#and i used to want to be a commercial airline pilot too :(

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

I’m sorry but yeah Starscream kinda tracks

STOP I KNOW ALREADY

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP: Travel Buddy

"I already told you I'm not going to another country! I'm going to New Mexico!" The shout echoes with frustration across the airport. Dick looks up from his phone to where a man is arguing with a woman behind a counter. She has a pinched grimace on her face, an expression only those who have worked in customer service are familiar with.

It's the look of someone who dances on the line of "I don't need to up with this bullshit. I don't need this job" and "Think of your bills, think of your check, stay calm."

There is a long line behind him, where everyone is making faces at the delay.

Dick often preferred to travel with Justice League tech, as nothing beat the speed of instant teleportation, but he needed to have some records of traveling the normal for his civilian identity. It would be suspicious if he was seen worldwide with no signs of how he got there.

It was a necessary evil to have his loveable wanderlust persona that was Dick Grayson-Wayne. He had taken a few aspects of Brucie Wayne but replaced the playboy reputation with a restlessness that couldn't stand being in one place for too long.

Growing up with people constantly pointing out how attractive he was, which would have been fine were it not for the rich old men and women who leered at him through his teen years. He could not stomach being a playboy, allowing those who objectified him to think he enjoyed their attention.

It was easier to be the easily distracted, pretty son who was always away from home instead. It helped that Bruce had plenty of private jets to gift his son for whatever whimsy urge to move hit him. That was why he was in Illinois today.

Dick's jet had needed to stop for some fuel, and like most commercial airlines, they were told that they needed to wait before heading up again. They may have enough money to afford their own planes, but commercial planes have the right of way.

Then a storm was reported at Gotham Airlines, and his pilot told Dick they were grounded until it cleared up. It could be a delay of six hours.

Dick didn't mind, having told his staff to take a break. If it got too bad, he would buy everyone a hotel room to try again tomorrow. His private jet staff seemed stunned by the offer, insisting they could wait to see if it was clear enough to fly in a few hours.

He had decided he wanted to have some crappy airport snacks, as it was part of the experience, and walked around the airport munching on his chocolate donut. He found a little booth selling local coffee, prompting him to find a seat near the welcome counter and scroll through his phone.

He still had three hours to kill, so he considered exploring the area a little. I suggest finding some hotels just in case. There was little in this place. The closest city was Amity Park, but it was only beside the mall and a decent burger joint; there was little to do.

It was one of those small towns that, despite not having many people, was well spread out due to all the open spaces. The people who lived there either raised a family, retired or had bloodlines traced generations back to the town's founding.

"Sir, as I stated before, you need a passport, and you have to pay for an international ticket to go to Mexico," The woman hissed. Some people in line began muttering about how annoying the man was for arguing.

"All I have is my driver's license. I could go home for my passport. That's no issue, but I am not paying for an international ticket to Mexico when I am not going there! I'm staying in the US! New Mexico is a state!" the man shouts, flailing his long black trenchcoat. It makes the black ponytail swing side to side as he leans on the counter. "How do you work in travel and not know that!?"

"What is going on here?" A man demands, stepping beside the gumming woman. Dick can tell he is the manager just by the way his uniform looks different.

"This man is refusing to listen." The counter lady practically spits and is now leaning well over the "I don't need this job" side of the customer service line. Dick finds himself standing up as the manager gets a quick rundown of the problem.

The crowd was getting impatient, even with the two other representatives slowly calling up the next customer. Curious by the outcome, Dick drifts closer, listening to the man explain that he wants to go to New Mexico to study the enormous reports of violent paranormal sightings.

He was apparently visiting all highly haunted states in the US to write a book about the history of the hauntings, but when he was attempting to get his ticket, the woman had been convinced he was leaving the country. Dick watched in real-time as the manager also seemed to think New Mexico was in Mexico because he began to explain the international policy to the fuming man.

They threatened to put him on the no-fly list if he continued causing them trouble. That angered the traveler even more, and he raised his voice and waved his arms as he insisted the location be within the country.

Dick pulls out his phone, typing with one thumb quickly and pulling up a map of the country. He slid right next to the trio, standing at the stranger's left with an easy smile.

"Excuse me, can I have a moment of your time?" He asks

The woman's frustration is now nearing its tipping point, but the manager must have recognized him, for he hastily scrambles to make his expression more pleasant.

"Mr. Grayson-Wayne! Please give me one moment to sort this out. I can help you if that's okay with you. I'm sorry for the delay. Karen, call security to have this man escorted out."

"What!?" Demands the guy as the woman grins.

"With pleasure."

"New Mexico is a US state, " Dick cuts in, displaying his screen. "It's been one since 1912, I'm afraid."

The airline employees are pale as they stare at his phone before the manager pulls it out of his pocket and types rapidly on it. A few seconds later, his already white face goes even whiter.

Dick considers the man next to him, who has a grin starting to bloom on his face. It's a pretty handsome face if he's honest. A dig has him looking away towards his phone.

It's a message from his pilot. It seems the storm was due to Mr. Freeze, and they weren't expecting it to clear for at least four days. He was asking if there was anywhere else Dick wanted to fly to.

"I'm so sorry. I'll bump you up to first class." The manager says to the stranger, who is looking rather smug now. Dick considers his pilot's question before thinking, why not.

He does have an image to uphold, after all.

"Would you like a ride in my private jet? " Dick turns to the man, who blinks at him while cutting off the rambling of the woman and the manger. "I can drop you off wherever you want in New Mexico. Where were you headed?"

"Ugh, I wanted to visit Dawnson Cemetry, " the man stammers. "I-do you really have a private jet?"

"Yeah. Would you like to go with me?"

There is a moment of hesitation before the man grabs his wallet off the counter and nods. "If it's not too much trouble," he responds cautiously.

"It's not. I'm Dick Grayson-Wayne, by the way."

"Danny Fenton."

Dick waves the two employees away, winking at them as they slump in relief that Danny doesn't seem to want to make this into an incident. Likely, he had just been upset they weren't listening.

"Most haunted places in the US, huh?" Dick asks while sending a text to his crew. He gets confirmation that they can head over to the southwest post haste. "Aren't you scared of ghosts?"

Danny gives an odd little smirk. "I haven't been afraid of ghosts since I was fourteen."

Dick stares at his mouth a little too long, swinging his gaze back to his phone when he gets a message from Bruce. His dad had been informed of the flight change and was using the coded message to confirm Dick being the one to change it.

He types out a response, ignoring the fluttering of his heart. If he checks to see what other states are highly haunted as Danny looks around his jet with a fallen jaw, that's only because he has four days to kill.

[bekolxeram]

Sorry to bother you, but I thought maybe you could answer a question I have since I saw episode 2 :

For context, I have never been on a plane and all I know about them legit comes from all of your post 😶

But I didn't know a plane could fly and especially people in it could survive if they were a hole in the plane ?

I know it's probably a stupid question but if a plane can fly and people survive then why can't we open the windows during a flight ?

Is the hole in the show unrealistic or is there a perfectly reasonable reason for us to not open the windows ?

Thanks for your answer 😊

Yes! This one I know how to explain.

As I've said before, fixed wing aircrafts fly by directing airflow around their wings.

The higher pressure air stream naturally wants to move up into the lower pressure region, but because the wing is in the way, it pushes the wing upward as well, together with the rest of the plane.

At lower altitude, you have denser air, so more lift, but also more air resistance (we call it drag), so the engines have to work harder and use more fuel to just fight against the incoming air.

If your goal is to get from point A to point B as fast as possible while using the least fuel (it's expensive and not eco-friendly), you'd want to fly in thinner air at higher altitude, just enough air to keep the plane afloat, but not enough to slow it down too much.

The typical cruising altitude for a commercial jet airliner is between 31,000 to 38,000 feet. As comparison, Mount Everest has a height of 29,035 feet, so a bit higher than that. You see climbers at the Himalayas struggling to breathe at higher altitude, some even suffer from altitude sickness that can leak fluid into your lungs and brain. Planes flying that high are pressurized, keeping the air condition in the cabin close to that on the ground, so that the passengers can breathe comfortably.

If there's suddenly a hole in the plane at high altitude, the high pressure air inside the cabin will immediately starts rushing outside to the lower pressure environment. Anyone not wearing a seat belt (like Captain Dominguez) will be blown out of the plane, and those who are still on the plane will soon experience hypoxia due to the oxygen rapidly leaving the cabin (hence the oxygen mask). It's not a comfortable experience. Standard procedure in case of such rapid decompression for pilots is to make an emergency descent to below 10,000 feet, so that there's enough air to breathe for everyone, before they come up with a plan to land the plane.

A plane can fly with a hole in its fuselage, as long as you don't have passengers in it that need to breathe air. NASA used to have a 747 with a window at the back for a telescope, called SOFIA.

The window frame itself needed special reinforcement so that it didn't fall apart mid-flight, but it flew like a normal plane otherwise. The frontal half of the plane was pressurized though as a work space for scientists.

As for the survivability of being on a plane with a giant hole on its roof, it's possible, as long as the plane doesn't completely fall apart and there's no major damage to flight controls. Aloha Airlines Flight 243 in 1988, a Boeing 737, lost a sizable section of its fuselage skin, but it still managed to make a successful landing, with only one fatality (a flight attendant was blown out of the plane when the roof came off).

It's not comfortable or fun, but we've seen bigger holes in aviation history.

[laurieellingham]

✧･ﾟ— B A S I C S

— NAME: Florian Henry Morganthal

— NICKNAME/S: Laurie (preferred name) ; Ace (used by his colleagues)

— D.O.B.: 24th August 1971 (age 52)

— GENDER, PRONOUNS, SEXUALITY: Cis male, he/him, bicurious

— HOMETOWN: Daytona Beach, Florida, USA

— AFFILIATION: Civilian

— JOB POSITION: Flight Instructor and former Commercial Airline Pilot

THE CHANGE: Laurie's parents stayed together and he followed in his father's footsteps

— Laurie's father, Mitch, despite his high flying lifestyle, was a faithful man who loved his wife and son more than anything. He would be away for work most of the week, but would spend every waking free hour he had taking Laurie and Nancy to the beach, the cinema, theme parks, on sailing trips, and to the nicest restaurants in town. Not only was he a talented and well-respected pilot, but Mitch's generosity and community spirit (he would do anything to help the needy with any time and money he could spare) elevated him to a place of the utmost admiration and Laurie wanted to bask in that glory, too.

— As soon as he came of age, Laurie ensured he met all the necessary requirements to get into flight school. With a little help from Mitch when he could give it, Laurie excelled on his own merits and studied harder than he ever did at high school. He still loved to read, but it never became anything more to him than a hobby; he didn't really have time to read anything other than his study books. However, his favourite hobby is aviation history and has been his passion ever since he could read and remember the stories his dad told him about his own flying and how planes came to be. During training, Laurie also gained the admiration he always wanted from his peers and tutors, who were impressed by his natural ability for the job, and soon he acquire the nickname 'Ace', which stuck for the rest of his career.

— Laurie's career as a commercial airline pilot saw him travelling all over the world: a childhood dream of his where the only difference was he was the pilot and not the passenger. He spent the first few years being based out of Florida, but when he had begun to earn a better wage, he moved up to New York City and always made it a priority to visit his mother whenever he was making a stop in Florida. He has an apartment he keeps close to LaGuardia Airport in case he needs to fly, but spends his free time in bustling Manhattan.

— His travelling also allowed him to meet a wide variety of different people, including women who had a penchant for pilots and their uniform. Being the charming, witty, and handsome man that he was it was easy for Laurie to ask women if he could buy them a drink (or two) and it was more than likely that they would accompany him back to his hotel room. Sometimes alcohol didn't even need to be involved for anyone to make a move. Everything had fallen into place for him and his lifestyle was one he never wanted to let go. Unfortunately this meant that Laurie never had a relationship that lasted more that a couple of months. Most of the women he was with loved the uniform, but couldn't handle the job itself: long-distance was something they could never deal with and after a time Laurie gave up on dating completely. Much to the disappointment of his parents, he never married and never had children, but still swings by bars for a drink and an occasional one-night stand.

— Laurie retired from commercial piloting at the age of 46 and trained to become a flying instructor, ensuring his skills, knowledge, and experience wouldn't go to waste, but would instead be used to teach the next generation of pilots. He finds it easy to keep people engaged and makes learning fun, always taking extra time to help those students who need a little more support. He also likes to brag to just about anyone about his adventures, including his own father, and on weekends enjoys flying at his own leisure in his very own light aircraft.

[greenzaku]

How I remember MH17

17 July marks the anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) in eastern Ukraine in 2014. All 298 on board, mostly Dutch, Malaysians, and Australians were killed. I had just finished up with a short term job interstate and was looking for further employment at the time, and had the time to follow the reporting of the incident online. In 2014, I would not have guessed that the event would shape my view of discourse and disinformation in eastern Europe for years to come. Ukraine was on the other side of the world and I had no real interest or understanding of the invasion by Russia back then, but people from my country were on that plane, so I paid attention. The blame game started in earnest.

���Ukraine fired the missile.’

‘Russia fired the missile’

‘It was an accident.’

‘The Ukrainians are looting the crash site.’

‘The Russians are looting the crash site.’

‘Malaysian Airlines was at fault and shouldn’t have been flying over a warzone.’

‘The pilot was at fault.’

‘The investigation is biased towards Russia/Ukraine/Malaysia/Australia/Netherlands...’

‘Russia/Ukraine tampered with evidence...’

It even got ugly in some less reputable ‘news’ sites and far right conspiracy theories spread online, that it was the ‘missing’ MH370 that crashed into the sea months earlier, that the US did it because reasons, islamophobia, men in black, hijackers, crisis actors, aliens... As a queer person, I paid attention to the fact that several AIDS researchers were on board, and stigma surrounding AIDS was and is still very rife, which fed into the more extreme discourse. The world wanted answers.

Round and round it went. It did eventually emerge that Russia, or ‘separatists’ - really Russian proxies - fired the missile, from a Buk launcher that was later filmed being carted back to Russia carrying three missiles instead of its usual four. The billboard was used to geolocate the truck and Buk’s to the border.

Pardon my terrible MSPaint edit.

The still image is grabbed from a video that was posted by Ukraine’s Defense ministry, but forms part of a broader investigation by Bellingcat, an independent collective of open source researchers, that is too detailed to write here but tracked the movements of the Buk and the truck carrying it to and from the launch site. (link: https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/mh17/)

There was nothing wrong with the plane, the pilot, or the flight path. Passenger planes from Air France, Air India and Singapore Airlines were transiting nearby.

Now, it was obvious that MH17 wasn’t an intentional target. The commanders of the brigade that the Buk belonged to initially posted on social media that they had downed a Ukrainian fighter jet, and then rapidly deleted their celebratory comments when photos of the wreckage appeared online. In my mind, all Russia had to do was acknowledge it was a mistake, or a mistake by ‘separatists’, court martial the guy who pulled the trigger, apologise and fork out some form of compensation. Install a plaque at the site, send flowers, and the world would have eventually looked away from the not-really-civil-war in faraway eastern Europe and their brush with a southeast Asian airline.

Why the lies? Acknowledging the mistake would have been magnitudes cheaper and simpler than the overall war effort. Why was continuing to perpetuate a firehose of falsehoods more important than the truth and trying to repair relations? I couldn’t answer those questions then, but now realise that keeping the information space muddied and flooded with crap is now the norm for disinformation coming out of Russia. Its like they can’t help themselves.

Fast forward to today.

