she always competed with her. However, she did not have any negative thoughts about Hazrat Aisha. When the Messenger of God asked her about her view, she said,  

“O Messenger of God! I protect my ears from saying, ‘I heard’ what I did not hear and my eyes from saying, ‘I saw’ what I did not see. I do not know anything but goodness about her.”

The Prophet’s Speech

In fact, the Messenger of God knew very well that Aisha, his wife, was free from such slander; however, he was depressed that such treacherous, sly and planned slander spread among people. It made him change his attitude toward her. As a matter of fact, the speech that he made in the mosque expressed it clearly:  

“Oh gathering of Muslims! Who will help me against a person who has hurt me with slander about my wife? By God, I only know good about my wife. And they have mentioned a man with her concerning whom I only know good of as well.”

[dictionarywrites]

the cycle.

Just a few short vignettes, examining Loki & his reactions to other people's children. Set in Brought To Justice. 

My Ao3 | Send requests | Tip jar!

On some planets, Loki is the patron of young mothers. The first time he says this to Steve, offhand, it makes him laugh, but now?

Loki is wearing soft robes of lightest blue, and in his arms, he holds Rhodey’s baby niece. Lila is ten pounds of soft, brown skin and bright eyes, making low burbles of sound, and Loki holds her like he’s holding the most precious thing in the damned universe. He is swaying softly, seemingly unconsciously, and Steve can hear snatches of the soft words he speaks to her, words from the other end of the universe.

Lila’s eyes slowly droop closed, but Loki continues to sway, holding her close against his chest.

“God,” Jeanette – Rhodey’s sister – says softly. “You really have a way with babies, huh? She never sleeps for anybody!”

“I love babies,” Loki whispers softly, and he gently hands her back.

----- ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -Ⓐ - ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -----

“So, like, you used to be a supervillain, but now you’re a superhero?” Loki shifts his position from behind Tony, and Tony wonders, for a second, if it had been a good idea – exactly – to bring the guy in on the school trip.

“Everybody has goodness and badness inside them, young lady,” Loki says quietly, his tones clipped and refined, but warm. “Sometimes, somebody does a bad thing, but that does not mean they will do bad things forever.” The girl is maybe seven, and she looks at Loki, squinting her little eyes.

“I do bad things sometimes,” she says. “I always feel bad after.”

“Me too,” Loki replies. His voice is sad.

----- ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -Ⓐ - ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -----

The beach is busy. Even though Steve, Sam and Clint are out in the water, racing out to the nearest buoy and back (Steve keeps winning), and Stark, Rhodes and Banner are eating ice creams, both sitting on towels and talking about fantasy football, Loki stands apart. Nat watches him where he stands on the promenade, wearing a loose, white shirt and yellow, three-quarter length chinos – it’s the closest she’s seen him get to casual wear.

He wears sunglasses, so Nat can’t exactly follow his gaze, but there’s a guy near to him, running in the water with his three kids chasing him, laughing as he pretends to fall into the sea.

The guy even looks like Loki, a little bit: he’s pale as all Hell, with a crop of black hair. Loki’s grip is so tight on the metal bar of the pier that Nat can see it giving way slightly under the touch. “Our children were wild things,” he’d said, “roaming in the waves, laughing on the sands…”

Maybe the beach was a bad idea.

----- ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -Ⓐ - ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -----

“William, isn’t it?”

“Billy,” the kid says, and he puts out his hand to shake. Wanda watches as Loki takes it, shaking her son’s hand politely, and Loki gives him a small, comfortable smile. “You don’t like nicknames, huh?”

“Indeed not,” Loki says quietly. “You look so like your mother.” Billy smiles slightly, meeting Wanda’s gaze, and she feels her heart warm a little in her chest.

“Yeah,” he says proudly. “I really do.”

Later on, when Loki has politely parted ways, Wanda slowly sips at her coffee, and across the table, Billy is frowning into his own drink. She watches him, for a long few moments, and then reaches out, touches his arm.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

“Yeah, just… He just seemed so sad. Loki. Why was that?” Wanda inhales, slowly, and taps her fingers upon the counter between them even as she turns her head to look out of her apartment window. The sun is beginning to set – Lorna and Tommy will be here soon, and maybe Pietro, but she expects he’ll come around later. Or not at all, if he realizes Father is joining them for dinner. She thinks of the conversation she and Loki had had as they’d walked out toward Atlantis.

“He lost his children,” she says finally. “His daughter looked a lot like him, he said.”

“Oh,” Billy says softly. He runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head. He’s so young – barely a teenager, really – but he acts like he has the world on his shoulders. He sort of does. “That’s tragic.”

“Yes,” Wanda agrees. A beat passes. “Let’s wash up for dinner.”

----- ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -Ⓐ - ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -----

“You don’t have to be an Avenger, you know,” Clint says, over dinner. Loki freezes, his gaze down on his plate, and the table goes sort of silent. Clint swallows, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, “Well, not saying we’d kick you off the planet or anything. Just… You know. You could do other stuff. I bet Xavier’d let you teach at the X-Mansion.”

Loki inhales. Exhales. But Clint knows damn well he’s onto something – Loki had hated being in the field today, hated arguing with SHIELD operatives, hated the paperwork he insists on filling out himself, hated all the bureaucracy that comes with being a superhero these days.

“Will you pass the salt, Doctor Banner?” he says finally, raising his head. Clint looks at his face, and he sees that Loki’s pale face is utterly impassive, as if he’s forcing away any possible emotion.

“What? You don’t think he’d let you?”

“He offered the first time I met him,” Loki replies, taking the salt. He doesn’t use it, just holds it in his hand. “When he realised I posed no danger.”

“Then why not go there? You hate being an Avenger. You’d hate teaching too?”

“Clint,” Steve says, quietly.

“I’m just saying, you could be… Loki, man, you know. You can afford to be a little selfish. You’d still be doing good stuff, just, you know. Not here. I’m not trying to bitch you out or anything – I just don’t see the point in you being unhappy. And you love children.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Mr Barton,” Loki says in such a quiet voice that even with his hearing aids Clint can’t pick it up, and he has to read the words on Loki’s thin lips. “I don’t think I could stand to be in an orphanage of lost children every night.” Clint frowns.

“What, you got an issue with orphans? Because—”

“No, Mr Barton,” Loki interrupts him, his tone emphatic. “I— I cannot be around children.”

“You love kids.”

“Yes,” Loki agrees, painfully. “Yes, I do.” Clint drops the subject.

----- ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -Ⓐ - ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -----

“Do you have children, Commander Fury?” The god asks the question almost idly, his legs dangling down from the side of the building. Given that the skyscraper is pretty damn tall, maybe it should make him nervous to see the guy so close to the edge, but even if he falls, he’d probably be fine.

Nick adjusts the sniper in his hands, putting his eye back against the sight: Loki is gathering some ball of energy in his palm, ready to let loose when Nick tells him where. “Yeah,” he says, finally. “Two boys.”

“I’m sure they’re very noble. Like their father.” It should be an insult, but it isn’t. Loki has a faraway look in his eyes, like he’s a thousand miles away, and it makes Nick a little sick to look at him. Guy is… Weird.

“Target acquired,” he says, and Loki snaps back into action.

----- ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -Ⓐ - ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -----

It is rare that Thor catches his brother crying.

When they were children, Loki had cried so often that Fandral had once labelled him a walking fountain, but as they had grown into boys, and into men, Loki had become better at hiding his emotions, better at pushing them deep within himself. Now, Loki is sniffling, rubbing at his eyes hurriedly with the sleeve of his armour, as if forgetting he has seiðr with which to soothe his wet face, and immediately Thor is upon him, wrapping his arms tightly about his brother’s body and setting his heavy chin against Loki’s shoulder.

Loki’s freezing brow cools Thor’s chest even through the fabric of his own shirt and coat, and Thor hushes him, quietly, patting Loki’s newly thick and fluffy hair as Loki lets out a short, ugly sob.

“You could always have more children, Loki,” Thor whispers.

“I couldn’t stand to lose them,” Loki replies, his voice ragged – he has been crying for some time. The knowledge sets in Thor’s belly like a flood of ice, and he clutches his brother all the harder, feeling his very heart ache. “I couldn’t, Thor. I couldn’t, I couldn’t—” And here are more cries, desperate and low, and Thor presses his lips to his brother’s brow, feels him shake in his arms.

Of course he couldn’t. How could anybody?

----- ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -Ⓐ - ✪ - ✪ - ✪ -----

Loki lies on his side on the sofa in the central living room, his hands crossed over his belly, his knees drawn partway toward his chest. The guy looks fucking awful. His skin, usually pale but imbued with an icy glow, is tinged a greenish purple, and his lips are chapped. His eyes are tightly closed, his expression a mask of pain, and Steve twists his lip to look at him.  

