#and every time i was asking myself (without any knowledge about them) could we fal in love

[emlos]

im going through a lot of new things emotionally for the first time in my life and i dont like it

[secret-kpoplibrary]

Mafia’s Girl Pt. 9

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

Word Count: 3228

Warnings: Mentions of violence nothing too brutal tho

Genre: All things considered; pretty much fluff

Summary: Being kidnapped and hired by the biggest gang leader in your city was never part of your plan. Yet here you are, working for him now, doing odd jobs here and there, nothing too dangerous. Little did you know he wanted more from you than to be just another employee. He planned to make you his. How exactly was he going to do that? With your attitude it wasn’t going to be easy, but what Suga wants, Suga gets, every time. Would you be the exception?

***

Yoongi is practically out of the car before it's even stopped moving once they pull into the driveway. Leaving the others to handle the half conscious Jackson that they'd brought here.

"Jin?!" Yoongi calls as he storms into the house. He goes up to your old room and finds Jin hovering over you and Namjoon seated next to him. They glance at him momentarily before their attention is back on you as Jin finishes stitching you up, properly, unlike Jackson's men.

"What happened? Is Jackson-" Jin asks as Yoongi sits on the other side of the bed and grasps one of your hands.

"The guys should be taking him to the basement now. I'll finish dealing with him later." Yoongi says looking at your sleeping face.

"She'll need pain killers when she wakes up. Luckily there wasn't any internal damage, none of the wounds punctured any organs so she'll be fine, she just needs to take it easy for the next two weeks so she doesn't rip her stitches. Obviously I'll come back to remove them." Jin says standing up.

"Get the others and wait for me in the meeting room, thank you Jin." Yoongi says. Jin nods before exiting the room. Namjoon and Yoongi remain silent for a few moments before Namjoon speaks up.

"Do you have pain killers for her or should I run and get some before she wakes up?" He asks snapping Yoongi out of his trance.

"I'll have some brought to you. You can stay with her for now, you can text Taehyung if she wakes up while I'm gone. He'll let me know. I have to go tie up some loose ends." Yoongi says, any trace of sadness leaving his face.

"Okay." Namjoon nods.

"It's a good thing you came to me. She could have died there had it not been for you." Yoongi says as he stands.

"I know. I can't imagine what I'd have done without her if that happened." Namjoon says brushing the hair out of your face.

"You and me both." Yoongi says, more to himself than Namjoon, as he exits the room. The others discuss quietly as they wait for their boss to join them in the meeting room.

"Did he kill Jackson?" Taehyung asks.

"Nope. He beat him up real bad but he's still alive." Jimin says.

"How's y/n?" Hoseok asks.

"She'll be okay. She has a lot of stitches, and lost a lot of blood, but as long as she rests, drinks lots of water, and gets some food in her system, she'll be fine in a couple weeks." Jin says.

"She was sitting in a pool of her own blood when we found her. Looking at her, all cut up and bleeding, barely able to keep her eyes open... I wanted to rip Jackson's head right off his shoulders." Taehyung says.

"I'm sure Suga has something far worse planned for Jackson. Why else would he bring him back here?" Hoseok muses. The sound of the door opening immediately silences their conversation.

"So. There are quite a few things we need to discuss. We'll start with the elephant in the room. What to do about our dear friend Jackson." Yoongi says taking his seat at the table. "I've... deliberated about it and decided the fairest thing to do would be to replicate y/n's wounds on the one who inflicted them, let him bleed for a bit, and then one of you can finish him off." Yoongi says.

"Who did you decide?" Jungkook asks.

"Taehyung, would you like to do it?" Yoongi turns to him.

"Really?" He seems surprised.

"You saw first hand what he did to her. I figured you'd want revenge for your friend. If you'd rather one of the others do it though-" Yoongi trails with a shrug.

"I'll do it." Taehyung says.

"Perfect. Next order. We have to deal with her friend. Namjoon."

"What about him?" Hoseok asks.

"He's not one of us, clearly not part of our life, and he knows far too much."

"But he's the only reason y/n's here, alive." Taehyung frowns.

"I know that." Yoongi says.

"So what do we do about him?" Jimin asks.

"We can't kill him. Y/n would have our heads on a silver platter for that." Hoseok says.

"I know that-"

"He's a genius with computers, and we do need to replace Eric. Plus y/n's done entirely field work so far, it's not like she's done any of the hacking stuff you told her she'd be doing." Taehyung says.