The ‘separatist’ commanders are still involved in the invasion of Ukraine, now unmasked as regular Russians. No commercial flights operate over the country for now. Disinformation, so heavily weaponised during the long months of pandemic lockdown and the former president of the US, runs rife. I posted my own little memorials to the tragedy on social media, year after year, and got bot farm and troll reactions downvoting or pushing them into invisibility. I’m not important enough in the big scheme of things to have a flesh and blood russian troll come to debate me, not that I have the time and energy for it. I’m also not the only person who refuses to forget it, even if the loss pales in significance to the atrocities perpetuated on Ukraine from last year. The lies meant that when the 2022 invasion started along with the inevitable discourse, we also remembered which side was more likely to be lying. The Netherlands and Australia are very supportive of Ukraine, Malaysia is officially neutral (mostly due to convoluted reasoning of America = bad imperialists, America supports Ukraine, so supporting Russia good etc) though many individuals still go against the grain to donate or volunteer. I can’t change what others think, but at least I can prevent them from forgetting.

[absentcaryatid]

Love Takes Flight

An ATEEZ fanfic by AbsentCaryatid

The reader falls for Yunho when the idol uses their services as a pilot to regularly visit family back in Gwangju. With help from Wooyoung, the affection is finally revealed to be mutual.

2.8K words, Content note: gender neutral reader, suitable for all ages, reader is referred to by pronoun they, nonjudgmental mention of weight for fueling purposes, food

~

In later years you could laugh about accusing your future husband of being a smuggler the first time you talked, but in the moment, the misunderstanding was mortifying for both of you. Luckily, Yunho did not hold a grudge and everything went smoothly from then onward, other than that memorable concert of course.

He had called after discovering your advertisement for small scale cargo shipping between Seoul and Gwangju. “I'm having trouble finding someone to do what I need. I'm hoping I came to the right person. The matter is urgent and very important to me. I'll pay well.”

“Look sir, I don't know what you think I do, but I never get involved in anything illegal if that is what you are asking.” The tone was cold and firm. You did not have much, but you had pride in running a clean business despite the many lucrative opportunities you could have put your plane to.

Even through the phone Yunho's embarrassment at your assumption was evident. Between shocked gasps he spluttered out, “I would never. It is nothing like that.”

Cringing at how badly the discussion was going, you became very apologetic. “I should not have jumped to that conclusion so quickly, I just like to make things very clear because people do ask it of me sometimes.”

Yunho was kind about the mistake. “I understand, and appreciate your integrity. Phrasing things so oddly was my fault. I'm in a bind and not thinking well. I'm the cargo.” He went on to explain that he needed a flight back to his hometown. “When I have the time off I go by car, or can take the high-speed rail from Yongsan Station, but the schedule is too tight that day. Even the commercial flights from Gimpo Airport to Gwangju International won't get me there when I need to arrive.”

“This sounds serious. Business trip?” Your attention became focused on how extravagantly to charge the man for passenger service while you supposed his corporate jet was grounded for repair. Given the convenience of scheduled airline flights to Gwangju, nobody had ever asked your small business focused on freight to deliver them before, so you intended to make the most of the opportunity.

“My little brother is getting an award at a school function and I would like to be there. I have missed so much of his life due to my work and I really want to do this for him.”

Your heart went out to Yunho. With a reason like that, you easily agreed to help. “Give me your weight and I'll calculate the added gas expenditure at no markup. I was already headed to Gwangju that afternoon anyway and can easily shift the time to what you need.”

Yunho's sigh of relief was heavy. “Thank you a million times over. I'll owe you a lot for this, and maybe can do something for you one day, concert tickets or something like that.”

“Hmm, I'm not very into music, but I could always take my mother to a trot concert. Sports teams are more my thing. Big fan of Gwangju FC and Kia Tigers.”

“Football and baseball, looks like we will have a lot to talk about on the flight. I look forward to it.” With that, Yunho was gone and you practically forgot about him until the day of the unusual job.

Dressed handsomely in a suit and looking straight from the hairdresser, Yunho greeted you at the hangar with a respectful handshake. “Thank you again for being able to accommodate me. My dad wanted me to be a dentist, and sometimes I think I would have liked a career that let me live near family, but I wouldn't give up my job for the world.”

When he did not elaborate on his profession, you led Yunho to the secondhand twin-engine turboprop modified for carrying freight rather than passengers. “I'm usually hauling delicacies from Jeolla province to Seoul. I know you planned to take the high-speed rail tomorrow, though if you want to catch the return flight you are welcome to. No cost, but it is an early call. This run includes pastries one of my clients wants to wake up to and nobody makes them like her favorite shop in Gwangju. As long as they are willing to pay for that service, I am happy to provide since I enjoy spending as much time in the air as I can.”

Yunho accepted the terms. “I can handle waking early, no problem.”

“You will also need to wear a headset for noise and communicating through the microphone. It takes some getting used to, but it is necessary, I'm afraid.”

Perhaps Yunho was nervous, for he hid laughter behind a hand before answering. “Pretty sure I can work with that too.”

“The cargo area has some fold down seats. If you would prefer a bit more comfort and a view you can have the co-pilot seat.” Usually you had a preference for solitude in the cockpit, but you did not mind at all when Yunho agreed to join you. Even from the original phone call you had liked him, and meeting in person had only added to his appeal.

The flight went off without a hitch and after less than an hour the small plane landed in Gwangju. Time had gone quickly due to Yunho's ease at conversation covering for some of your own lesser social skills. You looked forward to the return trip, wondering if he would be as sociable at dawn.

With far more energy than your own, Yunho thoughtfully met you at the hangar the next morning with a coffee in each hand. That led you to bring out spare pastries because it would have been impossible for either of you to survive the trip otherwise with the fresh baked goods filling the plane with their enticing scent.

In flight he shared some photos from the night before. A proud looking Yunho was standing beside a young teen almost his own height, flanked by beaming parents with a touch of gray hair. There were also plenty of pictures from the award ceremony. Yunho's voice on its own was lovely, but to hear it filled with such pride in his scholastically accomplished brother made it even more attractive.

With Yunho's approval, you got into the habit of texting him whenever you were headed to his hometown. Taking advantage of the opportunity, sometimes he came along in the co-pilot seat to get more time in with family here and there. Over many round trip flights you could accurately say you became friends, bonding with Yunho over sports, video games, and the joy of browsing at Gwangju's Kumho World Electronics Market.

Sometimes Yunho would even sing scraps of songs, leaving you in awe of his voice. The suggestion he was good enough to do it for a living put a smile on his face. As time went on the conversations became more personal, and you shared hopes for the future. Marriage and family were something you both desired when the right person came along.

It should not have surprised you that these steady hours spent together had you falling for the kind man. You were sure his good looks brought lots of attention, but it was Yunho's gentle nature and love for his family that first won you over. To realize you were compatible in many ways sealed the deal on your end.

Nobody made you laugh like he could, and while the hopeful side of you wondered if it was proof he liked you back, the more rational part of your brain recognized Yunho probably was that charming with everyone. Still, you noticed he started to make use of your phone number to text more than flight bookings. The occasional messages were warm inquiries into how your day was going that seemed genuine in their interest and a way to keep in touch between flights. At the very least you figured he considered you a friend, and that felt pretty good.

Yunho never spoke about his profession, but you guessed he was a businessman from the long hours he kept. It made you glad to be self-employed and in control of your schedule in a way Yunho seemed not to be. That ability to set your own timetable for work came in handy when a call came in one night just after you had fallen asleep.

Yunho apologized for the contact at such an unusual hour, but mentioned he was desperate. He and his co-workers had a flight from LAX to Incheon International Airport. They had been scheduled to arrive far earlier but multiple delays kept cropping up and they had been unable to switch to a different plane despite constant efforts from his staff.

In a sleepy haze you mentioned your little aircraft was not able to handle international travel. Once his laughter died down Yunho let you know that was not what he was asking. They were finally about to board the delayed plane and it was being given priority to take off. Instead, he asked if you could fly eight people to Gwangju once they landed at Incheon. There was an appointment that could not be rescheduled and he was desperate to know if you could get the group there in time.

“My cargo plane is not particularly comfortable, but it will get the job done. I'll be ready to go at Incheon tomorrow when you get in.”

“You are saving me again. I really do owe you tickets this time. Text me the details where to meet if you would. Thank you and sleep well.”

With a final yawn you mumbled, “Goodnight Yunho, sleep well too,” then ended your call as you heard cheers on the other end of the line.

Straight off the plane from Los Angeles due to a customs wavier, the group of casually dressed men arrived from the other side of Incheon airport in two security vans, lights flashing. Impressed, you realized Yunho must be a more important person than you knew to get such treatment from the airport. Your own flight plan from Gimpo airport that morning had been similarly easy to obtain permission for, even with such short notice.

Despite his youth, perhaps Yunho was high up in a family business. Still, companies powerful enough to get special treatment would have had a corporate jet of their own for his use. In many ways your friend was still a mystery to you, making you feel you really weren't that close after all. His companions too gave off the air of college kids, but on a second look their comfortable clothes bore the names of fashion houses making you wonder if there was more to them as well.

Passengers now aboard, you prepared to take off for Gwangju. While the majority of the guys who had quickly introduced themselves in passing were now slumped on the cargo area's bench seats fast asleep, Jongho rode as your honorary co-pilot to enjoy the view. Like Yunho, he adapted just as easily to talking through the headset, though he did make a joke about preferring a handheld microphone.

The trip was mostly quiet, with a few questions about the landscape below or the plane's operation. There was one diversion into more personal matters, however. “Yunho has been much happier keeping in closer contact with his family these days. I sense he has another reason too. Yunho mentions you a lot.” Jongho's thoughts ended there, at least the ones he shared, but it gave you things to think about as well. You wondered if one day you could open up to Yunho about how much you truly cared for him. However, that was a matter for another day as you turned your focus to preparing to land as the destination drew near.

Stepping down from the plane, Hongjoong was grateful you had pulled off this logistical miracle. “Thanks to you we won't let ATINY down.”

“ATINY? Never heard of that before. Is that the name of your company?”

Seonghwa was so taken with laughter that he clapped. With a sly smile and a glance to Yunho he asked, “They don't know do they?”

You were too busy to ask what he meant as you rushed the men to your waiting panel van kept in Gwangju for your work. Thanks to a friend who owed you a favor, the modular seats had been reinstalled and you could truck people instead of the usual cargo.

As you drove away from the airport you received directions to their destination along with a little bit of information about ATINY and ATEEZ. It was a shock to discover you had the honor of ferrying an idol group headed to a performance. To the relief of everyone involved, the group easily made it to the festival in time for the line check.

While you watched in amazement from the wings, a KQ Entertainment staffer from the advance crew brought you a festival ticket for the VIP area closest to the stage, compliments of Yunho and the rest of the guys. With time to spare before the evening concert, you could now relax. While Yunho had hours of preparation ahead of him, he had suggested you explore Gwangju's K-Pop Star Street in Chungjang-ro now that his secret identity was known.

As you walked along you began to get a sense of how popular ATEEZ was. A blue and yellow Treasure Ep. 3 album cover was among the shutter murals lining the avenue. Another spot listed quite a number of K-pop artists who had lived in Gwangju followed by a collage that included childhood photos of the local idols. Among them was an adorable toddler in a backwards cap. You suspected that kid with a spoon in his mouth was Yunho so you took a photo to ask him about the next time he caught a ride to visit family.

Gwangju had done a really great job of promoting their homegrown artists. While you might not have recognized the idols' names, even you had heard of the groups 2NE1, Monsta X, Wonder Girls, and BTS. For Yunho to be listed among them told you he had been incredibly modest about his accomplished life. If you had ever taken a walk here before you might have recognized Yunho as a star by name or looks when you first met. It probably was for the best he had the chance to be known as just an everyday guy on your flights together.

The final stop was a wall of cast metal handprints. When you found Yunho's among them you had to place your own in the same spot. Looking like any other fan, you took a picture to remember how the size compared to your own. Perhaps as other fans did too, you wondered how it would feel to hold his hand, go on a date together, hear him profess love for you.... The fantasy ended as the alarm on your phone reminded you to head back in time for ATEEZ's appearance.

Impressed. That was about the only thought you could manage after watching the performance. Yunho had been quite a secret keeper, and you admired his discretion and humility rather than feel slighted by the secrecy.

Before they left the stage, Hongjoong thanked the festival committee for inviting them. Mingi added appreciation to ATINY for being there, and Wooyoung spoke last with grateful words for the pilot who made their appearance possible after flight delays coming off their latest tour. Not one for the spotlight, you shrank in your seat as Wooyoung briefly described your heroic efforts to get them there. “The best way I can thank you is to tell you Yunho has had the biggest crush on you forever but he is too timid to say so!”

The first to recover his wits after such a bombshell, Seonghwa roughly yanked Wooyoung off the stage. His parental scolding could be heard over the screams in the crowd until his headset mic was cut. Many in the audience sounded delighted, but you figured there were some murmurs of envy as well. A few were heard to call out, “I love you too, Yunho!”

It was quick thinking on San's part to get you out of the audience and away from publicity, or being hit by a LIGHTINY from a heartbroken Yunho stan. San hopped down from the stage and assisted you in climbing over the barrier. When security staff protested, Yeosang was right by his side insisting this was a necessary safety precaution as they hustled you off to their dressing area.

Still on stage, Mingi unsuccessfully tried to usher a frozen Yunho into the wings. Jongho wisely solved the problem by passing his microphone to Mingi then hoisting Yunho over his shoulder and carrying him backstage. Finally reunited with Yunho, the other members drew back to give you some privacy. The positive conversation was short and ended with a tentative kiss, then shy smiles all around. ATEEZ's performance at the K-pop festival was memorable for many things that year, but it would best be remembered as a very public beginning to your romantic relationship with Yunho.

~

Yunho Masterlist

General Masterlist

[inwintersolitude]

- February 28th 2024 -

What were you doing one hour ago? Looking around online for house painting businesses. I want the crown moulding on the kitchen cabinets in the new house painted white to match the rest of the cabinets.

Where were your parents born? My mom was born in Delaware, and my dad was born in New Jersey.

Have you ever used public transportation to get to work? Yep, back when I was in college and working at the university airport, I took the bus there for the first year-ish that I worked there, until I bought my first car.

What do you miss the most from before Covid times? Not having to worry about catching it lol. Unfortunately I'm not able to get any further Covid vaccines because 2 out of the 4 boosters I've had so far gave me heart problems, and the most recent one gave me a full-on heart rhythm disorder that I need to take medication for long-term. It's been over a year since that last booster and I'm still not better. I'm very pro-vaccine, I'm just one of the very very few unlucky people to have a serious complication from it.  But thankfully I've never had Covid, I'm really hoping I simply have some sort of natural immunity to it.

What has been the best thing to happen to you in the past year? Traveling to Ireland last September/October with my husband, parents, brother, and sister-in-law.  And also my husband and I are currently buying a house which is super exciting.

Who do you have listed as emergency contacts in your phone? My husband, my brother, and my parents.

Are you prone to jealousy? Nope.

How did you get through the lowest point in your life? Loads of self-care, and the support of my husband.

Have you ever been someone's first love? Yep, my husband and I are each other's first loves.

Have you ever played frisbee golf? I played it once in gym class my freshman year of high school.  There was a huge park across the street from the school, and it had a frisbee golf course.

What is your favorite silly, feel-good movie? The Barbie movie lol.

How old were you when you got your first gaming console, and what kind was it? Around 8.  Nintendo 64.

Who in your family has the coolest job? My husband is an airline pilot, and as a former commercial pilot myself (non airline) of course I think that's cool. I also have a second cousin who's a boat captain up on Cape Cod. Oh and my brother's job is pretty neat too, he does anti-fraud investigation in the banking industry.

Is cereal technically a soup? Haha I suppose you could see it that way.

Have you found your first gray hairs yet Nope.

What is something that drains your energy really quickly? Socializing with anyone other than close family.  I'm a hardcore introvert, that shit wears me out so fast.

Did you parents teach you how to make a budget before you moved out on your own? Yep.  My parents are very financially savvy and they made sure to teach me all of that.