“You okay?” he asks, leaning over to look at him properly, and his hand touches Loki’s forehead, feeling for his temperature, but obviously… Well. He’s cold. No more colder than usual, though.

“Quite alright,” Loki murmurs, lowly. “Pains.”

“Pains?” Steve asks, glancing to his belly. “What from?”

“Humans have these too,” Loki says. A moment of incomprehension passes between them. “Human women.”

“Oh,” Steve says. There’s a sickly sensation in his belly, and he stares down at Loki’s pallid features, at the way his fingers grip at the icepack clasped against his stomach. “I didn’t realize you— That you could still…”

“Bear children?”

“Yeah.”

“Mmm,” Loki replies, grimly. Steve moves across the room, setting a glass beneath the ice machine in the front of the fridge, and he fills it nearly full before putting in a little water as well, then he comes back to Loki, pressing the glass into his hand. “Thank you,” he mutters, and he takes a small sip, his throat working to swallow. “It never stops, you know.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Grief. Even after all my years, it never stops. You believe that it has. You believe the wound has finally healed, and that you have merely a scar, and that all will be well. You believe that finally, finally, life will move on. But it comes in cycles, orbiting to the back of one’s mind, and then coming back to the forefront with the force of a comet at one familiar smell, one sensation, one half-remembered diary entry.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve murmurs. He doesn’t know what else to say.

“Me too,” Loki replies. Steve reaches down, drawing a lock of stray hair out of Loki’s face, and Loki glances up toward him. The misery of expression fades for just a second, and then he offers a very small, reserved smile. It makes something crack inside Steve, but he returns it, until Loki’s eyes droop slowly closed again.

He falls asleep, Steve thinks. It’s probably for the best.

[scrawnydutchman]

‘Inside Out’ Movie Review

*NOTE: The following review contains major spoilers, highlighted in bold letters for readers convenience. If you haven’t seen the film yet, skip past the bold letter segments and come back to read them once you HAVE seen the film for my full thoughts.*

Now I know what you’re thinking. Why in the hell am I putting up a review for a film that’s close to three years old now? Well, here’s a little context. Those of you internet surfers may have seen this little meme float around the web recently:

Everybody has their own opinions on this and there’s good reason why it’s trending. It’s a legitimately fun discussion to hear about everyone’s favorite movies from the “happiest” company on earth. For anybody curious on what I think, HERE’S the version of the meme I created:

*the distinct lack of any and all Emperor’s New Groove and/or Hunchback of Notre Dame is a crime against cinema*

You’ll notice how Finding Nemo beat Inside Out in the first round, and next to the bracket for Inside Out  I wrote “never saw it: may change later”. Well, after family and friends highly recommended I sit down and see it, I’m here to tell you that now that I’ve seen Inside Out . My opinion . . . has not changed. Finding Nemo beats it. Easily in fact. Let me explain why, starting with Story.

Story:

Synopsis: Inside the minds of every human being resides five emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust. These emotions have a duty to protect their human from danger and guide them through life. We follow the inner workings of a little girl named Riley’s psyche in which Joy has taken the leadership role to make sure every day of Riley’s life is a good one. She maintains Riley’s optimism and makes sure nothing gets in the way of her happy life by keeping Sadness on a leash. Things change though when a challenging time in Riley’s life occurs; she and her family move to San Francisco. Joy struggles to keep Riley’s optimism up and inevitably she and sadness get removed from headquarters, leaving the rest of the gang to try and do Joy’s job while she’s away (and failing at it). Can Joy and Sadness get back to headquarters in time to save Riley and make sure she can be happy again?

This movie is infinitely praised for being one of Pixar’s most creative and original films,and to be fair it’s not hard to see why. It’s a very outside the box idea that’s rarely been explored before and this movie explores it in a way only Pixar can come up with. It also has a lot of fun with demonstrating real life psychological concepts in a way that feels very fresh. 

It also has a moral lesson that’s both original for a kids film and absolutely necessary for children to learn. Accepting that sadness and other negative emotions are not only a part of life but an ESSENTIAL part of life is a pill most people, even adults, have trouble swallowing. Of COURSE everyone wants to feel happy all the time, but it’s unhealthy to bottle up feelings that are a necessity to dealing with life’s special challenges.

Also . . . the climax of this film IS very emotional. Not Coco levels of emotional, but still sad in a way that got me to tear up a bit.

That said, it isn’t ALWAYS effective in how it expresses it’s ideas. While the visuals of this film are excellent (which we’ll get into in a bit) this film often runs into a bit too much of a ‘tell, don’t show’ attitude. A lot of concepts introduced in this film are verbally explained by one of the characters when they could have just as easily been presented clearly enough with visual context clues. I get that it’s a kids movie and kids may not be as skilled in picking up nuances, and to be fair this movie DOES explore a lot of concepts a child may not be immediately keen on, but film is meant to be a visual medium in which ideas and concepts are made understandable by what the audience sees rather than what they’re being told verbally. It especially makes it a problem for how characters are portrayed because one in particular feels like she exists solely as an exposition dump for three quarters of the run time. We should probably talk about characters for a second.

Characters:

So not gonna lie, this is by far the weakest area of the movie. How can I be such a heartless monster to say such a thing? Well, the best way to explain it is to compare it to Finding Nemo, the whole reason I even saw the movie to begin with. Coincidentally enough, these two movies actually have a lot in common. They’re both “buddy road trip” movies where two characters go on a big scope adventure, come across wacky colourful characters on their path and ultimately learn a lesson not often addressed in kids films. The difference is, Finding Nemo does more to establish character motivation AND it takes more time to establish multiple character arcs, ironically within the same runtime as Inside Out more or less. Marlin’s motivation for being a strict and neurotic parent is immediately shown, NOT told, in the opening. Same thing with Nemo’s tendency to rebel. Both characters are given arcs in which they each learn a unique lesson. Marlin learns to take more risks to accomplish goals and Nemo learns to be self reliant when separated from his dad. Plus along the way they come across TONS of memorable side characters. Dory, The Sharks, the school of fish, the seagulls, the pet fish in the fish tank. It does more to establish an infinitely more appealing cast of characters.

Inside Out is focused on Joy . .  .TOO focused on Joy. She’s the only character with a truly fleshed out story arc. She’s the first character we see in the film and we’re verbally told through her perspective on why things are the way they are. She’s the only one of the five emotions who really learns anything and really changes. 

The only other character in the story with an arc is Bing Bong the imaginary friend, who appears pretty late in the film and effectively dies soon too. His arc is wrapped up pretty hastily.

Every other character in this film is a means to an end. Fear, Disgust and Anger all exist to get a major story beat going. That’s it. Their banter between each other is likable at first but is pretty wash rinse repeat. Her parents only get one entertaining scene in the film that express any kind of personality and then the rest of the time they serve the same functions as each other (seeing if Riley is okay but ultimately not doing anything about it). Sadness is the biggest offender of not serving much beyond being a means to an end because despite having the most screentime after Joy she mainly serves as exposition dumping. Every time Joy isn’t sure about how the brain works (if she doesn’t know where things are or what they are why is she in charge?) Sadness just verbally explains it to the audience. “Oh, that’s long term memory. Oh, that’s abstract thought. Here’s what we should do about it.” She also propels the plot forward in a pretty lackluster way. The reason conflict even happens is because Sadness is compelled to taint memories (for reasons they never really explain). Riley isn’t even a character, really. She’s just an outward demonstration of the ramifications of the real conflict.

And I’m just gonna come out and say it . . . .Joy is too difficult to like for a good chunk of this movie. The movie shows her as very controlling and bossy and selfish. It immediately made me sour towards her. I know, I know, the idea is that everyone wants to feel Happy more than anything else and she DOES learn the error of her ways in the end, but they could have done a little more to make her actions sympathetic than just immediately show her hog the controls once Sadness shows up. It’s weird that Joy rubs me the wrong way more than Disgust does, a character specifically designed to be bitchy. To compare to Finding Nemo again, we understand that Marlin’s actions aren’t right in the beginning, but we know WHY he does it. It’s not for any malicious intent either. He only wants to protect his son because he learned the hard way how fragile life is and he feels like he failed to protect his family before. Joy just gets needy as soon as another character shows up and seemingly for no other reason than she just wants to have the final word in what happens. Maybe they could have made her more sympathetic by showing Riley get into a hard to cope with situation like her dad being really mad and yelling at her for something she did and Joy feeling like she owes it to Riley to make sure she never feels that bad again. That way it’s at least for somebody else’s sake besides her own. This is admittedly a hard problem to articulate because you could argue everything the emotions do, they do for Riley’s sake, but while all the other emotions clearly act with Riley’s best interests in mind Joy is shown to do what she does more out of competitiveness than duty.