"Taehyung we don't know him like that to just-"

"But y/n does. She trusts him with her life. More than she trusts any of us I'm sure. He's been there for her through everything. If she trusts him so wholeheartedly then I trust him. Especially since he risked his life coming here because he thought something was wrong. You could have killed him as soon as he walked into your office but he prioritized her life over his." Taehyung argues.

"Being loyal to her doesn't mean he'll be loyal to me." Yoongi says.

"I mean you didn't know if y/n'd be loyal to you but you fell in love with her." Jin says.

"Just give him a shot. The other option is to kill him and y/n would go mental if we did that. Plus he's better with computers than any of us." Hoseok says.

"If he's joining the team though you should probably have y/n ask him. She can probably provide a more convincing argument to him than the rest of us." Taehyung says.

"Fine, but for now he'll need to be monitored. Have someone follow him to make sure he doesn't do anything suspicious." Yoongi says to Jungkook. "Hoseok stay with Namjoon and y/n and take some pain killers with you for when she wakes up. Taehyung come with me. The rest of you are dismissed." He says exiting the room. Everyone scrambles to their designated directives. Hoseok makes his way upstairs quickly to find you and Namjoon.

"Hey." He says when he enters the room.

"Oh. Hi Hoseok." Namjoon says. Hoseok puts the pain killers on the bedside table and sits next to Namjoon.

"She'll be okay." He whispers more to himself than to Namjoon. "Thank goodness she's going to be okay."

"What kind of sick fucks would do this to her?" Namjoon huffs. "I thought she would be safe when she told me her dad was dead."

"She's probably never going to be totally safe." Hoseok says.

"She was safer before she met your boss." Namjoon mutters bitterly.

"Yeah, maybe, but Suga fell in love with this girl. Probably the dumbest thing he could've done for her because now she's gonna be in constant danger."

"You aren't helping." Namjoon grits out.

"But he'd put his life on the line for her. Just like you. Her safety is the most important thing to him. I mean he and Jackson have been allies for years but because you thought y/n was in danger he risked his alliance over the word of someone he didn't know, because there was a chance you were right, that she was there. Which she was, but none of us knew that going in."

"I didn't either, but I couldn't sit back and assume she was okay." Namjoon says.

"Which is fair. You're like family. Of course you'd be worried about her safety. Suga's worried about her safety too. I know it seems hard to believe but he really does care about her. Of course he protects his own but he put himself in the direct line of danger for someone that wasn't Seokjin hyung, Tae, Jimin, Jungkookie, or myself."

"Is that meant to make me feel better?" Namjoon asks.

"I know it doesn't make this situation suck any less but you should be glad that she has someone who cares about her so strongly."

"She already does. Me. And I won't be putting her in danger."

"Look I understand that this life doesn't appeal to you very much, but it's not like he's not capable of protecting her from any danger she may be in because he's in love with her. This should be a good example, you had the knowledge to find her and he had the resources to protect her."

"She wouldn't need protecting if he had just left her the hell alone. She's spent her whole life running from this stuff. Her mom died because people like him."

"From what I understand her mom died because of people like her dad and I know that you may not understand him but Suga is not like her dad. It's not fair to lump them together because they have the same... profession. A few bad apples doesn't make the whole grove bad as they say."

"This grove is made of bad apples." Namjoon shakes his head.

"So what about y/n? She's part of the grove too, and me and Tae. Are we all bad apples too? That's not fair to say we're all like her dad just because you're spiteful against him on her behalf. She's made her peace with it. She doesn't seem to regret being one of us."

"I never said you guys were bad. I never said she should regret doing this. I'm just worried, things like this may happen again and I may not be able to protect her, or even help her next time." He sighs.

"Yeah well you helped this time. Will this be the last time? Probably not. None of us know. To be honest the target on her head didn't die with her father. If she decides to her place as Suga's #2 then she's much safer. I mean sure lots of people would want to but very few people have the strength to go after his girl, that kind of attack requires numbers, defenses, skills that most of his enemies don't fucking have. Jackson's a close second to him but after this even he's done for." Hoseok shrugs.

"It just feels like she's running towards the one thing her mom died trying to keep her out of. I have to protect her but there's only so much I can do." Namjoon says.