What is your favorite food to put gravy on? Roast turkey and stuffing.

Do you know anyone from Canada? Yep, one of my friends from flight school was from Canada. And my Great Grandy and Nana lived in Montréal for many years, but they weren't originally from there.

What's your opinion on astrology? It's unscientific rubbish.

Do you use TikTok? Nope.

What do you have going on the rest of the day? Hardly anything.  I'm going to have dinner soon, and then I need to wash my hair because I'm meeting my realtor and home inspector at the new house tomorrow and I don't want to look like a greasy hobo.

[the-firebird69]

The bridge is near completion with all the items being put in it and running the electrical and everything we have several big pieces to put in and it will be done all the wires in it's a huge undertaking. We have several comments and the negative and we're going after people here about it. And we shall take them down I can't understand why I have to do something and it said finally just nail them. Huge numbers are going to form the desert momentarily over here all over the place and they're going to lose huge numbers of idiots.

The max are launching an offensive on these retards and it's a big one and foreigners are now pitching in and they're also both going after the clothes and a big way and they are taking them apart.

There are several more actions taken place but this is a big one and they will seek out the ships of War of the worlds now and for the weapon and they will push it and he will go to New Jersey today a little bit and tomorrow more and starts tomorrow night we believe into Saturday and Captive state is going on at the same time, and Goodman I could have some and that's during kingfish have to stop him from medley with his elections and he does another movie The Big Lebowski and people can't tell twenties and it's really Steve Martin and John Candy same pair. .

Couple more things happening today we are firing John Riva Lord and company from many businesses and laying off others and where the majority share in every one of them in a vast majority of that they were taking land over a lot of land we took over the real estate companies and we are coming here in the lands it's an enormous . amount of land . What are the companies were firing them from today and we had all those meetings yesterday

*allegiant Air and yeah we're firing him and his and everybody else who is an idiot. We're pulling them all out I'm going to demolish that the building cuz yeah it's going to sell when it's going to break anyways

*JetBlue we're taking this over Lock stock and barrel and firing John riverlord from every position there is and we're taking over most of the airports globally did not maintain well enough they don't have safety procedures in place formally anymore and we're taking over this company and every single jet in position yet retaining pilots that have skill but they don't have any mostly all of them will be fired

*American airlines we said we own this and took it over but we didn't take it over completely we're going after it and we're going after it with gusto. We have many of the positions and all of them are key and we're using it we need to overwhelm them and it's hard to do and we need people for this duty. This is a great job to have and it's excellent experience

*United airlines and we have been taking it over saying we've been taking it over. And today we're ready to sign off on it and sign it all over to us and fire John rewarding company from everything. There's a huge company it's 50% of the world's commercial air transportation. Today would take it all over

*Lufthansa and Airbus we are firing John rebelord from and take it over Lock stock and barrel Lufthansa has a huge number of employees we will retain it's a decent company Airbus too.

*Swiss Air it's not the case here because they moved in with the money was Switzerland, and they became fat lazy arrogant disgusting morlock and ruined this company almost completely there's a trade out 90% of the Jets I'm going to take over the airport so we're going to start remodeling now.

*Delta airlines we're taking over a Lock stock and barrel and firing John reward from it every position pulling them out and we are going to retain about half the pilots the other half don't even know how to fly for the most part some of these airlines on the airport and we're taking those over including here in Florida and they want to use his motivation but we're taking them over up there too. Our son flew in this airline and said it wasn't that bad and if they did things decently they still do but they could not retain staff and they could not maintain the planes instead of structure and they still have people who do work they're going to keep them on

*there's several other airlines that were taken over and they're not really huge and we are going to mop up the rest of them and include them in other airlines that are huge some of them are quite rickety like Canada air and Norwegian Atlantic and I do have ships too that company

*China Air this giant and we're going to take it over tonight cuz it's really tomorrow over there and it's huge we have giant number of planes in the airports to take over and they run the airports it's huge that operation is top notch 10% of the plans to be switched out and that was normal yes it's just behind because everything got messed up on the manufacturing side and they are organized and their employees are decent most of them with several of them believe about 5% to 10% really and all the idiots which is 10% more and it's not that many even infiltrating for those decent beforehand

*Sino air I'm taking this company over lot stock and barrel everything and it's another huge company you do a third of the flights in Asia and their Japanese is a gigantic company and we will take it over today

As a side note in China the John Cena chopper is humongously famous and in China they use a Chinese motor now they want to bring some Stratton and they want the one that is the lawn mower one so it looks like his and everyone wants it too on the small one and on the real one and then the small one that one notch up and it is a huge seller huge because it's inexpensive it looks cool tons of people put Chrome on it and it looks like a real chopper and a changing exhaust and it's really an honor of John Cena and they want the ships our son doesn't know how to put it another way and we called it something that's similar to his name and he's pissed off and he's getting pissed on our son says. The sales are asking alcohol and they're real it's it's like $300,000 octillion in the area a day these stupid choppers lot of people ordering these huge ones and a son needs one. We decided what to do about that there's a medium-sized one that's a real chopper but he wants one with a 49cc V-Twin a scooter type thing to avoid getting the motorcycle license we're going to go ahead and do that here it's tons of people who want to open shops and it says it's kind of like this cheapo Depot last open a bunch and some will last and someone it says mental retard stuff where they have to own something of someone's and it says they're taking over and we're going to go ahead and do it now

On top of sino air and China Air there are several Asian air companies. And we're going to go through a couple of right here

*Japan air and it's real company and we are going to take it over Lock stock and barrel and her father and mother from Japan are doing it just as father and mother from China are taking China Air and pushing all the idiots out. They are pleased to announce that they're doing this yes and that was Poseidon and goddess wife

there's a huge amount of things going on here mailey is being abused but we will try and have him smell things correctly especially our names

*there is Thai Air Korean Air Malaysian air and in the Philippines they call it Filipino air they were taking over all those companies and Vietnam they call it something different no it's Vietnam air same and Cambodia and we're going to take them over and Lock stock and barrel today

And there's a phenomena and it's taking over the whole world that's us with the airlines and South America has several airlines

*South America air and Colombian air and Brazil air and there's three more Portugal air and two of the others have regular names and our son doesn't know we're taking them over Lock stock and barrel and buy tall and got his wife told him to get to know them it says okay it says don't

* Africa Air will take you over the Lock stock and barrel the entire thing and today and there's a few airlines additional to it and their names after countries and it's Nigeria air Algeria and one more and it's not congo, Ethiopia the air and hes seen it

*Pakistani Air India air and there's a whole slew of them in the Middle East now there's only a few airliners one of them's Arabian air and he knew about it and there's a couple others but we're going to take those over to and there's some of the caucuses they do use the names of their countries Ukrainian air Kazakhstan air and chec air, and many more but there's really a prevalent company there that's been all of them and it is not from Russia no but it's from there he says Bulgaria and it said no slav air that's what it is. So huge company it's just like Arabian air it would take it over to Lock stock and barrel

*hey Europe has a couple more there's a big company we didn't mention and it's Mexico air it's gigantic it was a fly everybody in from all over the place if they want to invade.

We'll take it over and we're fixing up the airports and planes all these companies were building tons of planes and we have been they're just shipping them out now today we are having this big meeting mostly in Los Angeles at the convention center which is a different one than he went to for the Pharaoh show. It's a new one and it's huge and I have the airliners all represented there and airplane models and we'll have RC ones flying outside, and yes most of them are jet engines on the RC planes. But each airliner commercial airliner will have a booth and we'll have our people in yours and stewardesses and pilots and all of them are invited and they're going to be there and these people are starting to like it and it's better than what we're doing and leaders came up with it Zeus and Hera and it was outside because he's been to these and says you know people kind of get along and they're talking and they talk about stuff and they get into it and it's true and we have a whole bunch of rules and voting will be there with McDonald's Douglas and some other jet companies everybody likes it and several movies will start Stevenson Hall is going to try and get his chopper order. We're making tons of them and with the small ones are made with scooter parts and we're making that new scooter too and it's selling and tons of them huge numbers of people want it. And here in Florida you still have to have a motorcycle license for above 49 cc's and you can have 49cc chopper scooter so why not have a chopper. this sound really cheap dog house things for bikes so we can put it out back it's not a huge deal. Granted he will look big on the scooter even the midsize one but it's going to be very cheap and what we're saying is take over his stuff we actually want to say that

A lot more companies today we're taking over

Thor Freya

It's a huge ride didn't know where I want to go no it doesn't take long it's not far but it's a pain in the ass and a bicycle it's supposed to be a pain in the ass on a scooter I'll be able to load up stuff a little more if I products I need whatever I need them out and it wouldn't worry about rain and some nuisance and it needs storage and I have to put something on the patio as a pain in the ass so here goes nothing, that's great now but I probably need a car

Zues Hera

Probably so we're gonna work towards that

Thor Freya

[sande5098]

Flight

Kim Burgess x fem. Reader

Summary: Kim asks you to help with a case and you make a big announcement.

Warnings: none

Word count: 1045

Gif not mine*

F/L/n - former last name

————

“Come on N/n, please we need you for this case. You’re our last hope.” Your Wife begged, and you sighed your frustration through the phone. “Tell me what you need me to do again.”

————

You had met your wife through a commercial flight that you had done together, her as an Air Hostess and you as the co-pilot, who was also an ex-Air corps pilot. You both hit it off at the bar with one too many drinks and ended up sharing a hotel room since you had both gotten so drunk that you ended up in the same room. And that’s how your relationship began, a couple years after that, you both got married and Kim told you that she wanted a career change. When she told you that she wanted to be a cop, you flipped to say the least. But no matter her choice you accepted it, she was your wife and if she was happy then so were you.

Her career as a cop and your’s as a pilot we’re not easy to work around, but you always made sure to take the same furlough off so you could spend at least a bit of time together.

You hated leaving Kim in Chicago by herself, you also hated leaving without her and not being back in Chicago for a week. And you couldn’t lie that it did put a bit of a strain on your relationship, but you two always came back for each other and that was what counted.

So whenever Kim asked you for a favour, you knew you couldn’t turn it down even if you wanted to and even if it was illegal. The pilot who was supposed to fly them out to New York had a family emergency. “What am I flying then?” You asked just so you would know and what controls it worked on. “It’ll be a Hawker 400XP, you good with that? Or we could always grab one off your friends airline company.” You hummed, while you had never flew one of them you had flew something like it, “no it’ll be okay, when do I need to be there by and where are we flying from and to?” ��9 O’clock tonight at Chicago P.D’s Air Field to New York, I’ll have more details for you when we get there.” You nodded and yawned, “best get an early sleep then since I have to be up in two hours, I’ll be on the ground at 8:30pm meet me there, I want to spend a little time with my wife.”

————

You were at the air field at 8:30 like you had said you would be with your small hand luggage, Kim arrived a little after you and she gave you a peak of the lips. You smiled at her, “last hope then?” Quoting their conversation “get off your high horse Y/n,” she laughed, slapping the back of your head lightly.

You both started walking towards the private jet that would be being used to draw in the criminals that would be doing the meet with the team to give information on a gang fight as long as he was out of state. “You think your ready to take this on?” You gave Kim a look that said, ‘really?’ And she smiled lightly, “yes I’m ready to take this on and meet your co-workers or whatever. Are you ready?” She grinned at you, pushing her soft lips on yours and into an intoxicating kiss. “More than ready, love.”

You smiled back at her as you both continued to walked to the plane.

————

Whenever you got into the planes cabin, you saw Kim’s co-workers waiting with the suspect, “This is my contact, Y/n.” Kim introduced you, and you smiled, except your eyes met another man’s and you could recognise him anywhere. “Halstead?” You furrowed your eyebrows at the man, “F/L/n? Surprised you remember me from Afghanistan. How’s civilian life treating you?”

You nodded, “The normal, ya know. Would guess it would be about the same for you.” He nodded, and the air became awkward. “F/n, Kim filled me in on the details.” You started, purposely not introducing yourself with your last name. “Sergeant Hank Voight, this is my team. Halstead and Burgess you know apparently. This is Upton, Atwater and Ruzek.” They shook your hand and you smiled back at them. “Pleasure to meet you all. If you don’t mind, can I get started, just want to run the standard checks for fuel and tire’s.” “Voight nodded, if there’s anything you need just talk to Burgess, she’ll get you sorted.” You smiled, “I don’t doubt it.”

————

When it came time to start making your way towards the runway, you started your general talk that you would on a commercial flight, “good evening people, my name is Y/n Burgess and I will be your captain for tonight.” You were smirking through the introduction and you knew you could hear some commotion in the cabin. “I’ll guess you know all the rules of flying but if you don’t… just read the card in front of you it has all the information you need. Now let’s get this party started.”

————

As you made your way off the plane, Kim was waiting for you as was the rest of the team. “Burgess really?” You smiled at Jay, “yeah, we’re married” you said, showing your ring to them. Kim showing the one that she kept on a chain round her neck. Adam gaped at Kim, “how long was this a secret for?” Kim shrugged, “like 7 years.” She looked at you for conformation and you nodded. “And to think I tried to get with you..” Adam muttered under his breath, no one paying any attention to him.

Soon enough, you were heading home with Kim’s hand in yours her fingers intertwined with yours. She kissed you quickly as you got to the car and let you sit in the passenger seat, so you both could drive home and head to your soft bed for some much needed together time.

[clavissionary-position]

Fanfic idea dump, volume 1.1

Would love nothing more than to be able to write these one day, but let me at least put them out in the world for now.

Since the AU challenge recently ended, here's some of the things I'd brainstormed for it but then never wrote out because I am me.

(minors dni)

For the Modern AU prompt, I'd wanted to write a fic where Chevalier is an astronaut. He is a French national with the European Space Agency, but he's working with NASA. The main scene was going to involve him dealing with a malfunction while on a spacewalk, because what's cooler than seeing a veritable genius troubleshoot a life-threatening problem in the desolate environment of space? But I need to do a lot of research before writing it. I want it to be at least somewhat grounded in reality, although not filled with so much jargon that it's off-putting to the reader. It would also be really interesting to have the reader work at mission control and be on headset with Chevalier the entire time this crisis unfolds and gets progressively worse.

Also for the Modern AU prompt, I wanted to write a fic where Jean is a late-night news anchor who has to go on one night and report that vampires are real, even though he's secretly a vampire himself. You work at the station with him, and though you don't know him very well, you've gotten closer to him over the past few weeks. One time you made a silly flub during your weather report and caught Jean smiling at you, and while you would have been mortified under any other circumstance, seeing this normally emotionally-reserved man betray such an expression makes you start simping hard for him.

Anyway, in an effort to ease the anxieties of the public, right after announcing the existence of vampires, Jean confesses that he is one too. He gives a emphatic speech about how there are both good and bad vampires in the world, just as there are good and bad humans. Then he implores his viewers, implores the crew behind the camera, that he will do whatever it takes to earn their trust again from square one, but that it's a two-way road, and if coexistence can happen, humans need to show that they are trustworthy as well. And then it feels like he's pointedly looking at you because you'd arrived at the station late that day and confided in Jean that you'd seen a small, starving vampire child had come up to you begging for food, but it had terrified you and you'd run away :') :') :')

Also also for the Modern AU prompt, I'd wanted to write a fic where Gilbert's a master plumber (he was the youngest in the world to have gotten his license, at the age of 18; you even see his picture in the book of world records many years before you meet him lol). He worked in commercial-industrial plumbing for the first few years, then lost use of his left eye in a workplace accident, left the company he worked for and started working as an independent residential contractor.

