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gothprentiss · 2 years

Note

the hour of lead! for the director's cut ask thingy

for ref: [the hour of lead] Post Valhalla + Lauren. Derek mourns Emily’s death. / 2.9k words / rated g

ok so! this is SEVERELY too long:

one fun thing about this fic is that i typically take about a week to write a fic due to my proclivity for narrative hubris (rounding out multiple ‘episodes’ or whatever is, i discovered writing this, more time-consuming than simply just doing one linear thing) and the 5-15k range. this, i’m pretty sure, i sat down to write at like 3 and had finished by 8, or something like that. and it’s under 3k words, although i believe when i first posted it it was about 200 words shorter— i also have a cool and normal tendency to edit fics *after* posting them, meaning that the fic i post and the fic that’s on ao3 a week later are often two marginally different animals. but the point is that this was like, a bit of an achievement in terms of writing process.

as i'm rereading it now i'm very like, oh this is me leaning on all of my sort of typical supports— very heavy repetition and recursion, a lot of motifs, tonally a bit overdramatically Lyrical, and the ending feels a bit rushed and saccharine in its use of the future-perfect. i also have this annoying tendency to make english majors out of every character i write lol. i was clearly also thinking about derek in the same way i think about emily, probably— i think with both of them i like to defer moments of, say, emotional ‘depth’ to something more external, functional, or actionable, and this fic gets very into materiality as a result. but like that being said—

one funny behind the scenes thing: i cribbed a section from a different fic i was thinking i’d never post anywhere (it’s the exorcist-themed one— you can see the precise section i snagged this from [here], about midway through, in emily’s vision of the death of father del toro). normally i’m very careful about cribbing wholesale from my drafts because i think that uh the topic should generate the language or something? but in this case it’s about the death of a priest in a story where i’d also been exploring derek’s own religiosity (e.g. [here]), and i’d been thinking it would be either him or jj to eventually perform the exorcism in the fic (i.e., stepping into the role of a priest), so there’s a sort of parity there. point is, i had this paragraph written:

Father del Toro screamed. He gave off, in a great mushroom cloud, a massive volume of steam, hissing and roiling above his vestments, miraculously dry. It was as if, in a second, he dehydrated to the precise fatal degree. Then he crumpled to the ground in an inhuman heap, folding over himself heels to pelvis and knees to shoulders. The dull thunking of his knees, then his head, meeting the floor rang infinitely through the cathedral’s vast and vaulting interior, built as it was to amplify human song to the magnificence of the heavenly host. It rose in pitch as it went, and screamed until it last ceased to sound. On his downturned face, a droplet of blood welled in his right eye and folded there, in the tear duct, too small to drop.

and made it this one:

He thinks about what it would feel like to shut the door behind him and fall to his knees in the hall. He thinks he might crumple entirely, into an unrecognizable heap, folding over himself heels to pelvis and knees to chest. The dull thunk of his knees, then his head, meeting the floor— it might echo in the vast, seemingly endless space of the apartment. It might echo the way sounds echo in churches, sound waves climbing higher, reflected off each other, up to Heaven.

reshaping in the process an description of a destructive encounter with Pure Evil! into a sudden wave of enervating grief.

off that sidebar— i think i must have begun this fic thinking really hard about pathetic fallacies, on one hand, and about how that sort of magical thinking plays out. like this is obviously quite overdetermined in

He’s been hiding from this. As he slips out of his front door, the red maple that casts its shade over the front yard sheds its collected rain down onto him. A fat drop catches in his eyebrow, and another slips down the back of his neck.

It’s not that the rain feels fitting, but that it feels wrong. Wrong, that they aren’t frozen in February. Wrong, that this hearkens the change of seasons. Wrong, that the first shoots of daffodils have already crept up from the ground. A patch of the shocking white variety known as ice follies has sprung up, just tucked inside the wall surrounding his front yard, since she died. He nearly dug them up, then decided that would be barbaric.

where, first, going outside to confront what he’s been avoiding (acting as if she is dead) also brings him out into the rain, so it’s not that it’s reflecting his mood but rather that he’s caught in it. then there’s the very explicit problem of the rain, which isn’t moody weather but rather simply portends spring and sun. i did like the ice follies bit! i remember being like “oh shit! oh that’s going in!” when i was googling different daffodil varieties and ran across those. i think it’s one of those extremely minor cosmic serendipities that they have such a sort of like, toothlessly cruel name, in the same way that the pathetic fallacy does?

i think that kind of magical thinking runs headlong into itself later, too, when he’s finally come to emily’s and the skies have cleared up. i’m not entirely sure about how i feel about narration here— there are parts where i was clearly playing with, beyond unhealthy coping mechanisms, some element of unreliable narration. so, for example, “It’s about to be a rainy night when he finally makes it out to Emily’s apartment” is proven untrue here, which was deliberate, but i think looks like a mistake. or similarly, i leaned pretty hard into different, like, qualities of reported thought? this is definitely something i snagged from thomas harris, who has it down to a gorgeous science in silence of the lambs, and i think i have it down to, approximately, my catholic school’s science class. so, for example:

You have to face her eventually. Emily lives— Emily lived closest to him of all the team.

“You have to face her eventually” is thought, pure and simple. “you” is direct self-address. but the following lines also borrow his voice, with a similar quality of presence; it’s only because it’s expository that it’s relegated to the prose narrative proper. it feels kind of ham-handed to me. given that the fic begins with a similar, i don’t know, problem of voice—

In the no man’s land between sleep and waking, he thinks it’s someone knocking out a message in Morse code: it’s spring. Times have changed. You must change accordingly.

— i was also thinking about how there’s a sort of tertiary thing present here, a form of truth emerging from the dramatic irony of this magical thinking: this rainfall, failing to be mood weather, announces spring; the intruding present tense reminds us that emily does still live, a fact which he’s not capable of grasping. i find this sooooooo annoying of me!!!!

i’m gonna speed this up!

1) obviously religion and prayer— i think their mutual lapsed catholicism is really neat and derek’s apparent (if rarely addressed) desire to return to a meaningful relationship with religion is really fascinating to me. without getting too deep into my extremely elaborate views on religion, i also was thinking here about what constitutes a prayer, and what it might do for him— thinking back to derek praying in “penelope,” it strikes me as something he’d be very deeply invested in, and very careful about too; not in a superstitious sense, but with a desire to direct things correctly. like the precise problem for derek’s relationship with religion is that he does believe in an interventionist god but can’t.

2) materiality:

central to the fic for sure. i think i was rereading house of leaves around the time i wrote this? and if i wasn’t, i was definitely thinking about it, because the description of her (ugly) apartment absolutely whiffs of it. it’s also about the problem of change, where matter doesn’t provide any continuity— he encounters it as a space almost totally transformed, whose last entrants were all uncaring strangers. see as well:

Yet life, he thinks, is often full of guilt. Loss is a relation to a lost object. The danger is when that relation is not one of mourning, but one of replacement; when you build for yourself, in your mind’s eye, a phantom limb. This is a recipe for pathology, a wound of the mind which may never put up a layer of scab and knit itself shut underneath. The old wound of distance, of absence: in not healing to scar, it tempts infection. But you accept some dangers, in living.

i do like the line about danger! this is very much freudian mourning and melancholia LOL but i felt like i had some license to let morgan be a bit more theoretical about loss here, since profilers are ostensibly highly competent in psychology. but also, i think this part leans into the show’s register of pathology— of danger, of threat— even as it’s more concerned with reconciliation with living. living over life here, with the gerund’s processual sense. this is sort of the fic’s turn, where living becomes an act again rather than a hypothetical?

3) title / dickinson poem— i don’t know if i love this. like i love the title but that's a good line of poetry. see, on one hand, i’m very committed to emily prentiss reading poetry. and i think this is a really cool poem. i also think the show sort of skimps on the other way that this team would work, which is feeling Very Very Bad Very Often together. like "true knight" sticks in my mind as a stunningly naive moment from emily, on one hand, and on the other as a thought process she'd have to keep having. similar to how stricken derek is in "lucky" & "penelope". one of the things about dickinson's poem is that while it suggests itself as being about loss through death very immediately ("Tombs," ln 2), and through its final simile, it's most explicitly just about "great pain". life is of course full of many other forms of great pain, and cm is even more full of it. so the way the poem kind of ends up haunting and restructuring derek's thought processes when he thinks about it there— it's kind of just him realizing its truth, which is a common experience with poetry. it's also finding a thought process which he can move with, e.g. how he notices the orchid plant is fake at the end and is like, oh, that too!

it feels like a problem that every character i try to write becomes a very dedicated english major. i think i like where it got me, though, which was to hands, and the acts of letting go, holding on, gathering, and releasing. this is a very like, materially attuned fic, which is quite rare for me! i like overdescribing things AND i like motifs, so you get a lot of hands stuff throughout the fic, for example:

He remembers that Jonny McHale, in the throes of grief’s icy grip, moved through and as his pen, frozen into it, until even his own blood might have been ink to him. He remembers as well that Emily’s breath guttered and bubbled, as her body contended with its mere materiality. He begged her not to let go, she begged him to let go. All just fluctuations of matter. The folding and unfolding of fingers. The way love and desperation move your hands, and make them unable to move.

The texture of her hands still feels live under his own. Emily’s skin, gleaming dark with blood, and bright with the sweat of exertion: in the darkness, the light clung to the evidence of her struggle to live, and seared into his vision. The skin slung between her knuckles felt like silk, or wet paper, suddenly delicate, suddenly at risk. Her clammy fingers were still warm in his hands.

i think the hands parts (there are like 4 more of them lol) were my favorite parts of the fic to write, and probably are my favorite parts of it now— high levels of synonymy, repetition, apposition, and full of sentence fragments are my go-tos because i enjoy that like, particular texture of writing.

anyway this is TOO LONG i think the only other thing is that i would probably have preferred to draw out the ending longer because i do really dislike its pacing and movement. but what can you do! it's under 3k words! and what i've written in this response might genuinely be longer than that!

#fic #like truly this is SO LONG #but thank you for playing ask game! i had fun!#don't open this readmore unless you GENUINELY want to read it or you want to have to scroll for a while i'm serious #i assume the other one i did was wildly long too but i'm on my laptop now so i have the capacity to scroll and hooooo. boy

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iam93percentstardust · 3 years

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Prompt: Stony, animal transformation

I realized about halfway through writing this that you probably meant a spell or something but I wrote shifters instead and I really liked what I had so I kept going. Sorry it’s a lot crackier than you were probably expecting; you can blame @maguna-stxrk for that

As always, everything I write is also available on ao3

“No.”

The first time Tony met Steve Rogers, he was both delighted and irritated. Delighted because hey! Captain America is another cat shifter! And that means that Howard was wrong and Tony is, in fact, like Captain America (in some ways at least; in others, that remains to be proven).

“I won’t do it.”

And irritated because Captain America is another cat shifter.

“You can’t make me.”

Tony knows that there are cat shifters out there who are perfectly friendly and like being around other cats. He is not one of them. There are multiple reasons why he and Steve clashed on the helicarrier and only one of them is Loki’s staff. Tony’s breed is highly territorial and everything in his tower is his and he doesn’t want another cat in there rubbing up against his stuff. But there Fury is, insisting that the entire team move into the tower.

“I don’t want them there,” Tony says flatly. That’s not entirely true. He doesn’t really want any of them there but he’s willing to put up with them. The only one he really truly genuinely doesn’t want there is Steve.

It’s probably a good thing none of the rest of the team is here to hear him complaining about them. But, well, they should know better than to expect friendliness out of him. He’s not friendly. He’s majestic and aloof and not in the mood to have anyone else around to see him when he’s not being majestic and aloof.

Fury eyes him. Tony doesn’t know what kind of shifter he is—he keeps that kind of paperwork on actual paper, ew—but he wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something sneaky and devious like Fury himself (probably a snake. Tony hates snakes).

“Stark, the ways I could make you do what I want—”

“—are all against the Geneva Convention,” Tony finishes smoothly. In his reflection on the table, he realizes that the tuft of hair behind his ear isn’t lying flat. He licks the back of his hand and reaches up to smooth the hairs back down.

“Stark.”

“Fury.”

“We are running out of options—”

“Well, that sounds like a you problem.”

“—for Clint.”

Tony shuts up. Sighs. Glances through the window of the conference room where he can see Clint leaning against the wall, stuck in partial shift since Loki and the invasion. His golden tail is tucked between his legs, his ears are drooped, and he flinches like a kicked puppy (not an inaccurate description) every time someone walks by.

“How bad is it?” he asks.

“People don’t want him on the helicarrier,” Fury says. “He makes them nervous. His pack bonds were broken when Loki took him, and with Coulson—well.”

Yeah, that. Dog shifters like Clint rely on pack bonds, even those formed between non-dogs. Tony’s always been more of a loner so he can’t really imagine what Clint is going through but judging by the way Clint looks, he can guess it isn’t easy.

“They’ve all been briefed on what it’s like living with a cat, even Rogers, and they know about your idiosyncrasies in particular.”

And that’s the crux of the matter. “I don’t want him there,” Tony says quietly.

“He’s not the same breed—”

“But he’s got the same instincts!” He sighs frustratedly and almost runs his hand through his hair before he realizes how much that’ll mess up his hairstyle. His tail lashes agitatedly behind him, instincts urging him to claw, to bite, to protect his home from the invader. “Why can’t it just be Clint?”

“Because where Clint goes, Natasha goes. Besides, Clint needs the pack bonds, which means he needs the whole team.”

Tony hisses, crosses his arms, pouts. “Fine,” he says eventually. “But I don’t like it.”

And then, before Fury can feel too smug in his victory, he keeps aggressive eye contact and knocks Fury’s water glass off the table, darting away before he can hear more than the bellow of rage.

“I don’t want you here,” Tony says, ears laced back irritably. It’s the first time he’s come across Steve in the tower so far and of course the man (well, actually he’s shifted into his cat form right now) is lying in Tony’s favorite sunbeam. The nerve of some people.

The single eye that Tony can see slits open and stares at him for a long moment. In the next moment, a ripple comes over the cat and then Steve has partially shifted back, stretching lazily as he yawns. “Okay, Tony,” he agrees.

“You’re in my sunbeam.”

“Okay, Tony.”

“I want you out of it.”

“But it’s such a nice sunbeam.”

“It’s mine.”

“We could share it.”

Tony lets out an offended yowl. They can’t share it. That would defeat the purpose of it being his. Steve stares at him for a long moment and then stretches again, muscles rippling in interesting ways that make Tony want to knead them for—no. No kneading. No accepting the interloper.

“Come on, Tony. It’s sunny and I want to nap. We can share the sunbeam,” Steve says around another yawn before flopping over onto his side, still mostly human. Tony wants to bite his tail. But… he does want a nap. And this is favorite sunbeam. And he shouldn’t have to find another one since there’s no way Steve will be leaving this one (sadly Tony has not yet figured out the right strength the armor needs to move him).

He carefully lays down, putting several inches of space between him and Steve. Almost immediately, he can feel the effects of the warm sun on him, pulling him under into a light doze. It’s not enough to fall asleep entirely, not when he can still feel Steve at his front but then Steve starts to purr and oh, that’s kind of nice. He hesitantly lets out an answering purr of his own. Steve’s rumble grows louder and almost without meaning to, Tony finds his hands kneading the ground contentedly.

But that won’t stand. It can’t stand. He conceded ground on the sunbeam because it and Steve were warm and that was clearly a mistake because now Steve is standing in the kitchen, drinking coffee from Tony’s favorite coffeepot out of Tony’s favorite mug as he talks to Natasha.

And this injustice cannot stand!

“Mine,” he hisses, fingers shifting into extended claws, ready to tear into Steve for daring to drink from what clearly belongs to Tony.

At his hiss, Natasha’s skin ripples until she’s scaly and blending in with the cabinets. Smart of her to stay out of his way. Few things are worse than a territorial cat and even someone as lethal as Natasha would hesitate to face him when he’s like this, even though Steve gives her an amused look and says, “Really?”

Steve takes another sip out of the mug. Tony’s hiss turns into a full-throated growl. “Tony, you have to learn to share.”

“No.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Mine.”

“Yeah, you said that.” Steve doesn’t sound very impressed. Or even particularly intimidated, damn it.

“It’s my mug, it’s my favorite mug, you have to give it back,” Tony says, eyes tracking the mug as Steve lifts it to his lips again—wow, they looked kind of pink and pretty in the morning—no, focus. “Give it.”

“Alright,” Steve says agreeably and holds the mug out. “Here you go.”

Tony’s tail lashes and he hisses again. “You know I don’t like to be handed things.”

“Oh right,” Steve says, sounding remarkably unconcerned. “Too bad then. Guess you’re not getting your mug back.” He takes another sip from the mug—Tony’s mug.

“No,” Tony whines, drawing the word out so that it has at least eight additional syllables. He flops over onto the kitchen table, rolling around mostly so that he’s treating this situation with the hysteria it deserves but also so that he can scent mark the table, which currently smells of the rest of the team and not like him.

“Tony, stop being overdramatic,” Natasha orders, apparently deciding that she doesn’t need to blend in with the background anymore. “Steve, stop being a shit and give him back his mug.”

“No,” they both say petulantly.

She pulls out one of the many, many knives she keeps on her person. Tony hurriedly rolls off the table. Steve quickly puts the mug down and pulls out another one. Immediately, Tony darts to his mug—all his, no one else’s—and cradles it to his chest.

“That’s better,” Natasha says smugly and stalks out of the kitchen.

Tony waits until she’s gone and Steve has filled his new mug. Then, as Steve busies himself with cooking his breakfast, he slowly, cautiously reaches out and bats Steve’s mug off the counter. He gleefully sprints out of the kitchen to the sound of Steve’s outraged yowls, clutching his own mug close.

“Clint says you’ve been working too long,” Steve says, surprising Tony so much all the fur on his tail stands straight up.

“Fuck,” he spits. “I have a heart condition, you know.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees like the asshole cat he is. “But I don’t think I’m going to give you a heart attack just by sneaking up on you. Not my fault you were in a zone.”

Tony grumbles wordlessly under his breath. It’s true that he’s been in a zone for the last couple hours or so, something that he achieves only through kneading or inventing, but that’s no reason for Clint to be concerned.

“Why do you care if Clint says I’ve been working too long?” he asks. Steve picks up one of his screwdrivers and spins it between his fingers before setting it back down. Tony immediately picks it up as well and rubs his cheek on it to cover it in his scent again. Steve shoots him a mischievous grin and promptly moves further away to do the same thing to a different screwdriver. Tony resigns himself to losing another couple of hours to scent marking everything once Steve is gone.

“I don’t,” Steve says, now rubbing up against one of the armors (and no, Tony is not thinking about how good Steve looks like that). “I thought we were doing a great job of ignoring each other. But he says it’s been more than twenty-four hours, which means it’s time for a break.”

“Says who?”

“Pepper, apparently.”

Tony winces. Okay, yeah, he can ignore pretty much everyone except for Pepper. She’s important.

“So you’re… what, here to drag me upstairs for dinner?”

Steve shakes his head and holds up a bag in his hand. “Thought I’d offer to split a bag of catnip with you.”

Huh.

“Huh,” Tony says out loud. He eyes it suspiciously. “It’s not laced with anything else, is it? You’re not going to take me to knock me out and take me to Medical.”

“Just pure catnip.” Steve opens the bag and Tony’s eyes dilate at the intoxicating scent. “Why, do you need to go to Medical?”

Tony thinks of the two cracked ribs he suffered during the battle yesterday that he’d wrapped himself. “Nope,” he says blithely. Steve’s eyes narrow but he doesn’t argue. “Are you going to judge me for straight up eating it?”

“Are you going to judge me for doing the same?”

“Fair,” he says and holds out a hand for the bag. Steve upends it and dumps half in Tony’s hand, watching without judgment as Tony stuffs half of it into his mouth.

And when Tony comes back from his catnip-induced high to finds himself fully shifted, Steve’s own shifted form wrapped so tightly around him that his short tabby fur is mingling with Tony’s longer white fur, there’s no judgment there either, just Steve purring and purring and purring.

“Why do you do it?” Tony quietly asks Steve one night. Some animated movie is playing on the screen but Tony doesn’t think anyone is actually paying attention to it. The rest of the team is busy sleeping together in a cuddle pile in their shifted forms, Clint’s golden retriever spooned by Thor’s panda, Bruce’s owl perched on top of Clint with his head tucked under his wing. He can’t spot Natasha’s chameleon but he can smell her so he knows she’s there somewhere. He and Steve are sitting apart from the rest of the team, studiously ignoring them. It had surprised him when Steve hadn’t gotten down there to join them—tabbies tend to be more social than other cats—and instead chosen to curl up next to him on the couch in his partial shift, but to his shock, he isn’t complaining about it.

Idly, Steve twines his tail around Tony’s twitching one and purrs, relaxing him until he’s a puddle on the couch. “Nat said it was a good way to get your attention.”

“What, picking a fight with me?”

“Tony.” Steve gives him a long look and then leans over to lick his ear. It should make Tony stiffen, run away, groom over that one spot until he no longer smells of Steve anymore. It doesn’t. It just makes his ear flick curiously. “I never wanted to fight with you.”

Oh.

Suddenly, Tony’s brain is sifting through every interaction he and Steve have ever had, looking at them in a new light. Okay, and yeah, now that he’s thinking about it, he can see that this has all been Steve’s clumsy, well-intended attempt at courting him. And maybe he’s never really thought about Steve like that before but he’s thinking now and what he’s thinking is that when Steve isn’t stealing his things and laying in his favorite sunbeam, he actually really likes Steve.

“You’re not very good at this,” he informs Steve.

“Yeah, I’m getting that impression.”

“Natasha gave you bad advice.”

“I’m pretty sure she did it on purpose to stir up trouble.”

“She’s worse than either of us,” Tony agrees. “Now, hold still.”

“Wha—” He leans over Steve and licks at his ear, carefully grooming him. Steve purrs beneath him, eyes half-closed with pleasure. Tony’s own eyes drift shut as his heart beats a rhythm to the tune of mine, mine, mine.