"We all want to keep her safe. Sure we go about it differently but if we're all in agreement that her safety is important fighting about how to do it doesn't help us any." Hoseok says.

"Why did he have to fall in love with the only person I have left?" Namjoon frowns.

"Trust me he didn't go looking to fall in love with her. She doesn't make it easy for him either." Hoseok chuckles.

"She doesn't make anything easy." Namjoon smiles softly. The pair lapse into silence after that. It's maybe an hour later that you peel your eyes open. You glance around the room trying to pinpoint where you are. You see Namjoon looking at his phone and Hoseok with his head on the bed by your leg. You immediately try to ask Namjoon what he's doing here but the effort to talk results in a coughing fit followed by a pained groan. Hoseok bolts up right and his head snaps to face you in record time.

"Y/n." He says.

"You're awake!" Namjoon says. You let out another groan and nod.

"I have to go tell Y-Suga!" Hoseok hops up. You grab Namjoon and mouth water to him.

"Seok grab some water when you come back!" He calls after Hoseok as he darts off.

"Got it!" He shouts back.

"Thank fuck you're okay." Namjoon says grabbing your hand. You have a lot of questions, but you're not going to talk until you get water and something to dull the splitting pain in your side so you nod instead. Hoseok doesn't take much longer to come back with a bottle of water. He and Namjoon gingerly move you into a sitting position. They help you drink some water.

"We have to get you food before you can take the pain killers. But Jin's on his way up with something to eat for you." Hoseok tells you. You nod again.

"What happened?" You ask. Your voice is quiet and hoarse.

"What do you remember?" Namjoon asks.

"I was at work... and this guy came up behind me telling me to go with him. I was going to put up a fight but the other guy was sitting at the bar and- they threatened to hurt you if I didn't go with them. They knocked me out in the car and I woke up tied to a chair with this guy I met at boss man's party. He- was going to use me to get to him. It's in patches from there." You work out slowly. The sentences take some effort to complete.

"Well we can't fill in what happened before we got to you but Namjoon called Tae and had Tae bring him here to talk to Yoongi. He was so sure you were in danger, something about a tracking device in your ring. When he brought it to Yoongi he... went into action. We all headed to your supposed location. He and Tae actually found you. Yoongi laid a smackdown on Jackson, your kidnapper while Namjoon, Tae, and Jin brought you here." Hoseok says.

"Laid a smackdown?" You ask.

"I come bringing food for my patient." Jin says dramatically placing the tray in your lap. "You need lots of fluids so I made ramen." He says. "Take it easy for the next two weeks. I'll come take out the stitches then."

"Thanks Jin." You smile before turning back to Hoseok.

"Y/n you shoulda seen it. Man he rocked Jackson's shit." Hoseok says.

"Where's Jackson now?" You ask. Hoseok and Jin exchange a look and you notice Jin glance at Namjoon. You can't tell if Namjoon noticed the exchange since he's busy trying to help you eat.

"Uh well-" Hoseok's sentence stops before it begins as Yoongi walks into the room.

"How are you feeling?" He asks taking a seat beside your bed.

"Weak and in pain." You say. His face softens.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through that," he says running his hand through your hair. You find yourself leaning into his touch slightly. "Everyone out for a minute. I need to talk to her." Yoongi orders. Namjoon's reluctance to leave is evident but he follows Jin and Hoseok out regardless. "Y/n... what were you thinking? Telling that friend of yours about any of this?" He asks you. His tone is gentle but you know he's not happy with you.

"I couldn't leave him in the dark. We tell each other everything. Besides if I didn't tell him I could be dead by now." You say. "Being a mouthy hostage certainly doesn't get my any sympathy." You joke.

"That isn't funny. You could've actually been killed." He frowns.

"I wasn't though. You came for me. You didn't kill Namjoon when he came to you. He helped you find me." You say.

"We can't just have random civilians being aware of our well... everything-"

"He's not just a random civilian. He's all I've had for years. My mother died years ago, my father was never part of my life and he's dead anyway. Namjoon's it. He's my family. We look out for each other. Always." You say.

"He may not be a random civilian to you but to the rest of us-"

"He's the guy that's responsible for saving my life. You did all the action stuff but without him you wouldn't have found me until Jackson made a move and by the looks of it I may have been dead by then." You cut him off.

"Y/n-"

"Look I get it you're worried about your gang but I'm not apologizing for telling him about my involvement with you. It saved my ass."