Ngl tho this fic ended up just being an excuse to put him in black coveralls with blood-red utility gloves, but truly just an excuse for you to invite him into the shower fully-clothed for some intense making out, then some more making-out, then le sexy sex. As a SIDE B to that, I was also thinking about a cozy sort of scene where you're laying inside his van with him, snuggled beside him, watching plumbing tutorials on youtube on his phone-screen. He has one of those high-end tech-bro hyper-phones that do everything because he's an engineering geek.

Also also also for the Modern AU prompt, I wanted to write a fic where Silvio works in maritime search-and-rescue. You get trapped in a dangerous underwater cave during a diving excursion, and naturally I have to throw in a scene where Silvio gives you his air-regulator before you, like, you know, die. This is another fic that is going to take a wealth of research and hours of binging Dive Talk.

Also also also also for the Modern AU prompt, I wanted to write the reader being a commercial airline pilot and Nokto being the flight attendant and... that's all that needs to be said because the story basically writes itself. But if it writes itself, why have I not written it? Writing paralysis my friend. One day!!

Also also also also also, I wanted to write Leon as a tornado chaser, Keith as a coroner, and Licht as a Hollywood stuntman. Fuck those are such cool ideas. Please, my brain! Write these!! Draw these!!

I started writing this post because I wanted to share my idea for Chev and Gilbert for the Celebrity prompt, but this post is long enough :')

[victorxproducer]

Well, forgive me, Victor. But I am a pilot. And meteorology is like one of our basics. 😌👩🏻‍✈️✈️

Now that we're talking about meteorology, here's my list of my top 15 favorite meteorology trivia that I learned in flight school! (Don’t know if I’ll be adding more, but thanks for reading!)

Lightning causes thunder. Aside from the theory that light travels faster than sound, lightning is actually the reason why there is thunder. Lightning is caused by ice pellets in the sky that "bumps" one another that causes electric current; and thunder is the sound that was caused by this "bumping" incidents.

Just because you’re from a country that does not experience snow, doesn’t mean that there is no possibility to encounter ice in your area (well, in higher altitudes, at least). As mentioned from the previous number, lightning is caused by ice pellets in the atmosphere. As altitude increases, temperature drops; hence, encounters with ice pellets in higher altitudes is not strange. This ice pellets are actually “freezing rain” that usually fall to the ground in water droplets already (again, due to the temperature change). Most of the time, you’ll be able to figure out that there are ice pellets by seeing towering cumulus or towering cumulonimbus clouds which also has flashes of lightning appearing since that’s where the most turbulent of weather is being formed.

Lightning is not actually the major reason planes crash these days. Planes do conduct electric current, hence lightning. But, planes now have a countermeasure for these flashes of light that gives way for the presence of static wicks on planes (either found on the wings and/or tail section); it is through these wicks that lightning/electricity exits after traveling through the airframe of an aircraft without completely damaging its skin, primary and secondary controls, and its avionic system. Though it leaves markings, but not much to cause primary concern. After all, 7,000 planes in the US alone are said to be hit by lightning every year.

Having said that, turbulence is also not actually the major reason why planes crash. Turbulence or air pocket (as they announced it on board as a euphemism of the real term) or the sudden updrafts and downdrafts in technical terms may put you at an unease. Believe me, even the most veteran ones are also edgy (well, my FI does when I have the controls and we came across some turbulence that he instantly had held on to the controls, too); but pilots in control can handle this (we get used to it in time as some body’s instinct). Turbulence cause a sudden change of altitude of decreasing or increasing a hundred of feet or more. But they are perfectly normal. But nothing to worry, turbulence hasn’t caused a plane crash in over 40 years. Most incidents nowadays are caused by human error. However, studies suggest global warming could cause it to be worse by 2050. And if you want to avoid experiencing turbulence, better fly in the morning!

Most of the weather exists on the troposphere so we fly higher, on the stratosphere, if our planes can handle such heights (and if ATC had accepted though). It is usually flight level 350 (35,000 feet) or more for commercial flights, not because they can and because it is cool to be above the clouds but there's lesser chances of encountering weather there! Most of our day-to-day weather phenomena occur in the troposphere.

Temperature and wind directions exists because of the Earth's unequal heating. There's a so-called actual lapse rate that states, for every 1,000 feet, temperature drops by 2°C from standard conditions. Standard temperature is at 15°C, hence the higher you go, the colder it gets. But it isn't always 15°C in sea level, just as pressure is not always 29.92" Hg. Resulting then for differences and deviations with the wind.

Clouds are formed due to the difference in temperature and dewpoint. No need to explain temperature because we probably all know it, but dewpoint is perhaps a new term. Dewpoint is the temperature at which water (water molecules in the air) begins or would begin to condense. Imagine them as bubbles floating in the air that as temperature rises, they expand. Due to this, clouds form; because they are not fluffy cottons hanging in the sky but area of turbulence (light to strong ones), thunderstorms (if they are thick and tall), and area of hail or ice pellets (for higher altitudes where these molecules could freeze up). So, by the time that temperature and dewpoint draws closer to one another, rain begins. Trick in finding the cloud’s base is by subtracting temperature and dewpoint, dividing it then to the 2.5°C/1000ft  . (Ex. 34/24 = 34°C - 24°C = 10°C / 2.5°C/ft  = 4; in short, 4,000 feet is the cloud’s base).

Thunderstorms have its stages and its own recipe. Not just the mere water cycle but something way much more than that. It has three stages known as: Cumulus Stage (defined as continuous updraft movements of the wind); Mature Stage (defined as when rain begins); and Dissipating Stage (defined by continuous downdraft movements). And, thunderstorms will not be formed without these three: unstable moist air, lifting action, and high moisture.

Rain at night means clear blue skies tomorrow morning (except if there's a cyclone). Proven and trusted. But the reason behind this is that if those dark and thick clouds will not result for rain to fall at night, there's a higher chance that they'll grew darker and thicker by morning due to the sun's heat. Previous numbers of these trivia had mentioned that the unequal heating of the Earth causes weather, so there's that to blame.

Weather conditions are defined either as Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) or Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). Because we don't always fly based on the instruments. To break the myth that we're all dependent of the computer systems, we actually begin most of our training and also fly the plane under the so-called Visual Flight Rules (VFR) with VMC; which means we depend on what our eyes can see outside and use the primary instruments as a cross-check to the situation. And yes, we can takeoff and land planes under VFR even during the night. Flying Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) due to IMC is a hassle because visibility for this is lesser than 500 meters.

Not all weather can be detected by the radar, in short, computer aircraft has its flaws, too. One major phenomena that can't be detected is clear air turbulence (CAT). They occur in cloudless air between altitudes of 6,000 and 15,000 meters (20,000 and 49,000 feet) and constitute a hazard to aircraft for its vertical and horizontal wind shear. They can be found right next to so-called phenomena known as “jet streams”. That's why we have other means of gathering constant information throughout the flight. They may be reports by other pilots known as PIREPs; frequency switch to ATIS; inquiries to the air traffic controller currently in our frequency; checking the METAR or the TAF. We check the outlook weather reports, and prepare for them at least an hour before the flight.

Jet streams can lessen travel time and cut fuel cost (and vice versa). Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering air currents in the atmosphere that are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are westerly winds (flowing west and east). Hence, travels to fly east can be decreased by about 30 minutes or over one-third of flight time if an airplane can fly with the jet stream, or increased by more than the amount if it must fly west against it. They are strong and farther south during winter, and are weaker and farther north during the summer.

Sunny days are a hassle. Not just because it is a sea breeze in the morning wherein water cools much faster than land, and we experience land breeze in the evening wherein land cools much faster than water; and not because a pilot gets an instant tanning session for being under the heat of the sun on the tarmac during pre-flight inspections. Sunny days are considered a hassle because too warm temperature decreases aircraft performance that then, in turn, cause delays of flights, too.

Crosswind landings test a pilot’s skill (sort of). Passengers do not determine hard or smooth landings; every pilot is trained to commence a “safe” landing. Better yet, a skilled pilot will be found during a crosswind landing. Crosswind landing, is at its name implies, is landing with winds blowing perpendicular to the landing runway (direct crosswind) or winds blowing from quarterly headings to the landing runway (quarterly headwind for those from right ahead; and quarterly tailwind from those behind). Even the most skilled airline pilots commence go-around due to how dangerous crosswind landings are especially strong direct crosswinds that involves the mastery of a specific technique called “crabbing” or a “side-slip”.

Some approaches are less stable due to wind shear. Wind shear is a phenomena that occurs over a very small distance, but can be associated with squall lines and cold fronts. It is commonly observed near microbursts and downbursts caused by thunderstorms, fronts, areas of locally higher low-level winds near mountains, radiation inversions that occur due to clear skies and calm winds, buildings, wind turbines, and sailboats. It resemble turbulences but unlike the latter, wind shears may occur regardless of altitude and direction.

For any clarifications and corrections, you can reach out to me. I don’t bite~

[latin-dr-robotnik]

SonAmy - First flight

Sonic, Tails and Knuckles all have many stories about the heroic feats they achieved with the help of the Tornado. Since their first adventures they used the famous biplane to confront Dr. Eggman... but what about Amy? How and when was her first flight?

“Tails! Have you seen Sonic?” 

Amy approached the Tornado, parked just outside the workshop. She travelled all the way to the Mystic Ruins in hopes of sharing a little picnic with the blue hedgehog. The calm and warm evening served as the perfect set up for a date; but thing is, he wasn’t informed at all!

She got no response, yet could still hear some mechanical noises coming from the Tornado. Frustrated, she left her picnic basket on the ground and started walking with leaden feet towards the plane.

“Tails, I asked you a question! No need to be so rude! Tails!”

But a different, unexpected figure rose from within the cockpit.

“Uhh, Tails isn’t here.”

“Sonic?!” She froze in place for a moment. “Oh, I’m sorry! I thought it was Tails ignoring me!” 

She looked away for a moment, feeling a little embarrassed about the whole ordeal. Sonic was looking a bit rough and dirty from working all day inside the plane. He was even playing with a big wrench on his hand.

“Heh, nope. He left early and hasn’t returned... yet.” 

Amy took an extended look at him, and the plane, then back at him.

“What... what are you doing, exactly?”

He chuckled. “Hey, I can take care of my plane on my own, do a little maintenance on it, y’know!”

She covered her mouth with her hands, only her eyes left visible, shining and excited as ever. 

“Oh my gosh! Is it actually your plane?”

“Well, duh, of course it is!” He leaned over the side, pointing to the letters SONIC printed on the red fuselage. “See? My name, my plane. Tails just likes to use it more than I do, haha!”

“Oh, I see.” she looked away again, directly back at the basket she left behind. “Hey, I think you must be tired from working on that plane all day... wanna join me for a picnic?”

Sonic scratched the back of his head, a little hesitant.

“I... can’t right now. I need to test this baby and see if it’s working as intended and-”

He stopped himself for a second and kept staring at her, pouting with her arms crossed. Doing test flights alone is a perfectly fun routine, but her sole presence was enough to give him a completely new idea.

“Let me tell you something,” he asked with a smug look on his face, “how about you join me and test this thing together?”

Amy opened her eyes, shocked by the sudden proposition.

“Y-you mean f-flying together?” She blushed a bit. “I-I mean I’ve never flown in my life, but sure! I’d l-love to!”

Sonic jumped from the cockpit up on the wing, then extended a hand to her, smiling.

“Heh, then jump on!”

“What!? You mean o-on the wing? D-don’t you have another seat or something?”

“Nope, the wing is for passengers.” Sonic reassured her, then shifted his head to the horizon beyond the runway. “But don’t worry, the day is perfect for an evening flight, there’s almost no wind and we have another hour or so of sunlight. Not that I can’t fly at night... but I don’t like the look of those clouds in the distance.”

He pointed out a massive barrier of clouds still far away. She nodded and climbed on top of the wing, still a little unsure of this whole thing. She’s never been in the air, let alone standing on a wing, with nothing to hold her! Was it really safe?

Well, Sonic wasn’t too bothered about it - in fact, he was pretty excited! His face lit up with excitement as he returned to the cockpit, setting everything up for takeoff. After flipping some switches and checking everything, he raised a hand to his mouth, as if mimicking a real commercial pilot communicating through a speaker.

“Ok Ms. Rose, this is your captain and pilot of the day Sonic the Hedgehog speaking. We are just about to take off - time of day: 18 hours 39 minutes, temperature is... warm, I guess. We have a lovely sunny evening, with clouds in the distance potentially limiting the amount of air time we’re gonna get today. Hold on tight, as we don’t have seatbelts in the economic class, and please enjoy your first flight with Hedgehog Airlines. Captain out!”

She giggled through the entire speech, feeling excited as ever but at the same time scared of doing all of this for the first time. She kept her eyes on the runway ahead, standing in silence as Sonic kept flicking some switches and adjusting the stick.

Captain Sonic soon returned for take-off.

“This is Captain Sonic speaking again, we are taking off!” He said, while accelerating the plane. “This is standard procedure, so please bear with us as we reach optimum speed and...”

Amy panicked at the speed and movement of the plane. Sonic pulled the stick swiftly, and up they went!

“And we are in the air. Next destination: the Mystic Sea!”

Amy felt the rush of adrenaline kicking in as they were no longer on solid ground, but also struggled to find some stability riding on the Tornado’s wing. Sonic was right, there was little to no wind... when they were stationary. Now that they were cruising the skies at speed Amy quickly realized the challenge she was facing.

“Wah-ah! This is too fast!”

“Heh, you call this fast?” He chuckled, breaking away from his Captain character. “C’mon, don’t try to resist against the wind, just stand there and... open your arms to it!”

Amy stumbled a bit as Sonic leveled the plane to a stable height, flying further into open sea. She finally managed to find her footing, looked at the sunset... and stretched her arms as much as she could on both directions.

It felt great. She never felt as free in the wind as at that very moment. Opening her arms was like taking the role of the sail of a ship, free to be taken wherever the wind decided to. They were going fast, yes, but after facing her initial doubts and fear, she stopped caring about it.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall on her back, enjoying more than ever the warm sun and the fresh wind. Sonic looked up, watching her be so happy that he couldn’t help himself but to smile tenderly, reminiscing the first time he ever took to the skies, and how good it felt as well. It’s the small details like that, bursts of energy and happiness that sometimes get lost in everyday life, in doing the same thing repeatedly and losing that original spark in the process. He’s been flying all over the world for a while now, and it started to feel like regular business. But just at that moment, he remembered just how beautiful it should feel.

He kept smiling at her for a minute, then snapped back to reality. He wanted to have some fun now.

“This is your Captain Sonic speaking.” He interrupted her. “We are changing our route to go through the ever so impressive Mystic Crags! We’re gonna need the help of our passenger and her open arms to direct us to and through the crags. Buckle up because we’re about to start dancing!”

Amy looked at him over the shoulder, her arms still wide open and more confident than ever.

“Let’s do this.”

Sonic moved the stick north-wise, and pulled down bit by bit. In a matter of seconds, they were flying pretty close to the water and heading directly back to the coastline. Amy kept her eyes locked in the rocky and rugged terrain ahead, with tall cliffs that lead into the sea, followed right by the many, many crags sticking randomly along the shore, all in different shapes and heights. The entire place seemed like a bird’s training ground, twisting and turning between rocks and natural arches. 

“Okay, time to test how this baby truly handles.”

Sonic gripped the flight stick with determination, his sights fixed on a tentative route around the crags at full speed, but keeping in mind he wouldn’t be able to do many tricks with a passenger on board. 

No silly barrel rolls or anything like that today.

Amy felt the adrenaline rush reaching its peak as they approached the first set of crags. She focused on keeping a solid enough foothold as Sonic turned from left to right, up and down constantly. Both of them were so concentrated not a single word came out of their mouths through the entire show, just enjoying the adrenaline rush. First they raced past the rocky coast, then another lap through a different route, and another one... and after a while, a final grand tour around the entire place that culminated with them flying through a rocky arch and coming out high up in the sky again.