Acting:

Every cast member of this flick does a great job. Amy Poehler makes a strong performance as Joy, really communicating the oozing enthusiasm and the struggle to maintain a positive attitude. Bill Hader does a great job as Fear and has some of the more effective deadpan line delivery in the film. Lewis Black makes an effectively funny Anger who makes great comedic foil for pretty well every other character he interacts with. Mindy Kaling arguably does the best job as Disgust. I say that because making a character designed to be unlikable like this (the typical girl bully “shallow bitch” archetype) endearing and not annoying has to be no easy task. Phyllis Smith does an okay job as Sadness. She’s especially funny when she has to say something sarcastic. Richard Kind plays Bing Bong and does a great job as sort of a washed up but charming imaginary friend. The rest of the cast is passable but not remarkable.

Visuals (Animation & Design):

As anyone would expect from Pixar, Inside Out is yet another visual marvel. This movies greatest strength is it’s use of colour. More specifically, colour contrast. The shear opposition between the bright saturated colors of the mind and it’s deep, unsaturated grays and blacks of the sadder scenes is excellent. There are some shots in this film that are poster material simply because the contrast adds SO MUCH to the overall composition of the frame. It makes your eye all the more drawn to the colours that really pop when they’re set against gloomy atmospheres.

One shot in particular that stands out is an extreme wide shot of Joy crying in the abyss, with her glow piercing the darkness and another memory fading away in peripheral vision. 

The animation is great too. I like how while the human characters move rigidly and in accordance to real world physics, the emotions go to a cartoony extent with their dynamic poses, snappy energy and great use of line of action. The designs really showcase the best of their over the top acting, ESPECIALLY fear. the lanky, noodly armed guy has some of the most effective slapstick because of how fast and how far he stretches his limbs. In fact, all the designs of the emotions are great. As is always a necessity in character design 101, you can put them in silhouette and still be able to tell which is which.

Of course, a standout moment in the film when it comes to animation is the “abstract thought” scene. Borrowing a page from the book of Picasso, the designs in this scene are wonderfully out there and I love how it addresses such a meta idea for a kids movie. This is the one moment of the film where i think verbal explanation from Sadness is necessary.

The textures on the emotions are a nice touch too. I wouldn’t have guessed that the fuzzy, almost plush like look would have been an effective choice on characters meant to represent concepts as metaphysical as the emotional spectrum, but it’s genuinely a sight for sore eyes. I’ll admit SOME of the textures of specific location pieces seem a bit . . .dated and unpolished, but to be perfectly honest I saw this after I saw Coco so chances are the unbelievable textures of that are just spoiling me. I won’t hold it against the overall score.

Sound design (Music & Sound Foley)

As I’ve said in past reviews, this is a hard area to talk about, mainly because the film handles the sound design about as well as any other big budget film. I don’t remember anything music wise aside from one scene where I swear to God they just took the melody of Plug-In Baby by Muse. 

There’s also the scene of the movie where they’re trying to break Bing Bong out of a balloon cage while not waking up a nightmare clown. The balloon sound effects are REEEEEALLY loud; easily the most blasted up sound foley out of everything in this movie. I guess it’s effective as the point of the scene is they’re trying not to wake the clown guy up but even so I think they could have made that point without making the loudness of it outweigh any other sound THAT much.

Conclusion:

Overall, this is a serviceable Pixar film. Where does it rank as far as Pixar films go? Well, probably lower within the Top 10 if I’m honest (The best Pixar films are The Incredibles, Coco, Wall-E, Ratatouille, Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Up, not necessarily in that order). It’s DEFINITELY not better than Finding Nemo. Finding Nemo does a lot of what Inside Out accomplishes except better with a more memorable cast, more relatable main characters, more fleshed out character arcs and less on-the-nose portrayal of it’s ideas. Inside Out has greatly effective animation & design as well as a healthy set of clever ideas, but I’d say it’s weak amount of character is what drags it down. It’s definitely worth checking out at least once, but it’s effect isn’t enough to shake the decisions of my Disney bracket. You now have permission to rant to me about how wrong I am.

Score:

Story - 1/2 - Average

Characters: - .5/2 - Below Average

Acting: 1.5/2 - Above Average

Visuals: 2/2 - Excellent

Sound Design: 1/2 - Average

6 out of 10. An okay movie, but ultimately disappointing.

[lunarimagines]

I HATE YOU. I LOVE YOU?

anon said: Hi! If your request are still open... can I request a jimin bad boy smut where her father's friend son ( jimin) is living with them for a few years and the tension is just building up. Thank you! I love your writings!💕💕

Summary: Throughout high school you’ve hated Park Jimin. That doesn’t change when he begins living with you... or does it? 

Warnings: language, oral sex (unprotected) 

Word Count: 10.7k+ 

A/N: The gif is mine. 

When you were two years old you’d met Park Jimin. He wasn’t even a year older than you and your father’s best friend’s son. That was beyond confusing for your two year old mind so he was simply referred to as a family friend’s son. You never had a problem with Park Jimin until your freshman year of high school when everything changed. He’d cut off all ties with you and began hanging out with a group of six other boys. He had a different girl hanging onto his arm each week and it was no secret that he and his friends often bet each other to ask girls out just for kicks.

He infuriated you. How could such a nice person have seemingly changed overnight? You often asked yourself that question as you passed by him in the hallways, his eyes trying to meet yours and a smirk plastered on his face. You always averted your eyes quickly, rolling them in annoyance at how smug he was acting. You always thought that maybe you should casually tell the entire school the story of the time he’d…

No, you would never do such a thing. You weren’t that mean. Besides, he hadn’t really done anything to hurt you besides completely abandoning you. That had stung a little bit. But in reality you had stayed out his little bets with his friends and out of the way of his side pieces. Could you really even complain about him?

You sighed as you thought through everything. You’d just watched Jimin dump another girl and she was currently crying hysterically at her locker which was next to yours. Her friends were desperately trying to comfort her, but she was having none of it. You wanted to tell her that she should have seen it coming but instead chose to ignore her and as you grabbed your books from your locker, closing the door as softly as possible to not draw any attention to yourself, and walking to class quickly. You had been so busy listening to her problems that you hadn’t even realized that you only had two minutes to get to your class.

You slid into your seat just as the bell rang and half listened to your math teacher as he went over the review worksheet that was due next week. Senioritis was hitting you hard and all you wanted was to be free of high school and everybody in it.

You tried to pay attention to your math class but your eyes kept flicking back up to the clock on the wall. Having math last block of the day was tough because by then you were mentally drained and it was difficult to focus on anything really.

You watched as the second hand ticked around the clock once more before the bell rang. You haphazardly shoved your things into your bag, paying little attention as your calculator made a sickening “clunk” sound against the bottom of your backpack. All you really wanted to do was go home, shower, and start binge watching shows the entire weekend. Maybe you’d go to the party your friend was hosting tomorrow, but you highly doubted it. You were exhausted from the week and even the thought of driving home made you want to scream.

Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you exited the classroom and joined the flow of students heading towards the parking lot. You allowed yourself to be swept along with them, through the hallways and out the front doors, down the steps outside of the school, and finally into the parking lot where the clump of students dispersed and you were free to head to your car. Unlocking it, you heaved yourself into it and threw your bag into the back seat.

Pulling out of the student lot was hazardous but you eventually got onto a main street and drove home, parking your car in your driveway and bounding up the steps into your house.

You slipped your shoes off and started to head towards the stairs when a voice called you from the kitchen. You nearly jumped out of your skin as you hadn’t expected anybody to be home so early.

“Y/N, before you do anything can you come here for a second please?” you father asked, his head appearing from around the bend that lead to your kitchen.

Nodding, you walked over to him.

“Don’t put on sweatpants yet. We’re having guests over for dinner tonight,” he said, leaning back against the kitchen counter.

“Who?” you asked curiously.

“A family friend and his son,” your father replied nonchalantly.

You nodded again. His statement hadn’t clued in on who would be joining the two of you for dinner. Your dad had a lot of friends with children…

“Okay you can go do whatever else you were going to do. I’m thinking I’ll just grill something for dinner so don’t worry about helping, not that you were going to anyways,” he joked.

You shoved him lightly with a laugh before heading up towards your bedroom on the second floor. As you walked towards the end of the hallway to your room you noticed one of the guest bedrooms was made up. Peering inside, you noticed that there were already suitcases in the bedroom. Though unpacked, they indicated the person would be staying with you for longer than even just a week. With the amount of bags in the room it seemed as though the person would be staying for a month. The suitcases held a familiar smell, though you couldn’t quite place it. Where had you smelled that cologne before?

You shook your head and walked out of the bedroom and to the railing where you yelled down to your father.

“Who’s staying with us?”