"Let me talk for a minute. The boys think he'd be a valuable addition to the team. Replace our hacker." Yoongi says.

"I'm sorry you want him to join your gang?" You ask in disbelief.

"You're right, he's responsible for saving your life. Tae and Hoseok said he's a computer genius-"

"Taught me almost everything I know." You say.

"So ask him to be part of the team. Get him to join Bang Tan."

"I'll-see what I can do." You nod.

"Good." He says placing a kiss to the top of your hair.

"Thank you... for saving me." You say looking down at your bowl of half eaten ramen.

"I will always save you. I- love you. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you died on me." He says looking away from you.

"Yoongi-"

"I know you don't love me. You don't have to remind me." He says cutting you off.

"I don't know you enough to love you, but if you're willing to do things my way. Maybe we could get there." You say shyly.

"You mean that?" He asks hope gleaming in his eyes. You nod and smile at him. He smiles brightly back at you and in that moment you feel something in your chest, a flutter, faint but there. The moment is broken when Tae bursts through the door wiping his hands with a handkerchief.

"Y/n! You're okay. Thank goodness." He says walking over to you. You turn your gaze to him.

"Hi Tae. What's with the blood?" You ask taking another forkful of ramen.

"Ah, our friend Jackson," he says vaguely. He glances over you quickly. "Good. Looks like I covered everywhere." He says with a nod.

"What do you mean?" You ask.

"Jackson's in the basement. We figured it's only fair he suffer the same injuries as you, well I took the liberty of using a hot knife to do the job so it's probably worse but potato potahto." Tae says with an odd amount of cheer. "Would you like to see him before his 'execution' in two days time?" Tae asks.

"Uh... no thanks. I'd rather spend my energy recouping." You say.

"Suit yourself." He shrugs. Namjoon makes his way back into the room then.

"Hoseok took Jin to the hospital. He said there was an emergency with a patient of his."

"Guys, can I talk to Joon alone?" You ask looking and Yoongi and Tae. They nod and leave the room.

"What's up?" Namjoon asks sitting beside your bed.

"Thank you. For everything." You say.

"You don't have to thank me. We're family remember?" He smiles at you.

"Okay I have something to discuss with you, just... hear me out before you lose your shit okay?" You say.

"Sounds ominous." He raises an eyebrow at you.

"Well... Yoongi wants you to join us. Not as a field agent though. He wants you on computers. I guess Tae and Hoseok told him about you being a wiz with them and he's been trying to replace his hacker anyhow." You say.

"Join his gang?" Namjoon asks.

"Yeah. I know it's crazy, I know you hate this stuff, I just thought-"

"I'll do it." He says.

"What?"

"It's easier to keep an eye on you that way, plus I feel like I dragged myself into this mess the moment I showed up here." He shrugs.

"Really?"

"Yeah. If you're here then, this is where I need to be." He says with a smile.

***

A/N: AHHHHHHH ajfvbakdnvaefojslcvjndvmncvj I CAN’T BELIEVE IT

that’ll make sense when the next part comes out. I’ll explain in then

Part 9/???

[lunacatzuniverse]

Jumping to Conclusions A Romantic Logicality Story Collaboration  between @iris-sanders-athena and myself Triggers: Misunderstandings, Crying, Kissing word count 2046

Virgil was chilling in his room when he heard a light knock on his door. He knew just by the knock that it was Patton on the other side. Virgil opened the door and smiled at Patton. “What’s up?” he asked.

Patton looked at him and then at the floor, “Virgil? Uhm, why is it that-that everyone gets flustered with me when I talk about adultery? I mean it's part of growing up right?” Virgil searched Patton's face for some sort of joking air, but all he found was sincerity and innocence in his question.

“Patton do uh, do you, do you really not know what that means? I always thought you were like joking or something.”

Patton took a small step back, clearly uncomfortable. “Ya caught me kiddo. I honestly don’t know what it means apparently.”

Virgil looked at him a bit surprised,  “Oh. Um… Why don’t you ask Logan? He’s better at definitions and stuff like that.”

“I'm not going to lie Virgil he scares me sometimes. That's why I came to you,” Patton replied.