After such a rush, Sonic turned west right back to the sea, and both started laughing at the same time.

“That. Was. AWESOME!” Amy cheerfully exclaimed while looking at Sonic, jumping in place and then holding her hands close to her chest. “I wasn’t sure if I was excited, or scared, or pumped up, or everything at the same time! The wind felt great, then it felt so thrilling rushing by all those rocks at that speed! I hope you could’ve seen my face, I was so seriously concentrated the whole way through, haha!”

Sonic’s laugh slowly turned into a serious face of concern.

“Hmm...” He said to himself, “I don’t really like the look of those clouds...”

“Huh? What’s wrong, Sonic?”

“Uh, I mean-” He covered his mouth again and looked back at her. “This is your Captain Sonic speaking, I’m afraid we might have to go back to base earlier than intended, a storm is certainly coming soon and Tails wouldn’t like to have a soaked plane inside his workshop! Uhh... captain out.”

“Oh, right.” She looked up, watching as more and more clouds started forming right above them as the last rays of light tried to pierce through and the wind started getting a little rougher. “It’s a shame, really, but I understand. Let’s go home, captain~”

The last minutes of the flight were spent in a bittersweet silence. 

On one hand they were having so much fun and were so happy everything turned out like it did; but on the other they weren’t able to stay for longer like that, being practically forced to return home. Risking flight in stormy conditions was strictly off the table for Sonic, and so they bid farewell to the crags, and then the sea...

Sonic landed the Tornado just outside the workshop gates, and he made sure to check everything before leaping out of the cockpit and back on solid ground. 

He lended a hand to Amy, offering to help her jump off the wing, to which she nodded and grabbed it.

“That was so fun. Thank you, Sonic.”

“Thank you for flying with Hedgehog Airlines,” he joked one last time while putting one hand on his mouth and the other on the back of his head, “I’d appreciate if you rate your experience today with five stars.”

Amy smirked, then without a single doubt she jumped directly at him, hugging with more strength than usual.

“Oh, I’d rate you TEN STARS if I could!”

“Heh... ow, Amy, it’s fine haha, no need to... squeeze this much”

He slowly put both of his hands close to her back, barely touching her. Then he noticed the picnic basket she left earlier.

“H-hey, about that picnic...”

Amy let go of him, and reflected on the main reason she was there to being with.

“I... I don’t think we’ll be able to do it now.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the clouds...”

“It doesn’t have to be outside, though.”

Sonic winked at her. And her face instantly lit up.

“Oh, Sonic! You’re a genius!” Amy ran back to pick the basket, then pointed at the small door to Tails’ Workshop. “Shall we do it inside?”

He slowly walked towards the bigger hangar doors, smiling all the way through as Amy was about to open the other, smaller door.

“Yup. I’m gonna store the plane and join you in a super sonic second!”

“Oh! I’m so going to pick a movie to watch tonight!”

“Heh. It’ll be fun.”

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

Bonus: Ever wondered what happened to Tails? He actually came back home sometime after midnight, and wasn’t happy at all - he was completely soaked! Turns out the day wasn’t too kind for our lovely fox, and the storm that arrived earlier that night and never left did not help at all. At the moment he opened the door, all he wanted moment was to get inside his bed and not be disturbed by anything or anyone. 

Yet, when he entered the workshop and passed through the living room, he found Sonic and Amy sleeping on the couch in front of the TV, Amy in particular resting on Sonic’s shoulder. 

At first he didn’t pay too much attention to them, opting instead to walk upstairs to his room, but just as he was opening the door he had a change of heart. He silently pulled out a blanket from his bedroom and came back to cover them. Then, he turned out the TV, the lights and finally went to bed, smiling tenderly at the two on his way up the stairs. 

Even after having a completely awful day, the sole sight of two of his best friends peacefully resting together was enough to warm his heart again and cheer up his night.

[Author’s note: if you’re confused about my take on Tails’ workshop layout or you simply want to read more from me, check out Sonic’s Memento Collection! Oh, and also my Special Content Section. Happy birthday, Amy!]

[get-lost-in-fanfiction]

LOST - Another Story

Rating: M

Word Count: 2.7k

A/N: Hello guys! I hope everyone is satisfied with the story so far. I realize there is not a lot of content with Amelia yet, and that’s mainly because I want to build it up. If you couldn’t tell, Amelia is hinting at thing to come, so it’s really important that you have already seen Lost to understand these reference. Anyways, here’s Tabula Rasa!

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Tabula Rasa

We stand around miserably for a second, and I realize this is when our group loses any hope of getting rescued. I take a moment to walk away from the group, feeling overwhelmed by my place here. Even knowing what will happen, these moments of intensity affect me deeply. I suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder and look behind me to see Boone. I smile at him and he points a thumb over his shoulder at the group starting to pack up to leave.

“We’re heading back to the beach now,” He says, and I can see Sawyer looking at us with a neutral face, “I just thought you should know.”

“Thanks Boone,” I say and realize there is a hint of jealousy in Sawyer's eyes.

Boone and I walk back to the group, with Boone walking just a bit too close to me. Sawyer greets us and says, “You alright blue-eyes?”

“She’s fine man, leave her alone,” Boone jumps in before I can speak.

“Guys I’m perfectly okay, I just needed a breather to swallow what we heard on the radio,” I say and Boone looks convinced, Sawyer, not so much.

“You sure?” Sawyer asks, “You’ve been acting weird since we crashed, not to mention-“ but he is cut off by Kate.

“Alright, let’s head out!” She shouts at the lot of us.

The hike has taken most of the day, and it’s felt longer than it did in the show. I guess that’s because there is a lot of time cut out of both the beach scenes and the hike scenes. But in the real world, there’s no break to switch back for the show to give us another realization about the characters.

“It’s Tabula Rasa,” I think, “I need to keep this straight.”

Boone’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts, “It's getting dark,” he says.

“Then pick up the pace,” Sawyer snaps.

“Hick,” Boone comments under his breath

“Little louder?”

“We should make camp,” Sayid cuts in.

“What, here?” Shannon comments incredulously.

“Yes, here,” Sayid replies.

“I'm not stopping. You all have a nice cookout,” Sawyer says.

“Excellent, walk through the jungle in the dark.”

“Oooo, afraid the trees are going to get us?”

“No, what is knocking down the trees will get you.”

Sawyer pulls out the gun, “Well, if you're so worried about me, how about you give me the clip back?”

“Put the gun back in your pants, Sawyer. Sayid's right, if you keep walking you're not going to make it to the beach,” Kate adds.

“Yeah, why's that?” Sawyer asks as I notice Charlie looking away.

“Trust me,” Kate says.

As night falls upon the Island, we make camp and a fire. I lean against my backpack and look up at the stars, thinking about Australia. I laugh to myself about how Lost like my situation was. Of course the only other person with me was killed, of course it was traumatic, and of course I had to get back to LA as soon as possible. Am I really any different than the rest of my survivor companions? Truthfully I am, they don’t know who will live and who will die. I shudder to think that over half of our group will end up dead in a few years. I look at Sayid placing a rock on the ground with a thump and holding a torch.

“This is Australia,” He says, indicating the rock, “This is us,” lifting the torch a little to show what is what.

“Nice stick,” Sawyer adds and I give him a look.

“Two days ago we take off from Sydney,” Sayid begins, “We fly along the same north east route every commercial airliner bound for Los Angeles does. Now the pilot, he said he lost communication with the ground, correct?”

“Yeah,” Kate says, ”6 hours in. He turned around and headed for Fiji.”

“So, we changed course. Regrettably, no one knew we changed course. The turbulence hit. We know the rest,” at that, Sayid puts the torch's fire out.

“The pilot said we were over a thousand miles off course,” I flinch a little at Kate's words, and become surprised by my reaction.

“Yeah, but, they'll find us,” Charlie adds, “They have satellites in space that can take pictures of your license plate.”

“If only we were all wearing license plates,” I add in, stealing the line from Sayid.

“Well, aren't you the pessimist,” Charlie says to me, a little surprised. I don’t blame him for forgetting I tagged along.

“Basic photography,” Sayid says, “point and shoot. Satellites can shoot, but they must be told where to point.”

“Oh. Bollocks,” Charlie replies.

“Okay, really enjoyed the puppet show. Fantastic. But we're stuck in the middle of damn nowhere,” Sawyer says looking around at us, “How about we talk about that other thing? You know that transmission Abdul picked up on his little radio? The French chick that said, ‘They're all dead,’” Sawyer pauses to look at me, “The transmission's been on a loop for … how long was it, Freckles?”

“16 years,” Kate replies.

“Right. Let's talk about that,” Sawyer says.

“Well, we have to tell the others when we get back,” Boone adds.

“Tell them what, exactly?” Shannon snaps.

“What we heard,” Boone says to her.

“You didn't hear anything. I'm not a stupid translator,” Shannon spits at Boone.

“No one's going to tell them anything,” Sayis says to the both of them, “To relay what we heard without fully understanding it will cause a panic. If we tell them what we know we take away their hope. And hope is a very dangerous thing to lose.”

“So we lie,” Kate says. I laugh internally about the irony of our situation and the future Oceanic Six.

I’m sound asleep, that is until I hear Sayid say, “What are you doing?” Then I’m wide awake. I sit up a groan, having laid on a rock. Then I see Boone with the gun and I groan louder.

“Standing guard,” Boone answers, “You heard what they said is out there.”

“You took my gun off me, boy?” Sawyer says angrily, right by my ear. I wince and he glanced at me.

“Please, you've never even held a gun,” Sannon scoffs at Boone then turns to us, “He doesn't believe in guns. He goes on marches.”

“I don't go on marches,” Boone retorts.

“Give it back to me,” Sayid says.

“Yeah, give it to Al Jazeera, he'll protect us,” Sawyer adds sarcastically.

“Al Jazeera is a network,” Charlie quips.

“I'll keep the damn gun,” Boone spits.

“We should give it to her,” And all eyes turn to me when I realize Shannon is pointing at me.

“Yeah, she should hold the gun,” Charlie adds, despite not knowing my name.

“Fine with me,” Sayid says, “Well?” He looks to Boone

“Now hang on a minute, that's my gun!” Sawyer says angrily, “Why are you givin’ it to a kid?” Ouch. I know Sawyer means well, and I also know we aren't that close, so I try not to be too hurt about the kid statement.

“I’m 20, by the way,” I say to Sawyer before turning to Charlie and the rest of the group, “And my name is Amelia, Amelia Kassman.” Boone looks at me, the gun slack in his hand. He waits a beat before handing the gun over. I check to make sure the safety is on, it is, but I don't want to shoot myself in my sleep. We all lay back down and I set the gun uncomfortably beside me, the barrel facing away from anyway. I look up and catch Sawyer looking at me, but he quickly rolls over once he spots me. I flip onto my back, brush the rock from under me, and slowly fall back asleep, my hand inches away from the gun.

We finally make it back to the beach and I can see Hurley hurrying off to a tent where I know the US Marshall is. Our group stands together as Sayid takes center stage and a gaggle of the survivors gather around Sayid. I look away from the scene and to the ocean where I know I can find some comfort. I only look back when I hear Sayid start to speak.

“As you and the others know, we hiked up the mountain in an attempt to help the rescue team locate us,” Sayid says beginning the lie,” The transceiver failed to pick up a signal. We weren't able to send out a call for help,” I glance at Kate and Shannon,” But we're not giving up. If we gather electronic equipment - your cell phones, laptops - I can boost the signal and we can try again, but that may take some time. So for now, we should begin rationing our remaining food. If it rains, we should set up tarps to collect water. I need to organize 3 separate groups. Each group should have a leader,” I notice Jack walking up to the gathering, “One group for water - I'll organize that. Who's going to organize electronics?” Then I notice Kate walking towards Jack, “You? Rationing food? Okay. And I believe a third group should concern themselves with the construction of…” then I tune Sayid out and walk away myself.

I amble my way back to my tent and sit down in the warm sand in front of my tent. I look out at the ocean and realize I’m probably going to do that a lot. I can see why Rose did it for so long, too, it’s quite soothing. Although I know what’s going to happen and she doesn’t. I drop my head to my hands and groan, the realization coming at me again and making me dizzy. I had always wanted to be on the Island and experience what the Losties did, but now that I’m here I’m regretting that wish. Maybe it’s because I never really thought about knowing everything before, or maybe it’s because I never really took the time to think about it. I hope I get over it soon, I don’t think I can take these strong waves of emotion every day.

I watch as Jack walks over to the fuselage, a bag and a flashlight in hand. I chuckle to myself, thinking over the interaction of Sawyer and Jack in there. I half think to go in there myself, but the thought of being around those dead bodies makes me shiver despite the sun and the humidity. I don’t think I’ll be going in there unless someone holds a gun to my head and tells me to. I don’t foresee that happening to me so I don’t worry too much. Then I remember the gun sticking out of my pants, and the metal suddenly burns me. Then I spot Kate walking towards the tent with the US Marshall and I scramble to my feet.

“Kate, hey, Kate!” I shout slightly, to get her attention. She turns to me and stops, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. I reach behind me and pull out the gun, offering it to her, handle out. “Please take it, I don’t like the memory it brings.”

Kate’s eyes flicker to me, the tent, the gun, then back up to me. She wraps her hand around the gun and takes it from me, and I let out a small breath. “Okay,” she says, sticks the gun in the back of her pants and walks away.

Later, much later, a whole rainstorm later, the moans and cries of the US Marshall can be heard around the camp. The sun is almost set and I can see Kate stacking wood to make a fire. I watch as Sawyer walks up to Kate, and a familiar pit in my stomach forms and I have to swallow hard to make it go away. I know what they’re saying, I can almost hear it. It makes my heart ache and I realize for the first time that I do in fact have a crush on Sawyer. I denied it to myself in all of the rewatches of the show, it’s not healthy to have a crush on someone who doesn’t exist. Yet now he does and I have to grapple with the feelings that have come to the surface.

I watch as Kate walks into the tent, Hurley talk worriedly to Jack, Sawyer walks in from behind, Kate walking out again, and then the sickening shot I knew was coming. I see Sawyer waltz his way out of the tent as Jack rushes forward, says something angrily to Sawyer, and then run into the tent. I know the US Marshall is suffering, and I know the amount of guilt Sawyer feels. What I can’t predict is Jack running out of the tent and towards me.

“Amelia!” He gasps once he reaches me, “You gotta come help, it’s the US Marshall, Sawyer-“

“Yeah I know,” I say quickly, “I heard the shot. I was watching the whole time.”

“Well come on then,” Jack says hurriedly and I push myself off the sand and jog quickly toward the infirmary tent. Once we arrive I can see Sawyer looking guiltily towards the tent.

“You shot him in the chest?” Jack says to Sawyer angrily.

“I was aiming for his heart,” Sawyer replies guiltily.

“You missed.”

“Man, is he still breathing?” Hurley asks.

“You perforated his lung,” Jack states, “It'll take hours to bleed out.”

“So what is—I only had one bullet,” Sawyer says.

“That’s enough Sawyer, please leave now,” I say as gently as possibly.

Hurley leaves with an, “Oh boy,” and Sawyer follows him.

“What do we do Doc?” I ask, wincing at the bad timing of the nickname.

“We have to put him out of his misery,” Jack answers.

“How are you gonna do that?”

“I have to suffocate him,” Jack states and I look at the Marshall. I don’t know him well enough to want to call him Mars.

“Jack…” I begin but he cuts me off.

“Hold his hand, will you?” He says and I nod silently, unable to form words.

I kneel down on the ground and hold the Marshall’s hand, he grips me back tightly and I hold in a yelp of pain. I close my eyes tightly as the Marshall thrashes a bit under the weight of whatever Jack is using to suffocate him. Suddenly it stops, and I yank my probably bruised hand away from the dead Marshall’s. I stand shakily as Jack slowly removed the airline blanket from the Marshall’s face. He looks guilty.