“What?” he called back.

You rolled your eyes.

“I said: Who is staying with us?” you yelled back louder, your throat itching after doing so.

“In the guest bedroom? I’ll tell you at dinner!”

You huffed. Your father was being ever so vague. It made you think he had a good surprise in store. Maybe one of your friends would be staying with the two of you. Or maybe he had to leave and felt he needed somebody watch you. The first option sounded much more appealing and you were anxious to see who would be staying with you. In your mind you ran through a list of all of your dad’s friends with kids around your age. It could really be any number of them…

You decided not to let it bother you as you settled into bed to scroll on your phone until they arrived. You would find out in a few hours who it was going to be.

The sound of the doorbell resonating throughout your house jolted you awake. You hadn’t even realized you’d fallen asleep, though you weren’t necessarily surprised seeing the week you’d had. Slipping out of bed you cautiously walked to peek over the railing, your eyes searching for the mysterious person who would be staying with you.

“Hey! It’s been too long!” a male voice that didn’t belong to your father exclaimed. It was vaguely familiar but you couldn’t quite put your finger on who it belonged to.

“Nice to see you and Jimin again. How-”

You didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. A loud ringing was in your ears and your mind had gone fuzzy. No, no-no. Park Jimin was NOT staying with you. You firmly denied it. What other Jimin’s did you know though? None. You knew absolutely no other Jimin. The cologne you’d smelled earlier was definitely his as well, that much was a fact as each time he walked by you in the hallways the smell lingered for what seemed like hours afterwards.

You gulped. Anybody else you could handle sharing a house with for a few weeks, but not Park Jimin,

“Y/N, come down here and meet our guests!” your father called.

You feet shuffled forwards and you forced yourself to walk down the stairs to meet Jimin and his father. Jimin caught sight of you and your eyes met his for a split second. In that split second he managed to send an infuriating wink accompanied by a smirk your way.

You held back a fake gag as you politely greeted his father. Thankfully dinner was ready and no small talk was required as your father herded the three of you into the dining room and down into seats. Thankfully you weren’t sitting next to that brat Park Jimin but you were sitting across from him and his feet were stretched as far as possible underneath the table to hog your foot space. You glared at him not expecting him to retract his feet due to your glare but it did make you feel better… for a second at least. He was suddenly shoving his feet further into your foot space in order to aggravate you.

“Childish,” you grumbled underneath your breath only earning a soft chuckle from Jimin in response.

He leaned forward, finally moving his feet out of your way.

“I know you have a brat kink,” he whispered, laughing when your mouth fell open in shock.

You closed your mouth, gritting your teeth so hard is was beginning to hurt. What you wanted to do the least was run your mouth and get in trouble or embarrass your father. But oh was Jimin testing you.

“I haven’t told her what’s going on yet. I thought you would like to see her expression,” you father joked, winking at you from his spot at the head of the table.

You raised your eyebrows at him in response.

“Jimin will be staying with us for a couple of months an-”

“What?!” you screeched, half standing up before catching yourself and sitting back down, your cheeks burning and your heart racing. A few weeks with Jimin around you could manage, but a few months? Was your father actively trying to kill?

No, he wasn’t. He had no idea you and Jimin weren’t friends anymore. He probably thought this was something you were excited about, an idea that was reaffirmed when he chuckled softly and motioned his hands for you to calm down.

“I know it’s exciting but we still have some ground rules in place. Doors will remain open when the two of you are together, curfew is still 10:30, you have to cook meals occasionally, and you still have to help clean. There’s just an extra hand around here,” you father joked, his friend laughing at the dad-style joke.

Jimin was relaxing back into his chair, a smug look plastered on his face. You resisted the urge to reach across the table and smack it straight off of his face with your dinner plate. Instead, you turned to your father and smiled before looking at your father’s friend.

“It’ll be nice to have a homework buddy,” you said, smiling innocently.

Jimin snorted from across the table and you delivered a sharp blow to his shin to shut him up. The way the smug look dropped off of his face gave you pleasure.

“Maybe you can actually get my son to do his homework,” Jimin’s father joked.

You laughed politely and nodded.

“Okay! Dig in! After dinner Y/N and I will help you get settled, how does that sound Jimin?” your father asked, clapping his sounds loudly.

“Sounds great sir! Thank you!” Jimin exclaimed. You choked back your laughter at how polite he was being.

“Oh please, you can call be my first name,” you father said, passing you a plate filled with food.

You gave yourself a generous helping before passing it on. Jimin eyed you from across the table, his gaze filled with amusement. Suddenly you were no longer hungry and all you wanted to do was escape to the comfort of your bedroom.

Throughout dinner you caught Jimin sneaking glances at you. Or maybe you were sneaking glances at him, you couldn’t tell. Each time he caught your eye he’d send you a smirk or even a wink before answering some question your father was throwing at him. His polite demeanor amused you and you couldn’t help but think of the girl he’d dumped just a few hours prior. Ah, the duality of man. Jimin even helped your father clean up after dinner.

After he bid his father goodbye he trotted up the stairs like he owned the entire house. He waltzed towards him room, catching you watching him as you leaned against your doorframe.

“Why do you have to stay so long?” you sneered.

He snorted leaning against the wall outside your room as he answered you.

“You would have known if you hadn’t yelled so loudly during dinner,” he replied, shaking his head as your cheeks reddened.

You stayed silent as you waited for him to answer. Sighing, Jimin finally supplied you with an explanation.

“My father has a foreign business trip and I can’t be trusted to stay home alone. Last time… well, it wasn’t good,” Jimin said, quirking an eyebrow at you.

You rolled your eyes.

“Just stay out of my way,” you mumbled, going to close your bedroom door.

Jimin stopped the door with his foot and leaned forward. He was so close you could feel his hot breath fanning across your face as he spoke to you.

“Just because I’m staying with you doesn’t mean we’re friends. Remember that in the next few weeks, okay baby?”

With that, he shot you what felt like the hundredth wink that night before disappearing into the guest bedroom and closing the door behind him. You stood, fuming. Honestly, fuck Park Jimin as his attitude. He may have been desirable to almost every girl at your school, but he was as undesirable to you as a being forced to eat a sandwich with worms on it. The day you wanted Jimin would be the day you were dying where you’d pull him close to tell him you loathed him… and then hopefully die before he could come back with a witty remark.

Closing your bedroom door, you fell down face first onto your bedspread. You stayed that way until it felt hard to breathe and then rolled over to try and fall asleep. A part of you wondered what Jimin was doing in the room next to you…

You woke up far too early for a Saturday to the sound of the bass from Jimin’s music blaring from a portable speaker. Rolling over, you clamped your pillow down around your ears and groaned, your eyes flicking up to check the time on your alarm clock.

7:58 am.

Huffing out an angry breath, you sat upright in bed quickly and banged on your bedroom wall. The music stopped for a second before becoming increasingly louder and you realized the sound was coming from just outside your bedroom door. Throwing off your covers and slipping out bed, you stomped over to your door, flinging it open to see Jimin standing right outside it. His speaker was is his hand and a shit eating grin was plastered on his face.

“Didn’t mean to wake you Princess. I got lonely,” he teased.

You feigned an innocent smile.

“No problem. I just worried about what my dad might think.”

Jimin chuckled lowly and finally shut his music off. Your ears were still ringing even as he began talking again.

“He went out for the day. A business meeting? I think he left a note for you…” Jimin said.

He reached his hand out towards your face as if to brush the back of his fingers against your cheek. You quickly recoiled which earned a chuckle from him. He plucked something off of your door and waved it in front of your face. It was a bright green sticky note reading:

“Had an early morning business meeting. Make sure you and Jimin eat! - Love Dad”

Your gaze traveled to Jimin’s face only to see that he had his signature smirk stamped on it.

“Make sure you eat well. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day.”

You didn’t even care to think about what he meant by that threat. Instead, you pushed by him and walked down the stairs into the kitchen to make yourself some toast. You noted that Jimin hadn’t followed you and a part of you was surprised. Didn’t he want to make you miserable while you ate breakfast? Wasn’t he just dying to ruin toast for you?

As you sat down at the kitchen island to eat the toast you made you couldn’t help but wonder why Jimin hated you so much. You thought back to when the two of you were young kids and spent considerable amounts of time together with a babysitter because your fathers had to attend a meeting. You thought back to when the two of you first entered elementary school and passed notes to each other underneath the desks. You thought back to middle school even where the two of you had gone to your first dance together… as just friends. Then, you thought of your freshman year of high school. It was the first day and you were weaving through people in the hallways to find Jimin. When you spotted him, you made a beeline directly for him only to be stopped in your tracks by the hoard of girls surrounding him and six other boys. They were all so friendly that you wondered if you should even try and talk to Jimin. It was all so intimidating that you’d turned around and headed straight for class. Jimin ended up having the same class, but he’d ignored you the entire time, the entire semester even. He’d ended up ignoring you the entire year…

Of course you’d made other friends but you couldn’t help but wonder what had changed over the summer when you hadn’t seen Jimin. When had he made all of those friends? Why had he abandoned you? And just why did he seem to hate you so much?