“Hey, babe,” Tony says, coming up behind Steve. He drapes himself across Steve’s shoulders like the affectionate cat he is, giving a very sharp grin to the young socialite who has been holding onto Steve’s hand for the last minute. Doesn’t she know that that’s Tony’s? “I was wondering where you got off to.”

“Hey, sweetheart,” Steve replies, relaxing now that Tony is here. “Got stopped by Miss—I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

Tony knows Steve well enough to know that that’s absolutely not the case. He’s just saying it to irritate her. But she doesn’t know that, especially because none of them are allowed to be in partial shift for tonight’s gala—Fury’s orders—and Steve’s shifter form is a closely guarded secret. So she doesn’t know that Steve’s just following his instincts as a cat. Tony does though, and he smothers his laugh in Steve’s shoulder.

“Whithers,” the girl says, irritation bleeding into her tone.

“Pleasure,” Tony says, making no attempt to hide the fact that he thinks it’s the opposite. He twines himself around Steve so that he can reach his lips for a quick kiss. “If you don’t mind, I have to borrow Steve here. Although, I really don’t care even if you do mind. See, he’s mine and I don’t really like it when people touch what’s mine.”

And then, before her face can do much more than register shock, he bats her champagne glass out of her hand.

#alle writes #alle answers #stevetony #if you like please consider reblogging #Anonymous

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marvelobsessedteenager · 3 years

Text

All The Hurt - Chapter 1

Pairing: Peter Parker x fem!reader

Warnings: ANGST, Peter was an ass, reader is a hurt and petty bitch, fluff to make up for the angst, curse words, lots of “coincidences”, description of an explosion and blood.

Summary: Peter Parker. What a dick. It wasn’t always like this, but once he just got up and gladly left you for an unknown reason, you decided to bring hell down on him by publicly ridiculing him whenever you got the chance. However, when you accidentally find out what he's been hiding, conflicted feelings begin emerging, causing you to wonder if you could ever forgive him — especially when he saves your life.

Word Count: 2.6k

A/n: this came to me in a fucking dream so you bet I had to wake up and write this. It’s already completed hehe. I’m going to be posting the parts every day so stay tuned :D

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Never in your entire life would you have thought that there’d be a time when you’d willingly side with Flash. When you’d join him in bullying Peter, your best friend that you’d known since the both of you were shitting yourselves in diapers. Not a night goes by in which you don’t ask yourself why.

Why did he decide to break you?

The day he told you he didn’t want to be friends with you anymore was a day worse than finding out your father had cheated on your mother, prompting her to abruptly exit both your and your father’s lives when you were eleven. In all honesty, it felt like Peter took notes about suddenly leaving when you cried to him about your mother disappearing and used them to his advantage the summer before freshman year.

It was a pain like no other, a wound so hurtful your tear tank was constantly emptied every time you were alone in your room. There were too many nights where you’d lie awake with an ache in your chest - like someone dropped an avalanche on your heart and left it there to crush it.

Friendship breakups hurt like hell.

The days seemed to move slow and the nights even slower. You didn’t know how much time had passed when you’d blankly stare at your collection of photos of the two of you with tear stricken cheeks.

You constantly wondered if he regretted it.

And if he did, you told yourself you’d forgive him. You’d go back to him, because you were sure he didn’t mean it. Excuses began piling up in your mind, each one not having enough evidence to be proven true; maybe he was going through something he didn’t want to talk about. Maybe someone in his life died, like when Uncle Ben suddenly passed away. He didn’t speak to you for a week and didn’t show up to school, and when you went over to check on him, he broke down in your arms as he apologized for ignoring you, but you understood.

You always did.

So, you waited, and waited, and waited. Waited for a call, a text, something. But nothing ever came. No phone calls — he ignored yours — no apologies, no explanation, nothing but radio silence. It was almost like you never existed in the first place.

Day by day your hope slowly faded, and by the 56th day, all of it was gone. You didn’t know how to feel. You were furious at him for abandoning you. You were heartbroken. You told yourself you were being overdramatic — it wasn’t like you were in a relationship together, no matter how much you wanted to be.

All he ever saw you as was a friend. But that was before it all happened. Now he probably didn’t see you as anything but a stranger.

A stranger with memories and secrets revolving him.

Hot anger was quick to take control of your mind, and soon you stopped your crying and tore down years worth of captured memories and pinned birthday cards he made you - all reminders of how much you loved him - and threw them into a box. You shoved it to the back of your closet, along with your dignity and love for him.

Four months after your ‘breakup', you came back different. Newfound confidence shone out of you with every step you made down Midtown’s hallways. Your smile radiated happiness as you felt everyone’s eyes lay upon you. You were able to fool yourself and others around you that nothing happened. Your heart knew better, but soon it’d turn to stone.

And you convinced yourself that you preferred it that way.

You moved on, found friendship in others, and although they never lived up to him, they were enough to fill part of the gaping hole in your heart.

Flash making amends with you was probably the most surprising and unexpected thing to have ever happened in the school. You two got along well, almost too well, and about halfway into the school year, you became good friends. You two weren’t as close as you and Peter once were, but you bonded over your absent parents in ways you didn’t know were possible.

You felt understood, and he the same.

Still, that didn’t stop you from seeing Peter in the hallways. You made it a point to walk past him like you didn’t know him — because apparently, you didn’t.

You kept watching him from a distance.

You watched him make goo-goo eyes at Liz while rolling your own.

You watched him dart out of school at exactly two forty-five every day. You saw the anxiousness in the way he bounced his leg during class, the tapping of his pencil on the desk, the constant glances he threw at the clock with every minute that passed. You wanted to ask, but you didn’t.

On a particular day, the same day you overheard him and Ned making plans to meet up at his house to build Legos, you decided to go to Delmar’s to grab a bite. You hadn’t been there since the breakup, as you were always too nervous in case Peter ended up going there at the same time, and now that there was a clearing, you took it. Even if he was there, you didn't care.

You don’t.

When you stepped into the store, you were immediately welcomed by the one and only Mr. Delmar. He looked good — happy and content, and that’s why you absolutely adored him. It wasn’t fair that you cut off ties with him because of Peter, but he didn’t seem to take it personally. He went on and on about how much taller you’ve gotten and reminisced about how little you were when you and Peter got your first flattened number five sandwiches with pickles.

He must’ve seen your smile falter at the mention of Peter, because his eyebrows furrowed in concern not a moment later, “Did something happen to you kids? I never see him come with you anymore.”

So he’s been coming without you.

Ouch. That’s another stab to the heart.

Your palms began to feel slick as you rubbed them on your jeans with a strained smile and a shaky voice, feeling as if the walls were closing in on you, “Uh-we-“

But you never got to finish. Mr. Delmar’s eyes widened at something behind you, and in a split second, he yelled, “Get down!” followed by a string of Spanish curse words.

A scream left your mouth as a purple wave of something ripped through the bodega, nearly missing you by a strand of hair as you ducked. Shattered glass scattered everywhere, digging into the skin of your arms in a multitude of places. You hissed at the burn you felt below your eye, feeling a heavy liquid (which you assumed was blood) trail down your cheek and neck. You felt intense heat near your legs and your vision became blurred, ears ringing as all other noises besides your breathing became muffled. You coughed and coughed, feeling like your lungs were closing in on themselves from the fire that surrounded you.

The light above you flickered as you attempted to shout Mr. Delmar’s name, praying that he was all right.

But your voice never left your throat.

Your legs were trapped below two giant shelves that collapsed on them, and you weren’t strong enough to move them no matter how many times you tried to. The fire slithered like a snake as it began climbing to where your legs were being held below the rubble.

“Help.” You weakly whispered in between your coughs. The air around you felt heavy and limited, and it was starting to feel like you were choking on the fumes. You didn’t know how much longer your lungs could take.

It was hot. So fucking hot.

Your eyes shut and your head fell back on the ground, chest heaving in fast paces as you felt your body give up already, a burning sensation spreading all over you, like your insides were set on fire.

Your face trickled with sweat that dripped down to your cheeks, mixing with your tears.

Just when all hope was gone, just when you thought you were done for, you felt the weight lift off of your legs in one sudden movement, and an arm slide beneath your knees and on your back, holding you tightly.

You looked up at your savior, and who else could it have been other than Spider-Man, New York’s knight in shining armor, and apparently yours, too. You heard part of what he seemed to be saying as he looked down at you: “…got…I…you” and you could’ve sworn you heard your name.

But then again, you were on the brink of death, so you were no doubt hearing things.

You laid your tired head on his chest, wheezing into his smooth suit as he ran and jumped away from the fire until he reached the outside. He gingerly placed you on the ground and made you lean back against a parked car, and you breathed in the cool night air as he crouched down to rub your back while you practically choked.

In front of Spider-Man.

How embarrassing.

You felt your head heavily fall back as you clutched your arm in pain, the distant sound of police sirens audible now. Your eyes landed upon his covered face that turned away when you looked at him - like he was staring at you until you caught him. You could see that he wanted to go somewhere in the way that his spidey-eyes were expanding and shrinking at the destroyed bank across the street. You moved to touch your legs, and by some miracle, they were just a little sore. You could manage on your own.

“Go,” you breathily said, making Spider-Man look down at you, “I’m okay.”

He hesitated for a moment and pivoted his head to your legs. You breathed out half a laugh, coughing again, “Dude,” you placed a hand on his shoulder and jutted towards your legs as you began moving them, “they’re fine. I’m fine. I know you wanna go somewhere. Just go after it.”

He stayed. For a long minute, just watching you breathe and tilt your head at him. You wondered what was going on in that brain of his, wondered how old he was, wondered where he went to school - if he even went to school. You were trying to formulate a way to thank him for saving you, but you didn’t get the chance to. He nodded and quickly he sprung away, making way for the paramedics and cops to inspect the scene.

You didn’t go to school for a whole week after the incident, as you were too busy reflecting on what had happened. You went over multiple scenarios and “what if’s” and tried not to dwell on the fact that you had to have your driver pick you up from the hospital, not your father. He was probably out of the country, like he always was.

When you finally returned to school, you had stitched up three areas, including one below your eye, and were bombarded with questions and a large group hug from your friends. Your phone was no doubt a goner, so they had no way of contacting you. Even when they tried to come over, your housekeeper, Jane, always the responsible adult, told them the doctor needed you to rest alone.

She knew you couldn’t handle people, and needed to recharge on your own. She was like the mother you never had. Even when Peter left, she stayed by your side and tried to cheer you up. She knew how strong your feelings were for Peter, but she didn’t question you, instead allowing you to grieve the way you wanted to - alone.

Your friends asked you about what happened, and their eyes sparkled when you told them the Spider-Man came to your rescue, their excitement cutting short once the bell rang. They all left to go to their classes after wishing you a quick recovery. All but one.

Flash stood in front of you, nibbling on his lower lip with a wobbling chin and glassy eyes.

“Are you..crying?” you squinted at him, lips twitching into a smirk.

“Shut up,” he mumbled, wiping the stray tears before attacking you with a tight hug. You sighed deeply, feeling a nostalgic warmth spread through your chest as you placed your chin on his shoulder, arms circulating him and squeezing in a way that said "I’m here."

In class, you felt hardcore stares — stares that came from one person and one person only. You saw them from the corner of your eye, tracing the scar on your face. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think they were laced with worry. But perhaps you hit your head too hard.

During gym class, the last class of the day, you were excused from exercises due to your near-death experience, so you watched and cheered Flash as he climbed the ropes, attempting to break his own record.

“48 seconds.” You stated, pausing the timer as he jumped to the ground and planted his hands on his knees, breathing hard.

He looked up at you with a deep frown, “Seriously? How did I get slower?”

You shrugged, “Maybe you should change your nickname, Eugene.” You smirked, taunting him with the name you knew he hated.

He breathed out a laugh as he shook his head. He was about to say something when Ned’s voice overpowered everyone else’s with one sentence: “Peter knows Spider-Man!”

Everybody went so silent you’d think the queen of England had just walked in.

The sound of balls being dropped and shoes squeaking echoed through the gym as all heads turned to Peter Parker, who nervously looked around and quickly stood up, “Uh, no! No, I don’t. I-I mean..”

He clumsily made his way over to Liz (go figure), whose face remained expressionless.

“They’re friends,” Ned said as a matter of factly.

“Yeah, like Coach Wilson and Captain America are friends,” Flash said, making a couple of people laugh, including you.

“I’ve met him, yeah, a-a couple of times. But it’s um, through the...Stark...Internship. I’m not really supposed to talk about it.” He gritted through his teeth as he threw daggers at Ned with wide eyes.

“Well, that’s awesome!” You piped in, your loud sarcasm breaking the silence that settled over the gym, "He’s a pretty cool guy, I’m sure Liz would love to meet him. Hey, maybe you should invite him to her party.”

“Yeah, I’m having people over tonight, you’re more than welcome to come.” Liz sweetly admitted, almost like she wanted him to come.

Ew.

“You’re having a party?” Peter said breathlessly, as if that wasn’t what you just said.

Flash gave Peter a snarling smile, “Yeah, it’s gonna be dope. You should totally invite your personal friend Spider-Man.” He suggested, derision oozing out of his words.

“Um-“ Peter stammered, helpless eyes searching for assistance in your own. But you wouldn’t give him any sympathy. Not anymore. You stared back, cold as ice, and you knew he saw that. You merely gave him a raised eyebrow, challenging him to say something.

“It’s okay,” Liz said, breaking you and Peter’s eye contact, “I know Peter’s way too busy for parties anyways so..”

“Oh, come on, he’ll be there. Parker wouldn’t ditch.” You said, voice dripping with venom as you maintained eye contact with him and walked past Flash until you reached him. You stopped at his side, just enough to give him a deadly stare, “Right?”

You watched his Adam’s apple bob and eyes dart across the ground as his fingers tangled with one another to conceal his shaking left hand. You studied his face, ignoring something that looked like a fading bruise on his jaw. The school bell rang, and with that, Flash walked to you, raising his hand for a fist pump. You bumped yours with his with a smirk and walked out the gym doors, ready to call Peter out on his bullshit once more tonight.

Next Chapter All The Hurt Masterlist Main Masterlist

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #peter parker x y/n #y/n #marvel #tom holland #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #tom holland x reader #tom holland angst #spiderman #spiderman x reader

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morizoras-cave · 4 years

Text

Robbed (Request)

Jake Gyllenhaal x gn!teen!co-star!reader, Tom Holland x gn!teen!co-star!reader

Genre: angst, fluff

Request Description: hi! I'm absolutely IN LOVE with your work and was wondering if you could write a Tom Holland x teen!costar!reader and Jake Gyllenhaal x teen!costar!reader. Whilst hanging out together, the reader chooses to go out alone at night to buy food and ends up getting mugged. She doesn't come back for a while, so Tom and Jake leave the hotel to find her crying on the side walk. They take care of her and are super protective and there's just a lot of fluff. Tysm!

Warnings: robbing, violence, threatening, language

(A/N): hey so reader doesnt buy food but rather pads for their friend :)

“Come on, Harley! Whaddya doing?”

Yes, not even two minutes into the mobster movie you were watching, had Jake decided to put on his Italian accent and yell hopelessly at the character. Thirty minutes later and he was, unsurprisingly, still doing it. You and Tom exchanged glances and laughed at him, because although it was mildly annoying, it was also viciously funny.

“Wait, no! They can’t kill Harley?” Tom complained, looking up from his phone to realise Harley was, in fact, dying.

“I know. I’m so bummed out,” You sighed and stuck your hand in your bag of sour gummies.

You, Jake and Tom, being the leads for a new movie, had been working together for several months. Over the course of filming, you’d gotten into the habit of hanging out every Friday (which was originally a way to stop you from going out and being irresponsible).

It was one of those hangouts you now found yourself in. Just relaxing after a hard day of work with your pals.

“Man, this movie sucks, dude,” Jake said, this time uncloaking his voice of the Italian mobster accent. You and Tom both nodded. You were about to suggest playing some board games, when your alarm, that traumatising and reality crushing tune that woke you up every morning, blared throughout the room.

Your brows furrowed and you picked it up. The message that was displayed on the screen, was put so eloquently: ‘you need to go buy pads for lily. im like 100% sure you fucking forgot, you idiot’

“Nya, shit,” you mumbled and quickly turned off the alarm.

“What’s up?” Jake asked, shuffling in his chair. You sighed and started gathering your things and your jacket.

“I’ve gotta go buy stuff for my friend,” you said vaguely. You never thought of periods as embarrassing, but you knew Lily, your best friend, was a very private person, and she probably wouldn’t appreciate you telling two of the biggest Hollywood stars on the planet, that she was at home bleeding to her death.

“Buy stuff?”

You rolled your eyes, “It’s female-friend stuff. It’ll take me, like, 20 minutes to buy it and bring it to her. Don’t worry about it.”

Jake and Tom exchanged glances, chewing on the idea. “Alright, but be back quick, because I think we should play Monopoly instead of watching the only good character in this movie die.”

“Done deal!” you said and with that you were out the door.

At first, everything went just as you expected it to. You went to the store that was 5 minutes away and bought some pads (and some chocolate because you’re a nice person) for Lily. You exited the store, and decided to walk behind the store to get Lily’s house faster.

“Don’t fucking move, dipshit.”

Admittedly, a pathetic opening line of a robbery. That didn’t make the knife you felt being pressed into your side any less scary. Looking to your right, a man, your attacker, was standing.

He was pale and skinny and had a long beard. His eyes were crazy, wide open and twitching. He was smiling, too. He pressed the knife a little harder, causing a whimper to escape your lips.

“I just want your money. That’s all I want,” he was trying very hard to look into your eyes, but you couldn’t stand his. You chewed your lip, wondering what to say.

“I- I don’t have any-”

Given the situation you found yourself in, maybe you shouldn’t have been so shocked at this, but the slap and the sound and the rippling pain that all came at once, sent a gasp and tears spilling over your eyes.

“Wrong, bitch! Give me your fucking money!” he pressed the knife harder, you swore it was drawing blood. You tried shying away from it, but he had a firm grip on your shoulder.

“Okay,” you whispered, shaking hands reaching into your pockets to pull out your wallet. “Okay, okay, here.. Here..”

You pulled out any and all cash you had, probably all summing up to be about 35 dollars.

“Good, kid,” he patted your head like he was your uncle, like you were old friends, and then removed the knife from your side. You heard him running away, but you couldn’t be bothered to look where. Your legs wobbled and you collapsed right there on the side walk, doubling over and starting to cry.

Meanwhile in the Gyllenhaal household, Jake and Tom were growing pretty impatient. 20 minutes had passed. They’d set up the Monopoly game and even picked the characters. Now, they just sat and waited.

21, 22, 23, 24, 25 minutes passed, and they just waited.

“This isn’t like them,” Tom finally spoke up. He’d been resting his head on the wooden table and blowing air on his shoe-character, trying to make it fall over.

“I know! I’m trying to text them, but they’re not answering. Should I call?”

They looked at each other. Then the time. 30 minutes had passed. “Yeah, call them.”

Unsurprisingly, you didn’t answer (seeing as you were crying on the sidewalk with a small cut in your side and a slapped face).

“Something’s wrong,” Jake decided. Tom nodded too.

That was how they decided to go out and look for you, going to the nearest grocery store in their coats and sunglasses and scarves. You were nowhere to be seen inside the store (although, Tom did confuse you for an old lady for a moment). They went outside.

An unnerved feeling churned in their stomachs. Tom led them to the path near the road, but the crunch of their steps on the asphalt was halted. Jake heard a sniffle. It was so faint, he wasn’t sure he was right, so he grabbed Tom’s shoulder harshly and halted him.

Sure enough. Sniffles and sobs. And so the boys jogged behind the building, and heart beating nervously, they saw you there on the side walk, crying and shaking alone.

“Y/n!”

You snapped your head up. Your face was puffy and eyes shiny. You wiped them furiously, but only making yourself cry even more.

“What happened, holy shit, are you okay?”

And you fell into Tom’s arms, whilst Jake rubbed your back comfortingly. You retold the shaky story of how this man had mugged you, and how he’d had the knife in your side, and hit you. And how scared you were.

When you first said you’d been mugged, Tom’s eyes widened in shock. He leaned back to look at you. His arms tightened and his jaw clenched. You felt Jake stop rubbing your back for a moment. You turned your head and saw him pulling out his phone.

“It’s okay now, N/n. It’s okay. You’re safe now, we got you. He can’t hurt you, alright?” Tom whispered lovingly. Jake had left your side to call the police. You had calmed down then, terror still roaming you skull hauntingly, but you were no longer crying, and your heartbeat was steadying.

“I was just so scared. He could’ve done anything..” You whispered and shook your head. Trying to shake the feeling.

“I know, I know. It’s okay to feel scared. But I’ll protect you now, Jake too. He won’t hurt you. He can’t.”

You nodded.

The police arrived shortly after and you told them exactly what had happened. Jake, being the oldest and most responsible of the two, helped you with each question and each part of the process.

Turns out, the police knew the guy. It wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that to teenagers. He was caught pretty quickly.

Still, even though the fucker was in jail, you couldn’t help but feel scared. Tom and Jake never let you go to the store alone anymore. Not even in the daytime. But you liked that. You were pretty sure if they weren’t constantly going with you, you wouldn’t have gone at all.

You had nightmares every once in a while. But Jake always came to your hotel room to comfort you. And when you felt like you were being overdramatic, he’d always convince you, you weren’t.

You got over it (mostly) eventually, but you knew you wouldn’t have been able to without Tom and Jake. It felt good to know that they were willing to do so much for you without getting nothing in return. It felt good to have friends. And you’d return the favour any day for them.