“It had to be done Jack,” I say quietly, as if I’m going to somehow wake the Marshall up. Jack says nothing and walks out of the tent. I stay behind for a moment, only to close the Marshall’s eyes. I shiver, I’m not meant to work with the dead.

I walk out of the infirmary tent and slowly back to my own, passing people along the way. I don’t look at them. I wonder if they knew what I had to do, I’m sure they know I helped Jack. Do they know I held a dying man’s hand? I look for Sawyer but I don’t see him. He must be in his tent already. I wander back to mine, feeling like I’m in a daze. I bash myself for being so affected by this, it shouldn’t be that serious. I barely knew him. I stumble into my tent and lay down, roughly pulling up my blanket and finally slipping into an uneasy sleep with the moans of the dying Marshall flitting in and out.

In the morning I wake up far past anyone else, and can see Jack and Kate already talking. That means Locke found Vincent and already told Michael about it, and I glance around the beach camp to see if I can spot the father and son. When I realize I can’t, I set to work securing my tent flaps open to let the ocean air in and filter the nasty air out. I smile as Sayid tossed Sawyer an apple, and he beckons me over to share it with him. I brace myself for another day.

LOST

[jiminrings]

cabin pressure

pairing: taehyung x y/n

glimpse: pilot!y/n who accidentally became famous bc of a viral post about her, best friend!jimin!, taehyung having a shy lil crush on you aND ot7 being meanies for a tad bit :((

wordcount: 17k

notes: this is my first bts fic im gonna post and for sentimentality’s sake, im paying homage to the bullet-point format™️ because this is the same thing i use for my reviewers and it’s v effective in making me focus and not lose interest!!! 

╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

jimin really misses you :((

you’re his longtime friend!! someone who’s stuck with him even before he was famous!!

unlike tHose who suddenly appeared claiming that “aHHHHH jimin from bts aha actually we were friends even tho i have never spoke to him once hE’s actually asking me out and-“

and he loves u to death even the both of you fond each other annoying at times

like that one time he pretended he was sick with a bug just to get u out of your very important meeting just bECAUSE he wanted u to cook up a meal he missed

“hey why are u crying and also can you pls still cook why you’re crying”

“jimin i fucking hate you”

:((

and needless to say he really made up for it because he may have screwed up your job bc he wanted you to drop EVERYTHING to cook cheesy tonkatsu for him

so yes he really went up and above just to get you to forgive him

and u know what

jimin misses his best friend so much that he’s thinking of you in the middle of a meeting

and literally at the mention of bon voyage, the gears in his head start spinning!!!!

basically his thought process was:

bon voyage = abroad = y/n = oH DAMN OH RIGHT Y/N’S A PILOT = airplane whoosh = abroad = BON VOYAGE!!!!

“PD-nim!!!!!!”

“what”

and he’s really gonna make a leap for this because it’s given that him and the boys ride in private jets and first-class and all

literally everyone is looking at him now because his previous outburst of a call was surely attention-grabbing and it makes him shrink a bit because aha :D oops lol okay so what i was saying

“i-i was thinking uhm like since, abroad, right?? my friend y/n y/l/n is a pilot!! and the airline she-...”

“you know y/n y/l/n??” bang si-hyuk literally asks with his eyes wide and everyone could tell that it was the positive type of shock

wait

what

everyone in the room is like divided with some nodding and some clapping excitedly and some just with their mouths agape

and that confuses jimin because

“you know y/n??”

bang si-hyuk, ceo of big hit entertainment, his boss,,,, knows you, his childhood best friend-

and it’s not like jimin is territorial when it comes to his best friends and most esp you!!!! but yeah he realizes that he is now, especially because everyone in the room apparently knows you??? and he’s only ever introduced you to the boys???? briefly?? hope and jin have yet to meet you in person???

“how could we not?” jungkook interjects with a bunny smile on his face and everything is seriously confusing jimin rn because honestly

“do you like live under a rock” yoongi has the most confused face ever to jimin’s cluelessness, the situation being ironic because normally the hyung is slower when it comes to these type of things

“y/n went viral all over the news like last week!! up to now even” it’s no joke that namjoon knows everyone that his members know but for jimin to hear joon speak about you in THIS degree offends him

because wait he’s your closest friend he should know these things

he’d like u to know that he isn’t bitter :)

and his eyes go wide at that because oH GOD WHAT DID YOU DO

everyone agrees to what namjoon said, still a bit dumb-founded as taehyung practically yanks jimin’s chair to sit closer near his and almost shoves his phone to his face

it’s you

in your pilot uniform with your luggage at tow

sunglasses at the top of your head and phone on-hand

your id still worn around your neck and

oh

jimin basically deduced all of these things with a couple swipes:

a) ok you look ethereal in those pics

b) it was supposed to be a stolen picture of this dude but you were in the background and you cOMPLETELY stole the show

c) someone zoomed in on you and edited so now basically your ethereal being got even more magnified

d) someone zoomed in on your id (he got a lil bit mad at that)

e) aha the internet loves you

f) edits and i have thirty minutes i am free this saturday retweets and digging into your images in social media EVERYTHING!!! the whole nine yards!!!!

when you woke up to that frenzy though

you literally couldn’t function for five minutes and then you started catching up and digging in on what was happening

“but i don’t look ethereal!! my skin is dry n oily at the SAME time because of cabin air and my eyes are stinging!!! i look ghastly and only a little bit fresh because of the air u get when you’re 50,000 feet up in the air!! but im-...”

oh that’s it you went viral completely on accident

you were just waiting for the free service back home your airline offers it pilots, because you brought your car to work but you were too tired to drive back home

but now you are viral in the worldwide interwebs with articles and twitter threads about you and multiple multiple DMs that make your phone freeze and

wait did your airline just email you about that :D

oh lol did beyoncé just follow you :D

basically jimin got his brothers giving him a three-minute crash course each about what happened with their managers even stepping in to gush

he basically can’t believe that he didn’t know that!! even if you didn’t mention it to him, he should’ve known because it was practically everywhere!!!!

bang si-hyuk is well-pleased and even got jimin to tell how he knew you and what you were like and he was very much :O when he got into the word that aish!!! his employee has really been living under a rock lmao

by then, the conversation about bon voyage has been slightly derailed to talk about you

who knew that jimin simply mentioning your name (lol he didn’t need to because the conversation about you was nearing anyway) would land the meeting to

“oh! actually! the airline y/n works at reached a couple of weeks ago about a proposal to get bts to star in a commercial for them!!”

and now they’re hyped because yes they endorsed clothes and food and malls and establishments but never did they endorse an AIRLINE!!! a damn airline!!!!

okay so now not only did they tackle that you would pilot for them in bon voyage

“ah! you could like also play games on the way there with y/n!!”

“wHO WILL PILOT THE PLANE THEN??? we’re gonna crash!!!”

“you’re thick, jungkook, and not in the way you think so lmao”

“maybe we could extend their vacation! shoot a skit or two with them being flight attendants for run!! one week for shooting, two weeks for resting!! two birds with one stone, really”

an airline commercial

a couple run bts! episodes

a whole season of bon voyage (with a longer production because they have longer vacation days)

more traction for them

more time than he ever wished for to be with you!! :D

soon enough the meeting is finished and it went so good that the boys were gonna be treated to a beef dinner so

everyone’s scattered and dispersed, some making small talk w him about you that makes him smile

taehyung’s lingering behind him with his hands on his back

“what is it, tae?”

the younger boy is just giggling and fiddling with his hands, a careless shrug to his shoulders

“can i have y/n’s number :D”

...

...

“aish!! if jungkook were to ask for her number, you would’ve given it to him in a heartbeat because he’s the youngest!! and-...”

“ya!! thanks for reminding hyung! jimin-hyung may i also pls have y/n’s number :D”

...

...

...

jin had to drag jimin with him bc he wasn’t done shooting the both of them glares and his cheeks were practically pink with how annoyed he was at the younger two

needless to say taehyung and jungkook didn’t have any extra portions of beef from him

he is very protective of you and even if he’s become closer with his brothers more than he’s been close with you he jUST can’t help it!!

not that he doesn’t trust them or anything

not that he doesn’t trust you either

but he doesn’t want figurative blood on his figurative ledger because he feels that it would be his responsibility if ever yOu and someone became a thing and HE was the one who inteoduced you both :(

it’s not just a him thing :( he can’t put it into words but he’s just looking out for both parties!!!

kinda figured out that taehyung may or may not have a shy little crush on you

spoiler alert: it was HUGE

for their entire dinner, every single time your name was brought up, tae instinctively has his ears perk up at the mention

simultaneously he shrinks to his seat and purses his lips and looks around to what’s being said

why are u mentioning y/n’s name?? what is happening??

and taehyung having a serious case of sweater paws doesn’t help him from jimin’s observing gaze

and yes he feels a bit sorry because taehyung kinda looks a bit upset; that little “oh :((“ on his face when jimin snapped at him so quick

he’s not gonna force him to tho,, out of respect since someone else is involved (and in this case it’s you and your number)

jimin nudges him by the shoulder to get his attention

everyone’s passed out at this point because the beef was so damn good

tae kinda looks spaced out so he turns his head immediately and he forgot for a second that he was supposed to be cold with jimin

“what?”

“..... do you still want y/n’s number?”

taehyung almost fALLS out of his chair as he nods eagerly, making jimin shake his head to himself as he hesistantly takes out his phone from his pocket

oh god jimin’s phone is on his hand now oh god that’s your picture oh god that’s your number oH-

“i’m not gonna text her tonight if that’s you’re worried about?? i mean we barely know each other!! consider me asking for her number to be used for future references only :D”

“what does future references even mean?”

...

“... luggage. i want y/n’s luggage bag.”

...

“i also want y/n’s-...”

“BUTT OUT JUNGKOOK!! BUTT !! OUT !!”

when you open up your company’s email to you, you really can’t help but to feel nervous

today was your off-day and they specifically requested that you come to the main office at 10 AM sharp

and in your off-day, you aren’t even awake at that time of the morning!!

it wss both a blessing and a curse that you slept early the night before so your body clock just went “lol u wake up early today get up at 6”

and not to mention the fact that it was the same day you learned that you went viral last night when you were peacefully asleep

so the last few hours have been WILD and it kinda put you into shock

the closest you’ve ever been to fame was having your pictures leaked with jimin when you were still kids!!

if you were lucky enough, your face would be covered by every possible animal emoji that was ever released

apart from that, it was the occassional mention of your name in stan twitter and that was it

but THIS type of fame is on a whole another level!! higher than being tagged as jimin’s best friend outside of bts!! higher than having your face covered with animal emojis

when you thought that you were gonna be fired over being viral for some reason unbeknownst —

even if you know that you haven’t violated anything and if anything, you were the one who got violated because someone uploaded a picture of you without your consent!!!

so when you learn that they aren’t mad at all and ecstatic in fact

because your airline basically got free publicity and promotion just because you looked so good in pictures that weren’t even intentional

and that there is a more than noticeable spike in the bookings of flights

and that people were cALLING to ask if you would be the one to pilot that flight

AND RIVAL AIRLINES WERE CALLING IN TO ASK WHEN YOUR CONTRACT WOULD EXPIRE

and that said rival airlines were pitching in salaries that competed with your paycheck now aND THAT THEY WERE EVEN higher

needless to say that your day was more than eventful

you don’t know how to cope up with it either so while the meeting drags on to talk about your newfound fame you’re just :O the entire time

“i believe that park jimin from bts is a close friend of yours, correct?”

wAIT what

you shouldn’t be shocked by now because practically everyone’s familiar with him and the rest of the boys

but it still takes you off-guard because as much as he is your friend

and as much you admit that you miss jimin :(

or that you haven’t talked to him as much these past few days

you genuinely don’t see the connection of why jimin would be brought up into this conversation that doesn’t involve him in the first place

there’s a self-pitying realization in between that it seems like your only determining factor these days was to be known as a best friend of a kpop idol and nothing else

:(

that’s a sad topic you’d rather not delve in at the moment

:(

“prior to you being catapulted into fame suddenly — we reached out to their company for them to become our endorsers. a commercial and a billboard and some other things.”

“and this is just the pERFECT timing because you’re famous now and people love you!!!”

this was it

the stars were aligning for you

not only do you get to hang out with jimin, but now you’re launched into much more job opportunities!!

when the meeting concluded, you narrow it down to the conclusions that:

a) you’re most likely to film a commercial and some adverts and perhaps be included in a billboard with them (their company has yet to confirm within the week but your ceo ji-eun is damn sure at this point or else she will flip

b) you’re now getting an agent :D because apparently offers have been waiting for you left and right and they already got you one before you even said “yeah sure i guess???”

c) you’re getting a RAISE

d) sooner or later you’re gonna do this photoshoot so your own company could post about you this time

e) interviews. you’re gonna be asked to chat your heart out intentionally. i n t e r v i e w s

and it’s a humbling moment for sure because it’s like 

oh. you didn’t mean for this to happen but it’s here now and you can make the most of this while it’s still here!! you get to do what you love and be with the people you love and basically get paid for it!!

oh is this what jimin feels like all the time then??

maybe you should apply as the 8th member of bts

it’s during an intentionally cold night in your apartment that your phone basically vibrates itself off the table

right when you were still in the bathroom taking your time because you were getting PR!! and the mask you just put on happens to be something you’ve been curious about but it was too expensive for you to be curious about lol

also: curiosity that leads you to buy either new skincare products or makeup are either a godsend or a godforsaken situation because 6 out of 10 times you do that, you breakout!!! 

the sound of something clattering to the ground immediately makes you scramble towards your living room, phone flipped over to see jimin up close, eyes even in a picture enough to intimidate you for not answering immediately

“Y/N!!!”

“JIMIN!!!”

the both of you put each other on speaker mode because while you didn’t want to risk ruining your mask, the rest of the boys wanna listen in

the entire phone call was so intense because even in speaker mode you were still yelling at each other

and it was spent with so much enthusiasm on trying to catch up with the past days and jimin apologizing profusely because he’s been living under a rock

“i can’t believe it!! I CAN FINALLY RIDE IN ON A FLIGHT YOU’RE GONNA PILOT”

what

wait

“... jimin what do you mean”

because as far as you knew, the airline commercial would be done with a green screen to ensure that it’s of the best quality

not a gopro type of thing because ur flight attendants would yell real-time to the camera crew and the boys when they try to do something and the seatbelt sign is still on!!!

“wait jimin i think y/n wasn’t supposed to know that yet”

you hear a voice in the background and it’s very much familiar and it’s now hitting you that there’s an audience for your entire call

“namjoon, is that you???”

“Y/N IT’S ME!!! NAMJOON!! OMG”

and then you hear this scuffle over the line and a very slight commotion

it’s jimin holding his phone away with his arm and the other fending off namjoon while hobi scrambles to steal it back

jin is helplessly saying hello to you in the background while jungkook is hopping around going all “miss y/n i am a fan of you!!!”

taehyung is going all sweater paws again while yoongi is desperately trying to shut them up because he’s still listening into yours and jimin’s conversation and he’s genuinely engrossed ok

and now everyone’s calm and collected especially since jimin gives them a death glare each and nobody admits but angry jimin scares the shit out of them

he’s back to being soft-spoken now because he realizes that he may have slipped in saying information he probably shouldn’t have yet, a sheepish scratch at the back of his head

“uhm well you see you’re gonna fly us over for bon voyage and uhm kinda stick around for some pieces here and there?? uhm that’s from what i know hehe”

right now you’re just blanking out and staring into the distance and you’ve suddenly gone awfully quiet

yoongi’s on the background like “yo i think you just broke her”

“is y/n’s cell broken? i’m gonna get her a new one”

“is she okay?? wHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO HER???”