Virgil’s expression turned to one of concern. Sure, he knew Patton was afraid of spiders and other bugs and such, yet to hear him describe Logan in that way... “Patton it’s really worrying that you would think of Logan like that. You shouldn’t be afraid of him; he’s our resident nerd after all. Without him, Thomas would probably be well,” he chuckled nervously, “let’s not think of that.” Virgil sighed, “So uhm adultery is-”

“CRASH!” The sound made both Virgil and Patton jump.

“That came from the staircase,” Patton said worriedly. They ran over and looked down the stairs. Logan was laying at the bottom of the stairs covered with the tray of goodies he had planned on taking to his room. Patton ran down the stairs to his side “Logan are you okay?!”

Logan surveyed the mess he made, “Yes, I uh,” he took a second to recompose himself, “just forgot something and when I turned to head back downstairs my socks made me slip, and I fell the rest of the way.”

Patton looked at him with concern. “Oh well… Would you um like some help?” By now Virgil had joined them, ready to lend a hand.

Logan looked at them and back at the mess. “No thank you, I think I can handle this on my own. You and Virgil go and finish your discu- whatever you were doing. I think I can manage.” He gave Patton his most reassuring grin.

“Well ok, please be more careful next time ok?”

Logan nodded his head, and Patton walked back upstairs and disappeared into the hall. Virgil stood over Logan shaking his head at him, “Wow Logan, never took you as the lying type,” he held out a hand and helped Logan to a standing position.

“So you caught that?” asked Logan.  Virgil looked up the stairs to see if Patton was in earshot, then turned back to Logan and replied in a low whisper.

“Yeah, I heard that. Logan you know how I feel about lying.” Virgil pinched the bridge of his nose out of frustration. “Listen Logan I don’t have time for this right now though, so here’s the plan. I’m going to go comfort Patton, and you’re gonna clean this up. Give me some time to talk to him and stop by later so we can clear all this up okay?” Logan nodded his head. He didn’t like seeing Virgil upset like this, but he knew his lie earned him a little animosity.

Virgil reached the top of the stairs and looked down the hall; he saw the door to his room was closed. He walked up to it and could hear what sounded like crying on the other side. Slowly he opened the door and stepped in. “Hey Pat... are-are you crying?”

Patton was standing in the middle of Virgil’s room, with his back to the door. He turned around wiping the tears from his eyes. “Huh? Oh yeah, it’s just that- that Logan lied! He, he heard us a-and,” he started crying again, “he must think I hate him now and doesn’t want to be near me!” Virgil quickly pulled Patton into a hug and allowed him to cry in his shoulder.

“Patton he doesn’t hate you. He’s just,” Virgil let out a desperate sigh, “listen I’m not really the best at comforting, maybe we should talk to Roman?” Patton just stood there crying, and as he did so, he spoke into Virgil’s shoulder. It was hard to hear him, but for Virgil he was able to understand what was being said.

“I-I'm smart,” he sniffled, “really, b-but he just, just gets so upset!” Patton tried to catch his breath, “An-and I-I try to pl-play it off, b-but then I'm lying. Am I t-turning into Deceit?” He looked up into Virgil’s eyes. Virgil could see his room was starting to have an effect on Patton, so he tried to walk with Patton out the door, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Pat no! Of course not! You are nothing like Deceit. He’s a lot worse then what he wants you to believe.”

Patton lowered his eyes again. “How can you be sure?”

“Because... well,” he tried to put his thoughts into words, “I mean you’re you. You’re Patton! You wouldn’t lie to hurt others. Your caring and loving and make really good chocolate chip cookies,” he tried to joke. “Listen, we need to get you out of here. The room is starting to have a serious effect on you.”

“Hey Hot Topic, you have a,” Roman noticed the sight in front of him, “whoops! Never mind, didn't know you had company.”

“Oh hey, Roman. Um can you help me with... all of this?” he motioned his arms encompassing Patton. Roman cocked his head and tentatively entered the room, remembering the last time, he was in there.

“Uh sure, but uhm, may I recommend we move him to the mind palace in my mirror? As cool as your room is the effects it leaves on us is not be the best for lifting his spirits.”

“I know that Disney dork, but I already tried,” Virgil retorted. Roman shook his head and walked up to Patton. He gently rubbed Patton's back.

“Come on Padre, how's about we go to your favorite spot in the mind palace?” Patton slowly released Virgil and faced Roman with his arms open. Roman smiled and lifted him effortlessly into a bridal hold. “Come, I hear that the stars are shining extra special for you.” Patton didn’t complain; he buried his head into Roman’s neck.