___________________________

Tag List:

@hera-the-writer @marvel-madness @40srogcrs @whatthefuckimbisexual @snarky–starky @garbage-potato @lozzypoz321 @allthecreativeonesaretaken @missamericana713 @rororo06 @shady80smusicsingercolor @ireadfanficforfun @deephideoutmilkshake @rae-is-typing @sophs-library @herecomesthewriterwitch @alicedanganh @eviemarvel @idk123906 @xiumin-girl99 @frostedgiant

#jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal x teen!reader #tom holland x reader #tom holland x teen!reader #marvel cast x reader #mcu cast x reader #avengers cast x reader #avengers cast x teen!reader #spiderman cast x reader #marvel cast x teen!reader

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ectoplasmer · 2 years

Note

AYYYYE ASK GAMES 👀

❤️♦️♠️💭‼️

WOOOOOO

— @amys-cringe-cabinet 💙

^^!!! okay so the thing about my music tastes is that it’s very inconsistent and constantly jumping between genres and/or tone, so if we go from some obscure indie artist to the most main stream thing ever do not be concerned that is just how my brain works- so!! here we go!!

♥️: Describes your F/O

oooh, describes… this’ll be fun to try and figure out…. I think for Marik specifically, when it comes to “describing”, I Am by Foot Ox comes to mind. A few lines specifically make me think of him, but most of this is association with the whole mind-controlling-the-ghouls thing.

Life Itself by Glass Animals is a song that instantly makes me think of Ryou; it was either this or Season 2 Episode 3, but I feel like the former describes Ryou better while the latter is more what I associate with his and Bakura’s interactions.

I was so tempted to say Bremen by PigPen Theatre Co. but…. Mask of My Own Face by Lemon Demon is definitely a Bakura song, no doubt. Bremen is probably more of a Thief King song.

Chop Suey! by System of a Down. No further commentary. (jk it’s just that everytime I hear that latter half I think of Melvin and Marik and it’s become a bad habit so of course it finds it’s way here)

♦️: Describes your S/I

okay so guilty confession I have an s/i playlist set up BUT it was originally for my homestuck s/i, so I haven't updated it since like... september. Howeverrrr, scrolling through my songs for a bit, I suppose the song Slumber by Sløtface is fitting enough for Ghostie!! I think she's a bit too much of an NPC as of now for me to completely be sure, but the little movie references and descriptions throughout the song are fitting enough for her I believe. also that chorus gets me feeling some way so she gets just a pinch of angst to her. just as a treat </3

♠️: Describes your relationship

was very very tempted just to say their tag names because those songs are the ones I’m all stupid and mushy over (With You I Feel Alive and Spooky Ghosts by SNCKPCK) but that felt too easy…. so these two get an extra song!!

Muddy Knees by Dayz N Daze was a second response to this prompt for Marik, because the attitude of the song and upbeat-quick-pace tune reminds me a lot of him. Coffee Breath by Sofia Mills is already a song I associate with Ryou a considerable amount, so I thought it’d fit here nicely.

Jelly Bones by The Unicorns because let me think for a second that Bakura would be even slightly as soft for me as I am for him u.u (and i could totally see him being overdramatic over the fact he’s in love… the dork >-<)

Mainly based more off the tune and build up if that makes sense?? But Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second by STRFKR for Melvin because *shakes song around in the container of a brain I have*

💭: You like to daydream about the two of you to

Crave You by Flight Facilities and Giselle just applying to everyone because it is my go-to yearning song- but for individually:

Something by The Beatles.

Like or Like Like by Miniature Tigers (rolls around on the floor like an idiot this one specific song. I swear-).

Midnight, The Stars and You by Al Bowlly, Ray Noble & His Orchestra (yes this is just because it’s from The Shining).

And, lastly, Valentine, Texas by Mitski.

‼️: Reminds you of when you first found your F/O

I was into Detroit: Become Human in the following weeks before I picked up Yu-Gi-Oh! again, so looking through a character playlist I made during that short lived interest, I believe I listened to Who Are You Really? by Mikky Ekko a ton before and after getting into the show, so I think that could count as a catchall for when I first “met them”. I also listened to a handful of Jack Stauber’s shorter songs, so I think those could fit in here too. Nothing really comes to mind of when I really met them, since most of my experience watching this show were through half awake late night phone screens and beading kandi cuffs while paying legit no attention :P. Buuuut…. Specific Jack Stauber songs that make me think of when I first started this show are Get Ahold of Yourself, Love and Co., Just Take My Wallet and Mr Backwards !!!

#okay i know i said this would take me less time… but i procrastinated on this for the longest time out of pure habit i apologize >-<#a kinda inside look to rainy’s music taste!!! i have no clue what it is by this point :#all of this is pure self indulgence i am sorry to everyone following my character playlists #thank you for the asks!! they were fun to answer ^^#amy #friends #warmshipping #spookyshipping #oddshipping #marigoldshipping #s/i: ghostie #self ship #ask game answers #rainy.file

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rebellionbeach · 3 years

Text

HELLO apparently July 28th is the release date for Down to Earth therefore in honor of its 42nd birthday I wanna do a ranking of all the songs based on my personal preference of course.

(I’m only doing songs from the original studio release sorry no Bad Girl or Weiss Heim but they’re both sexy ;))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCsMQWkN3g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7YOM4gx3RE (spark don’t mean a fire aka the alternate version don’t worry it’s beautiful)

8. No Time To Lose: Starting off this list we’ve got the second song off this record and it isn’t bad in anyway. In fact, it’s very upbeat and energetic, especially with Graham’s absolutely stunning vocals. However, compared to the rest of the list I feel it falls just a bit short. The lyrics themselves are actually pretty dark looking at them with examples such as, “It ain’t no lie, you’re hurting and you don’t know why.” Don’t know what Roger or Ritchie were going through but damn, anyway, musically the song is also very strong. The guitar riff is addicting but I feel it’s the combination of, again, Graham’s vocals and Cozy’s monstrous drumming that gives this song so much energy. Not bad at all from a song that’s at the bottom of a list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P17ct4e5OE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v0bDfZytwk (Russ Ballard version, it’s really good)

7. Since You’ve Been Gone: Listen, I know many may judge this choice but I didn’t put this song at the bottom because of one, the sentimental value it has, and two, it’s not a bad song at all. Okay, it’s not the best as well but Russ Ballard made a beautiful song about heartbreak that is only made greater by this glorious lineup. I’ve actually listened to Ballard’s originally version and while it isn’t bad, I feel that Graham really helped cement this song and really put Rainbow on the charts. I especially enjoy the interlude section that drops into a sweet ballad type tone before dropping back into the chorus. Graham’s versatile vocals are well-equipped to amplify this song to a new level and not only that but without this song I probably would have never started listening to Rainbow. Although very commercialized and maybe too light to many, this song holds a special place in my heart and I do love it dearly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2XDORONuuY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmQBKq0d_-I (Cozy Powell mix, yes it’s exactly what you’d think it would sound like if the drummer was the producer)

6. All Night Long: The second real commercialized song on this album and honestly the last. However, where it differs from the other is that this song still has big traces of that hard rock attitude that Rainbow had emerged into. That simple yet beautiful riff that gets stuck in your head, Cozy’s powerful drumming, Graham’s powerhouse vocals, I mean what else do you really want from a song. Just from that opening riff you feel that rush of just pure hard rock energy shiver through your body. It really is just a fun hard rock song that, although may not be anything too complex, isn’t bad at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeVFTeXs1o8

5. Danger Zone: Danger Zone always stood out to me as a very interesting and different song. Don is absolutely phenomenal in this song, especially his keyboard solo which Ritchie follows up upon to make a beautiful instrumental section. I’d be remiss to not mention Graham who hits at some of his highest parts here. This song really showed off the prowess of his full vocal abilities, hitting high notes with all the strength you’d expect from a hard rock singer. The actual lyrics of the song are quite beautiful as well I believe. Parts such as, “Don’t understand when you’re looking for a dame but it’s only a heartbreak away. And you’ll learn, faking has no return.” Really suspecting some mental instability from either Roger or Ritchie at this point...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8FcrH1lDeY

4. Eyes of the World: Many may be surprised why this song isn’t higher up the list but trust me, I have good reasons. Eyes of the World is definitely a highlight piece in this album and really is a final goodbye to the Dio era of Rainbow. The subject manner is very of that era and really feels like it could have been sung by Ronnie. I think to many this song helped alleviate the fears that Rainbow had gone fully vapid with it’s material (though we’ll see how that sentiment drags on throughout the next few years) Don Airey truly deserves the limelight here for that incredible keyboard intro that just sucks you into that dark world of evil. He really makes this song something truly special. Cozy Powell is phenomenal throughout all these tracks but especially in this track where he’s at his home environment and just listen to the interludes between the chorus and verse, just incredible. Then to our man of the hour, Graham Bonnet, he just absolutely kills it here. He puts so much passion and emotion into the vocals that I find it strange how anyone could possibly still doubt him as a suitable vocalist for the band. Ritchie’s solo here as well is probably one of my favorites off of this album just really makes this song something truly special. I often like to compare this piece to the Gates of Babylon or Tarot Woman to Down to Earth with an incredible keyboard intro and other-wordly themes of evil and darkness that make it a classic Rainbow tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU__fm6QFvk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzQZoOvzzNo (Ain’t A Lot of Love In the Heart of Me, it’s brilliant and honestly parts are somewhat better than the final version lol)

3. Love’s No Friend: I remember reading an article that talked about this song being Rainbow’s Mistreated. That description always had stayed with me and while I partially agree with the statement, I also think this song is very different from the former. Yes, both deal with heartbreak and emanates a grandiose sense of grievance from that sentiment however it differs in how that sentiment is delivered. Mistreated, as stated by Blackmore, is really just a guitar song. The relies both on David’s great bluesy voice that can conceive that anguish in his voice like no other vocalist can (love ya Dave) and Blackmore’s just heart-wrenching solo at the end which is probably one of the most emotional guitar solos I’ve ever heard. With Love’s No Friend I find that it’s more of a complete package having all elements of the band contribute to the piece. Not that but the lyrics are much more refined in this song. I often find Mistreated’s lyrics very stale and boring since they’re basically just “I’ve been mistreated, I’ve been abused,” and the only reason they get away with that is because of David’s incredible vocal performances. Trust me, Graham’s an incredible performer as well but these lyrics have much more substance to them and I feel just stands taller as a complete song. Speaking of Graham, this is probably his strongest performance in the album. You know what part I’m talking about if you’ve listened to this song but THAT part is just wow, that solidified him as one of my favorite vocalists of all time. The entire song is really just a masterpiece and really just stands as one of the best Rainbow tunes in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1LvViMLKNo

2. Makin’ Love - Oh this song, how can I express my love for this song in ways that I haven’t already before. Well if you didn’t know before, I put this as #5 on my top 5 Rainbow tunes and I still stick to it. Let me just say, this is one of my favorite intros to any songs ever. Don Airey is just magical in this entire album (and his entire career) but he especially shines here. The simple yet beautiful little touches he adds throughout this song really makes it so much more profound. That, once again, addicting Blackmore riff that just goes on throughout the song making the listener feel as if they’re going through a lonely yet sentimental walk down memory lane. It kind of almost reminds me of one of my favorite Rick Springfield songs, Written In Rock, in that manner. I guess I’m just a sucker for a pretty love ballad but man does Graham make it even better. The man just had the perfect voice for these types of songs (please listen to Will You Be Home Tonight as an example) and he’s able to convey those vulnerable tones in his voice while maintaining that strong hard rock attitude like I’ve seen no other singer be able to. I didn’t even mention the sudden shift during the pre-chorus that’s complimented with Cozy’s ferocious cymbal playing. Overall, I’m just a sucker for a nice love song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRLHHftZEJA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eRLQyXzZ1Y (the live Alcatrazz version because Yngwie is a cocky little piece of work and gets his guitar unplugged for 1 minute of the song, Graham is a beast here)

1. Lost In Hollywood - The magnum opus, probably not only the greatest Rainbow song but one of the greatest songs ever written and produced. I’ve already gone into detail about this song in my overall album review but just on first listening you can definitely tell that this song is something else. The energy, the tempo, is almost seems rushing like they’re running out of time on the record to give everything they wanted to show to the listener. The lyrics sort of remind me of Super Trouper (the Deep Purple one okay) if Super Trouper was an overdramatic and grandiose love ballad. It’s obvious that the song is talking about the overbearing nature of becoming famous and the sacrifices one has to make to get to the mantle. One of my favorite song lyrics of all time perfectly exemplify this through, “I’m gonna lose control, if I’ve been losing you to pay for rock and roll.” They’re lost in Hollywood, not just the actual place but the lifestyle that befits every star. I still think that Super Trouper as a song is a more profound piece on the effects of stardom as a whole but this song as well is beautifully written to talk about those themes in maybe not so personal manners. The song really is just a beautiful showcase of the talents that were the Mark 4 lineup of Rainbow and stands in my eyes as one of the finest pieces of music ever created.

Yeah, I’ve probably over exaggerated enough. Once again, I’m very biased here but I’m also speaking with my own tastes and experiences in mind. Despite the constant lineup changes, Blackmore always seems to find the most top-notch musicians and I believe this lineup truly exemplified that. It’s a shame that they couldn’t continue on but at least we got this album as a glorious reminder of what 5 musicians can do with enough talent and probably alcohol.

Also, the hallmark of all live performances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5VPzJlUKVc

#rainbow #rainbow band #ritchie blackmore #cozy powell #don airey #roger glover #graham bonnet #well it's not july 28th anymore #i love this lineup dearly #graham is my ichibansan #look forward to the 28 page thesis on why graham bonnet was the best rainbow vocalist up next

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subtlereferencetomyinterests · 4 years

Text

A Misplaced Imbalance of Fear

Ao3, MasterPost

Relationships: Romantic Dukexiety, implied/minor Moceit (platonic or romantic)

From the power of my Art and my Shitposts comes This Fanfiction!!!

Warnings: Panic Attacks, Lots of Cursing, descriptions of gore (horror movies, it gets decently explicit so beware that), mild body horror (Remus is here and he Does Things Like That), Heavy Roman angst for a hot minute in the middle, making out (continuing my theme of remus-centric fics getting more ;3). They do some makeup and drink tea, baby. Mentions of picking one’s skin as an Anxious habit, and also ticking. Also stimming!!! nd sides 4 life bb. Also, a very brief alcohol mention (it’s soup).

Word Count: 6,553

God Fucking Fuck, Virgil was going to have a self-care day even if it killed him dead. Everybody else could do whatever overdramatic fuckery they wanted when they were topside, but he was all set down there in the Mindpalace, thank you very much.

Luckily, mercifully, thankfully, the rest of the sides all seemed keen to let Virgil have his space anyway. There wasn’t a thing stopping him from relaxing.

Well, except for himself, of course.

A thrum of condensed stress and fear tugged at Virgil’s abdomen, bubbling its way over his edges. It was equally his own and the others’, probably due to whatever conversation they were caught up in in the external world. He would not relent to the worry, nor was he summoned to help with the situation, but his body refused to stop shaking. Perched on the top of the couch, frantically clicking the buttons on a fidget cube, Virgil tried to watch the gore playing on the TV in a tired effort to calm his nerves.

Horror movies… helped. They were something for his brain to chew on for a while- their over-the-top and ridiculous plots, the obnoxious characters that almost always deserve what’s coming to them, the attention-attaining action- it was all a recipe for Distraction. But they weren’t working by that point, no matter how badly Virgil wanted them to.

And then- possibly because the universe loved to spite Virgil and Virgil specifically- a walking, talking headache flung himself into the common room about as elegantly as a wolfhound with rabies.

“Heyyyy,” Remus crowed as he sprawled himself out on the couch. Anxiety curled his legs closer under his body, unresponsive- he knew full well that any reaction would just be an invitation for trouble from the obnoxious trait. He’d remember what Logan taught them: don’t engage, just brush it all off.

Unfortunately, Remus seemed to be in a stubborn mood.

“Whatcha watching?”

“Movie,” Virgil grumbled.

“What movie?”

He eyed the side laying out on the couch below him, narrowing his gaze as threateningly as he could manage. He spat the words through gritted teeth and made it clear he was not having this today.

“It’s called Terrifier.”

Remus perked up at that, and oh God, if he was interested then he’d never go the fuck away.

“What’s it about?”

There wasn’t much Virgil could do but answer in as clipped a tone as he could; things hadn’t gotten too bad, too uncomfortable, yet. Maybe he could redirect Remus’ attention, if he was just boring and unresponsive enough?

“Just a cliche creepy clown flick. Not much to it.”

“Is it gory?”

Virgil made a vaguely affirmative sound in his throat, gesturing to the screen. In truth, the movie’s impeccable special effects with gore was its main appeal, as the acting and plot was kinda atrocious. Violence was the exact reason he’d chosen to watch this. But he knew saying that wouldn’t help his chances of shaking off Intrusive Thoughts.

Remus looked ready to spout off something explicit, but he went dead quiet as his eyes fell on the scene on the television. Virgil was grateful for small mercies.

It was exactly the kind of thing that the creative trait would watch, after all; a woman getting sawed in half, lengthwise, starting from the- er, the wrong end. Under circumstances of a more typical anxious flare-up, the scene really could have been one of those ‘helpful distractions’.

These were not normal circumstances.Yeah, this was one of those ‘too passive’ cases, but Virgil didn’t exactly have the energy for anything ‘active’. So, he stubbornly glared at the TV and pretended that his solution was working, because he had no idea what else to do. Perfect plan.

Preoccupied as he was with his internal issues, he very nearly managed to forget about Remus. Until-

“Holy fuck, this is gorgeous, you watch stuff like this?!” The Duke’s eyes were bright, but not with his usual hysteria. They were wide with genuine excitement, shiny and happy. It was- uncanny, that’s probably the word Virgil was looking for. He curled closer in on himself.

“Shouldn’t be that surprising, dude. ‘Scary’ is kind of my thing.”

“I can’t believe I haven’t seen this one,” the creative side was once again completely enamored by the television screen, “Don’t blood and guts and cool things like that freak you out? They always seem to do the trick when I try to mess with you!”

“It’s different. The violence in movies, it- it calms me down, I guess. Cause it’s like, I don’t know, detached from reality?”

There was a pause that had Virgil hoping, naively, that Remus had grown bored at his spiel. But he wasn’t moving, he was just staring, gaze switching contemplatively from the screen to Virgil a few times over.

“It doesn’t look like that. If you were any more tense, all your tendons would be snapping like badly-tuned violin strings!”

“Yeah, no shit,” Virgil pressed his back against the wall and shut his eyes tight. He could still hear- no, feel- Patton and Roman and Thomas arguing, snapping at each other back and forth as the situation escalated.

“Is this about whatever the others are doing? Why don’t you just stop listening to their shitty arguments?”

A harsh laugh escaped Virgil at that, dragging him back down to earth so he could blink his eyes open, glaring at the facet lying beneath him.

“I can’t just stop, that’s not how I work. I need to keep an ear on them. Who knows what could happen if I didn’t?”

“Well, why don’t you just go talk to them?”

If he wasn’t already frustrated beyond belief, that would’ve fuckin’ done it for him.

“I don’t think I’d be much help. Not right now.”

“Why not?” Remus looked halfway between genuinely curious and mischievous, propping himself up on his elbows to get a better view of Anxiety.

“Seriously? Things aren’t exactly, like- normal between all of us.”

“What is normal?”

Virgil opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came through. As much as it sounded like an offhanded, edgy 13-year-old atheist kind of remark, it was a decent point. Virgil had thought that there was something of a status quo forming between himself and the ‘light sides’, but how long had that even lasted for? Especially compared to the rest of his life? Everything was changing all the time. Was there anything to rely on, or was it just Virgil’s own wishful thinking for what their lives could be? After all, even in ‘peaceful times’, there had been plenty of in-fighting and disagreements and horrible uncomfortable conversations and harsh words and-

“Oh, shut that brain up,” Remus’ sharp voice pulled Virgil from his thoughts, “I know what you meant ‘normal’. You meant the six months when you got to forget about us Scary Monsters, and, DUH! It was probably way simpler for all you diet-soda-no-sugar sluts back then, but that doesn’t mean it was better.”

“Yeah, you would think that things are better now, wouldn’t you?”

Remus fixed Virgil with an unsettling sort of grimace, making the other squirm. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so by any means.

“I dunno, but what I do know is that things are getting better. They’ll be the best they could be, soon.”

Despite himself, Virgil laughed. It was a faltering, anxious sound, revealing the true fear behind the taunting gesture.

“Really? With everybody at each other’s throats all the time?”

“While that does sound fun,” Remus sat up fully, twisting around to look directly up at Virgil, “I mean after that. After we’re all accepted. It’s inevitable- Inevitable, Anxious Lil’ Barista,” Remus accompanied the referential nickname with a wink.

Virgil stared at him like he was crazy (well- like- crazier than usual, he guessed?). Remus just threw his head back and laughed before spinning his neck one-hundred and eighty degrees to face the TV while he explained.

“Point is, it’s painfully obvious that everything will sort itself out. It has to, or else the only other option is that Thomas is gonna drive himself insane by trying to suppress parts of himself and end up clawing his own brain out. One of those two things!”

While colorfully phrased, the certainty with which Remus delivered his point had Virgil taken aback. There was no way that Remus could possibly know that, but- in a backwards way it was comforting, how sure he sounded. He didn’t lie, not ever.

Virgil had never thought that Remus would settle for anything less than going out of his way to make others’ lives a hell. But maybe that antagonism wasn’t what exactly motivated the trait’s actions. Maybe it was just an unintentional side effect, akin to what Logan had said when Remus first revealed himself.

The moment of reprieve was over as soon as it began.

“Fuck! He just cut off her tits and wore ‘em, huh?”

Virgil looked up and, to be fair, that was exactly what had happened on screen. Like he said, this movie wasn’t exactly poetic cinema, but it certainly was something.

He scooted along the top of the couch, moving just a few feet before dropping down to sit properly beside Remus.

“3/10 drag look at best, really,” Virgil muttered, mostly to himself. He jumped when Remus shrieked with laughter at it, looking absolutely delighted.

“I didn’t know you made jokes like that, VeeVee!”

Virgil shrugged noncommittally, focusing on the screen and not the facet beside him. Remus’ giggling was loud and distracting, but it wasn’t… unpleasant, unlike his typical villain-cackle was.