You hadn’t even realized you’d been chewing the same bite for so long that you were essentially chewing air now. Swallowing hard, you finished off your toast and washed your plate before heading back upstairs. You noticed that Jimin’s door was closed and you could somewhat hear that he was talking to somebody. Half of you was tempted to try and listen in on his conversation but the other half of you, the far more rational half, knew that you would probably get caught and that you didn’t actually care enough about Jimin to accept that kind of embarrassment.

You closed the door behind you as you walked into your bedroom. Standing there, you looked around. You didn’t want to talk to any of your friends, you didn’t want to scroll on your phone, and you certainly didn’t want to do homework. Sighing, you decided to shower.

Gathering up your clothing, you headed to the bathroom, passing Jimin as he began to head down the stairs.

“My friends can wait if you would like me to join you,” he said, winking at you as he noticed the pair of panties folded nicely on top of your clothing.

You stared back at him. During your breakfast, a part of you had made it a resolution to tease Jimin right back. He couldn’t be the only one having fun right?

Stepping closer to him, you leaned forward so that your face was closer to his than it had been since eighth grade as the two of you had slow danced together.

“How about I let you touch my panties. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to touching what goes inside of them.”

You were delighted to see his cheeks turn a dark crimson color at your words and before he could retort you waltzed into the bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it behind you.

Sliding back against it, you let out a deep breath. Your heart was beating faster that it should have been. A soft smile formed on your face as you recalled how the blush had spread across his cheeks at your statement and the smug smile had slipped off of his face completely. Maybe living with Jimin wouldn’t be so bad if you could make him flustered like that.

No, you shook your head. Living with Jimin would be bad because he still had the ability to make you flustered.

You stood up quickly and turned on the shower, stripping and getting in when the water was warm enough. You showered quickly, hoping to avoid walking back to your room when Jimin’s friends were over.

Stepping out of the shower and drying off, you groaned as the doorbell rang. Even though you were on the second floor with a door still dividing you from the rest of the house you could still hear the obnoxious laughs of Jimin’s friends as he ushered them inside of the house. You rolled your eyes as you got dressed. You were positive that if you kept rolling your eyes they would get stuck in the back of your head.

You unlocked the bathroom door and walked back to your bedroom rather quickly, closing the door behind you and plopping down onto your bed. You rolled onto your back and stared at the ceiling. Was it possible to spend all day inside your bedroom?

It definitely wasn’t as a few hours later you were packing up your bag and heading downstairs to get out of the house. You walked by Jimin and his friends, all of them falling silent as they watched you slip on your shoes.

“Where are you going?” Jimin asked, sounding genuinely curious.

You shrugged.

“Out.”

Before any of them could reply, you were grabbing your car keys and slipping out of the house, ready to drive wherever in order to get away from your ex-best friend.

“That’s Y/N?” Taehyung asked as he watched you walk out of the door. If he was honest, he’d noticed you around school a few times but he’d never really paid much attention. Maybe it was because you didn’t seem infatuated with their group as the other girls at the school. He’d only heard about you when Jimin had pointed you out freshman year and had said that you were not allowed to be a part of any of their bets.

Jimin sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“That’s her,” he replied slowly, taking a long drink from his already empty glass in order to avoid answering any more questions.

“She’s cute. Why is she off limits for bets?” Jin whined.

Namjoon nodded thoughtfully.

“Yeah, why is she off limits for bets. If you think she’s too difficult-” Namjoon started before Jimin cut him off.

“I said she’s off limits,” he grumbled.

He stayed silent for a few seconds before adding, “She’s a family friend and the last thing I need is her tattling to her dad on something I did with you all. That’s why she’s off limits.”

Yoongi stared hard at him, making him feel slightly uncomfortable. Finally, he looked away with a small scoff.

“Let us know if you change your mind.”

For the rest of the weekend you were easily able to avoid Jimin. You simply spent time doing your homework and getting ahead. Who knew you’d actually be happy to have been assigned such a large amount of homework over the weekend? Going to bed Sunday night you finally thought that you’d found a way to beat Jimin’s game and make your life easier with him around 24/7. When Monday morning came, however, you realized just how wrong you were.

It had started with you waking up on time and padding to the bathroom to take a shower. You’d gone to unlock the door when you realized that the water was running in the shower. Patiently, you’d waited for nearly half an hour before knocking on the door.

“Jimin!” you hollered through the door.

When he didn’t reply, you went to knock again when suddenly the door opened. You almost fell forward when two strong arms caught you. Looking up, you realized Jimin was fully clothed, his hair still slightly damp, and the shower was on behind him.

“I didn’t know you still lived here. I hadn’t seen you all weekend…” he said innocently.

“What the hell Jimin?” you hissed, pushing him away from you. “Do you pay the water bills around here too now?”

Jimin smiled sheepishly at your remark. However, he moved aside to let you into the bathroom, lingering in the doorway before you shoved him outside and closed the door. You locked it behind you to keep Jimin out as you checked the temperature on the water. Ice cold. You gritted your teeth before discarding your clothing and stepping halfway into the shower before squealing and stepping right back out. It looked like you weren’t getting a shower today…

Drying off and dressing quickly, you went through your usual morning beauty routine before running down the stairs to grab breakfast. You father was already gone but he’d left his usual “Rooting for you!” sticky note on the fridge. You smiled at it as your grabbed your water bottle and shut the fridge, turning and slamming right into Jimin’s chest.

“What do you want?” you asked, exasperated.

“I need to grab some breakfast too,” he sneered.

You sneered back at him before pushing around him and walking to the door. You slipped on your shoes and turned to grab your keys when Jimin spoke again.

“Don’t forget that we just because we’re living together for a little bit doesn’t mean that we’re friends.”

You turned back to look at him. He was leaning casually against the kitchen island eating an apple. He cocked an eyebrow at you as he waited for your response.

“I don’t know why you think I’d be nice to you at school if I’m not even nice to you in the privacy of my own home,” you said simply, shrugging your shoulders as you turned and walked out the front door.

Friends. As if. The two of you were barely acquaintances anymore.

At school you noticed that Jimin didn’t pay you any attention but his friends sure as hell did. Each time they saw you in the hallway they nudged each other and raised their eyebrows. To say that their actions made you paranoid would be an understatement. Their actions terrified you. What if you were part of one of their bets? The thought had never crossed your mind but now it was weighing heavily upon it. Each time you saw them you sped up to avoid seeing their knowing glances at each other.

It was until the end of the day when you were grabbing books out of your locker and stuffing them into your backpack that one of Jimin’s friends cornered you. To be honest, you didn’t even know his name. Also, he was leaning too close for comfort and you found yourself taking a step back so that you weren’t breathing the same air as him. He snickered at your movement before leaning back. He seemed to be ignoring the whispers and glances from the people around you but you sure weren’t. You were hyper aware of them… and you wanted to get out from underneath them.

“Excuse me,” you said politely as you gestured towards your locker. “You’re blocking my locker.”

The boy simply cocked his head to the side and smirked at you. You had no idea what he wanted but you weren’t in the mood to play games with Jimin’s friends.

Sighing and running a hand through your hair, you looked up straight into his eyes. He held your gaze but he shuffled uncomfortably.

“If you’re not going to move can you at least hand me that red book at the far right please?” you said innocently, blinking slowly.

The boy cleared his throat and stood up straight to grab the book you requested. He handed it to you and your hands brushed slightly. He looked at you expectantly and you knew, you just KNEW, that he’d done that on purpose. You supposed it usually made hearts flutter but you were simply annoyed by him and his actions. You shot him the fakest smile you could muster as you slipped the book into your bag.

“Thanks.”

He simply nodded, clearing his throat.

“There’s a party Wednesday at my house. Have Jimin bring you. Be there by eight,” the boy said as he leaned closer to you and you felt his hot breath against your ear. “And wear something more form fitting.”

He whispered the last part which sent shivers up your spine. You leaned away from him, your face blank. You didn’t plan on going anywhere with this boy besides maybe Hell. You blinked slowly again and placed a confused look on your face. Your eyes narrowed and your fake smile was back as your head tilted to the side.

“Who are you again?” you asked with half sincerity. You really couldn’t recall his name.

The boy’s mouth dropped open and he looked momentarily stunned. His mouth opened and closed a few times before a small, incredulous laugh slipped out of it.

“You really…? You don’t…? It’s Hoseok,” he stuttered, small huffs escaping him each time he paused. He seemed incredibly mind boggled that you didn’t know his name.