Patton’s breathing hitched, and his eyes watered. “Roman w-why does he think so lowly of me? What did I do?” He started to cry again while Roman walked to his room.

“Who thinks lowly of you Padre?”

Patton muttered,  “Logan.”  Roman gave one of his dramatic gasps as he stepped through the mirror. Virgil waited a moment before taking his turn. He stepped away from the mirror and took a deep breath. He ran towards the mirror and leaped through it.

Once through the mirror, it was no longer day. It was now night, and the sky was filled with stars, and the aurora borealis danced among them. They were standing on a hill, not far from where they entered was a tree and a large blanket with pillows waiting for them. Virgil let out a small sigh. Roman looked expectantly down at Patton hoping to see him smiling at the sight. He was sorely disappointed. Patton’s cries had stopped, but he still looked as though he could break at any moment. He hugged him closer to his chest and walked over to the blankets. Gently he sat Patton on the blanket and snuggled up on his right side, while Virgil followed suit on his left.

“Why sweet sir do you feel this way about Logan?”

Patton’s voice was low, and he played with the blanket as he spoke “He… he always thinks I’m stupid. That I don’t understand anything. But I do! I may not know the definition of adultery, but I am smart! Just not like him. Just not in the way that matters. He’s,” Patton sighed, “perfect.” Patton fiddled with the fabric underneath his hands. “Maybe he’s right,” he started muttering, “maybe I am an idiot. I’m idiotic enough to mess up my chances with him…”

A voice sounds off behind them, “Falsehood.” The three sides turned around to see who spoke and found Logan, looking much more emotional than normal. He walked over so that he was directly in front of Patton. Logan dropped to one knee so that he didn’t appear as threatening and continued. “Never have I ever thought you were an idiot-”

Patton cut him off,  “stop lying Logan. That’s getting us nowhere.”

Logan looked at him hurt, “Patton, tell me this. When have I ever called you an idiot?” Patton looked at him with tears in eyes.

“How about almost every video we were in together?! I-I mean I guess in a lot of them we eventually saw eye to eye,” he trailed off and looked down.

Virgil gently laid a hand on Patton’s shoulder, “Uhm I think you might be, uh what it's called,” Virgil’s squinted in thought, “jumping to a conclusion. Logan I can admit sometimes comes across as a know it all.”

Roman continued his train of thought, “Talks with a degrading tone..”

Virgil nodded “Maybe sucks the fun out of some things.”

Roman nodded “He can be controlling.”

“He gets it! I can be a jerk at times!” Logan snapped. “Thing is, Patton, I love who you are, your smart, caring and at times a very funny guy. That’s what makes you, you! I don’t have emotions so I don’t really understand them. This causes me to neglect other’s feelings which I understand is not okay. I hope you can forgive me.” Patton looked up at Logan. His eyes narrowed and tears started falling down his face again.

“Fal-falsehood! If you didn't have feelings, you wouldn't have lied when you fell down the stairs. You wouldn't have tried to comfort me just now, and you wouldn't be crying like me.” Logan looked at him confused and touched his own cheek. To his confusion he found traces of his own tears had fallen, without his knowledge. What happened next surprised him. Patton lunged at him, tackling him in a hug. Logan smiled and wrapped his arms tight around him. As they sat hugging he slowly ran his fingers through Patton's hair to help calm him down. Roman gave a gentle nudge to Virgil and pointed to another blanket further away. Virgil smiled, and they went to lay down on the blanket. They watched the stars, each took a turn to glance back and ensure their friends were ok.

Patton pulled out of the hug and started to play with Logan’s tie. “Uhm now that I know you're not mad at me, could I ask you something?” Logan gave a small chuckle.

“And what’s your question?”

Patton looked at him with a confused quirky grin, “What is adultery?”

Logan let out an amused chuckle, “Well it’s when a married person copulates with someone who isn’t their spouse.”

Patton nodded his head thoughtfully, “And the word for growing up is?”

“Adulthood obv- Sorry I meant to say that it is referred to as adulthood Patton, thank you for asking me.”

Patton smiled at him, “Your welcome and thank you for explaining it to me. I guess my overreacting was really.” he gave Logan a mischievous smile “Infinitesimal”

Logan laughed. “OH, You're sooo lucky I love you.” He gasped after realizing he admitted it out loud and tried to quickly think of a way to cover up what he said.