Once Remus had settled down (as much as somebody like him could, anyway), he, too, focused on watching. The quiet was uncomfortable, but it didn’t stretch on for long. There was always something in the movie that The Duke felt the need to comment upon extensively, elaborating and giving details on the gore. Virgil found himself listening to the rants silently, almost enjoying the disruption. It certainly gave his overactive mind something to play around with.

“-skin doesn’t slice as easy as that, trust me-”

Aaaand there it was. Virgil winced, trying very hard not to show that the words had struck a nerve. He liked horror, gore, all that, sure, but there were just some specific things- squicks, you could call them. Remus would obviously use that to his advantage, so the only option was to try very hard to zone out and not look like he was disturbed.

“But even then- Hey, why are you making that face?”

Mission failed.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Remus shifted closer- invasively closer, his gaze studying.

“You were calming down earlier, what's with the scrunch-nose?”

Virgil stared at his hands, chipping away his black nail polish. Remus was nearly as good at reading lies as Janus, and twice as hard to get rid of.

“It's just- skin, slicing, that stuff just-” he ticked, head spasming sideways briefly at even the thought of that kind of pain.

“Oh,” Remus said plainly, not even a hint of malice or mischief in his tone as he leaned back into his own spot, “Why didn't you just say so? Well, that last exploding head kill is way more interesting anyway, did you see that?”

That was… it? No taunting, no tormenting, he just changed the topic, like that?

Remus, continuing to be weirdly perceptive, scoffed as though he was reading Virgil’s mind.

“What? Just because I like screwing with you prudes sometimes doesn't mean I want to give you a panic attack. Where's the fun in that?”

Anxiety nodded mutely, bewildered. Remus seemed appeased by that and quickly resumed his running commentary.

And if Virgil eventually decided to take part in the discussion, well, it wasn’t a big deal anyway. Just some polite conversation about bodily mutilation.

The television darkened as the screen was washed by credits, filling the space where the disfigured face of the main character had been mere moments prior, the result of a pretty predictable twist ending. Virgil stood, arching his back up in a stretch. His arms raised higher, one joint or another crackling at the motion. Fuck, he was sore. How long had he been sitting still?

Remus hadn’t moved from his spot on the couch. He tapped his claws along the remote, exiting to the homescreen and looking expectantly at Virgil.

“You don't wanna watch anything else?” He asked abruptly, drawing a confused glance from his companion, “This is fun- and they're still arguing up there, so it kinda makes sense to stay, it’s really the best solution if you-”

Virgil huffed a laugh at the rambling. It sounded like some shit he’d say, for crying out loud.

“Dude, chill, I was just gonna make some tea before putting on another movie,” the clear relief that ran across Remus' face- quickly replaced by a wide grin- wasn't anything shy of… sweet. Virgil was sure this day couldn't get any fucking weirder, if he was finding anything endearing about the walking talking dirty joke before him. “Uh, you want anything? Since you're gonna stick around, and all.”

Remus jumped up, following Virgil into the MindPalace’s small kitchen happily. In one smooth motion, he swung up onto the counter and slid down it, seating himself almost on top of the stove.

“No hot leaf soup for me, thanks, but I will take one of those mugs!”

Virgil raised a brow, staring the creative trait down before shrugging. He passed him one of the mugs, a generic and patternless one- so that the other sides probably wouldn't notice its absence. He busied himself by setting up the kettle, trying not to wince at the loud wet crunch that resulted when Remus took a bite of his snack.

“Hey,” Remus said around a mouthful of ceramic chunks, “I know just the movie we should watch next.”

Virgil shifted around the various tea boxes littering the cabinets, searching for something with a kick. He hazarded a glance to Remus, immediately regretting the decision when he saw the blood dribbling down his chin from the cuts marring his lips. Anxiety cringed, turning his head back and grabbing for the first brightly-colored box he saw. It took him a moment to respond.

“Okay… what is it?”

“It's awful- I mean, really, the acting is unbearable and it’s fucking insane- but it's funny. You like making fun of stuff, right? It's like that, but there's still a ton of agonizing death, which is always a fun bonus.”

“What's it about?” Virgil was hesitantly intrigued, his gaze flicking up from the steadily heating kettle. He wasn't exactly keen on staring down the gory scene of Remus’ mouth, so he settled his focus on the trait’s eyeball brooch.

“Uhn-uhn! No spoilers, this is one you have to see for yourself. It's funnier that way.”

Virgil made a noncommittal sound, tapping his nails against the counters.

“Nothing too bad happens- not that you can't handle, anyway. No slicing and not many jumpscares.”

He resisted the urge to snap 'how do you know what I can’t handle?' because Remus actively trying to reassure him was. Something. Something that he appreciated, maybe, a little.

“Okay, fine. I didn't have anything else in mind. A ‘So-Bad-It’s-Good’ thing sounds alright.”

The obnoxious gnawing of Remus destroying what was left of his cup suddenly ceased, replaced by a stunned silence. Virgil finally met his eyes (finding that the lacerations around Remus’ mouth were already healing themselves, as if they'd never existed).

“You’re taking my suggestion?”

Virgil cleared his throat, finding himself unable to break the intense eye-contact now that it had been established.

“It's not a big deal or anything, man. Just a movie.”

Remus nodded enthusiastically, a grin splitting his face ear-to-ear. Very literally. The expression was so unnatural and cartoonish on a human(ish) face, that Virgil couldn't help but be startled into laughter. Remus looked even more delighted at that reaction, leaning forward over the stove. At that point, Virgil very much couldn't suppress the noises, snorts bubbling up from his throat against his will.

“You look-” another bout of chuckling, “-you look ridiculous, Remus.”

“Aw, thank you! I was going for manic, but I'll settle for that, too.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, hunching in on himself to get his breathing back to normal.

With no warning, Remus lifted himself up onto his knees and craned his body around the vigilant trait, snatching the kettle from the stove and flipping the dial to ‘off’. Instinctively, Anxiety recoiled from the proximity. The tension fell away when he saw that the other was simply pouring the hot water into Virgil’s mug for him.

“Dude, it wasn't whistling yet?”

“I know; it was hissing like it was about to start. You're boring and don't like loud noises, especially when you’re all on edge like this, so,” he set the kettle back down, passing the warm mug to Virgil.

Virgil stared at him, then at the drink in his hand, then back up at the Duke. He was, for what felt like the millionth time that day, unsure of how to react.

He… really hadn't thought that Remus would pick up on stuff like that. He should probably start getting used to that, maybe.

“I'm-” Virgil dragged his finger up and down the handle of his mug, “I'm not that on edge anymore, actually.”

The look that Remus sent him was indecipherable.

“C’mon, I’ll queue up that flick I told you about.”

“Yeah,” Virgil let out a deep breath, one he hadn't even known he'd been holding, “Yeah, okay.”

The floor was bubbling, popping, blistering with red fury. It was lava, sending bright flaming sparks in all directions. Thankfully for Remus and Virgil, sitting close together on the couch and viciously mocking cabin fever, the vicious rage was exclusive to one small circle near the staircase.

Virgil, who had been happily tearing apart the leading guy’s acting, cut himself off abruptly.

“Shit- wait- shit.”

Remus shook himself out of his raucous laughter, looking up in confusion. His eyes finally settled on the crimson patch of carpet, a look of realization crossing them. His voice turned much quieter than what fit him.

“Oh, fuck.”

It was like a volcanic eruption localized entirely within the living room, fire blazing in a tall column. From the emotional display, Roman rose up, face nearly as red as his method of transportation.

There was that brief moment, right when a stressful situation appeared, of antithetical serenity. Virgil felt his muscles slacken in shock, his long-empty mug falling from his hands and landing on the carpet with a dull thud. A rush of calmness hollowed out his chest, lingering for just a few seconds before being replaced by panic. Tension returned to his limbs mere moments after that, like it was pulling him taut.

Roman wasn't even looking at them- in fact, he hadn't seemed to notice his brother or best friend at all. The fire fell back down, leaving a charred patch of carpet that would likely take a long time to repair itself. The passionate trait growled, a sound that bordered on a scream as he clawed his hands down his face. He stamped his boot sharply against the ground, igniting another small fire with the impact.

“Fuck!” He cried, ever oblivious to his audience. With a hasty wave, the flames flickered and disappeared. Roman glared down at the blackened spot where it had been, winding his arms tightly around himself. He took a few shaky breaths, but if anything he only looked worse off for it.

“Fuck,” this time spoken quieter, but with no less vitriol. An immaculately-manicured hand raised itself to cover his mouth, tightening around his face desperately as tears slipped from his eyes down his fingers. He turned on his heel and took the stairs two at a time.

In his wake, as the television had been paused, the only thing that Virgil could hear was buzzing in his skull.

What had happened? What was happening, currently?! Things had gone so wrong and it was all because of Virgil’s negligence- what bad things could have been prevented if he had just been there? Or- or even just listening in! When had he even stopped listening? He was supposed to protect them but he just gave up, just because he ‘couldn't handle it’, and now something was Wrong with Roman and he couldn't even focus on listening to them all now, not like this. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t hear or see anything at all.

A rough, calloused hand wrapped around his wrist. Virgil's shallow breath staggered even more at the feeling, the warbly noise of speech failing to meet his ears. His eyes were closed tight, he realized, stinging with emotion behind his eyelids.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Four seconds, four strikingly gentle presses against the vein of Virgil’s wrist. If it weren't for the slight edge of a claw, he could've confused the motion for one of Patton’s.

The four taps were followed by a brief pause, then a steady round of seven taps. Another pause, and then eight. As Virgil focused, as much as he could anyway, on the presses, the screaming of his mind very gradually abated. First, he pried his eyes open, staring down at the hand around his arm. Watching the tapping, feeling it, was grounding enough for his hearing to return in time. Virgil could hear Remus beside him, breathing deeply as a guide, and copying the exercise became that much easier. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Remus didn't stop when Virgil did it properly one time over, when he was still shaking and teary. He didn't speak up even when the well behind Anxiety's eyes ran dry, after what had to be a dozen rounds of even breaths. It was only when Virgil finally, hesitantly slipped his wrist out of the other's grasp on his own terms that Remus made any sounds.

“Do you remember when you taught me to do makeup? Late teens, early twenties, around then?”

Talk about a topic shift. Virgil glanced up in confusion.

“I guess so? Wasn't that, like, the only time that we hung out and actually got along?” They’d never exactly been close, Virgil had made sure of that. It was, in retrospect, a regrettable decision on his part.

“Yeah. I was so bad at it, remember?”

“Hell yes, I remember,” Virgil felt a tiny smirk tug his lips at the memory, “You literally never sat still. You were and are the most impatient person I've ever met.”

“I’ve gotten a lot better, Vee.”

Virgil glanced at the bruise-like eyeshadow circling the Duke's eyes, but refrained from saying anything. Knowing him (kind of knowing him? Starting to know him better now? Whatever.) it was most definitely intentionally off-putting, and probably not a good way to judge his actual ability.

“But I’ve seen how you do it, when you really, really try; I think you're still better than me with it, ju-u-ust barely.”

“Oh, uh, thank you,” Virgil wasn't entirely sure where this was going, but he couldn't find the soft excitement in Remus’ eyes anything other than enticing. The creative side laughed, flapping his hand.

“It would be fun if you did it for me again! Just like old times, ey?”

Virgil stared at him, considering him carefully.

“You want me to do your makeup?”

“Yes!” Remus leaned forward with his confirmation, but for once that didn't involve violating Virgil’s post-panic attack bubble, “It'll give you something to do with your hands other than peeling back all your skin, at the very least.”

Oh, right. Virgil not-so-subtly lifted his nails from his palms, wincing at the irritated red spots coloring his hands.

Truth be told, the idea wasn't… unappealing. It was an activity well between mindless and active, repetitive and artistic. Plus, he didn't exactly love being alone after attacks, and if anything Remus would be lively company. Company that he sort of, maybe, possibly was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with anyway, unfortunate events notwithstanding.

“Yeah, alright, if you're sure you want-”

“Great! Wait right there, bee-arh-bee,” before the words were even fully out of his mouth, Remus went limp and fell sideways off of the couch, falling right through the floor.

In his absence, there was a void where his noise had been. Virgil stared at the paused movie scene, picking apart the little details of the frame just to have something to do. His mind drifted off to the state that Roman had been in when he entered. The sight of his friend so furious burned itself on the backs of Virgil’s eyelids. He knew that the anxiety wasn't all his own, either; he could feel it like waves from the other side of the MindPalace, the origin point clearly belonging to Roman.

He should check on him, shouldn't he? Or would that make it worse? Virgil certainly didn't feel like he was in any state to help. But then there was Patton to consider- something must have happened up there. Should he look for him, too?

There was a whoosh.

“I leave you alone for five seconds and you get right back to thinking!” Remus strode across the room, flopping right back onto the couch. Held in his arms was an enormous multi-pocketed bag, items clattering around within at every jostle their owner made.

“Overthinking is literally my whole job, man, this shouldn't surprise you,” Virgil shrugged, trying not to sound as relieved as he felt.

Remus simply rolled his eyes and dropped the makeup case onto Virgil's lap, sitting criss-cross parallel to him, their knees brushing slightly.

Virgil hesitated for a moment, scanning Remus' face, but all the other did was smile and blink (one eye at a time).

Virgil zipped open the bag, rifling through and finding an overwhelming array of gaudy colors and odd products.

“Was there, like, a 'look' that you want to go for?”

Remus shrugged.

“Just go for it! I’m a blank canvas. The worse, the better.”

Virgil chuckled, picking out a few items to fit a theme he was coming up with and getting right to work.

Though it had been years since they’d last spent time together, it wasn’t awkward. In fact, it felt more comfortable than it had back then.

Remus managed to sit almost perfectly still, chattering the entire time that Virgil worked. Yet again his voice served as something like white-noise, wherein Anxiety only had to contribute whenever he chose. Remus only quieted when Virgil had to hold his face, tipping his head back to properly apply inky-black lipstick. And then, he remained silent for a moment, as they surveyed each other.

Virgil had cleared his throat, warmth prickling at his ears, and the ceaseless rambling resumed after that.

In what felt like hours and no time at all, Virgil was finally satisfied with his work.

“Alright, you're all done,” he capped the bottle of mascara in his hand, rifling through Remus' bag for a mirror, “Wanna see?”

Just as he felt the unmistakable cool surface of glass on his fingertips, Remus grabbed his wrist in both hands.

“What-?”

“Not so fast! Now it's my turn,” he announced, his zealous eyes even more prominent on his face thanks to the thick wings of eyeliner around them.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Virgil looked from the assortment of garish colors that he'd mostly stayed away from in the makeup case, and then back up at the Duke.

“Usually: yes. But I am dead serious right now, Vee.”

Remus looked pleading, legitimately pouting.

Virgil huffed. The side had gone out of his way to help him, when he really didn't have to, so…

“You're not going to just use this as an excuse to draw all over my face, are you?”

“I mean, no promises that I'll be able to restrain myself, but! Gimme a chance anyway, I can make you even hotter than you already are! Plus, we'll match then.”

“... Fine. Just- nothing too crazy, alright?”

“Again, no promises.”

Virgil groaned, but he still passed the bag to Remus.

“Holy shit...”

Remus leaned over the basin of the bathroom sink, drumming his hands on the counter excitedly. He was starry-eyed as he observed the dark, dramatic colors covering his face: metallic emerald-green eyeshadow, excessively long lashes, and winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut a bitch. His lips were black as void, but shimmered like glitter. Everything about the look was dangerous, confrontational, and grim.

“This is more out there than I’d usually wear, but. Yeah, holy shit.”

Virgil's expression, despite his best efforts, was equally awed as he peered into the mirror. The color around his eyes was mismatched; a lime to moss green gradient over his purple eye, lavender to royal violet over his green one- both colors contrasted by smudged black eyeliner under his eye. His signature Racoon Look had been maintained in that aspect, but it was even more exaggerated. In addition to that, Remus had taken to drawing various little symbols along Virgil's cheekbones, including things like upside-down crosses. Finally, there was the fuchsia lip-gloss, stark against Virgil’s paler-than-normal foundation.

“It’s okay, I guess,” Virgil breathed reverently.

“I love it!” Remus crowed, clambering onto the counter just to get a better look at himself. Somehow, he'd already managed to smudge the hell out of his eyeshadow, but it kinda… worked for him, if Virgil was being honest.

“Vee, we have got to do this more often!”

Virgil looked from his reflection to Remus', startled in a way he didn't entirely understand. The intrusive facet met his gaze through the mirror, the smile sliding off his face when Virgil didn’t respond to him.

“Right, Raggedy-Anx? It doesn't have to be this, specifically, if you really don't want to. We could just watch movies together, that's fine. Or we could do anything at all! Right?”

Virgil was still silent, lost in his mind. Remus fell from a kneeling position to sitting with his legs hanging off the counter, turning his back to the mirror.

“Was this a one-time thing? That's alright, too, if you just needed help calming down. I'm not as good as the others, I know, but if they're ever too busy again, you'll think of me when you need help, at least. Right?”

Finally, Virgil snapped out of his daze when he heard the panicked edge to Remus’ voice, feeling his anxiety as Virgil noticed the wild look that had completely erased his giddiness. It was a look that Virgil had seen plenty of times before, when Remus had been ignored far too long and was right about to start ripping things to shreds for some scraps of attention. Only then did Virgil fully recognize what the expression actually meant; the deep, terrified need that swirled behind the look, unsure of how to ask for what it really wanted after so many denials of that very want.

“Shit, sorry,” Virgil moved to stand in front of him, eye-level to Remus even though he was elevated by the counter, “Hey, it's alright, Re, everything's fine.”

Remus was still trying very determinedly to smile.

“I know! Hell, I’m not the anxious one, I'm the one that makes people anxious,” his laugh sounded like it came from a throat full of broken glass, “I just- I liked this, ya know?”

“I know,” Virgil leaned forward, coaxing Remus' arms away from where he'd wrapped them around himself, “I like this, too.”

Remus let Virgil hold onto him, surprised into something like obedience.

“You? What?”

“I like this,” it wasn't as though Virgil was expecting to hug Remus, but it seemed to have happened on its own as they moved. It was leagues nicer than he could have imagined, despite the smell. “I like you…-r company.”

“That's weird,” Remus' legs curled around Virgil’s waist. Virgil rested his hands on Remus’ hips. He listened as the creative trait's breathing evened out, vaguely aware that the situation was similar to the one just an hour or so before. Except, the roles had been reversed, of course.

“I missed you. I know I never told you, but I missed you.”

Virgil felt guilt, hot and molten, dripping down his throat. He couldn't lie; he hadn't missed Remus when he left. But now he did, in a roundabout sort of way. He missed what could have been, all of the possible understanding and friendship and likely more that he could have had for so long with Remus- all of which he'd let slip by for years. Due to just writing the artist off as disgusting, or unnecessary.

And perhaps some of that misunderstanding was Remus' fault as well, but Virgil couldn’t find it in himself to hold it against him.

“You don't have to anymore. Miss me, I mean. I'm- fuck, I'm so sorry.”

“Me too,” Remus said, pulling back to settle Virgil with a happy-yet-tearfilled gaze.

“Aw, hey,” he tightened his grip at Remus' hips, smirking, “You're gonna fuck up all my hard work on that eyeliner, Re.”

Remus laughed, loud and shrieky and him, smiling unnaturally and brilliantly wide once again. Virgil's breath caught in his throat- not for the first time that day, he found himself trapped up in that wild, energetic face.

Before Virgil was entirely aware of what he was doing, he was leaning forward, pulling Remus in by the waist. When the cackling finally stopped short, so did he, both much too far and far too close to the Duke.

He didn't have the chance to explain himself, or apologize, or anything, because soon enough understanding flashed in Remus' eyes.

“Oh, oh yes, oh hell fucking yes.”

Remus didn’t wait a second longer before closing the distance and smashing his lips against Virgil’s. A startled sound bubbled up in his throat, dying quickly as he acclimated to what was happening. Just as he did, he was reciprocating the kiss.

Their teeth clashed together uncomfortably, and Virgil was hyper-aware of the threat both his own and Remus’ fangs posed if they weren’t careful, making it far from the perfect first kiss. But he wouldn’t have wanted that anyway, nor would he have expected it. It was, somehow, better.

Remus' hand dragged down Virgil's back, his fingers fitting onto the notches of the facet’s spine. Virgil shivered, pressing himself flush against the counter (and Remus) and digging his thumbs into the trait’s hips. The motion earned him a beautiful whine from the other as the kiss deepened, growing less awkward and more heated by the second.

Virgil was unaware of how much time was passing, but when they finally parted, both were short of breath and significantly disheveled. Remus had his back pressed up against the mirror, his hair even fuzzier than its usual state, expression dazed and face flushed. From what Virgil could make out in his own reflection, he wasn't much better off.

Just as soon as they'd separated, Remus' hand was on his face, his thumb dragging just under Anxiety's lip.

“You fucked up your lipstick,” he teased.

“So did you,” Virgil answered with a smirk, leaning into the touch.

“I guess we'll have to fix it later.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Remus wriggled himself out of his pinned position, twisting around Virgil. He managed to situate himself and drop down from the bathroom counter, his manner suggestive, “Because all I wanna do right now is finish watching Cabin Fever with my new goth boyfriend and makeout during the boring parts.”

“Boyfriend?” Virgil ignored the jolt of warmth he felt at that, determined to stay nonchalant as he (subtly (not subtly)) slipped his hand into Remus’.

“You disagree?”

Virgil pretended to think it over, leading them to the door and taking his time to click it open.

“Nah, I don’t disagree,” he said finally, “I think I like the sound of that, actuall- yyyy.”

Virgil stopped short in the open doorway, voice dragging out in his shock. Behind him, he could feel Remus trying to crane around him to see what was happening, but Virgil didn’t move to accommodate him. Well, more accurately, he felt like he couldn’t really move at all, too busy parsing out the scene in front of him.