You nodded as you zipped up your backpack and slung it over your shoulder. You smiled at the boy, Hoseok, and turned to leave.

“It’s nice to meet you Hoseok. I hope your party goes well,” you called as you walked away.

You heard him splutter some more and smiled to yourself. You couldn’t help but wonder if anybody had ever turned him down before. By the way he kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water you figured it was very rare somebody turned Hoseok down.

Your smiled stayed on your face the entire way home until you got to your house and came face to face with Jimin.

“What were you and Hoseok talking about?” he asked. He seemed mad. No, not mad. Pissed.

You shrugged your shoulders and slipped your shoes off. You moved to shoulder by Jimin when he grabbed your wrist lightly and tugged you so that you were facing him. You scowled at his sudden movement and he stared right back at you. His face was impassive. You could tell he wouldn’t let you go until you answered his question.

“Why are you so pressed about it? He just asked me to come to his party and I declined because I’d honestly rather spend three hours of my life doing math homework than having someone grind on me, especially if that someone is one of your friends,” you hissed, pulling your wrist out of his grasp.

Jimin’s face relaxed and he sneered at you before turning away and heading back to the couch to watch whatever dumb show he was watching. You rolled your eyes as you headed up to your bedroom. Why did Jimin want you to not go to Hoseok’s party to badly? What was he so worried about? You scoffed at the thought of Jimin actually being jealous and plopped down into your desk chair with the intention of finishing homework. However you were far too distracted to focus on the English essay you were supposed to be writing. Instead, your mind wandered and you found yourself considering actually going to the party just to piss Jimin off. He had done plenty to make you mad, why shouldn’t you pay him back a little? You knew that you maybe shouldn’t be so petty but you were already tired of spending so much time with Jimin when he was being such as asshole.

You sighed deeply as you spun around in your chair, becoming slightly dizzy. You still had no desire to go to such a party but you did want to stick it to Jimin. You threw your head back and stared at the ceiling as you spun around and around. This was stupid. It was on a school night anyways. With a final sigh, you caught your desk and stopped spinning. No, you weren’t going to go. You were going to find other ways to annoy Jimin that wouldn’t also annoy you. What those ways were… well, you weren’t quite sure yet. You’d figure them out soon though.

“Dinner!” you father called.

You jumped slightly and looked at the clock on your desk. It was nearly six o’clock and you hadn’t done any homework yet.

Groaning, you stood up and headed downstairs and into the dining room to see Jimin already seated at the table. He was typing on his phone and didn’t even look up when you sat down across from him. Your father placed plates of food down in front of the two of you with a small “Eat up!” before sitting down himself. Jimin thanked him and set his phone down. He didn’t even glance up at you as he began eating.

“How was everybody’s day?” you father asked.

Both you and Jimin shrugged. Your father sighed at the response and began talking about his own day as it was clear neither of you were in the mood for sharing. You only half listened as your father talked. In all honesty, you were more focused on Jimin and the fact that he was ignoring you. His feet weren’t even in your space like they usually were. You narrowed your eyes at him until he finally looked up at you. He didn’t smirk at you or even wink before he looked back down at his plate. His mood was making you anxious. Shouldn’t he be pestering you and playing his little game?

“Are you two okay? You seem awfully quiet…” your father asked, genuine concern in his voice.

“Yeah, just tired,” you mumbled and Jimin nodded.

Your father sighed and began clearing the table. Both you and Jimin stood up to help before he was shooing the two of you away.

“Go get ready for bed. Curfew is at 9:30 tonight. The two of you need some sleep.”

Neither you nor Jimin complained. You followed Jimin up the stairs until suddenly he stopped and turned around. He leaned around you to make sure your father was in the kitchen before he spoke.

“Don’t go near my friends again,” he hissed in your ear.

Your mouth fell open. You quickly closed it and gritted your teeth.

“Believe, I don’t want them anywhere near me either,” you replied.

Jimin glared at you before he stormed into his bedroom. You held back a laugh as he closed the door softly so that it wouldn’t upset your father.

You wandered into your own bedroom and shut the door behind you. Leaning back against it, you again wondered why Jimin was so hellbent on you staying away from his friends. It wasn’t like you were going to go looking to strike up a conversation with them… Why did he care so much?

You sighed as you gathered your belongings and began getting ready to go to bed. You slept soundly that night, but in the room next door, Jimin barely slept ten minutes…

He wasn’t sure what was wrong with him. At first he thought that maybe he was having a heart attack because his heart was beating so quickly and each time he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in it. He wasn’t though. He googled the symptoms and he was completely fine. Another reason he could be having this pain was because of you. Each time he saw you his heart sped up slightly and his palms got abnormally clammy.

He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. His room was completely dark and the house was completely silent. It gave him an unwelcome amount of time to think. What had he ever done to you? Why did you hate him so badly? Most importantly, why were his friends bothering you. He had specifically stated that you were off limits. Just because the two of you didn’t talk anymore didn’t mean he still didn’t care about you. Just as acquaintances of course… Maybe old friends.

Jimin sighed deeply and flung an arm over his eyes. He didn’t want to watch the time tick by anymore. It was already three in the morning and he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep yet. It was difficult to sleep when his mind was going a hundred miles an hour and digging up old memories. What had he done to deserve this?

“You look awful,” you commented as Jimin shuffled into the kitchen.

He was wearing comfortable clothing for a change, his hair was still sticking out slightly, and his eyes were cloudy, dark circles prominent underneath them. He looked paler than usual, too. You were worried that maybe he was sick.

“Thanks, that’s what any boy wants to hear from a girl,” he grumbled as he opened the refrigerator and grabbed some water.

You raised an eyebrow at him as he closed the fridge door.

“That’s all you’re gonna have?”

He didn’t look at you. Instead, he wandered into the living room and grabbed his backpack off of the couch, slinging it over his shoulder.

“I’m leaving first,” was all he mumbled as he walked out the front door, slamming it behind him.

You sighed deeply. Each day Jimin was in a different mood and it was difficult for you to keep up. Quite frankly, you were exhausted of the two of you tip-toeing around each other. Maybe you should confront Jimin but there never seemed to be a good moment to do so.

You grabbed your own backpack and headed out the door to school. You managed to go the entire day without seeing Jimin which was odd since you saw his friends. He never seemed to be around them which prompted you to wonder if he was even at school. The thought of him ditching school made you even more nervous. What game was Park Jimin playing?

On the bright side, none of his friends were even sparing you a glance. None of them sparing you a glance meant that nobody else in school was. In fact, you almost made it an entire day without one of his friends talking to you.

“Hey Y/N right?” a voice behind you asked as you tossed your backpack into your car.

You nearly jumped out of your skin. Gritting your teeth together and trying to calm your heart down, you turned slowly to find yourself face-to-face with the school heartthrob and Jimin’s best friends Jeon Jungkook.

“Don’t you know it’s not gentlemanly to sneak up on a lady,” you asked, your heart rate finally dropping back down to normal.

Jungkook looked sheepish as he shuffled his feet and looked up the sky, a small laugh escaping him.

“Sorry… I didn’t even think. Did I scare you?” he inquired, sounding genuinely concerned.

You couldn’t tell if he was playing a game with you or not. He seemed sincere and he looked innocent. You glanced around and saw that the parking lot had mostly emptied out. His friends were nowhere to be seen.

Shrugging, you replied, “A little. You need to be louder when you’re approaching somebody.”

Jungkook laughed, his nose scrunching slightly and his head tilted back. It was adorable and you felt your heart skip a beat.

“Next time I’ll be sure to banshee scream,” he joked, causing you to giggle at the image of Jungkook screaming loudly as he swaggered towards you.

After the two of you had calmed down slightly, Jungkook spoke again.

“I was wondering if you’d seen Jimin at all today,” he said, faltering slightly at the look you gave him. “It’s just… the two of you live together so I thought maybe you would know.”

You narrowed your eyes.

“Wait, he didn’t go to school today?”

Jungkook shook his head. He looked worried.

“He’s never missed a day of school since Freshman year when he got the flu and was forced to stay home. Did… did something happen?”  he asked, his head tilting to the side slightly.

Your mind flashed back to this morning and how terrible Jimin had looked. You recounted the events to Jungkook, his face dropping marginally with each word you spoke. He stared at the ground and shoved his hands in his pockets, then took them out of his pockets, then shoved them back in. He seemed to have something to say. Finally, he peered up at you.

“I know you probably won’t want to do this, but can you talk to him please?”

You were taken aback. Why on Earth wouldn’t Jungkook just talk to his best friends himself. Maybe he really was playing a game with you. You braced yourself for his friends to pop out and laugh at you, but nothing happened. It was just you and Jungkook standing in a mostly empty parking lot.