Patton's eyes widen, and he blushed. “Well, uh truth be told, Logan. I,” Patton giggled, “love you too.”

Logan felt his face turn red, “o-oh.”

Patton starred lovingly into his eyes for a while until they eventually got a determined gleam. Before Logan could realize what was happening Patton tugged on Logan's tie causing him to fall forward and into a kiss.

Roman leaned over to Virgil and whispered, “Finally.”

[teamwynn]

The Night Voice Retrospective, Pt. 12

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 11.5 | Part 12]

Well, here we are. The final scene. The last precious few moments of the saga. And they are, naturally, utterly wasted. Please, join me in reviewing this thrilling conclusion, and marvel at how dead I am inside.

Welcome Home, Wherever That Is (I guess we’re just done now)

Okay, so now that Team Wynn is fucking decimated with one exiled, one dead, and one suicidal, let’s see if Team Magiere can swing a happier ending. Let’s return to where the prologue left off.

The unbelievably good news is that Team Magiere is still all together. And I mean that “unbelievably” literally, because Chap is now about 50 years old, which is 350 in dog years. I’ll chalk that up to being majay-hi or Fay or whatever, but Jesus. Chill, man. Anyway, they’ve returned home where Leesil--in this book’s shining moment of having someone actually be in-character--apparently just keeps adopting, like, hordes of children. This horde includes Wayfarer, but Magiere’s already made it clear that she was going to adopt Wayfarer, anyway, so no surprise here. It also includes, at this point, at least 6 unidentified boys. And we receive confirmation from what was hinted at in the prologue that Wayfarer and Osha, at some point between the main ending and the epilogue, got married--

Okay, you know what. You know the fuck what. Fucking.

I need a moment.

…

Okay.

So, if the series tried to pull this kind of thing in Between Their Worlds, I probably could have bought it. Without the knowledge of The Dark and the Dark through The Night Voice, I could have bought that Wayfarer and Osha were able to work their way through the bullshit that Osha pulled on her. If it had skipped from BTW to this epilogue, I could have reasonably believed that Osha apologized and made up for abandoning Wayfarer at the end of BTW and that she would forgive him.

But! That’s significantly harder to swallow knowing what we know from the rest of Series 3, which is:

Osha’s     motivation for abandoning Wayfarer was entirely centered on his effort to     get Wynn to make out with him again and no other reason

Osha     deadnamed Wayfarer multiple times in FaLS

Even     after Osha appeared to learn his lesson about why deadnaming Wayfarer was     wrong later in FaLS, he continued to do it in TNV

Wayfarer     pretty explicitly indicated in TNV that she no longer had a crush on Osha,     and not only that, but that she didn’t want to be friends or even speak to     him anymore

Their     last on-page interaction before the epilogue is Osha freaking out over     Wynn being blinded while Wayfarer is right there and basically going, “I     mean, I’m risking my life in the middle of the battle too, but yeah, no,     keep throwing a fit about this like Wynn’s the only person in mortal     danger here. Asshole.”

So how did we get from that to married? And could it possibly get worse?

Why do I even pretend to ask. Of course it could. This scene is like 3 pages long, but it somehow packs even more bullshit into fewer words than the previous scene.

So, not only are Wayfarer and Osha inexplicably married, but when Magiere asks about how Osha is doing, Wayfarer indicates in no uncertain terms that he’s still hung up about Wynn--30 years later and after seemingly not ever speaking to her in that entire time--and that he might be dying from that weird elven sexual-imprinting thing because of it. That’s alarming news! How is Magiere going to react to that?

Why, naturally by laughing it off and making oblique references to Osha’s current profession, which is something that is entirely unexplained, though it’s doubtful an explanation would clarify the nonsense that is Osha the Reindeer Farmer or whatever the fuck he’s doing with his life. Again, Magiere’s reference to his current occupation is pretty fucking vague beyond that it involves those magical deer that Osha hated. Oh, that wacky Osha! Always playing with deer and literally dying of heartbreak! What a scamp!

There’s not really much more detail beyond that for either Wayfarer or Osha’s endings that I haven’t already covered, except for these uncomfortable observations about how they fit into Team Magiere’s family structure:

Wayfarer,     who had a massive crush on Leesil in Rebel     Fay, is now calling him “Father.” NO THANKS.