In the corner of the sectional- sharing a cushion- Janus and Patton sat, the former holding aloft a glass of wine, the latter snacking on a muffin. They sat with their legs tangled together, and had seemed to be engrossed with each other before the interruption. Both had paused mid-conversation to gawk in Virgil's direction, twin deer-in-headlights expressions on their faces.

“What-” Virgil began, bewildered.

“The fuck?” Remus finished, pushing his way out of the bathroom.

Janus struggled to sit up into a more dignified position and take the reigns of the conversation. It didn't take him long to overcome his surprise at the interruption, his surveying gaze sweeping over the other two Dark Sides contemplatively. The look made Virgil’s skin crawl.

“You know, we- well, we could ask you two-” he gestured at their interlocked hands, “-just the same question, couldn't we?”

For a moment, there was silence. Virgil looked from Patton to Janus. Janus looked from Virgil to Remus. Patton looked at the wall like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Remus looked at everyone and broke the silence.

“You didn't see us,” he announced, sidestepping his way to the staircase and dragging Virgil along with him, “And we didn't see you.”

Janus squinted, tipped his head, and nodded conspiratorially.

“Deal.”

With that little grant, Virgil and Remus darted up the stairs and into the sanctuary of the dimly lit hallway as quickly as they could. Luckily for them, Roman was probably either in a deep depression sleep or far into the imagination by now, and Logan Did Not Engage with Interpersonal Drama if he could help it.

There was a second for appreciating the absurdity of the situation (and catching their breath), before either spoke to each other.

“I’ve got a huge flat screen,” Remus piped up at last, jerking his thumb in the direction of his room.

“Any of us can conjure literally anything we want at any time, so I'm not sure what's impressive about that.”

Remus scowled, albeit playfully.

“Hush! Come watch someone slowly be consumed by a parasite with me!”

Virgil rolled his eyes and let Remus drag him off, his complaints accompanied by absolutely no efforts to avoid the situation.

Things were weird, there was no denying that. Maybe they'd end up being that way for a while yet, and Virgil knew he had a lot of news to catch up on, but he found that thoughts like that were way back in his mind. Whatever happened, he reasoned, he would still have this comfort. The arms of someone he was finally coming to know wrapped tight around him, playing up his back, a mouth trailing kisses on his neck as he half-watched horror films. Yes, things would be difficult with the others, but it was secondary.

There was someone on his side now. Solidly, unarguably there for him. With him. And that made it all feel a little bit easier.

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hematomes · 3 years

Note

im replying late too so we're even<3

the grilled fish was good! as I've mentioned my dad is a great cook and he's particularly enthusiastic (like most dads) about anything grilled lmao

you thought of me while having some good noodles i have literally reached my goal in life<33

alr alr i was actually planning on dropping an outfit pic but completely fucking forgot you can't do that on anon hdhsud honestly considering dming the fit bc im simultaneously confident enough to feel like showing off but also too embarrassed to come off anon:/ (the outfit is little black dress + fishnets + thigh highs + thigh garter) i had a great time btw!! we got food & drinks (THEIR FRENCH FRIES WERE DIVINE) at an overcrowded bar and they shoved us right in the farthest corner,, which was probably for the best considering how packed it was (funny how covid is still a thing.)

we also missed the last bus home (which was at 11pm for some reason? driver said aight im going to sleep) and i had to walk for like an hour in my heavy ass boots but it was fun bc we vibed to queen on the way😌

your outing sounds like such a great time honestly!! little gatherings with friends are my fav tbh bc parties give me anxiety but if I don't go out in a while i shrivel like an overdramatic houseplant. i hope you had time to relax the next day though.

i on the other hand had made plans with another friend, spent 5 hours downtown being dragged to second-hand bookstores, and then held a desperate Sunday night 6-hour cramming session from which i still haven't recovered. (still worth it tho.)

I feel like i rambled way too much djusufh anyways!! it's another week filled with suffering good food and new plans! how's it going?

3rd time trying to answer this ask im dying

ANYWAY

your dad sounds very wholesome i would love to try his grilled food 😌

as for!!! the pic don't worry no pressure <3 i know anon is a cool thing and it makes ppl feel safe so don't feel obligated to turn it off, plus with that description i can safely assume you were GORGEOUS so it's enough for me 👀 unsurprisingly, your tastes are immaculate

akskaks ARG WELL AS LONG AS it was cool then <333 don't forget to get plenty of rest and eat a lot too 😌😌

and don't worry about the rambles either!! i love long asks it just takes me A LONG TIME to answer them ekdkkzs but i swear i enjoy it everytime

well i got up a lil late today and felt like my classes were absolutely useless which is not very cash money but the 1st one was just the professor talking with one (1) student and not really bothering with the rest of the class and the 2nd one was abt a book that we already know + that won't be in the exam at all so zkdkzk 4h of my life completely wasted </3 but im done now so ill probably take a nap or something

hope the week is!!! cool for you!!

#soup anon! 🤍

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lala-pipo · 3 years

Note

(1) WOW! 4 months has passed since you answered my last ask hahaha… so fast… I understand, sometimes when I spend too much time on something, be it working or studying or even recreational stuff I feel burnt out to :D Like I spent 5 straight days last week playing Stardew Valley, now I haven’t touched the Switch lol anyways, I am still enjoying the updates on Dorm Life! It’s slowly progressing but I think it’s good for both of them so far? Taking it one step at a time :3

(2) It’s like they are back at it again with their bantering and anime/fanfic conversations :’) the comfortableness is there but also at the same time it feels unsettling? maybe because we are seeing it from Taem’s POV and he is kinda fidgety (for a lack of better word) or tense about the situation? Hmmm but yeah the ending at the latest chapter though!! Whoooo could have been calling Jong at that time? And the off-character part where he turned off his phone, refusing to take the calls :O

(3) Obviously like Taem we would probably just wonder if it’s Key right, but idk why some instinct telling me it’s not Key like it’s a new part of the story? A new subplot? Lol or maybe it is Key and we are closing that chapter? Uhuhuh I’m just going to theorize in the corner here as I wait for the next update :3 Ah! Yeah, and you said there won’t be any crying moments anymore, so will there be more cheesy things like the end of the latest chapter? Cringe inducing lines and “aww” moments? ;)

(4) Yeah, ofc ofc since to Taem, Key is his “antagonist”, we were bound to kind of see it the same way… in the latest update too, there were a lot of thoughts inside Taem’s head regarding his observations on Key right… like I think there was a part where he thought that Key was looking down on him, or even he thought that Key and Jong should be having stricter? (Idk if that’s the right word) boundaries on things that they should and shouldn’t talk about lol

(5) To be honest, it’s kind of entertaining to see Taem’s train of thoughts on these things like, that almost instantaneous thought in someone’s head that they don’t really share to others. It can be a little bit biased, it can be overdramatic, but ofc I also I understand Taem’s hatred? Or more like insecurity maybe? When it comes to Key (and Jong). It’s the kind of things people think about but not really say out loud hahaha I love it, it makes the characters more whole?

(6) Oh yeahh? I shall be sneaking my way into AO3 to see your replies :3 For a while I kind of realized that you uploaded every 3 weeks? On my Sunday nights, so I timed it perfectly lol recently I’ve been busy too so this one took a while hehehe :D Since my last ask I think you updated twice with chapter 10 and 11! I think chapter 10 was more like “where is this going, what is happening” uncertain section with everyone just passing by time and going with the flow? Ft. mother and Kai hahah

(7) In chapter 11, I think the direction is clearer for them, thanks to the convo by the river!! It was a necessary conversation and I’m glad that they were able to talk about it, after great difficulty :’) Then the chapter was filled with fluff cheese fluff Taem’s thoughts on Key fluff :3 hahaha oh! Maybe I wasn’t paying attention as much but there weren’t many biblical allusions in the past 2 chapters? Maybe it was intentional or maybe not, either way I didn’t notice many of them I think? haha

(8) Maybe ‘cos Taem’s thoughts are filled with “where is this going”, Jong, Key, and then the upcoming exam lol so not so much bible references going on in his head haha… Also!! I saw new fanfics for Jong’s month and I did not read them yet!! So excited, probably will read them as I wait for the updates :D Also!! SHINee x AoT fanfic, yes please omg… I actually searched for one back in 2013-2014? When AoT Anime was just released… we have Pacific Rim AU, so I was rooting hard for AoT AU :’(

(9) Sooo yeah, I’ll look forward to any new fanfics by you in the future too! But please do take time away from it if it tires you out or if you are burned out! It should be an enjoyable thing to do for you :D Anyways! Thank you for the updates! I thoroughly enjoyed the fluff, oh! and thank you for accepting my tomo-choco lol, and I gratefully accept yours! <3 I hope you had and will have an amazing time for the upcoming months! Take care, and stay healthy! – cricket anon

____________________________________________________

Cricket nony!

Wow indeed! It certainly has been a while. How have you been? I have never heard of Stardew Valley before, but I’m glad you’ve enjoyed playing it. But I know that feeling, sometimes I play games for weeks and then I won’t touch them for a year. Humans are weird like that I guess. ^^

I’m glad you’re still enjoying my slow updates. I mean we are about to cross the finishing line. There are only two chapters left to complete the storyline + the epilogue. So yeah. Considering that I already wanted to be done with the story by March – and now we’re nearing July already. Haha – but at least I’m working on it to push this story over the finishing line.

It’s not really a subplot – more like the underlying theme of the story which has been there since chapter 1. If the story was written from Jonghyun POVs it would have been a main theme, but since we’re seeing everything from Taem’s perspective, we just know what Jonghyun shares with him – which is not a lot. :’)

Yes, there won’t be any more tears. There will be a few cheesy moments, but less so compared to chapter 11. :’D Chapter 12 is like the last peak before – hopefully – all ties come together in chapter 13 *knocks on wood*

Oh, Taemin will have a lot more thoughts on Kibum in chapter 12. Lmao The whole situation between Kibum and Taemin is loosely based on something from my own experiences. However, without going too much into detail – let’s keep it simple and say I was the Jonghyun in that scenario. Lmao

Yeah, I think there are plenty of moments in this story in which Taemin thinks a LOT of things but says something very different out loud. I think that’s only human. It’s just better to not share all thoughts one has. :’)

It’s certainly intentional that there are less biblical references after they’ve actually been to church. There are still some left to come, but far less than in previous chapters. It’s supposed to show that Taemin is slowly beginning to find his balance in a way, his way in life? I don’t know how to put it, but he slowly gets more rooted.

THANK YOU! Finally someone who understand my craving for SHINee x AoT fanfic. I really, really want to write one because for some reason I want to write something more action driven with blood, and gore and violence lmao and of course titans. I mean romance is cute – but romance is even cuter if you put it into a dystopian setting where people are fighting for the survival of human kind. A SHINee survey squad would be so cute T_T <3 I don’t really know why no one picked up on yet after all those years – we have so many crossovers in this fandom – and yet a crossover with one of the biggest fandoms out there is just nonexistent. It makes no sense to me. I also always wanted to write a Harry Potter crossover but there are so many out there already – so AoT really lets my weeb juices tingle. Lmao

I remember really liking bmot’s JongTae pacific rim AU…although I still have no idea about pacific rim to this day. :’D I always wanted to look it up because I like the description in their story – it seemed an interesting concept but somehow I’ve never went further than thinking about it.

Thanks for dropping by again, cricket nony! Talk to you in 4 months? Maybe…lmao Take good care of yourself. *waves* <3

#ask #cricket nony #dorm life

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walnutking · 4 years

Text

My review of Crash Landing on You that no one asked for.

Okay so as we all know I’m late on all the hottest dramas of the past year or two since I took a break. When I came back, I noticed how highly rated this one was, but the description sounded so strange that I kept putting it off. Well! I should know by now I’m a girl that (usually) sides with the people.

Its rare a drama can make me have a deep emotional investment in almost every character, but the ones that do are always the ones that leave an impression on me. I really really cared about these people, and I would of probably sobbed during the last episode of it wasn’t for the fact I had to watch it on a plane. They’re so layered! Characters I started out feeling nothing for, I was super invested in by the end. The character writing I really can’t praise enough.

The love story was melodramatic at times, of course, but there was such a realism there that’s hard for me to describe. I think it’s a testament to the main actors, I really FELT a lot of their pain and happiness. It feels like they really created two people who are in love.

I think the amount of times people got shot was a little ridiculous, but I get it since it’s a high stakes military story. I feel like if you described a lot of the things that happen on paper this drama sounds way too overdramatized and full of too many tropes, but actually watching it doesn’t feel that way.

Also wow I genuinely laughed COUNTLESS times. So many of these actors had such impeccable comedic timing that even shown through the language barrier. To find a drama that consistently makes me laugh out loud is rare.

I have to learn to accept more ambiguous endings bc of the person I am I just inherently want every solved and tidied up to a T. This ending wasn’t even THAT ambiguous, but I just loved these two so much I wanted to soak up as much as their happiness as possible.

I guess the North and South will just have to... reunify for a season 2? Should be easy enough.

In short, I would give it a 9.5/10 or maybe even a 10/10 idk idk. I used to give out 10/10 willy nilly in my younger days so it’s harder now.

#no cut bc I’m on mobile #crash landing on you

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helenalikesbtsnow · 4 years

Text

Sleep by Helena_Hathaway (me)

Summary: Jimin interrupts him to say, “It’s not impatience, Yoongi, there’s a deadline. You’ve got until you’re twenty-one before you go to sleep for all eternity! If I don’t find the love of your life before then, we’re all fucked! Pairing: Yoonseok/Sope Words: 5k Warnings: None Links: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24827596

“Royal matchmaker this, royal matchmaker that, honestly, at this point, I just feel like glorified furniture,” Jimin says.

“Hey, you know, it could be worse,” Yoongi shrugs.

“Worse than what? This was supposed to be like, a five-month gig! It was just supposed to be ‘oh find the Prince a wife and then here’s some money’ but nooo!” Jimin says, his voice sounds angry, but Yoongi knows that he isn’t really. His official title may be ‘royal matchmaker,’ but Jimin has been his friend since he showed up to town four years ago. Four years. Wow. That’s a lot of years of Yoongi rejecting every girl to cross his path.

It’s not so much rejection as Yoongi just knows they’re not the one. How could they be? He’s sure he’ll know it when the right girl turns up, but he hasn’t met her yet. He knows it’s important, because there are deadlines to consider, but it just hasn’t seemed important enough for him to start being serious about the subject.

Yoongi has Jimin lagging behind him as they stroll through the property, Yoongi assuring both his guards and Jimin that he just wanted some fresh air. He likes it out here, it’s far less stuffy than the palace, which is always a little too warm and smells old. Yoongi’s family have lived in that palace for generations, for so long that there are hundred-year-old paintings hanging up in the hallways of ancestor’s long dead who have Yoongi’s eyes.

He doesn’t have a trajectory, at least he doesn’t think he does, but he does end up somewhere very particular anyway. Yoongi always ends up in the gardens. He likes the way the flowers smell, and the way the flowers look. They’re beautifully arrayed, masterfully pieced together to show off every single color of the rainbow for at least nine months of the year. The flowers that grow in winter are more muted, but just as beautiful, and just as expertly arranged, because the garden is kept in the two most capable hands in the entire kingdom.

Yoongi bites his lip, looking at one particular bushel of flowers near to him when a familiar voice from behind him says, “those are called impatiens.”

The voice belongs to someone that Yoongi has known all his life. He turns to see him, the ever smiling, wonderful Hoseok. Yoongi has known him since they were both little kids, Hoseok’s father was a gardener to this palace long before he was born. Since childhood, Hoseok’s been his closest friend in the world, and probably the only one who doesn’t judge Yoongi for not falling in love. That’s not to say Hoseok isn’t judgmental, because he has made fun of just about everything Yoongi has ever done ever, and Yoongi has threatened to lock him up every single time he does it, but that just makes Hoseok laugh at him harder.

“Hey, Hoseok,” Yoongi smiles back at him. Hoseok’s smile is contagious, absolutely gut-punching. He’s got long, dark brown hair, and eyes the color of the earth he plants his flowers in. It's not in the job description, but Hoseok's probably the most attractive gardener in the world. “Impatience you say?”

“No, I said impatiens, not-”

Jimin interrupts him to say, “It’s not impatience, Yoongi, there’s a deadline. You’ve got until you’re twenty-one before you go to sleep for all eternity! If I don’t find the love of your life before then, we’re all fucked!”

“Why does everyone believe in that silly curse,” Yoongi groans. Truth is, Yoongi knows it’s real. Why wouldn’t it be? People have curses placed on them all the time; it’s just what life is like. But he’s trying to make people worry less about him. He’s still got eight months, it could happen. Princess charming will come waltzing in through the palace doors and Yoongi will hear a chorus of bells. You know, probably.

“We all need some time away from you,” Hoseok says, sighing, “I know I can’t wait to be rid of you for a spell.”

“Exactly!” Yoongi says, “Oh, and Hoseok, you’re fired for that comment.”

“Oh, agony,” Hoseok sighs, raising his arms up in defeat as Yoongi smiles at him. He crouches back down to work on the little patch of soil that he’d been busying at before Yoongi so rudely interrupted him. He’s preparing to put in azaleas because Yoongi said he liked them last summer.

“It’s not funny, Yoongi,” Jimin says. “You’re the only heir to the throne! What do you think happens when it all goes belly up?”

“Well, I imagine you all have a little laugh and find a proper replacement,” Yoongi says with a shrug. “Perhaps Hoseok here. He knows how to grow flowers; surely, he must also know how to manage the socioeconomic divide.”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Hoseok nods overdramatically, “Read all about it in the farmer’s almanac.”

“It’s not a joke, you two!” Jimin says, sounding aggravated, “if I don’t find you a wife, you’re basically dead. And also, I don’t get paid.”

“Oh, agony,” Yoongi and Hoseok both say.

~*~*~*~

He and Yoongi are having a staring contest. Neither of them asked if they should have a staring contest, they’ve just been doing it. He supposes that that’s not terribly abnormal for the two of them. Not the staring contest in particular, they just tend to mirror each other. Yoongi blinks first, which makes Hoseok smile a silent victory.

“Why are you smiling?” he asks, though they both know that Yoongi loves Hoseok’s smile and would never complain about it. It’s the greatest smile in the kingdom, he tells him as much constantly. Yoongi is willing to die on those words.

“You know why.”

“I don’t know at all.”

“Sure, Yoongi.”

“I didn’t even know we were having a staring contest.”

“You’re the one who mentioned it,” Hoseok says.

Yoongi scrunches up his face, “damn, I fell into my own trap.”

“Dumbass,” Hoseok says, rolling his eyes.

Yoongi looks around the two of them at the grass. Hoseok had been picking flowers for the entrance hall of the palace at the time that Yoongi stole him away. As always, he’s hiding from his father. Being the future King comes with a lot of responsibilities, but sometimes Yoongi just wants to hide away with his best friend.

“What are those called, anyway?” he asks, pointing at the pink flowers in Hoseok’s hand.

“Camellia,” he responds.

“Those are my new favorite,” Yoongi declares.

“You have a new favorite every other week,” Hoseok responds. “Last week you specifically liked yellow roses.”

“Well, that’s because whichever one you pick are usually the prettiest ones.”

“Oh, how you mock me,” Hoseok says, feigning annoyance.

“Hey, that time I tried to tell you I liked dandelions you threatened to end the royal line, so I’m just trying to stay on your good side,” Yoongi laughs.

“I wish you liked any of those girls as much as you like flowers.”

“Ugh, let’s not talk about this, I get enough of it from Jimin,” Yoongi groans. He’s already met with two girls this afternoon, and he’s worried if he goes back to the castle, there will be a long line of more. He didn’t know that there were that many people in existence. There’s at least a few who have snuck in a few times and think that he doesn’t recognize them. Perhaps there are more who have snuck in that Yoongi genuinely hasn’t recognized.

“You’re running out of time,” Hoseok says.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll meet someone; we’ve still got like six months! It’ll sort itself out.”

“You need to try harder,” Hoseok scolds. “You’re not giving them enough of a chance, dumbass.”

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t fall in love with someone who’s not my one true love, that’s not exactly going to cut it, is it? The person who kisses me to wake me up has to literally be my soulmate. I’m not saying the curse is real, because that is some bullshit, but if it were real, it’s not going to go away by me wanting to fall in love. My soulmate is out there somewhere, I just have to meet her,” Yoongi says. “Oh, and by the way, for that comment, it’ll be a flogging.”

“You’re a piece of shit,” Hoseok says.

~*~*~*~

“Who the fuck would ever want to fall in love with you?” Hoseok says, incredulous. He rarely ever gets to actually witness Yoongi when Jimin’s in the midst of matchmaking, but honestly, if that’s how Yoongi acts with every girl, then it’s no surprise he doesn’t have a one true love. There’s probably no girl out there at all in the whole world who would ever fall in love with Yoongi. He’s a jackass.

“What can I say,” Yoongi shrugs.

“You’re a jackass,” Hoseok tells him, because he’s not one for holding his tongue.

“Hoseok!” Jimin says emphatically.

“I’ve called him worse than that when I’m not annoyed with him,” Hoseok says with a shrug.

“Still,” Jimin says. “Be easy on him, it’s not some small task, all of this meeting and greeting and trying to establish a connection with so little time to do it.” Hoseok is low key not sure what Jimin actually does. He used to know what Jimin did. Back in the day, four and a half years ago, Jimin used to pair Yoongi up with girls who fit a certain mold. He screened the girls before they made it to the ultimate rejection that Yoongi gave them. These days, literally any girl above a certain age is allowed to “try out.” Nowadays, it seems like all Jimin does is watch and make sure that Yoongi isn’t purposefully rude or shitty to them.

In all fairness, Yoongi isn’t actually mean to the girls. He just isn’t very opening, not the way he is with Hoseok at least. He can say or do anything he likes to Hoseok, and they’ll roll the joke around for a few weeks like it's nothing. He can’t fathom why none of these girls know how to establish a connection with Yoongi, when he’s so pathetically easy to understand, or maybe that’s just how Hoseok views him. He’s very simple. He’s also stupid as shit, and Hoseok tells him as such.