“About what? We don’t really have much to talk about anymore,” you mumbled, avoiding eye contact with Jungkook. You suddenly felt very shy.

“Talk to him about why you don’t have a lot to talk about anymore. I think maybe Taehyung and I are the only two who know about why he stated that he doesn’t want you pulled into the games, er I guess they’re bets, or whatever. I don’t know. It’s… messy. Hoseok likes to play them to get back at his on-and-off girlfriend… Sorry, I’m rambling. You probably don’t even care,” Jungkook said, rubbing the back of his neck rather roughly.

You sighed.

“I’ll talk to him, but there’s no guarantee he’ll tell me what’s going on.”

Jungkook nodded quickly.

“Thanks Y/N. I’ll, um, I’ll see you tomorrow?” he said before flashing you a dorky smile and waving.

You nodded and waved back, watching as he turned around and jogged over to his car. He was cute and, contrary to your previous thoughts, a nice person. He was also kinda lame when it came to jokes but that’s what made him even cuter. You could see why girls and boys liked him. He was hard not to like.

You got into your own car and drove home, trying to think up ways to talk to Jimin. Maybe it would be best if you asked him why he began ignoring you Freshman year. That’s where your friendship with him had come to a halt. Then maybe you could ask him why he hated you so much and why he was determined to make you miserable. You pulled into your driveway, suddenly very angry with Park Jimin. Did twelve years of friendship really mean nothing to him at all? Were you really that easy to drop?

Storming into your house, you were met with Jimin lounging on the couch in sweatpants and a bowl of popcorn in his hands.

“Your dad said we’d be on our own for dinner so-”

“Why do you hate me so much?” you blurted, your fists clenched at your sides.

Jimin’s eyebrows shot up and he sat up slowly from the couch.

“I could ask you the same thing Y/N.”

You scoffed harshly and crossed your arms over your chest. You rolled your eyes, unable to help yourself as you glared at Jimin. He really had the audacity to ask you why you hated him so much when he had been a dick to you for so long. Park Jimin was really something. You glared as you watched him stand up from the couch and set the popcorn on the coffee table in front of him. You found yourself looking him up and down, just as he was doing to you. A small detail caught your attention. Well, it wasn’t small necessarily. His grey sweatpants showcased a lot more than his slim hips, they also outlined his bulge and you could tell he wasn’t wearing any underwear underneath. You cheeks flushed red and you looked away. You heard Jimin snort as he walked closer to you.

“Don’t you want to know why I didn’t go to school today?” he asked lowly as he approached you.

You backed up as Jimin kept advancing until you were pressed into the front door of your house. Jimin wasn’t touching you yet but your body was on fire at the thought of him touching you. Why were you so attracted to him? He wasn’t the same person you’d fallen in love with when you were thirteen…

“I’ll tell you why,” he whispered, leaning closer to you, his body finally pressing against yours.

You resisted the urge to pull him closer to you. He smelled good, familiar even.

“I can’t stand my friends talking about how hot you always look. You don’t even know how good you look even when you’re just standing there. I hate it.”

His breath against the shell of your ear sent shivers down your spine. You didn’t tell him to stop though. In fact, you wanted to rile him up a little. Slowly, you began grinding your hips against his. He let out a low moan at the sensation and his hands gripped your hips roughly.

“Why do you hate it?” you asked lowly, your lips grazing his ear.

He didn’t reply he simply pulled his face back before planting his lips on your roughly. His lips were soft and warm and you felt yourself melt into the kiss. It would embarrassing to admit how many times you’d thought about kissing his plump lips. You slipped your tongue into his mouth as he pulled you into him roughly. Suddenly, you were being picked up and carried to the couch.

Jimin dropped you into the couch unceremoniously before hovering over you, his lips attaching to yours and his hand travelling down your side to grip your hip. He ground against you roughly and you could tell he was mostly hard.

His hand slipped underneath your shirt and traced circles onto the soft skin on your stomach. His lips travelled down to your neck and he sucked harshly on a spot, nipping it. He soothed it over with his tongue before he travelled lower to your collarbones and proceeded to mark you with dark hickies that would be bitches to cover later. His hips ground roughly against you and you could tell he needed more friction just as you did.

You moaned into his mouth and trailed your hands down his chest and stomach to the hem of his shirt, ready to help him pull it off. He sat back as if to pull it off before getting up abruptly and winking at you. Climbing off of you, he adjusted his sweatpants. You could tell he was fully hard so you were confused as to why he was getting off of you.

“What the hell Jimin?” you asked, sitting up and pressing your thighs together.

He simply smirked at you before he grabbed his bowl of popcorn from off of the coffee table and began to head up to the guest bedroom.

“You’ll have to finish baby. This was just a taste… it should be enough to show the other boys that they should stay away from you,” he said simply, winking at you before disappearing up the stairs and into his bedroom, the door shutting quietly behind him.

You groaned and leaned back into the couch. You were insanely turned on and royally pissed at Park Jimin. Finally, you stood up and grabbed your backpack as you went to your own bedroom. Hopefully you could distract yourself by focusing on your homework. You paused by Jimin’s door but it was silent in his room. You had half hoped he’d be getting himself off to the thought of you just as you wanted to get off to the thought of him, but he seemed to be just fine.

You tried to focus on your homework and managed to finish it, but it was shoddy work and you knew it. It was a little past seven when you wandered out of your room and downstairs to see Jimin slipping his shoes on, a jacket in hand.

“Where are you going?”

He looked up at you, his face impassive.

“Out. I’ll be back by curfew. Don’t wait up,” he said as he left.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” you mumbled.

He seemed fine and nothing was awkward. You cursed him. You were still incredibly turned on, but all you wanted was for him to help you. He was such as ass.

“Nice hickies….”

You whipped your head around to see Jungkook standing beside you. He looked awkward and uncomfortable as usual. You groaned as you pulled your collar up more. You’d used almost an entire tube of concealer to cover them, but the dark purple color was still showing through.

“I’m gonna kill him,” you mumbled as you turned your attention back to your locker. You shoved another book into your bag as Jungkook chuckled.

“Well, whatever happened he’s here again today. Thanks for you sacrifice,” he teased.

You let out a scoff. Jimin had returned to acting like his usual self. He’d eaten the breakfast you’d made for yourself, “misplaced” your car keys, and had ignored you in the school hallways.

“Get to class Jungkook,” you joked.

He nodded earnestly.

“Yes ma’am.”

You laughed as you gently pushed him away. He giggled as he waved goodbye and walked down the hallway to meet up with Namjoon and Yoongi. Namjoon winked at you before the three boys turned and walked to class. You closed your locker and made your way to the last class of the day, ready for the day to be over. You walked by Jimin who was talking to a few girls. Well, he wasn’t really talking to them. He was replying politely as they hung onto him and asked him question after question. You shook your head. If only they knew…

Throughout class all you did was count the second until you had to leave. The teacher said something about a test next week but you weren’t really listening to a word she was saying. Throughout the day you’d come up with a plan to get Jimin back for yesterday and for leaving such obvious marks on your neck and you were itching to put it into action. When the bell rang, you were the first person out of class and you didn’t even bother stopping at your locker- a decision you knew you would regret Monday but it was Friday and you couldn’t be bothered.

You brushed by Jimin, your pace quickening. Your plan depended on you getting home first.

You pushed the speed limit as you drove home, keeping up with traffic. When you pulled into your driveway you quickly parked and half ran into your house. You sped up to your bedroom and shut the door behind you. Your father was on a business trip for the weekend so you had plenty of time. Turns out the reason you and Jimin were on your own for dinner the night before was because your father was finalizing his plans for his trip. He’d left early the next morning which left you and Jimin alone for almost three entire days.

You heard the front door open and close and let out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding in. It was silent which meant his friends weren’t with him. You went to your vanity mirror and took some makeup remover and swiped it over your hickies. They were slightly tender and you winced as you rubbed one particularly hard to get the concealer off. Once all of the makeup was off them and they were showing in their full glory you pulled down the collar on your top to make sure they were visibly showcased. You tried to put your most annoyed face on which wasn’t difficult as all you had to do was think of Jimin doing literally anything.

You walked down the stairs and to the kitchen. Jimin was sitting on the couch and you could feel him eyeing you as you grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge. Well, he was eyeing your hickies more specifically.

“Those look good baby. I noticed you couldn’t cover them up well,” he teased.

You turned to look at him with a smirk on your face. He seemed confused by your attitude. Usually you would have snapped at him about him being a dick, but you had other ideas.

“Thanks. Jungkook liked them especially. He could probably do a better job though. He really knows how to work his mouth,” you said casually as you took a sip from your water bottle.

Jimin’s face grew darker at your words and he looked genuinely annoyed.