If     Wayfarer is Magiere and Leesil’s daughter and Osha is her husband, that     makes Osha Magiere and Leesil’s son-in-law. What. The fuck. How is that an     actual thing that happened in canon???

Okay, now that we’re all sufficiently grossed out, let’s go more over the core team’s ending. Of course, returning to Miiska is something that has been a long time coming for Team Magiere. They haven’t been home since Child of a Dead God, when Magiere and Leesil had their wedding surrounded by loved ones and held the reception at the Sea Lion Tavern, the Ground Zero of all this vampire nonsense. So their ultimate return home should be at least as celebratory and communal as that, right?

Obviously this scene is set some time after they arrive back home, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t necessarily still be partying about that, but there’s still something suspiciously… I don’t know, absent about their homecoming. Like… all the people. And the town. And the tavern.

Did… did they even go back to Miiska? The town and the tavern were both mentioned by name at least once (maybe exactly once), but there’s not really any sense of the characters actually being there. And none of the townspeople (those minor characters from Dhampir, etc. that I mentioned a few posts back) are present at all, even though a number of them should still be perfectly alive to share in this happy (?) ending. What we get instead is Magiere and Leesil existing in this textureless void with their family of nameless, faceless young boys and Wayfarer on the side predicting the doom of Osha as well as Chap (both of whom are off-page this whole time, mind. Oh, did I forget to mention that Chap doesn’t even appear in the epilogue, despite somehow unbelievably surviving the entire saga? Because he doesn’t.) But Magiere gives about as much of a fuck about any of that as she did about Wynn dying, which is to say, not at all.

So, what is… even happening here?

Well, aside from Wayfarer helpfully reminding everyone that Death Comes For All, Magiere is just kind of blandly resigning herself to the reality that that includes Leesil, and that someday it’s just going to be her and Chane, eternally avoiding each other. (And Pawl, too, but obviously I’ll give Magiere a pass on not bringing him up because she never even found out that Pawl existed.) There’s also some weird musings on Magiere’s part about the fact that Chane probably has a soul, which has never been in question before so I don’t know why she’s so amazed by this probability. Like, vampires having or not having souls have never been a part of the lore in the series, and even if it was it doesn’t pertain to anything now. And for some reason she essentially lies to Leesil about not killing Chane--it’s neither clear why Leesil is gunning so hard for Chane to be dead at this point, nor why Magiere was unwilling to admit that she didn’t kill him again. She just kind of avoids Leesil’s questions about the matter and goes on blandly commentating for a few paragraphs about Osha and Leesil’s army of children. But I guess Magiere is happy with her existence in this vague void, waiting for the clock to run down on all her loved ones, comforted only by her smugness from seeing Chane cry. And… um…

No, seriously, what is happening here?

Did the epilogue already waste up all its emotional weight on contriving Team Wynn into the most melodramatically tragic situation possible that it’s just completely burnt out here? This whole scene just feels like a shadow-puppet of Magiere strolling across a completely blank background going, “I have family, death happens, sad but also happy, END.”

You know what, Magiere? You know what? I’m glad END. This book couldn’t fucking END too soon. Over 400-pages of complete fucking gibberish to cap off my favorite series of all time, because it wasn’t enough for the Noble Dead Saga to END poorly, but it had to make a goddamn show of it. I am genuinely amazed at how little this book delivered on actually ENDing anything. The number of plot holes and loose ends and retrograding character arcs is truly impressive, and on top of all that, this book had the audacity to not be audacious with all of that. This wild departure from the rest of the saga couldn’t have included alien invasions or dinosaur clones or any shit like that, no--this book managed to be an utterly convoluted counter-narrative to all the books that came before it while also maintaining a complete cardboard blandness. Truly astonishing that a book so contrived could also be so utterly ankle-deep shallow. This book fucking tangled itself in knots with teleportation trees and dog armies and battles in the center of il’Sanke’s mind and whatever the fuck either the wraith or the necromancer were doing in this book at all, and at the end of all of that, Magiere’s happy ending is just being kind of quietly pleased that her husband isn’t dead yet.

I am beyond myself in amazement. And I am so, so fucking tired.

Well, that’s it for every plot point in TNV that sent me into a frothing rage. Tomorrow I’ll be writing up a conclusion to all of this, because god damn I need some proper closure somewhere.