“You’re stupid as shit.”

“I don’t see you falling in love with anyone!” Yoongi says.

“That’s because I’m not going to go to sleep for all of eternity in less than a month!” Hoseok bites back at him.

“You two have a dichotomy I’ll never understand. If only there was a girl in this world who was as dumb as the two of you, maybe I could get Yoongi to fall in love with her,” Jimin says, almost to himself.

“Fuck you,” Yoongi says. Jimin is a very good friend of Yoongi’s, honestly and genuinely, but literally no one in the entire ingdom lets a ‘fuck you’ from the Prince roll of their back besides Hoseok. Jimin knows it’s a joke, but he’s still a little shaken by it.

Hoseok narrows his eyes indignantly at Yoongi, “I bet whoever your soulmate is she is as ugly as you are, and twice as annoying.”

“That’s a hanging for you,” Yoongi says.

Hoseok makes a very loud, aggravated sound and storms out of the room. He’s not sure why he’s angry. He didn’t used to get angry at Yoongi for turning girls down. He used to let it be a joke. Because that’s all it was when they were both seventeen and this matchmaking all started out. He laughed off the idea of his best friend in the world, the boy he knew since before he had the mental fortitude to understand what royalty was, falling in love. Now he’s becoming increasingly distressed. If Yoongi doesn’t find her in less than thirty days, he’s done for. The stupid motherfucker, he’s most definitely met her and rejected her already, because he’s too dumb for this world.

But god, if Yoongi goes to sleep forever, Hoseok’s life will screech to a halt. He’ll just stop caring about everything. Yoongi is his best goddamn friend in the world, and without him, not even his flowers will be enough color to populate the darkness that will fill him.

~*~*~*~

“What do you think is going to happen tonight?” Hoseok asks. It’s fully starting to sink in now that he’s going to wake up tomorrow and Yoongi won’t. Tonight is the night of “the big sleep,” as Yoongi has dubbed it. Yoongi is literally the only person in the entire kingdom not taking it seriously. He can’t honestly believe that the curse was fake, can he? An evil witch doesn’t show up on your doorstep to curse you to fall asleep when you touch a spindle just as a party trick. That’s clearly a curse. Yoongi is going to as good as die tonight, because the obstinate little shit couldn’t fall in love with the twenty-one years he was given to do it in. Just meet one girl and love her. That’s all he had to do.

“I’m going to take a nap,” Yoongi says, laughing. Hoseok pushes him in the shoulder, angrily, because he is angry. Yoongi is not taking this seriously. For him, he’s just going to be asleep, he won’t know how bad it gets, but for everyone else around him… that’s the end. He’s going to be gone, for just about forever. Maybe he will still be alive, breathing, sleeping, but he’ll be dead to everyone else. All because Yoongi couldn’t find his one true love who will kiss him and bring him back to life.

“That’s not funny!”

“You used to think it was,” Yoongi says.

“That was before it was, like, real,” Hoseok says. He should feel guilty, he supposes. He knew this was coming, but he kind of just assumed that everything would sort itself out. Yoongi is the most charming, wonderful, beautiful person in the entire world. How is it possible that any girl could help falling in love with him? He knows he’s said and thought the contrary about the Prince, but he never really meant it. Clearly, it’s Yoongi’s fault. Every girl is ready and willing to bring him back to life, but Yoongi’s picky. He needs to find his one true love, and even though it seems as though every eligible woman in this kingdom – and all the girls from here to three kingdoms over – have tried to offer themselves to him, he somehow hasn’t found ‘the one.’ Hoseok suspects that he probably has found the one, but he joked her away.

“It’s always been real, Seok,” he says, and for the first time probably in either of their lives, Yoongi is looking directly into Hoseok’s eyes with the solemn understanding of what is going to happen. Yes, Yoongi is going to ‘die’ tonight. Yes, his best friend in the entire world is going to have to look at Yoongi’s lifeless, sleeping body for the rest of his own natural life, unless a miracle strikes and Jimin is able to matchmake him while he’s unconscious. Yes, Hoseok will be heartbroken, and the reputation that Yoongi has bestowed upon him for having the brightest smile in the kingdom will be lost as soon as Yoongi’s eyes close.

“I hate you,” Hoseok says shaking his head. He wants to hug Yoongi, but he knows that it’s not seemly for the help to be so informal with royalty. Everyone in the palace knows that Hoseok and Yoongi are as close as two friends can possibly be, but that doesn’t change Hoseok’s status. Usually, he would disregard that rule, but everyone is on high alert because of the curse, which isn’t actually supposed to take effect until midnight tonight. Only a few more hours left with his best friend in the whole world.

At the very beginning of the desperate search for a match, Jimin had been ordered to only set Yoongi up with royals and girls from various noble families. When it was clear that wasn’t turning anything up, they started allowing anyone to vie for his hand. Now, they’ve reached a standstill. New women showing up by the hour with a prayer and a hope that they could be the long-lost Princess of Yoongi’s dreams. None of them have been.

“No you don’t,” Yoongi says, his smile doesn’t quite reach the sadness in his eyes. Hoseok realizes that Yoongi might have been joking about the curse all this time as a defense mechanism. He knows what’s going to happen. He’s always known. The only way to live with the fear of it has been to pretend he doesn’t care, but he does care. He’s absolutely terrified.

“I’m never going to forgive you for going to sleep,”

“Yeah, alright.”

Hoseok just crosses his arms and shakes his head. He glares out the window. It’s starting to become warm again, he’s gearing up to start fostering the spring flowers. Yoongi always says that he likes the bright, colorful ones, but Hoseok knows that the winter ones mean a little something more to him. The winter Jasmine in his room now is a welcome cut of white and yellow into the sullen darkness that his bedroom becomes when the moon rises earlier in the sky for months on end.

For spring this year, Hoseok has decided to grow a few different colors of lilies along with Yoongi's classic favorites. He can't wait until they bring warmth into Yoongi's room. The room might need it since Yoongi won't be awake to warm the room itself.

“You’re going to take care of things around here, aren’t you?” Yoongi asks, and Hoseok looks almost offended by him saying that. “Not just the flowers. You’ve got to keep that big smile of yours. My father adores you; you know. He might be all chivalrous and try to hide it because of his, I don’t know, pretense of masculinity in being King, but like, he’s always liked you. You were my best friend even as a kid. He’s going to need you to help him get by.”

“I hate all of this. I won’t let you fall asleep. You can’t prick your finger if I chop off both of your hands.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

~*~*~*~

No one is entirely sure where the spindle had even come from. There had been four guards on the door, four at the windows, two stood inside Yoongi’s bedroom, and just about every member of the kingdom standing guard outside the palace doors in support of their beloved Prince. There had not been a spindle in that room an hour before midnight, but once midnight struck, there it was.

Hoseok knows it’s the curse, he knows it’s not Yoongi’s fault, but that’s not going to stop him from blaming Yoongi for touching that goddamn spindle anyway. All he had to do was keep his hands to himself, but he couldn’t do that. The idiot.

The knight’s scream could be heard maybe not just through the entire palace, but perhaps through the entire kingdom. Hoseok had already been banished to the entrance hall when that scream pierced, and then the shouting, the running, the crying. He hadn’t been scared, sad, in disbelief, angry, or anything at all really. He had just been numb. He knew what had happened. He didn’t know what he was supposed to feel.

That was six months ago.

It didn't rain this summer and it hasn’t snowed yet this winter, and the people of the kingdom believe it never will until Yoongi wakes up. The air and sky have been entirely dry for too long. Some of the officials are saying that if they don’t receive some sort of precipitation in the next few weeks, they’ll be looking at a full-fledged drought come spring. Maybe it’s what a kingdom without Yoongi deserves. A land without water is a land not worth living in, just as a land without Yoongi bares no real purpose either.

Hoseok watches, waits, sitting on the steps of the front entrance to the palace, watching a girl that has surely already tried to throw Yoongi her love, walks up the stairs to try her luck again. Every girl who had once bid themselves away to be loved by Yoongi has now returned to place one kiss on the cheek of the sleeping Prince. Hoseok runs the little bouquet of sweet alyssum through his fingers, thinking about how Yoongi would stop to smell them before asking Hoseok to cover his room with the stuff. Yoongi always loved Hoseok’s flowers more than anyone else. He doesn’t even think anyone would have noticed they still had a gardener if it weren’t for Yoongi insisting that every room hold a testament to Hoseok’s hard work.

Any minute now, that girl will come rushing back out the castle steps crying because it’s not her; she isn’t the Prince’s one true love. How important does she think she is to think she could ever be good enough for his Prince?

Jimin guides the girl in with a gentle nod of his head. He’s still hoping that one of these girls will be the one, which is stupid, because Hoseok knows that she’s never coming. Yoongi would have noticed her, surely. He’s the smartest man Hoseok’s ever known, of course Yoongi would know her when he saw her.

It’s dreadful to say that Hoseok’s given up, but he has. He knows Yoongi too well to think that a girl he’s never met could ever be his one true love. Maybe one of these girls really was meant to be for him, but a kiss wouldn’t work if Yoongi didn’t know he loved her first. That’s the kind of person he was.

Was.

Yoongi is now a was. He’s no longer an is. He’s a was.

Pretty soon, they’re going to stop allowing Hoseok to tend the garden. If water becomes scarce, they won’t have any to waste on some measly flowers. He’s not going to let that happen. Hoseok will trek to the nearest lake, river, or ocean every single day without sleep in order to get the water to grow Yoongi’s favorite flowers. Because, what if, by some unimageable miracle, Yoongi wakes up and there are no flowers to greet him?

Hoseok stays seated on these steps, watching his breath form a white cloud every time he exhales, but he doesn’t feel the cold. He doesn’t feel much of anything. Maybe he never will again.

She comes running out of the steps only a few minutes later, with her hands to her eyes, as soft sobs run through her, sobs that don’t even rip out of her like they should, like the ones that put Hoseok to sleep every night. Her tears are vapid. She’s not the one. That’s not why you should be crying for Yoongi. Cry because he is the most amazing man in all the kingdoms, and cry because he can’t ever wake up.

~*~*~*~

He’s just received the news. As much as the King would like for Hoseok to stay on at the palace, it would simply be irresponsible for a kingdom in drought to waste so much water on the flowers. Hoseok had known it was coming. He refuses to accept it, though. He puts the pink azaleas into the vase beside Yoongi’s bed, worrying that these are the last offering he’ll be able to give to Yoongi. He’s going to find a way to keep the flowers growing. At least enough to keep filling the room. He hopes.

Hoseok knows it’s unrealistic. He’ll be in a lot of trouble if he starts literally draining a precious resource. But it breaks his heart in two to think about the sadness that would be in Yoongi’s face were the flowers to stop growing.

It’s been almost exactly one year since he went to sleep. What should have been winter has come and gone. It was blisteringly cold, but there was no snow. Instead, everything had frozen up, the entire kingdom a dry, helpless place. Few girls were able to trek their way to the palace to offer up their love to the Prince, but it’s not like it would matter.

Hoseok sighs, and sits himself on the bed right next to Yoongi. His sleeping face is devastatingly handsome, but more than that, it’s just devastating. Hoseok has not been as frequent a visitor to his room as one would expect, because he’s been far too sad to see him. He only comes in to change out the flowers once they begin to fray and wilt.

It’s a Sunday, so they aren’t taking visitors, which means Yoongi will be all by himself until tomorrow when he’s sure more girls who think they’re the one find out that they’ve been kidding themselves.

Hoseok looks at his soft face. Yoongi is so pale; he hasn’t seen the sun in a year. He doesn’t look any thinner than he did when he went to sleep, so that might be part of the magic. His cheeks don’t have any color to them, but you can sit and watch his chest rise and fall. Hoseok puts a hand on his chest just to feel it. He needs to know Yoongi is still breathing, even if it doesn’t really matter anyhow.

His skin isn’t warm, in fact, even through his shirt, Hoseok can feel that he’s cold. The only indicator that this man is still alive is the feel of his chest, which Hoseok savors.

Why is it better that he’s alive, never to be awoken than it would be if he were dead? Is that what that old crone had wanted to do in the first place when she cursed him? She wanted the entire kingdom to have hope, because hope keeps you thinking something good might happen. But really, that witch never intended for this story to have a happy ending. Maybe Yoongi doesn’t actually have a true love at all. Maybe that’s the game. That Yoongi is unlovable. She gave everyone a hope that the curse could be broken as long as he finds his true love, but she doesn’t exist.

Hoseok had thought that the tears were behind him, but he catches a loud harsh sob in his throat, which physically pains him. He puts his head into his hands and leans away from Yoongi so that he can cry into them. And he cries and cries and cries. For an hour, maybe two, Hoseok just cries next to Yoongi. Every few minutes, there will be a minute of pause where he stops, thinks that they’ve subsided, but then, the tears come back even harder. He can’t afford to waste his tears because they tend to dehydrate him, and that’s the worst thing to happen in a drought. But he just can’t help himself.

“This is all your fucking fault, you piece of shit,” Hoseok says to Yoongi, turning to again look at his stupidly attractive face. No one has the right to look that beautiful, least of all not a man who’s as good as dead.

“You couldn’t just fall in love and be happy. No, you had to be a picky son of a bitch.” Hoseok prods at his shoulder, like he would if he were waiting for Yoongi to respond to him, which he doesn’t do.

“You’re still picky. Girls are traipsing through here every damn day, and you just sit there like a pathetic little fucker. They come in here and they kiss you, and you just lie there, because you’re stupid,” Hoseok tells him. He puts his hand in Yoongi’s hair, he doesn’t know why, he just wants to. His hair is still soft, as if he had washed it just yesterday. He doesn’t have any real bodily functions, doesn’t need to eat or piss, so he’s literally as perfect as the day he went to bed, his twenty-first birthday. “They kiss your stupid fucking face, when they’re not in love with you, while the people who really do love you have to just look at you all the time and know you’re never coming back.”

Why won’t Yoongi listen to him? Why won’t he wake up so that he can threaten to put Hoseok in the stocks? Why doesn’t Yoongi wake up to tell him to smile like he always used to? Why doesn’t Yoongi just wake up?

No one has called him Seok in a year. No one has told Hoseok how pretty his flowers are, or at least, no one has meant it the way Yoongi always did. No one has even really made a joke in Hoseok’s direction at all. No one in the kingdom jokes, smiles, or laughs anymore, not with Yoongi in this state, but especially not Hoseok. It’s very clear that Hoseok has taken it worse than anyone else. Not even Yoongi’s own father, the King, has a comprehension of the pain Hoseok feels when he looks upon his best friend.

“Fuck you, Yoongi. You know that I care about you, don’t you, dumbass? I care about you more than anyone in the world does. More than Jimin, more than your dad, more than literally anyone. Why don’t you wake up for me?” Hoseok says, and maybe just to prove a point he kisses Yoongi’s cheek like all those girls have done. “Wake up for me, you stupid fucking shit.”

Hoseok starts crying again, practically draping himself over Yoongi’s body as he cries right against his chest, wishing that Yoongi’s warmth could seep into him and make him feel a little less alone.

…his warmth?

“It’s going to be the gallows for that sort of language.” The voice is very soft and croaky, from months and months of disuse. Hoseok’s crying halts, almost like someone has strangled him. He lifts himself up, hair in his own face, so he has to brush it aside so that he can meet those big brown eyes.

“Yoongi?” Hoseok’s voice sounds so soft that he’s not sure if it's even audible.

“You’re my one true love, aren’t you?” Yoongi asks, looking very soft and sleepy. He barely even looks awake, which isn’t fair considering how much sleep he fucking got.

“I absolutely fucking am not,” Hoseok says, something like repulsion in his voice.

Yoongi uses a very sleepy hand to pull Hoseok’s face to his and this time, though Hoseok could not tell you at all how it comes to be so, his lips meet Yoongi’s own lips. Hoseok’s never kissed anyone before, so he supposes it’s possible that all kisses feel as perfect as this one, but he thinks it’s pretty unlikely.

“Oh yeah,” Yoongi says when his smiling breaks the kiss, “I think you fucking are.”

“I am not,” Hoseok says, being the one to kiss Yoongi this time. He doesn’t know what emotions he’s feeling right now. He’s feeling a lot of them. All of the emotions. Every last one. Rage, passion, sorrow, pride, happiness. Everything.

“Those flowers are very pretty,” Yoongi says.

“Fuck you,” Hoseok responds. Yoongi has sat up in bed, when did that happen? Neither of them knows. Hoseok is still kissing him; Yoongi is kissing him back. Softly, then angrily, because Hoseok is furious with this piece of shit who had the nerve to go and fall in love with him. This absolute motherfucker, who would dare be Hoseok’s one true love. Of course he’s not going to fall in love with a girl, they should’ve both realized no one else but him could be the one. Why didn't this stupid dipshit realize that they were made for each other before he went to sleep? If he had, Hoseok would have been saved from a lot of sadness and turmoil. Absolute piss for brains.

A voice comes screaming down the halls, a voice that comes from Jimin. “It’s raining, Hoseok, fuck, ow, stubbed my toe. Hoseok, it’s raining, it’s actually raining!” There’s a lot of thudding before the door is whacked open by an overly excited Jimin who’s here to tell Hoseok what will probably the only good news for the rest of their shared lifetimes.

Yoongi and Hoseok only pull away because they can sense something important is happening, though neither of them have a clue what Jimin had just been screaming about, or why it could ever be important in comparison to them kissing each other.

“What the fuck?” Jimin says, as he’s stood in the doorway looking at a very much conscious Prince.

“Have I missed much?” Yoongi smiles widely, and god, it’s that look, those pretty teeth bared, on that pretty face that finally allows what Yoongi has dubbed the brightest smile in the entire kingdom to return to Hoseok’s face.

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jackdaniel69nice · 4 years

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Ninjago OC’s

I don’t really make ocs unless it’s plot specific but here are a few I have because it’s oc day I guess (this got so long I’m sorry)

Side Characters

Brody Grey and the Oppenheimer gang

Description: mid 20s, tip-dyed black hair (color is subject to change but he likes red), likes to wear tie-dye and anything from the 80s, average adult male height, Gay

Personality: overdramatic but with a rational head, energetic and likes to tease, gives good advice and father figure I guess?, love of reading and writing, can be flirty and cocky at times

Backstory: Was disowned by his parents when he came out and has had to make it on his own, Theater major at the Oppenheimer and successful too, was Cole’s roomate (they didn’t get along at first)

Plot Purpose: Cole-centric backstory exploration, Brody and co. reveal a lot about Cole’s past to the other ninja (more about the emo depressed grieving version in the pilots) and helps him come to terms with it, Also tell them you’re gay Cole, yeesh. The other friends are important to expanding the other ninja like Alex (non-binary, quiet, goth, Violinist) helps Jay deal with that he’s trans and coming out of the closet, Persila (bi, short blond, actor, excitable conspericy theorist and fandom queen) Probably figures out Jay is Cliff Gordon’s son, Melissa (lesbian, singer, Mom, sweet thing but easy to anger and holds a grudge) Was the first one Cole latched onto in the group because she reminded him so much of his mom [there are other things too with Nya and Kai and Zane but I don’t feel like elaborating more now], ANYWAY Jay takes Cole to see a musical and recognizes Brody (who he hasn’t been in contact with since he left) and they talk after the show leading down the road of all Cole’s old college friends meeting the ninja

Random Facts: He’s dating Vinnie and NO ONE CAN STOP ME, he’s sorta supposed to be Cole’s foil (where Cole is blasting My Chemical Romance and AC/DC he’s blasting Boogie Box High and SOS Band), he’s a mash of all the other ninjas personality’s not gonna lie

Tony Tabloid

Description: 12-14ish, shorter side but gets a major growth spurt when older, short black/brown hair, missing tooth, classic news boy hat that’s to big for him

Personality: Bright young boy with plenty of street smarts, will talk your ear off, full of himself and would fight anyone or anything no matter their size, very energetic but with a cool attitude

Backstory: Orphan at Walker’s Home (Jay’s rich and built an orphanage cause he’s nice like that) in Ninjago city, was on the street since young age, ex-thief, turned around at Walker’s though and now is head of the Ninjago city newspaper delivery (probably knows Nelson)

Plot Purpose: All the ninja seem to have a child that gives them advice at one point or another so here’s Jay’s, Jay has the rights to the Star Fairer enterprise (unknown to the other ninja) and when Lloyd mentions they should make new movies but can’t he goes about making it happen, he makes it all seem like he’s uninvolved but somehow gets them vip passes to see the movie in action (he says it’s from his ex-acting career connections), Tony is playing the younger version of Fritz’s son (our main character) in flashbacks, Jay is the one who got him his “gig”, he ends up revealing a lot of stuff Jay would rather keep hidden and probably almost dies doing something stupid and Jay has to save him

Random facts: Tabloid obviously isn’t his real last name (not sure wheather he chose it himself or people just started calling him that) it’s obviously related to his work, speaking of work he wants to become a journalist or reporter when he grows up, Jay gave him one of his smile buttons and he put it on his hat, I like to think in the future he gets adopted by Brody and Vinnie

Fievel Schmidt

Jay’s old friend, knew him before he transitioned, I mostly only use him in movie!verse BUT..., in show his mother is a mecahnic who buys parts from Ed and Edna, boyfriend ran off so she’s a single mom, the walkers always take a weekly trip into ninjago city to trade and sell so she’s a regular, Edna takes Jay and Fieval to the arcade and does grocery shopping, unfortunately his mom got seriously injured and can’t do mechanics anymore so they lose touch, plump and short, very sweet boy

Next Master of Sound

I feel like everyone forgot Jacob died in season 4 so here’s a reminder, he never had any children so it went to a random kid, little girl, Long black hair, she accidentally killed her parents when she caused their house in her small village to collapse from crying and activating her powers, selectively mute from fear of her own voice, Cole adopts her, becomes a next gen ninja I guess?, the only time she uses her power is when she sings (which Cole taught her to do)

*Witch doctor, Percy

Male, Lives in the Departed Realm, takes care of it sorta?, knows good magic, hangs out with whisps, helps the ninja (usually Cole) get home by telling them about a portal

Old Man

Grocery market clerk from ignacia, payed off hospital bills for Kai (14) after Nya (10) had an allergic reaction to perfume, Kai had work for him moving veggies and such for several months (got to keep some food though)

Snake Fam

Venomari lesbian who lives in the woods with her wife and 3 adopted kids (one is human), she (her kids) rescue one the ninja and bring them home to heal up so they can go save the others

Tagalong

Jay’s cat he had growing up...Not gonna talk about her right now [if you know, you know]

Villains

Felicia Blake

Scientist obsessed with trying to understand magic and elemental powers, thinks she can figure out how to channel elemental power like the First Spinjitzu Master did, very confident, only concerned with progress and no concern for individual life, ends up capturing Jay and experimenting on him :(

*Ali

Referenced in the Amulet of Ali which channels pure evil/dark magic, was the first sorcerer ever and basically made magic, was banished to the realm of madness and gained power there bringing back his learnings to ninjago, he wrote the book of spells which clouse and and garmadon studied under Chen (which is how garm knew the realm would give him power), Probably killed by Libber (previous EM of lightning) who sacrificed herself to stop him [but did she really kill him?!], Clouse gets the amulet from Borg Tower which boosts his power and now him and Jay have to duke it out like their previous versions did

???