“I know how to work mine too,” Jimin said with a small scoff as he rolled his eyes.

You chuckled as you took another drink. You opened the refrigerator to place the half empty water bottle back inside. You knew Jimin was dying to hear your response.

“I know you’re good at working your mouth. You spout bullshit out of it all day.”

Jimin glared at you as he stood up. He walked closer to you until you were pressed back against the kitchen counter with his arms on either side of you and his face level with yours. Slowly, he leaned in to plant a gentle kiss onto your lips. One of his hands came up to grip your chin as he tilted your head to deepen the kiss. You were so shocked that you just let him do whatever he wanted to do. This was… not what you’d expected at all.

He pulled away to look into your eyes. You stared back as you waited for what he was going to do next.

“My mouth can go other things too you know,” he mumbled finally as he planted another kiss onto your lips.

“Prove it,” you mumbled into the kiss.

Suddenly, Jimin’s lips were pushing into your harder and his tongue was slipping into your mouth. Both of his hands were now gripping your hips as he ground into you slightly. You detached your lips from his to plant small kisses across his jaw before travelling down to his neck. He let you suck a small hickie into his neck before one of his hands came up to grip your chin and pull your face closer to his so that he could kiss your lips again. You let out a soft moan against his mouth and he pushed his tongue into your mouth to deepen the kiss.

He sunk down to his knees suddenly and you shivered at the loss of contact.

“Can I?” he asked, suddenly sounding uncertain.

You nodded as you unbuttoned your jeans. He slid them down along with your panties and you suddenly felt very exposed. Jimin didn’t say anything as he parted your legs slightly before placing a kiss on your clit and then sucking harshly. You bucked your hips forward and gripped his hair, letting out a low moan as he continued to suck harshly on your clit. Your hips began moving involuntarily to gain more friction and you were grinding against Jimin’s face. His hands gripped your hips harshly to slow you down.

“Fuck Jimin, please don’t stop,” you begged, your voice trembling slightly due to the pleasure you were feeling.

Jimin alternated between kitten licks and sucking harshly on your clit. The kitten licks make you grind harder against his tongue trying to gain more friction. Each time he suddenly sucked against your clit your hips bucked into his face and you let out an involuntary moan. You could feel him smirk each time he elicited a response from you. He slipped two fingers into you suddenly and you bucked your hips harshly at how suddenly he pushed his digits in. He curled them as he pumped them in and out of you, his lips still attached to your clit. Your hands were roughly gripping his hair and tugging lightly as a way to stay grounded. Each time you tugged Jimin groaned against your clit, the vibrations bringing you even more pleasure.

He let you grind against his face and you moaned in pleasure, your legs shaking and your breathing uneven. Jimin stared up at you and there was something in the way he looked at you… as if he was in love with you. You maintained eye contact with him. The pit of your stomach was growing warmer with each passing minute and you knew that you were close to your release. You gripped his hair even tighter and braced your back against the kitchen counter afraid that you were going to fall.

“Jimin,” you said, swallowing hard, “I’m- I’m so close.”

He sucked harshly on your clit in response and pumped his fingers in and out of you faster. He watched as your face twisted in pleasure and didn’t mind that you were pulling rather roughly on his hair. Seeing you like this was beautiful to him. Of course, you always looked beautiful to him though he would never admit it.

You moaned out Jimin’s name as you climaxed. He kept pumping his fingers and sucking on your clit to draw out your orgasm and soon you were shaking, slightly overstimulated. Finally, he slowed and then stopped. His mouth came away from your clit and his fingers slowly slipped out of you. He washed his hands before helping you get re-dressed and sit down beside him. Your legs were still shaking slightly and you nearly collapsed on top of him. His mouth was slightly wet and you blushed at the sight. His lips were also more plump than usual and you resisted the urge to kiss them.

Jimin didn’t say anything. Instead, he pulled you closer to him and let you rest your head on his shoulder.

“Told you,” he mumbled childishly.

You looked down and saw that he was half hard in his jeans. Although you were tired you wanted to help him out. Before you could do anything, he stopped you.

“Don’t worry about it. You can repay me later. I’ve proved my point.”

You slumped against him, exhausted. His breathing was quicker than usual too and you placed a hand on his chest to feel his heart. It was beating as if he’d just run a marathon.

“Can I ask you something Jimin?” you asked after a few moments of silence.

He simply nodded in response as he shifted so that you were able to lay your head on his legs. He looked down at you, his hair falling into his face slightly. He had a small smile on his face and you couldn’t help but blush. It was as if something had changed between the two of you now. You’d half expected him to leave you there after he’d proved his point but he almost seemed to want to take care of you afterwards. You didn’t mind a bit.

“Why did you start ignoring me Freshman year? I really… I don’t know. It kind of hurt. I don’t understand why you started hating me,” you mumbled, averting your eyes.

Jimin huffed, incredulous.

“You hate me more apparently…”

It was your turn to scoff incredulously.

“I- I literally DON’T hate you. You were the one who stopped talking to me Freshman year…”

“No,” he said slowly, “you were the one who stopped talking to ME Freshman year.”

You huffed and sat up.

“Really? Because I specifically remember you not texting me over the summer at all and then ignoring me all of Freshman year. You just dropped me!”

Jimin looked genuinely confused.

“You never answered my text messages that I sent you! I asked you numerous times the summer going into Freshman year if you wanted to hang out with me and welcome Taehyung to the neighborhood because he’d just moved in next door to me. Do you really not remember that?” he asked, sounding hurt.

“I never received those messages,” you said slowly, shaking your head slightly.

You felt your shoulders slump and Jimin’s did the same.

“Do you still have my number?” you asked him slowly, an idea forming in your mind.

He nodded and seemed to catch onto your idea. He shifted to pull out his phone and scrolled down to your contact. He pressed call and held the phone up to his ear. Your phone didn’t ring.

“When I got my new number, did you put it into your phone wrong?” you asked, an eyebrow quirked.

“I don’t think so… Let me read the number I have saved.”

He read the number back to you. Everything sounded correct until he got to the last four digits. You couldn’t believe it. This entire feud had started over Jimin typing the wrong number into his phone.

“It’s 4763, not 4764…” you mumbled quietly.

“Oh my God,” Jimin mumbled, quickly changing the number he had saved to the correct one. “Each time I got that text saying ‘Hey! What’s up?’ that was you… Oh my God,” he said, scoffing slightly at how dumb he had been.

“I really thought you hated me,” you mumbled.

“I thought you hated me,” he mumbled at the same time.

“I’m sorry!” you both said said at the same time.

Both of you looked away, suddenly very awkward. What were you supposed to do now? Jimin had basically just tongue fucked you and you’d enjoyed it and it turned out that neither of you hated the other one and that it was a misunderstanding and what now? Do the two of you go about your lives as if nothing had happened? As if the two of you weren’t still at least a little in love with each other? As if you didn’t have a sexual attraction to each other? Jimin let out a disbelieving chuckle beside you and nodded your head, understanding his emotions completely. You leaned back against Jimin and he slumped into you.

“Go out to lunch with us Monday… I want you to meet them formally… My friends, I mean,” Jimin finally mumbled after a few minutes of silence had gone by.

You nodded, unsure of where this was going.

“It’s only fair they meet the girl I’m in love with.”

You whipped your head around to look at him so quickly you were sure you’d gotten whiplash. Jimin chuckled at you and hesitated before planting a small kiss on the top of your head.

“You don’t have to be in love with me. I can wait. But my heart belongs to you Y/N,” Jimin said, a small blush rising on his cheeks as he looked anywhere but at you.

“How did you go from being such a dick to being so nice?” you chuckled, shaking your head as you laid your head on his shoulder.

He wrapped an arm around you. He felt warm and familiar and you remembered him wrapping his arm around you whenever the two of you watched scary movie. Each thing he did held a memory it seemed, and almost every part of him was familiar. You hadn’t realized how much you’d missed him touching you.

“I said I was sorry! I was hurt because I thought you hated me… You were the one who taught me how to be petty anyways, I don’t know why you’re so surprised!” he said, earning a hit on the thigh from you.

You laughed as you snuggled closer into him and inhaled his familiar scent.

“We have all weekend. Let’s do something together. I’ve missed spending time with you,” you said.

Jimin pulled you even closer to him.

“Anything for you Y/N. Anything I can do to make it up to you.”

“Mini golf!” you exclaimed.

Jimin let out a groan, his head falling back against the kitchen cabinets.

“You know I’m bad at mini golf!”

You laughed.

“Yeah, that’s why I said we should do it. You’ve gotta make it up to me somehow.”

Jimin rolled his eyes before turning to look at you.

“Fine. Mini golf. Me. You. Tomorrow at 9,” Jimin huffed and slumped down before mumbling, “It’s a good thing I love you.”