“jimin-hyung you said y/n sometimes forgets to lock her door right??”

it’s once again another frenzy and once you realize that you’ve blanked out, you immediately shush them and they miraculously do

it’s a feeling of being overwhelmed and disbelief because this is more than you’ve ever asked for

to think that just last week you were tired and was about to pull off an AWOL because your off-day couldn’t have come nearer

“i certainly didn’t know that”

and there’s a nervous chuckle and a nervous silence that encompasses and for a moment, jimin frowns because he thinks that this is all too much for you and you’re gonna turn down the offer even before it’s gonna be officially pitched to you at a meeting tomorrow (you have yet to know that there’s gonna be another meeting tomorrow)

“oh my god i get to be with the lot of you!!!”

one excited shriek from you and that’s all it takes for hell to break loose

“JIMIN I MISSED YOU SO MUCH I CAN’T WAIT TO WHACK YOUR HEAD AGAIN”

“i can fINALLY meet jin and hope!!”

“where’s namjoon?? this old lady from one of my flights own a stall at the airport and she’s afraid of riding in airplanes! and i was apparently so good and she wasn’t scared and that she waited for me outside the cockpit! she gave me a written note saying that i could come to her stall anytime and the bOOKS I’M GONNA CHOOSE WILL BE FREE OF CHARGE EVERY SINGLE TIME”

“yoongi if you’re hearing this; i heard kyle kuzma’s gonna fly first class next week and i fly that same aircraft do u want me to ask for an autograph”

“we have a boatload of dog treats we give for lil ones we have onboard so they stay behaved!! taehyung can have them for yeontan”

“tell jungkook that he can finally have my walkie-talkie he’s been bugging me about!! i have a new one anyway”

it’s official

they love you

they are practically swooning right now and are mad at jimin because wHY DIDN’T YOU LET US KNOW Y/N SOONER 

they only met you a couple times in the past and hobi and jin are jealous because atleast they got to meet you :((

and all of them are willing to take a splinter for you no doubt 

everyone goes to sleep that night all warm and fuzzy and content

not to mention taehyung being so giddy about what you said

not only did you think of him you also thought about yeontan aNd you haven’t even met the little devil yet!!

and he isn’t the only one who thinks of this but

there’s just something about you that is so warm and so genuine

like you could be as introverted as yoongi and be as much of a team player and and extrovert as taehyung is when needed be

but the point is that there’s always something about you for everyone that makes them gravitated towards you

of course jimin explains this to you and you basically shut him off

“aish don’t put me in a pedestal because i swear that i’m not that special”

“why won’t you believe me??”

“because it isn’t true now eat your cereal jimin i will pinch you thru the screen”

the meeting comes soon enough and you have to pretend that this was your first time hearing this bit of information

the pilot you were helping learn the ropes, hyunjin, will take over your normal workload for the meantime!!

in less than one week’s time, you have to pack your bags for three-ish weeks!! because as from what you can tell, things are gonna be a bit more hectic for you because you’re not only gonna fly planes

for a run episode, the boys are gonna be your flight attendants in a mock flight with the passengers as staff members

but the plane being in the air and them wearing flight attendant uniforms will be very much real

and then another episode to be squeezed in with them trying out flight simulators and quizzed with aviation facts 

and whether u did the best or the worst with the two-part episode

they’re still gonna go skydiving :)

they’re really milking out the sky motif but ok it wasn’t your show anyway and you were just gonna guest so they can go off by all means

after all that work, you’re gonna fly them off again but it’s for bon voyage this time!!

they basically res for two-ish weeks and you can tag along behind the scenes because i mean like you’re flying them home too so might as well

get some clips in between to be used for the commercial

and said commercial would be shot a few days after you all get back from said vacation!!

that’s it narrowed down and as you were taking notes, you can’t help but to feel very excited and nervous at the same time

a few days pass and it’s finally time!! yeah sure run episode but JIMIN AND THE BOYS CAN FINALLY SEE YOU NOW

you were supposed to reunite in the aircraft itself but jimin is an impatient baby which is why he’s called you insistently to say some excuse of “you have to go back to the empty boarding gate u need to meet your camera director”

lol but in truth you really don’t need to and where they are now is what you need to pass to get to said boarding gate

so when jimin sees you by the jet bridge they were all at, he sprints

like actually SPRINTS to get to you 

and he attacks you with a massive bear hug and sprinkles you with noisy cheek kisses

“Y/N *kiss* I *kiss* MISSED *kiss* YOU *kiss* SO *kiss* MUCH *kiss*”

no lie you really did miss him too

and once you get him to calm down because he was crushing your bones and you return his cheek kisses

the boys are all just looking at the scene in front of them with awe

jungkook’s looking at namjoon with his eyes saying “lol imma do that too” and namjoon’s staring back going “NO”

taehyung’s extra pouty right now

he didn’t conisder the fact that maybe you and jimin were an unspoken thing and that his crush on you is now something he shouldn’t hold onto

he got discouraged very quickly

hobi is waddling to you at full-speed and goes for a hug which is wild move for someone who he’s just met (but u don’t mind)

“you’re adorable your uniform is so cute omg”

jin goes in for a hug too and you say something along the lines of “i could see the handsomeness they were talking about” and he goes absolutely rED

he’s laughing uncontrollably like a seal 

namjoon was about to go in for a hug but then he sees your wrist and-

“iS THAT A KAWS WATCH???”

“OH MY GOD YOU NOTICED???”

“HOW COULDN’T I? THAT’S LIKE LIMITED EDITION HOW DID YOU GET IT”

“I HAVE A FRIEND THAT’S A COLLECTOR HE GIFTED IT TO ME I CAN GET YOU CONNECTED TOO”

you are now being wrapped with namjoon’s long arms 

he doesn’t seem to be letting go of you soon

yoongi just has his arms wide and his eyes in a faux irritated manner

“what are you looking at”

and then his gummy smile appears when you just cave into his hug and jin is like??? “aH! y/n’s power is unparalleled”

jungkook immediately goes in for an embrace and even twirls you around

“ooh!! you have more piercings now than the last time i saw you!”

“i can pierce ears now!!”

“jungkook can you really”

“lmao no”

and now that it seems like hugging is the new norm, and taehyung being the last in line for you to greet, that kinda burns your nerves becauseif you were to “admit, you may or may not have a little crush on taehyung ever since the first time jimin introduced the both of you to each other

so you do the sensible thing and don’t think about it

no thoughts head empty head first

“tae!!!”

“aha y/n :D”

you hug him and well

taehyung blanked at that and panicked internally

the stark difference of your enthusiasm and his timid response was cringeworthy and it makes you screw your eyes shut as you hug him

but the moment tae realizes this, he holds on as you were trying to let go of him as qUICK as possible because it was too awkward for you to bear

and a little crushing if you were being honest

taehyung now takes first place for wanting to be reincarnated as a rock in the next life

after yoongi seeing that interaction he was just like ᵒᵒᶠ

before it goes anymore awkward though and tae starts squawking, jimin thankfully whisks you away 

“you look so badass in your uniform will u let me wear it”

“let me wear your hoops and i’ll let u borrow”

“lol forget that i even asked”

no matter what, jimin doesn’t let you borrow his earrings!!

like even if the boys borrow some from him time to time

he absolutely does not let you borrow and when you ask why, he just rolls his eyes and smacks his lips and goes N-O

and then eventually he has to shoo you out because they have to film the intro at the jet bridge and you’re not supposed to be there really

jungkook excitedly squeezes you again and goes “see you later!!”

jeon jungkook knows what he’s doing

so right before the cameras start rolling, he’s just staring at the side of taehyung’s face in close proximity with a teasing smile on his face and then wiggles his eyebrows in the slightest when tae finally returns his stare with a knowing glare

“what was that awhile ago, hyung?”

“one more word out of ur mouth and i’m ratting you out to-...”

“i was just kidding hehe don’t rat me out to namjoon that i accidentally stained his precious table hehe pls”

and he blinks at that and is taken aback

because that was supposed to be an empty threat

and now that jungkook realizes he’s fallen smack-dab into the trap, he now wants to ignite himself

taehyung now has blackmail material :D

jungkook is now held captive by said blackmail material :D

they eventually get done with their intro and into the aircraft itself!! jimin is the one to introduce you and throughout the whole ordeal they’re just hyped-up bc it’s the first time they get to do this type of episode

and they’re doing it with you so that’s a plus

and they get changed into their custom flight attendant attire

snug pink get-up with a silk navy blue scarf tied around as the uniform’s collar 

and golden nameplates engraved with their names on it

and AIR BANGTAN embroidered into the breast pocket!!

they looked absolutely good

your work would be lighter if only they were your actual flight attendants

you’d work every single day

even though they could be tiresome at times bc they could be all over the place

taehyung was admittedly swooning the whole time

the production staff made you alter your speech a bit so you could insert air bangtan and introduce all seven of them individually for the skit

and then everyone’s briefed with what they have to do and how safety should be the no. 1 priority

and then it’s takeoff time!!!!

jimin is really really proud of you

he takes advantage of this as his bragging rights

“aha that’s my best friend who’s flying the plane we are in right now :)”

“lol i love y/n i was best friends with her first :)”

“best take-off ever in your life amirite :)”

“i’m friends with a pilot in case you didn’t know :) no big deal”

“technically that’s captain jimin to you too now :)”

it was a fun and a chaotic episode

a bit unsafe? yes

but then the icing at the top was taehyung swooning at everything you did and cussing at himself every time he remembers how he screwed up earlier

he is the most behaved person in this flight and he wants you to know that :((

yoongi’s mercilessly teasing him

“y/n’s gonna come out to do her landing speech soon; you should pretend reading the safety manual now”

“somebody give taehyung a barf bag and a pen he’s gonna ask for an autograph from y/n”

“ey jimin do they sell y/n’s perfume in this flight?? someone just wants to ask”

the episode wraps soon enough but not without jimin rowding everyone to CLAP FOR THE PILOT WHO ALSO HAPPENS TO BE MY BEST FRIEND AHA EVERYTHING WAS SO SMOOTH SO COMFY QUICK TAKE A PICTURE OF ME N MY PILOT BEST FRIEND :D

and there’s just this innate feeling everyone feels every once in a while

that everything feels so right and so complete

it’s like complete nirvana

and before you know it, bon voyage is already happening

a vacation with seven best friends (jimin insists that he has the superlative best when you’re talking about them as friends) 

(and maybe one of them you don’t see as a best friend and perhaps something more and that person really doesn’t show much enthusiasm for you as you do for him)

(it’s taehyung)

and it’s not like taehyung isn’t fond of you

in fact, he very much is!! believe him!!

it’s just that he’s paralyzed over his crush on you and the fact that he sees you often because of these circumstances and he can’t believe it

too paralyzed over the fact that he might and may have already made a fool out of himself

and that he’s afraid to make moves on you with the boys here because jESUS CHRIST

he knows he would be teased mercilessly or he would be teased mercilessly while they help him out but they would never let him live this down

and jimin

oh god jimin

because as much as jimin loves him, he knows that one wrong move on you and he knows he’s gonna yeet him to the han river

he doesn’t know either what would be jimin’s reaction if he knew of his crush on you!! will he flip? will he be happy? wILL HE FORBID HIM FROM SEEING YOU EVER AGAIN????

at times he could be very overbearing

and he admits that

but all for good cause as he tries to explain

oh and jungkook

damn jungkook

he’s caught on pretty quickly about tae’s crush on you

and kook likes you but not in the way tae likes you

it’s just a fuzzy, warm, and platonic type of like like what the other boys have for you

but with fLIRTINESS

jimin’s the same but it was natural since you’ve been friends for absolutely ages

jungkook’s however was very fresh and very aBRUPT

it’s him trying to get a rise from taehyung and urging him to just make a damn move on you

he hopes that his flirtiness with you would just intimidate his hyung to the point that “open your eyes!!! oh what am i doing?? don’t you feel that i’m trying to steal y/n away from you?? MAKE A MOVE!!” gets across

taehyung has yet to realize that though

bon voyage doesn’t really include you (as you also try to remove yourself out of the picture as much as possible)

the cameras aren’t always turned on and not all hours of the day are spent on filming

so they can still get to do things and activities without staff members flooding the house!!

the house you’re all staying at is a gigantic one

so it got divided into two wings and you can even close it off!!

one wing solely for the boys and the other for you and the production staff

you were at their wing more often than you are in yours though

and during these past few days that turned into weeks, you’ve been closer to them more than you could imagine

they were easy to get around with!! them knowing that jimin knows you is a plus factor if you think about it

and even if not for that fact, they still think not much would’ve changed in your present friendship dynamic right now

it was comforting to be with them, really

the other way around!!

and you could also hang out with them either individually or as a group and it wouldn’t be awkward!!

.. taehyung may or may not be a slight issue though

you honestly think that he hates you :(

and you’re trying to backtrack your actions to see if you may have done something to him

you always try to keep up with his energy

jungkook was fooling around with a drone and trying to experiment flying it

and then he suddenly had this idea of “tae do you think you could outrun my drone”

and kook’s whipping his head around for you as if in a silent question to ask “wait is that possible”

and you’re just over there narrowing your eyes like “jungkook just because i’m a pilot,,,,, it doesn’t mean i know every flying object in the air and how to operate it,,,,,”

...

“but y/n can you outrun my drone tho”

it’s the sudden challenge that takes you aback and makes your eyebrow raise

and then it’s become a cHALLENGE

taehyung’s competitiveness making him forget that you’re even there and that he’s not acting all conscious

so it’s literally all fun and laughter

and the both of you may or may not be so caught up into this stupid challenge you stupidly both participated to

you’re not even sure if there was a rEWARD for this

so stupidly caught up to the point that jungkook’s already led the both of you to the beach that you were overlooking from the house you all stayed at

(jungkook’s running with the drone and that completely destroys the purpose of the drone but he’s having fun too ok)

before you knew it, both you and tae are crashing full-speed into the beach and it takes a collective second for you to realize that you both were indeed wet when you’re hip-deep into the water

and it sends another burst of laughter and you’re just looking at him helplessly and out of breath

“oh my god i didn’t even-...”

it hits taehyung now that he’s having full-on eye contact with you on what the fuck is he doing

he just immediately tenses and all the alarms in his head are going off

‘hahahaha yes :)”

and there it is again

that noticeable shift in the air that makes your mouth dry at what could you have possibly done

he’s quick on walking himself out of the water, quite literally leaving you there

jungkook’s by the shoreline laughing himself to death and sees taehyung waddling himself out

“hYUNG OMG YOU DIDN’T EVEN-...”

ok what was that

what the fuck was that

he only gets a blank laugh in return and it’s a dampener for his mood right now

and it only sinks in now that why is taehyung returning by himself

“y/n did you drown????”

no you didn’t drown

but the idea did seem enticing because you felt so embarrassed and down with what just happened

so right now jungkook just has his arm around your shoulders as he’s trying to figure everything out

“did i -- did i do something wrong?”

and even if the context isn’t clear. he immediately says no

the both of you are just walking back to the house while the sun sets and he still isn’t sure of what happened but he knows that it’s enough to make you sad and most probably has something to do with taehyung

he just wants to cheer you up :(

so mid-way he kinda picks you up wordlessly and you don’t fight him about it

you’re completely drained of your energy both physically and emotionally

you melt into jungkook’s grasp on you as your way of thanks and he acknowledges it with a squeeze on your arm

by the time you get back, everyone’s just doing their own thing because it’s nearing dinner

kook kinda plops you into the couch yoongi’s sitting on

his eyes question that something’s kinda off but he doesn’t question it

and you just crawl the short distance so that you’re laying on his lap and be sad in peace there

all he does it just past your head once and that’s it

and he’s just watching a replay of a basketall game because he hasn’t had time to catch up with those championship games (even if he knows who won and who lost)

and out of the blue yoongi just hears you softly pipe in

“my ex is a professional basketball player”

“wHO’S YOUR EX WHAT KIND OF PROFESSIONAL ARE-...”

and you shush him bc you don’t want anybody else to know

“omg jimin doesn’t know this?? and i’m like the first one to know?”