Someone had to make Mr. E, I wonder who?, Jay took Echo back to Cliff’s flat to live after skybound and fixed him up, he might of done a few to many upgrades though and someone saw this as an opportunity, he was attacked while Jay was away and barely got away hiding in the secret room, unfortunately Jays blueprints were stolen (unknown to him) and the rest destroyed, Jay took Echo to the his parents but after seeing Mr. E he’s worried, now someone is throwing out new nindroids based on his designs and they are still searching for Echo, this mystery person plans to build an even stronger nindroid army to sell, prove they are a worthy inventor, and maybe take down the ninja along the way [do partially sentient multicolored nindroids based on the ninja count as ocs?]

*subject to my whims and could change to fill similar plots

#ninjago #ninjago oc day 2020 #ninjago oc #Brody Grey #Tony Tabloid #dont worry once i figure out how to draw cats ill tell you all about Tagalong #she gets her own post #Tagalong

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theskyeandsea · 4 years

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Two Player Game || Orion & Skylar

Timing: August 7th, 2020

Location: Quarter

Tagging: @3starsquinn & @theskyeandsea

Description: Ever the nerds, Skylar and Rio meet up at Quarter for some good ol’ wholesome fun.

Warnings: Brief mention of chronic illness symptoms

Checking her phone, Skylar chewed on the inside of her cheek as she waited outside Quarter for Rio. The last time she’d gone to do something fun, that she’d dared to try and enjoy herself a little… she’d found herself locked in a room, spilling some of her deepest secrets to a near stranger.If something bad happened to her, at least Rio wasn’t a stranger? But… he’d been acting so strange the last few days. She’d seen his very public messages with Blanche, seen mentions of a wedding, things like that. But, wasn’t he dating Winston? Was it a game? Just a little prank or something? Her fingers drummed absently against her thigh, the sleeves of her long shirt rubbing against her palm. She was looking forward to stepping inside the cool AC of the arcade, where wearing a long sleeved shirt wouldn’t look too out of place. As she glanced down the street, she saw Rio walking up and offered a smile. “Hey Rio. I’m glad you could make it. This place is a lot of fun, I’ve been here a few times before.” She said with a nod.

Orion wasn’t a celebrity. He had grown up in the town and spent the majority of his life not knowing most of the people that lived in town. Now, it seemed like everywhere he went people were staring at him. He had created a public spectacle of himself. The most embarrassing public spectacle of all time, in the history of public spectacles. He wondered how Blanche ranked this in comparison to the graduation video. Rio didn’t even want to leave the house. The only reason he did was for Skylar. He did so incognito, with a snapback pulled over his head and sunglasses. Maybe he was being overdramatic. Maybe people didn’t care about this nearly as much as Rio thought they did. All he knew was that it felt like all eyes were on him, and as someone who hated attention this was basically the worst thing that could have ever happened to him. He spotted Skylar standing by the doors and waved as he got close. “Hey!” Rio sighed, hoping he sounded happier than he felt. He was happy to spend time with Skylar, honestly it would probably help him feel better. “Thanks for inviting me. I haven’t been here in forever. How are things going?” He tried for a smile and moved to head into the arcade. Less people meant less attention.

Rio’s appearance had caught Skylar slightly off-guard-- she didn’t think he owned a snapback, much less would wear one. But, it was still nice to see him. The last time she’d hung out with Rio, she’d still been in a haze of Bliss, not entirely processing everything around her. She’d managed to piece things together afterwards, realized dimly that there had been some strange kind of tension in the air. It didn’t really matter now, though. She’d been… too scared to use the medicine recently, not after what she’d seen in the Hall of Mirrors. And besides, she’d went to the lake to change only a few weeks ago and, as much as she hated having to do that, at least she hadn’t run into anyone dangerous, hadn’t lost her voice, hadn’t been hurt again. “Of course.” She said with a nod, following Rio inside the arcade. The flashing lights and sound of pinball machines rang through the room and Skylar turned to Rio, signing as she spoke. “It’s a little loud in here, so I might need to sign more often. Have any games you want to play first?”

It had been a year or two and Orion had almost forgotten just how loud the place was. Back when he was a kid, Rio loved the place. It had been more than a few years now since he came in, but it didn’t look like it had changed much in between. The noise was overwhelming almost immediately, his hunter hearing betraying him. Rio flinched at the sensory overload and tried to ignore it, signing to Skylar as he spoke quietly, “Sounds good to me. Don’t bother with Gauntlet” Rio pointed over to the abandoned game, “It’s been broken since I was a kid.” He laughed and pulled the sunglasses off of his face. He hoped that nobody in here would come up and ask about the wedding. “The first thing I used to do every time I came into this place was play Pac-Man.”

Over the loud clattering sounds of pinballs getting hit every which way and people yelling at Dragon’s Lair as the machine ate their last quarter, Skylar could barely hear a word that Rio was saying. But, his sign was fluid and easy to understand, which was part of why she liked hanging out with him. She didn’t have to try so hard like she normally did with other people when it came to conversation. “That works for me,” She said, lowering her voice to barely above a whisper as she signed back at him. She wasn’t entirely sure how hunter things worked-- she knew that Rio could hear better than most people, but she wasn’t really sure what qualified as “most people.” It was kind of ironic. The two of them being friends, but at opposite ends of the spectrums in more than a few areas. At the mention of Pac-Man she broke out into a smile. “That’s my favorite game, I’d love to play. That one or Dig Dug. There’s something cute about the little Reptar guys.” She signed as she began to wander towards the Pac-Man cabinet.

Orion was confident signing now. It had been a language he had always been interesting in learning and had been working towards before meeting Skylar. But he became more passionate about it after making friends with her and Ricky. While he couldn’t be perfect, he was confident that next to English it was his best language. “I love Dig dug!” Rio signed back, motioning towards the machine as they brushed past it to get to Pac-Man, “We can play that one next.” Rio didn’t talk any louder than necessary, especially considering the noise. He could barely hear with the sound of pinballs smacking against the machines and coins dumping down, scraping against metal on their way down. He rubbed at his ears, trying to be nonchalant as he did it, in an attempt to filter out some of the noise. Usually, his ears adjusted. It wasn’t continuous torture. It was just a matter of time. “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty good at this game.” Rio laughed as he signed, pausing for a moment longer before sighing in defeat and signing, “I’m kidding. I’m so bad at this game. After so many years playing you’d think I may be better.”

“Amazing.” Skylar beamed, offering an enthusiastic thumbs up and leaned against the Pac-Man cabinet. She watched as Rio rubbed at his ears, saw how he seemed to wince just a bit at all the sound around them. It must be so loud in here for him. Digging around in her pockets, Skylar pulled out a small pack of tissues and held them out to him. “Do you think these might help?” She signed, “With all of the sound?” Skylar gestured to his ears. They weren’t quite ear plugs, but they would be better than being forced to listen to all the noise around her. As she watched the little flapping mouth run around the maze of bright pellets, Skylar relaxed a little bit. This was normal, this was fun. Even if neither one of them were quite normal, at least they could still relax like regular people. “I mean, I think it just takes a little bit of practice. And figuring out what works for you.” Sticking a quarter into the game, she signed quickly before the game started, “I always go for the bottom area first. See?” Skylar said as she played through the first stage, then the second, before she lost her first two lives on the third stage and the Game Over image blinked on the fourth. “I’m not great, but I’ve played it a lot.” She signed.

Skylar had taken notice, and the next thing Orion knew she was holding out tissues and offering them to him. He wasn’t sure how much it could help, but just knowing that Skylar was thinking about that for him was all that mattered. He took the tissues, signing a quick thank you before tearing it and stuffing a small portion into his ears. It didn’t fix things perfectly, but the loud sounds from the arcade and children were dulled at least a bit which helped tremendously. Rio settled in to watch Skylar and appreciated her strategy, carrying her all the way to the fourth round before dying. “Hey, I usually lose my first life in the first round or two. You’re better than me.” He grinned. He jumped on next and true to his word, by the time he finally scraped his way to the second level he had already lost two lives. It put him at a disadvantage from the beginning, but he was starting to get confident that he could at least get to the third, clearing three corners and heading towards the fourth with the ghosts double teamed him, coming from both sides and cutting him off before he could get to the slightly larger ball. The game over screen flashed, and Rio sighed before giving a knowing look towards Skylar, “See?” Rio pushed out of the chair, floating around the machine to see if Skylar was going another round or if Dig Dug had stolen her attention. As thankful as Rio was that Skylar had not mentioned anything about the prior weekend’s drama, he had to admit it left him a little nervous. Was she avoiding the topic? Had she just not seen it, by some miracle? Eventually, the pressure became too heavy and Rio found himself sighing, barely mumbling the words out loud, “So. You haven’t asked about last weekend at all.”

Smiling, Skylar offered a slight nod in acknowledgement as Rio filled his ears with tissues. It wasn’t perfect, but she could understand the discomfort that came with having sensory issues. Her hearing aids might help her, but they had their own drawbacks-- with all the noise around them, she couldn’t parse out anything, couldn’t really distinguish what was what. It all jumbled together into a barely comprehensible mishmash of sound. “It’s all just practice. I used to play it a lot when I was home sick. My brother had a whole bunch of old arcade games saved on his computer.” Skylar explained, whispering and signing as Rio took his turn once more. She wondered how Hunter was doing. He would have just finished his first year in college… Did he miss her? Did he wonder how she was? Or was he too busy with his classes to even think about her? She blinked, shaking her head slightly as she realized Rio’s lips were moving. She couldn’t quite make out the words. She’d been too distracted to catch them, she’d only seen something that looked like… Wheat thin? “Hm? Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” She signed apologetically. “Something about… oh.” The word clicked into place. “The weekend.” Her cheeks went red and she shook her head. “You don’t need to talk about that if you don’t want to. It’s okay, really.”

Despite the obvious differences, Orion had always felt connected to Skylar. Besides their common interests, their experiences actually seemed to be somewhat similar. Rio had never had a lot of illnesses to deal with growing up, but he had been forced inside for other reasons. Just like Skylar, he had turned to gaming and reading to pass the time while he was locked in his house. “Makes sense. I usually played gameboy or read whenever I was in my room.” The situations weren’t that comparable, Rio knew. He had been in good health at least, for what that was worth. He didn’t want to try to compare their experiences too much. At the end of the day, Skylar was still born into a species that Rio’s kind hunted. That was an advantage whether Rio accepted that heritage or not. Skylar zoned out for a minute, lost in some other thought. He happily signed it again, speaking the words quietly as he did. So she did know about it, but had not brought it up. What a good friend. “Thanks.” Rio signed as sincerely as he could. Because he was truly so, so thankful, “Just know... that wasn’t me in my right mind. And I wouldn’t do something like that to Winston.” Well, technically he had. But not while under the influence of a love potion. “But let’s see if you can beat the highest score in Dig Dug” Rio’s face beamed, pointing toward the arcade and rubbing his hands together excitedly.

“Mhm, I’d do that a lot too. But sometimes I’d get bored of Pokemon for the fiftieth time, you know? My brother found an emulator with arcade games, so I got pretty good at them.” Skylar said, remembering how quietly bashful Hunter had been when he’d shown her the games he’d picked out for her. It was, she realized now, how he’d shown how much he cared for her. The little conversations about video games, anime, their shared nerdy interests. She wondered if he still had that emulator on his laptop. Or if he’d deleted it too. As Rio continued to sign, she could see the emotion flickering on his face, the nerves. “I don’t really need to know what happened, if you don’t want to talk about it. But, I’m glad that you’re back to normal now.” She signed and nodded at the prospect of Dig Dug. “I don’t think I can beat the high score… But, I’m happy to give it a shot.” Skylar responded with an enthusiastic grin.

“That’s really cool,” Orion had basically abandoned talking at this point, mouthing the words without using any sound. He was glad she had a brother like that to share games with, even if she didn’t mention him a lot. Athena had never shared many interests that Rio had. “Maybe another time?” Rio signed with relief, happy that Skylar didn’t need some big explanation. Rio had embarrassed himself enough. He was tired of thinking about it, and more exhausted trying to explain it to people. Regardless, he was thankful that Skylar was willing to ignore it and continue on as if nothing happened. Considering how their relationship started, it seemed like a big development. There was a certain amount of trust that Rio wasn’t sure he would ever be able to earn back. It was nice to know that he had at least won some. Skylar was a good friend, and Rio was lucky that she had forgiven him. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she hadn’t. “Hey, I have faith in you. I think you’re going for the gold. I want your name up in first place. You got this!”

“Whenever you want to talk about it, let me know. Or if you don’t want to talk about it ever, that’s okay too.” Skylar nodded as she signed. She knew all too well what it was like, to have people want to hear about what was going on, to want to help and listen. But, when there was just too much shame, too much that people wouldn’t understand? She wouldn’t put pressure on Rio to open up if he didn’t want to. As they finished up their last round on Pac-Man, with Skylar getting halfway through stage seven before she lost focus because of the sharp ringing sound of alarm bells going off from a nearby shoot ‘em up game that sent feedback through her hearing aids. At that point, she decided it would be easiest to just turn them off. At least she wouldn’t be overwhelmed with sound. And besides, Rio was really good about signing with her. It was much appreciated in places like this. “I’ll do my best.” She signed before slipping a coin into the machine and watching intently as the little space man looking guy began to dig through the ground. “It’s really cool that there’s a place like this in town.” She whispered as she played, knowing Rio could hear her. “It’s nice to be able to just play games, you know?” And not worry about everything else that happened in White Crest.

Orion enjoyed the moment of peace the two were able to share. The town had a way of constantly changing and throwing people for a loop. This week it was a love potion, who knew what next week would bring. So in between it was nice to have some time to just enjoy life with a friend. Rio didn’t bother answering Skylar while she was playing. He didn’t want to distract her, plus Rio had noticed her flip her hearing aids off earlier. Instead he waited until she finished a level, taking advantage of the break between to turn towards her. “God, it’s so nice to just be able to unwind for once. This place was like a mini safe haven for me as a kid.” There were a few around town. When he needed to be away from his family or alone. The arcade and the drive in theatre were his most popular spots. The more sensitive his hearing got, the more often the drive in won out over the arcade l. Until he stopped coming altogether. But being here now, especially with a friend of his made him realize how much he missed the place. And how much he would enjoy it now coming back. “I’m really glad you invited me. It’s so nice to be able to do this.” Rio grinned at her, noticing the screen change and signing quickly, “Next round coming up. Get ready.”

Dig Dug might have been one of her favorite games, but Skylar wasn’t very good at it. She never could get the hang of dropping the rocks on the enemies and, more often than not, she wound up creating strange winding paths in the dirt that did very little to help her progress. But, she made it through the first stage and watched as Rio signed. It was nice of him to sign with her like this. As Rio talked about unwinding, Skylar remembered that he had lived here his whole life. What must that have been like? She’d only lived here for a year-- God, a year-- she could only imagine how hard growing up here must have been. “I’m glad that you had some place like this growing up.” She replied with a smile. “And yeah, of course. There’s been so much going on, I just thought it would be nice to do something fun for once.” Focusing on the game, she made it through a handful more of the levels before her little explorer man was unfortunately smushed by a poorly timed rock at just the wrong moment. “Mmm. Your turn.” She beamed

Orion couldn’t agree more. It was nice to do something for once. His week had been occupied by being drugged and then punched. He wouldn’t have called it the most successful of weeks, if it hadn’t been for this small reprieve. But knowing that things were good here gave Rio hope that the rest would turn out okay as well. For now, he just wanted to focus on enjoying it. He had been studying the screen intently as Skylar played through. He held his breath at every last second dodge. Cheered every time she defeated an enemy. Gasped when she lost a life. Finally, once she lost her last life Rio dramatically waved his arms in the air, silently miming an extended NOOO! He bashfully took the controls afterwards, afraid that he couldn’t measure up to her playing. He made it a few levels mostly unscathed. He started fumbling on the fourth level, second guessing a move that led to his death. He sighed, but carried in. He made it another two levels in before he eventually lost entirely. As far as Dig Dug went, it may have been his best game yet. “Have you played Space Invaders? It’s the only game I managed to get a high score on in here.” Rio’s smile was wide with pride, “I mean, it was like tenth place or something but small victories, right?” He shrugged, taking the win. “I think that one is two player. Want to check it out?”

Rio’s enthusiasm as she made her way through the game was really encouraging, if a little distracting. But, it was still nice. Skylar had never had friends like this, who shared her interests, who enjoyed the games she did. Then again, she’d never really had friends before coming to White Crest. Just people who moved in and out of her life, never really making any lasting connections. She’d had people who had helped her out of pity or maybe guilt. But she’d never had friends like the ones she’d found here. Like Winston and Remmy and Rio and Morgan and Shiloh. The thought of Shiloh made her cheeks flush slightly and she was grateful for the glow of arcade machines to hide it. Skylar turned her attention to Rio’s game, gasping as he dodged around the screen, carefully weaving around the enemies. He was so good at this game, really. “That was so good.” She said, holding her hand up for him for a high five. At the mention of Space invaders, Skylar beamed. “That sounds great to me.”

“That was… lucky.” Orion paused midsign before finishing it. He had never considered that the enhanced reflexes that came along with his hunter genetics would help him in video games too. Rio had always been a bit of a spaz, and he thought that probably got in the way of any enhanced reflexes being offered to him. With Skylar he had been able to relax a bit, which made focusing on enjoying the game instead of stressing about dying easier. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that well before.” He laughed, returning the high five and jumping up from the seat. Skylar seemed just as excited about the idea of playing Space Invaders as Rio was. The two found the machine, Rio practically bouncing across the carpet in excitement. He slid into the seat next to Skylar and slid in the two quarters for the two to get started, “You ready?”

“That was amazing, really.” Skylar said with a smile. As the two of them made their way to the next game, she couldn’t help but think about how… good all of this was. Maybe, maybe life in White Crest wasn’t easy or simple. But, there were still good moments. And those made all the difference to her. Just being able to pretend like there wasn’t some secret of her looming over her head, that this entire town didn’t have danger lurking behind every corner, it was nice. Moments like these were the ones that counted. “Yup.” She said, giving Rio a thumbs up and a grin. “Game on!”

#p: tpg #p: orion quinn #chatzy #wickedswriting

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helenamayhathaway · 4 years

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For those of you who missed what is probably the best ficlet I’ve written thus far, here it is (and also here):

Prompt: prince keeps rejecting marriage proposals because he’s secretly in love with the cute gardener boy (via @pansexual-pandemic) ...but I got a lil Sleeping Beauty with it.

“Royal matchmaker this, royal matchmaker that, honestly, at this point, I just feel like glorified furniture,” Ray says.

“Hey, you know, it could be worse,” Frank shrugs.

“Worse than what? This was supposed to be like, a five-month gig! It was just supposed to be ‘oh find the Prince a wife and then here’s some money’ but no!” Ray says, his voice sounds angry, but Frank knows that he isn’t really. His official title may be ‘royal matchmaker,’ but Ray has been his friend since he showed up to town four years ago. Four years. Wow. That’s a lot of years of Frank rejecting every girl to cross his path.

It’s not so much rejection as Frank just knows they’re not the one. How could they be? He’s sure he’ll know it when the right girl turns up, but he hasn’t met her yet. He knows it’s important, because there are deadlines to consider, but it just hasn’t seemed important enough for him to start being serious about the subject.

Frank has Ray lagging behind him as they stroll through the property, Frank assuring both his guards and Ray that he just wanted some fresh air. He likes it out here, it’s far less stuffy than the palace, which is always a little too warm, and smells old. Frank’s family have lived in that palace for generations, for so long that there are hundred-year-old paintings hanging up in the hallways of people long dead who have Frank’s eyes.

He doesn’t have a trajectory, at least he doesn’t think he does, but he does end up somewhere very particular anyway. Frank always ends up in the gardens. He likes the way the flowers smell, and the way the flowers look. They’re beautifully arrayed, masterfully pieced together to show off every single color of the rainbow, for at least nine months of the year. The flowers that grow in winter are more muted, but just as beautiful, and just as expertly arranged, because the garden is kept in the two most capable hands in the entire kingdom.

Frank bites his lip, looking at one particular bushel of flowers near to him when a familiar voice from behind him says, “those are called impatiens.”

The voice belongs to someone that Frank has known all his life. He turns to see him, the ever smiling, wonderful Gerard. Frank has known him since they were both little kids, Gerard’s father was a gardener to this palace long before he was born. Since childhood, Gerard’s been his closest friend in the world, and probably the only one who doesn’t judge Frank for not falling in love. That’s not to say Gerard isn’t judgmental, because he has made fun of just about everything Frank has ever done ever, and Frank has threatened to lock him up every single time he does it, but that just makes Gerard laugh at him harder.

“Hey, Gerard,” Frank smiles back at him. Gerard’s smile is contagious, absolutely gut-punching. He’s got long, dark brown hair, and eyes the color of the earth he plants his flowers in. It's not in the job description, but Gerard's probably the most attractive gardener in the world. “Impatience you say?”

“No, I said impatiens, not-”

Ray interrupts him to say, “It’s not impatience, Frank, there’s a deadline. You’ve got until you’re 21 before you go to sleep for all eternity! If I don’t find the love of your life before then, we’re all fucked!”

“Why does everyone believe in that silly curse,” Frank groans. Truth is, Frank knows it’s real. Why wouldn’t it be? People have curses placed on them all the time; it’s just what life is like. But he’s trying to make people worry less about him. He’s still got 6 months, it could happen. Princess charming will come waltzing in through the palace doors and Frank will hear a chorus of bells. You know, probably.

“We all need some time away from you,” Gerard says, sighing, “I know I can’t wait to be rid of you for a spell.”

“Exactly!” Frank says, “Oh, and Gerard, you’re fired for that comment.”

“Oh, agony,” Gerard sighs, raising his arms up in defeat as Frank smiles at him. He crouches back down to work on a little patch of soil that he’d been busying at before Frank so rudely interrupted him.

“It’s not funny, Frank,” Ray says. “You’re the only heir to the throne! What do you think happens when it all goes belly up?”

“Well, I imagine you all have a little laugh and find a proper replacement,” Frank says with a shrug. “Perhaps, Gerard here. He knows how to grow flowers, surely, he must also know how to manage the socioeconomic divide.”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Gerard nods overdramatically, “Read all about it in the farmer’s almanac.”

“It’s not a joke, you two!” Ray says, sounding aggravated, “if I don’t find you a wife, you’re basically dead. And also, I don’t get paid.”

“Oh, agony,” Frank and Gerard both say.

~*~*~*~

He and Frank are having a staring contest. Neither of them asked if they should have a staring contest, they’ve just been doing it. He supposes that that’s not particularly abnormal for the two of them. Not the staring contest in particular, they just tend to mirror each other. Frank blinks first, which makes Gerard smile a silent victory.

“Why are you smiling?” he asks, though they both know that Frank loves Gerard’s smile and would never complain about it. It’s the greatest smile in the kingdom, Frank is willing to die on those words.

“You know why.”

“I don’t know at all.”

“Sure, Frank.”

“I didn’t even know we were having a staring contest.”

“You’re the one who mentioned it,” Gerard says.

Frank scrunches up his face, “damn, I fell into my own trap.”

“Dumbass,” Gerard says, rolling his eyes.

Frank looks around the two of them at the grass. Gerard has just been picking flowers for the entrance hall of the palace when Frank stole him away because he’s hiding from his father. Being the future prince comes with a lot of responsibilities, but sometimes Frank just wants to hide away with his best friend.

“What are those called, anyway?” he asks, pointing at the pink flowers in Gerard’s hand.

“Camellia,” he responds.

“Those are my new favorite,” Frank declares.

“You have a new favorite every other week,” Gerard responds. “Last week you specifically liked yellow roses.”

“Well, that’s because whichever one you pick are usually the prettiest ones.”

“Oh, how you mock me,” Gerard says, feigning annoyance.

“Hey, that time I tried to tell you I liked dandelions you threatened to end the royal line, so I’m just trying to stay on your good side,” Frank laughs.

“I wish you liked any of those girls as much as you like flowers.”

“Ugh, let’s not talk about this, I get enough of it from Ray,” Frank groans. He’s already met with two girls this afternoon, and he’s worried if he goes back to the castle, there will be a long line of more. He didn’t know that there were that many people in existence. There’s at least a few who have snuck in a few times and think that he doesn’t recognize them. Perhaps there are more who have snuck in that Frank genuinely hasn’t recognized.

“You’re running out of time,” Gerard says.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll meet someone; we’ve still got like 4 months! It’ll sort itself out.”

“You need to try harder,” Gerard scolds. “You’re not giving them enough of a chance, dumbass.”

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t fall in love with someone who’s not my one true love, that’s not exactly going to cut it is it? I’m not saying the curse is real, because that is some bullshit, but if it were real, it’s not going to go away by me wanting to fall in love with. My soulmate is out there somewhere, I just have to meet her,” Frank says. “Oh, and by the way, for that comment, it’ll be a flogging.”

“You’re a piece of shit,” Gerard says.

~*~*~*~

“Who the fuck would ever want to fall in love with you?” Gerard says, incredulous. He rarely ever gets to actually witness Frank when Ray’s in the midst of matchmaking, but honestly, if that’s how Frank acts with every girl, then it’s no surprise he doesn’t have a one true love. There’s probably no girl out there at all in the whole world who would ever fall in love with Frank. He’s a jackass.

“What can I say,” Frank shrugs.

“You’re a jackass,” Gerard tells him, because he’s not one for holding his tongue.

“Gerard!” Ray says emphatically.

“I’ve called him worse than that when I’m not annoyed with him,” Gerard says with a shrug.

“Still,” Ray says. “Be easy on him, it’s not some small task, all of this meeting and greeting and trying to establish a connection with so little time to do it.” Gerard is low key not sure what Ray actually does. He used to know what Ray did. Back in the day, four and half years ago, Ray used to pair Frank up with girls who fit a certain mold. He screened the girls before they made it to the ultimate rejection that Frank gave them. Nowadays, literally any girl above a certain age is allowed to “try out.” Nowadays, it seems like all Ray does is watch and make sure that Frank isn’t purposefully rude or shitty to them.

In all fairness, Frank isn’t actually mean to the girls. He just isn’t very opening, not the way he is with Gerard at least. He can say or do anything he likes to Gerard, and they’ll roll the joke around for a few weeks like nothing.

He can’t fathom why none of these girls know how to establish a connection with Frank, when he’s so pathetically easy to understand, or maybe that’s just how Gerard views him. He’s very simple. He’s also stupid as shit, and Gerard tells him as such.

“You’re stupid as shit.”

“I don’t see you falling in love with anyone!” Frank says.

“That’s because I’m not going to go to sleep for all of eternity in less than a month!” Gerard bites back at him.

“You two have a dichotomy I’ll never understand. If only there was a girl in this world who was as dumb as the two of you, maybe I could get Frank to fall in love with her,” Ray says, almost to himself.

“Fuck you,” Frank says. Ray is a very good friend of Frank’s, honestly and genuinely, but literally no one in the entire kingdom lets a ‘fuck you’ from the prince roll of their back besides Gerard. Ray knows it’s a joke, but he’s still a little shaken by it.

“I bet whoever your soulmate is is as ugly as you are, and twice as annoying.”

“That’s a hanging for you,” Frank says.

Gerard makes a very loud, aggravated sound and storms out of the room. He’s not sure why he’s angry. He didn’t used to get angry at Frank for turning girls down. He used to let it be a joke. Because that’s all it was when they were both 17 and this all started out. He laughed off the idea of his best friend in the world, the boy he knew since before he understood what royalty was, could fall in love. Now he’s becoming increasingly distressed. If Frank doesn’t find her in less than 30 days, he’s done for. The stupid motherfucker, he’s most definitely met her and rejected her already, because he’s too dumb for this world.

But god, if Frank goes to sleep forever, Gerard’s life will screech to a halt. He’ll just stop caring about everything. Frank is his best goddamn friend in the world, and without him, not even his flowers will be enough color to populate the darkness that will fill him.

~*~*~*~

“What do you think is going to happen tonight?” Gerard asks. It’s fully starting to sink in now that he’s going to wake up tomorrow and Frank won’t. Tonight is the night of “the big sleep,” as Frank has dubbed it. Frank is literally the only person in the entire Kingdom not taking it seriously. He can’t honestly believe that the curse was fake, can he? An evil witch doesn’t show up on your doorstep to curse you to fall asleep when you touch a spindle just as a party trick. That’s a clear sign. Frank is going to as good as die tonight, because the obstinate little shit couldn’t fall in love with the 21 years, he had to do it in. Just meet one girl and love her. That’s all he had to do.

“I’m going to take a nap,” Frank says, laughing. Gerard pushes him in the shoulder, angrily, because he is angry. Frank is not taking this seriously. For him, he’s just going to be asleep, he won’t know, but for everyone else around him. That’s the end. He’s going to be gone, for just about ever. Maybe he will still be alive, breathing, sleeping, but he’ll be dead to everyone else. All because Frank couldn’t find his one true love who will kiss him and bring him back to life.

“That’s not funny!”

“You used to think it was,” Frank says.

“That was before it was, like, real,” Gerard says. He should feel guilty, he supposes. He knew this was coming, but he kind of just assumed that everything would sort itself out. Frank is the most charming, wonderful, beautiful person in the entire world. How is it possible that any girl could help falling in love with him? Clearly, it’s Frank’s fault. Every girl is ready and willing to bring him back to life, but Frank’s picky. He needs to find his one true love, and even though it seems every eligible woman in this kingdom and all the girls from here to three kingdoms over, has tried to offer themselves to him, he somehow hasn’t found ‘the one.’ Gerard suspects that he probably has found the one, but he joked her away.

“It’s always been real, Gee,” he says, and for the first time probably in either of their lives, Frank is looking directly into Gerard’s eyes with the solemn understanding of what is going to happen. Yes, Frank is going to ‘die’ tonight. Yes, his best friend in the entire world is going to have to look at Frank’s lifeless, sleeping body for the rest of his life unless a miracle strikes, and Ray is able to matchmake him while he’s unconscious. Yes, Gerard will be heartbroken, and the reputation that Frank has given him for having the brightest smile in the kingdom, will be lost as soon as Frank’s eyes close.

“I hate you,” Gerard says shaking his head. He wants to hug Frank, but he knows that it’s not seemly for the help to be so informal with royalty. Everyone in the palace knows that Gerard and Frank are as close as two friends can possibly be, but that doesn’t change Gerard’s status.

At the very beginning of the desperate search for a match, Ray had been ordered to only set Frank up with royals and girls from various noble families. When it was clear, that wasn’t turning anything up, they started allowing anyone to vie for his hand. Now, they’ve reached a standstill. New women showing up by the hour with a prayer and a hope that they could be the long-lost princess of Frank’s dreams. None of them have been.

“No you don’t,” Frank says, his smile doesn’t quite reach the sadness in his eyes. Gerard realizes that Frank might have been joking about the curse all this time as a defense mechanism. He knows what’s going to happen. He’s always known.

“I’m never going to forgive you for going to sleep,”

“Yeah alright.”

Gerard just crosses his arms and shakes his head. He glares out the window. It’s starting to become cold again, he’s gearing up to start fostering the winter flowers. Frank always says that he likes the bright colorful ones, but Gerard knows that the winter ones mean a little something more to him. The winter Jasmine is a welcome cut of white and yellow into the sullen darkness that his bedroom becomes when the moon rises earlier in the sky for months on end.

“You’re going to take care of things around here, aren’t you?” Frank asks, and Gerard looks almost offended by him saying that. “Not just the flowers. You’ve got to keep that big smile of yours. My father adores you; you know. He might be all chivalrous and try to hide it because of his, I don’t know, pretense of masculinity in being King, but like, he’s always liked you. You were my best friend even as a kid. He’s going to need you to help him get by.”

“I hate all of this. I won’t let you fall asleep. You can’t prick your finger if I chop off both of your hands.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

~*~*~*~

No one is entirely sure where the spindle had even come from. There had been four guards on the door, four at the windows, two stood inside Frank’s bedroom, and just about every member of the kingdom standing guard outside the palace doors in support of their beloved prince. There had not been a spindle in that room an hour before midnight, but once midnight struck, there it was.

Gerard knows it’s the curse, he knows it’s not Frank’s fault, but he’s not going to stop him from blaming Frank for touching that goddamn spindle anyway. All he had to do was keep his hands to himself, but he couldn’t do that.

The scream could be heard maybe not just through the entire palace, but perhaps through the entire kingdom. Gerard had been banished to the entrance hall when he heard the scream, and then the shouting, the running, the crying. He hadn’t been scared, sad, in disbelief, angry, or anything at all really. He had just been numb. He knew what had happened. He didn’t know what he was supposed to feel.

That was three months ago.

It hasn’t snowed yet this winter, and the people of the kingdom believe it never will until Frank wakes up. It hasn’t rained, snowed, or done anything. Some of the officials are saying that if they don’t receive some sort of precipitation in the next few weeks, they’ll be looking at a drought come spring. Maybe it’s what a kingdom without Frank deserves. A land without water is a land not worth living in, just as a land without Frank bares no real purpose either.

Gerard watches, waits, sitting on the steps of the front entrance to the palace, watching a girl that has surely already tried to throw Frank her love, walks up the stairs anyway. Every girl who had once bid themselves away to be loved by Frank has now returned to place one kiss on the cheek of the sleeping prince. He runs the little bouquet of sweet alyssum through his fingers, thinking about how Frank would stop to smell them, before asking Gerard to cover his room with the stuff. Frank always loved Gerard’s flowers more than anyone else. He doesn’t even think anyone would have noticed they even still had a gardener if it weren’t for Frank insisting that every room hold a testament to Gerard’s hard work.

Any minute now, that girl will come rushing back out the castle steps crying because it wasn’t her, she wasn’t the prince’s one true love. How important does she think she is to think she could ever be good enough for his prince?

Ray guides the girl in with a gentle nod of his head. He’s still hoping that one of these girls will be the one, which is stupid, because Gerard knows that she’s never coming. Frank would have noticed her, surely. He’s the smartest man Gerard’s ever known, of course Frank would know her when he saw her.

It’s dreadful to say that Gerard’s given up, but he has. He knows Frank too well to think that a girl he’s never met could ever be his one true love. Maybe one of these girls really was meant to be for him, but a kiss wouldn’t work if Frank didn’t know he loved her first. That’s the kind of person he was.

Was.

Frank is now a was. He’s no longer an is. He’s a was.

Pretty soon, they’re going to stop allowing Gerard to tend the garden. If water becomes scarce, they won’t have any to waste on some measly flowers. He’s not going to let that happen. Gerard will trek to the nearest lake, river, or ocean every single day without sleep in order to get the water to grow Frank’s favorite flowers. Because, what if, by some unimageable miracle, Frank wakes up and there are no flowers to greet him?

Gerard stays seated on these steps, watching his breath form a white cloud every time he exhales, but he doesn’t feel the cold. He doesn’t feel much of anything. Maybe he never will again.

She comes running out of the steps only a few minutes later, with her hands to her eyes, as soft sobs run through her, sobs that don’t even rip out of her like they should, like the ones that put Gerard to sleep every night. Her tears are vapid, she’s not the one. That’s not why you should be crying for Frank. Cry because he is the most amazing man in all the kingdoms, and cry because he can’t ever wake up.

~*~*~*~

He’s just received the news. As much as the King would like for Gerard to stay on at the palace, it would simply be irresponsible for a kingdom in drought to waste so much water on the flowers. Gerard had known it was coming. He refuses to accept it. He puts the kaffir lilies into the vase beside Frank’s bed, worrying that these are the last offering he’ll be able to give to Frank. He’s going to find a way to keep the flowers growing. At least enough to keep filling the room. He hopes.

Gerard knows it’s unrealistic. He’ll be in a lot of trouble if he starts literally draining a precious resource. But it breaks his heart in two to think about the sadness that would be in Frank’s face were the flowers to stop growing.

It’s been six months since he went to sleep. What should have been winter has come and gone. It was blisteringly cold, but there was no snow. Instead, everything had frozen up, the entire kingdom a dry, helpless place. Few girls were able to trek their way to the palace to even offer up their love to the prince, but it’s not like it would matter.

Gerard sighs, and sits himself on the bed right next to Frank. His sleeping face is devastatingly handsome, but more than that, it’s just devastating. Gerard has not been as frequent a visitor to his room as one would expect, because he’s been far too sad to see him. He only comes in to change out the flowers once they begin to fray and wilt.

It’s a Sunday, so they aren’t taking visitors, which means Frank will be all by himself until tomorrow when he’s sure more girls who think they’re the one find out that they’ve been kidding themselves.

Gerard looks at his soft face. Frank is so pale; he hasn’t seen the sun for real in half a year. He doesn’t look any thinner than he did when he went to sleep, so that might be part of the magic. His cheeks don’t have any color to them, but you can sit and watch his chest rise and fall. Gerard puts a hand on his chest just to feel it. He needs to know Frank is still breathing, even if it doesn’t really matter anyhow.

His skin isn’t warm, in fact, even through his shirt, Gerard can feel that he’s cold. The only indicator that this man is still alive is the feel of his chest, which Gerard savors.

Why is it better that he’s alive, never to be awoken than it would be if he were dead? Is that what that old crone had wanted to do in the first place? She wanted the entire kingdom to have hope, because hope keeps you thinking something good might happen. But really, that witch never intended for this story to have a happy ending. Maybe Frank doesn’t actually have a true love at all. Maybe that’s the game. That Frank is unlovable. She gave everyone a hope that the curse could be broken as long as he finds his true love, but she doesn’t exist.

Gerard had thought that the tears were behind him, but he catches a loud harsh sob in his throat, which physically pains him. He puts his head into his hands and leans away from Frank so that he can cry into them. And he cries and cries and cries. For an hour, maybe two, Gerard just cries next to Frank. Every few minutes, there will be a minute of pause where he stops, thinks that they’ve subsided, but then, the tears come back.

“This is all your fucking fault, you piece of shit,” Gerard says to Frank, turning to again look at his stupidly attractive face. No one has the right to look that beautiful, least of all not a man who’s as good as dead.

“You couldn’t just fall in love and be happy. No, you had to be a picky son of a bitch.” Gerard prods at his shoulder, like he would if he were waiting for Frank to respond to him, which he doesn’t do.

“You’re still picky. Girls are traipsing through here every damn day, and you just sit there like a pathetic little fucker.”

“They come in here and they kiss you, and you just lie there, because you’re stupid,” Gerard tells him. He puts his hand in Frank’s hair, he doesn’t know why, he just wants to. His hair is still soft, as if he had washed it just yesterday. He doesn’t have any real bodily functions, doesn’t need to eat or piss, so he’s literally as perfect as the day he went to bed, his 21st birthday. “They kiss your stupid fucking face, when they’re not in love with you, while the people who really do love you have to just look at you all the time and know you’re never coming back.”

Why won’t Frank listen to him? Why won’t he wake up so that he can threaten to put Gerard in the stocks? Why doesn’t Frank wake up to tell him to smile like he always used to? Why doesn’t Frank just wake up?

No one has called him Gee in half a year. No one has told Gerard how pretty his flowers are, or at least, no one has meant it the way Frank always did. No one has even really made a joke in Gerard’s direction at all. No one in the kingdom jokes, smiles, or laughs anymore, not with Frank in this state, but especially not Gerard. It’s very clear that Gerard has taken it worse than anyone else. Not even Frank’s own father, the King, has a comprehension of the pain Gerard feels when he looks upon his best friend.

“Fuck you, Frank. You know that I care about you, don’t you, dumbass? I care about you more than anyone in the world does. More than Ray, more than your dad, more than literally anyone. Why don’t you wake up for me?” Gerard says, and maybe just to prove a point he kisses Frank’s cheek like all those girls have done. “Wake up for me, you stupid fucking shit.”

Gerard starts crying again, practically draping himself over Frank’s body as he cries right against his chest, wishing that Frank’s warmth could seep into him and make him feel a little less alone.

…his warmth?

“It’s going to be the gallows for that sort of language.” The voice is very soft, and croaky, from months and months of disuse. Gerard’s crying halts, almost like someone has strangled him. He lifts himself up, hair in his own face, so he has to brush it aside so that he can meet those big brown eyes.

“Frank?” Gerard’s voice sounds so soft that he’s not sure if it was even audible.

“You’re my one true love, aren’t you?” Frank asks, looking very soft and sleepy, and barely even awake, which isn’t fair considering how much sleep he fucking got.

“I absolutely fucking am not,” Gerard says, something like repulsion in his voice.

Frank uses a very sleep hand to pull Gerard’s face to his and this time, though Gerard could not tell you at all how it comes to be so, his lips meet Frank’s own lips. Gerard’s never kissed anyone before, so he supposes it’s possible that all kisses feel as perfect as this one, but he also thinks it might be unlikely.

“Oh yeah,” Frank says when his smiling breaks the kiss, “I think you fucking are.”

“I am not,” Gerard says, being the one to kiss Frank this time. He doesn’t know what emotions he’s feeling right now. He’s feeling a lot of them. All of the emotions. Every last one. Rage, passion, sorrow, pride, happiness. The lot of them.

“Those flowers are very pretty,” Frank says.

“Fuck you,” Gerard responds. Frank has sat up in bed, when did that happen? Neither of them knows. Gerard is still kissing him; Frank is kissing him back. Softly, then angrily, because Gerard is furious with this piece of shit who had the nerve to go and fall in love with Gerard. This absolute motherfucker who would dare be Gerard’s one true love. Of course he’s not going to fall in love with a girl, they should’ve both realized no one else but him could be the one. Why didn't this stupid dipshit realize that they were made for each other? If he had, Gerard would have been saved from a lot of sadness and turmoil. Absolute piss for brains.

A voice comes screaming down the halls, a voice that comes from Ray. “It’s raining, Gerard, fuck, ow, stubbed my toe. Gerard, it’s raining, it’s actually raining!” There’s a lot of thudding before the door is whacked open by an overly excited Ray who’s here to tell Gerard what will probably the only good news for the rest of their entire lifetimes.

The two of them only pull away because they can sense something important is happening, though neither of them have a clue what Ray had just been screaming, or why it could ever be important in comparison to them kissing each other.

“What the fuck?” Ray says, as he’s stood in the doorway looking at a conscious prince.

“Have I missed much?” Frank smiles widely, and god, it’s that look, those pretty teeth bared, on that pretty face that finally allows what Frank has dubbed the brightest smile in the entire kingdom to return to Gerard’s face.

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