“yes”

oh and he kinda huddles because after all, this is a secret and it does have something to do with basketball

“professional as in he played in this show you’re watching rn”

“is he in this game????”

“lol no from what i know, he got injured even before championship but yeah his team’s playing right now”

“what’s his name???”

“theo. i call him theo”

and then that name sounds awfully familiar and he’s specifically requesting to see what he looked like and even tries to get hobi to look for your phone

but your pictures with him are all deleted now so you just make yoongi search up his name and he’s like :O

“....... why did you break up then..,,.,”

and then you just gently explain that it was a mutual decision and that both your jobs were demanding

so yeah it was impossible to happen

and yoongi forgot that fifteen minutes ago, jungkook just plopped you here because you wanted to lie down and were too sad to function

and he made you retell what happened to you and your ex that only he knows about

so he feels a little guilty

“you don’t have to speak if you don’t want to :(”

and you just wave him off that catches him off-guard

“nah it’s all okay :)”

man were u selfless

yoongi now loves you more

jin and namjoon finish dinner soon enough and everybody goes down to eat

even taehyung who’s with jimin

and it doesn’t even look like something’s wrong

but jimin’s counting all the heads in the room and was like ‘wAit where’s y/n???”

he sees you getting yourself out from lying in yoongi’s lap and he’s there with you in a heartbeat cooing at you

“y/n baby what happened”

and you’re back to lying down again but this time it’s jimin pushing you to lie on his shoulder as he’s stroking your hair

you said “nothing”, you know...,,., like a liar

jimin throws yoongi a questioning look and the older boy just shrugs his shoulders because he doesn’t know either

taehyung’s abandoned at the edge of the stairs

and you were about to scoff but that obviously doesn’t hurt as much when he abandoned you hip-deep into the water

“mhmmm i see :D”

jimin most definitely knows you’re lying but he doesn’t want to prod into it because it’s obvious that you weren’t in the mood to be questioned

at this point he’s just trying to cheer you up but in the same time give you sustenance

he’s literally feeding you right now

jin cooked up a lot of box mac n’ cheese (he transferred it into actual bowls) from the conveniece store and you know what

he wanted to try it out

it is not the healthiest thing in the world but atleast it’s somehow foreign right???? 

as much as jimin loves you, he does want to eat though

so he asked jungkook to get him a big-ass bowl with a portion big enough for the both of you and he did just that 

but you aren’t that much cooperative because you’re not eating that much and jimin is really really enticed with the smell of the food rn and jungkook senses that

“i’ll feed her, hyung!! go get another spoon for you or something”

he is really thankful for that so he just pushes the bowl to kook and scrambles for a utensil and perhaps even his own bowl

jungkook’s feeding you now and without jimin sending you a questioning glance every two seconds, you’re more cooperative 

taehyung is sitting by the far corner of the couch parallel to yours and he is CLENCHING

and he’s groaning to his mac n’ cheese and namjoon is ??? why are you like this ???

“good. it tastes so good.”

he nods but he’s still sending tae a questioning look

you eventually gained the appetite to eat

but jungkook was in charge of the dishes tonight and he doesn’t want to wash one more spoon so he insisted that you just share one instead

taehyung is gonna COMBUST

he is now practically yelling into his mac n’ cheese

everyone is now ??? at him and he makes a show of just shoving the bits of pasta to his mouth

“jin-hyung :) namhoon-hyung :) this is so delicious :) how did you do this :)”

“...... taehyung that’s instant,,,, boiled water and the cheese powder...,.,”

“aHA so that’s why :)”

his actions are v fishy and v funny 

but deep down he is boiling angry and frustrated both at himself and a jungkook

kook is giggling to the bowl right now that you had to pry it away from him

you’re not even LOOKING at taehyung’s direction

usually you did

but your will to treat him like how he treats you is stronger

that’s it that’s gonna be the rest of the trip

if there’s any personality trait you’re gonna pick up from jimin from having been his friend for so long

it would be the stubbornness

you avoid taehyung like the flu

AND HE NOTICES THAT

AND THE BOYS ARE STARTING TO NOTICE IT TOO

jimin is the one most on-guard about that 

and he is whispering to everyone except taehyung 

“if you see something that relates to y/n and taehyung tell me ok tELL ME!!!”

and even tae feels sad about it to the point that he’s trying to make a conscious effort in making conversation with you

when you’re on the floor with your laptop turned on and they’re surrounding you trying to help you out with your emails

emails that don’t relate to aviation work and more-on to the viral side of things such as designer !!! brands !!! reaching out to you personally instead of your agent!!!

“mhmm they have really good shoes. what’s your favorite color anyway?”

and he says that in the midst of voices overlapping bUt the boys realized that taehyung gave input into the conversation and wAS LIKe wait wait tae’s speaking shut up shut up

but jimin answers for you in a heartbeat and hobi pinches his arm and he was laughing suddenly

he’s looking around trying to say something with eyes

“lol i’m sorry did i ruin his move on y/n”

and his subconscious-

“WAIT WHAT TAEHYUNG IS MAKING MOVES ON Y/N???”

it takes all four of his hyungs to plead him to shut up with their glares and don’t make this anymore awkward as tae wants to be swallowed wholly by the ground

your resolute will doesn’t crumble until jimin makes it his ultimate mission to find a drink that’s gonna sink you

because your alcohol tolerance was brought up again when they were talking about buying drinks

and jimin tells the story of how you outdrank him one night and didn’t wake up with a deadlier hangover than he did aNd he was still curious to how you did it

you don’t know either but you’re as interested as them in finding a drink that’s gonna sink you

hobi’s random pick in the grocery store did JUST that

you finally sunk

you finally got as drunk as jimin’s level

as in a shit-faced type and not just a happy buzz you usually felt

you and jin have been laughing without end for five minutes now

no one even joked

you just made eye contact with each other and you both immediately started to wheeze 

he was starting to get so red he looked borderline pURPLE if you were still seeing clearly

yoongi was laughing by seeing the two of you laugh because it was starting to get contagious at the point 

by now namjoon’s back was being slapped carelessly by yoongi who’s pleased with himself

taehyung has a grin on his face because you were so adorable

as if his cheeks weren’t warm enough just by seeing you so happy and bubbly

and the heat in his chest isn’t just because of the alcohol nor the warmth his sweater provided

maybe this isn’t a little crush anymore :((

while he’s ignoring that possibility, everyone else is considering it

everyone besides you :((

jimin’s on his feet at the moment because oh my god it’s happening!!!

good news because you’re drunk out of your mind

and bad news that you’re drunk out of your mind

so he’s tending to you with a glass of water and you won’t drink it

he’s trying harder this time by putting the glass to your lips but you were flailing around so much by laughing that it spilled some to you and jimin himself

he’s now looking for a straw

this one’s for boba but he has to settle for this now

and he’s trying to coax you into drinking it

hE’S EVEN USING A VOICE HE USES FOR BABIES

“but water tastes like nothing :((”

“which is exactly what you need”

“but i want it to taste like something”

he’s about to groan but then he sees your eyes glossing 

and oh god did he hear a whimper

“y/N BABY DON’T CRY OK OK WHAT DO YOU WANT????”

he’s now looking for an ice cold chocolate drink that isn’t overly sweet

namjoon has made it his personal decision to follow jimin around

and with his twofold clumsiness at this state, yoongi follows him but not without holding on to the back of jooni’s shirt so he could be slid around

jin stands up and follows them but he’s not sure why

“why are you all -- this is NOT a conga line!!!”

hobi’s staring into the distance turned into snoring

taehyung isn’t all that drunk

but you, on the other hand, are very much drunk

tae’s not sure to why you’re approaching him

maybe it’s because the hoodie he’s wearing now is jungkook’s

maybe it’s because jimin’s scent is on his hair from having borrowed his shampoo

maybe it’s because you’re drunk and your first thought is him even if drunk

but all his thoughts fly out the door when you’re squeezing yourself into the couch he’s lying on at the very moment

one that’s too small for the two of you and that he had to grab you split-second because you were about to fall out of the couch so hard if not for his strong grip that holds you

“y/n.”

taehyung’s not sure either to what his tone contained

whether it was for warning or for reprimanding, literally all his thoughts are crushed once again the moment you speak

“you’re voice is very deep.”

he’s not sure if you know this either but you were unconsciously cuddling up to his side, filling in the gap at the couch that just made you barely fit

you’re

cuddling

him

“a-and it’s very calming.”

he’s not sure to why but the moment you put your hand on his chest because you were basically almost lying on top of him

his first instinct was to put his hand on the small of your back

and the moment and the feelings were so warm that fuck this isn’t the alcohol anymore

nor the sweater

so warm to the point that the both of you don’t notice jimin’s :O and everyone else’s :D

because the make-shift conga line has arrived right in front of where you are and hobi just woke up

and right when everything feels surreal 

taehyung watches a split-second decision happen right in your eyes

you just kissed the tip of his nose

:’)

taehyung thinks he’s gonna ascend to heaven

it’s the softest moment ever because you pull away trying to gauge his reaction

he’s all red with his bottom lip in between his teeth and oh my god his eyes are so expressive

jimin steps in tho

and he clears his throat and taehyung iS SUDDENLY BACK TO EARTH

oh my god oh my god that just happened oh my god

this is a bit more scary and intimidating now

because jimin doesn’t look neither thrilled nor angry

he looks neutral

neutral blank-faced on the verge of who knows what jimin is the most frightening jimin

“hey baby here’s your chocolate drink you asked for :)”

and with just a head rub you immediately come to your senses and are already making grabby hands to the cold mug (with a straw!!) and you’re scrambling to stand up and jimin’s helping you to stay stable because you’re attached to him now

taehyung is now looking at his hands as if they were the most entertaining things in the world “wow look at my rings i have never seen them before so shiny so silver”

and he knows jimin can see right through him

jimin has the tiniest hands out of all of them while he has the largest

and u know what

he could be still strangled with those same hands 

and u know what too

maybe he’ll accept that wrath because he kinda deserves it  

he’s sent a brief look that’s enough to let him know that the both of them will talk

that taehyung shouldn’t leave this couch

nor leave this house

nor this country

you know what maybe tae better start timing his record on how long he can go without breathing

he can do that for a minute and a half underwater

soon enough jimin finally tucks you in with not much protest

much force from him tho but much more apologies and coos when he apologizes and you do as asked

got to make u brush your teeth and change into a fresh set of pajamas

he has to trick you into “seokjin would be mad at u when he learns that you went to sleep with dirty clothes on”

and him being the good friend that he is

since he also achieved of getting to sink you with a drink

he’s gonna go the extra mile

went so far as to wipe you with a wet towel and dry you off since you didn’t want to shower and he’s afraid ur probably gonna fall asleep not even midway

he even does your skincare routine for you

you kept giggling when he was patting your face so he did it more but now you were in the verge of tearing because in your drunk state you tHOught he was slapping you over and over again with both palms at the same time

and after all that

jimin finally gets around with taehyung on the couch and the younger boy just immediately straightens his posture

...

“...,.,., so you and y/n.,.”

there are literally no words in his mouth

“aha yes me and y/n :D”

and it’s a habit of tae’s to be incoherent whenever he’s flustered

that kinda doesn’t help his case because jimin needs ALL of his brainpower and coherence

“what are your intentions?”

“uhm i uhm aha :D great pilot. no jet lag.”

he’s nodding even there isn’t something to nod at

god he didn’t even drink much but he feels just as floaty and as spent

“calm down, taehyung.”

he SOBERS at that

jimin even pats at his knee to try and ground him

“y-you’re not mad at me??”

“lol i kinda am to be honest”

:(

“but i’m only mad because you treated her from the start as if you didn’t like her!!”

“but hyung you knOw it’s hard and -- wait was it really obvious??”

“there’s a difference between being shy AND being an insensitive ass that leaves the room whenever she enters!!!”

“but-...”

“and i know that people cope with things differently but your mechanism with your little crush on y/n was just kinda off for her, y’know? like this is the time she genuinely gets to know you and not just a five-second introduction by me!! and it’s just kinda a ballsy move because she just got to know you in this level and you’re acting like an ass and she doesn’t know why!!”

“ok but-...”

“and ok the boys and i aren’t mad that you kept from us because it was pretty obvious but i mEAN like you could have just went to us, ya know?? even if some would give poor advice, it’s the thought that counts!!”

“jimin-...”

“oH also what if y/n fell for jungkook instead of you, huh??? he has balls and he doesn’t even like her in that way!!”

this effectively shuts tae up because he hasn’t really considered that possibility

and it’s a dunk at sobering reality that each one of these days he let pass could have been the moment but it was just him hindering himself

because he is a shy boi for you and the crippling fear of rejection just always paralyzes him

aND NOW THAT TONIGHT HAPPENED!!!

with his nose still tingling and his cheeks still flushed because of that kiss

with somehow permission from jimin

with you in the picture now and everything in place

taehyung really can’t help but pout adorably and cry up tears of happiness a bit

jimin hugs him for that with a pat on his back

they both know though that even without any verbal warning that jimin will give taehyung hell if ever he breaks your heart

tae kinda pales at the realization because it may be a conflict of interest

and jimin would be like

lol :) why would you be afraid of me when you have no intention of hurting her :) 

tae SWEARS he could hear jimin in his head and he was about to reply but he realizes that he’s just a little bit worried and much more overwhelmed

needless to say that things really did do change overnight

you were trashed yet thankful that you remembered most of how the night went including that bit in which you were drunkenly topping and cuddling taehyung then pressing a soft little kiss to the tip of his nose

you could still hear your internal monlogue of “boop :D” when you kissed him

you’re woken up by the boys (yoongi included because it turned out you slept in for much longer) since today was a no-film day and they basically get to do anything in this vacation without it being documented and such

it was just a never-ending warm feeling with tae

throughout the whole day he was just grinning at you and maintaining eye contact and at times when you’re not even doing anything

(he’s glued to your side much to the grumpiness of jimin)

it was a slow burn at most

bumping shoulders and squeezing of wrists 

having his hand casually on the small of your back and around your shoulders

taehyung scrunching his nose SO MUCH

hobi is genuinely concerned

“tae do u have a cold??”

yoongi is fucking relentless

“what? what? what did the good boy smell???”

seokjin keeps pursing his lips intentionally after trying to gain tae’s attention and he = would shrug his shoulders excessively

“i saw that u little punk i SAW that”

namjoon would be on tune with how yoongi just won’t stop

“tie that bandana around your neck instead and sTOP sniffling”

jungkook would roll his eyes and scoff playfully whenever taehyung would glance at him

“do i need to kiss y/n so you’d be jealous enough to do so??”

jimin would be the mediator with all the teases but that doesn’t exactly mean he’s on tae’s side either bc the one time taehyung bragged that jimin was protecting him, he got whacked on the side of the head

“lol no this isn’t for u taehyung,, i’m just doing this because y/n’s cheeks are so hot and they’re burning a hole on my shoulder”

as much as your relationship was slowly but surely blossoming with taehyung

it happened for the boys as well!! even with jimin who you didn’t even think was possible to get closer to

bonding with jin was spontaneity and strict adherance to plans combined

“jin do u know milktpapi on twitter”

“bubble would have been a better name for that puppy”

following twitter recipes that are fast-paced and a little vague became a big hit for the both of you

he went on a watching binge one night and the morning after there were just paper bags on the counter of ingredients upon ingredients that he so sweetly asked the staff to get for him

DC CUPCAKES!!!!!!!

he liked that there has to be some type of drama between those two sisters

jin would just be ranting to you with no end

“they were on CONEy island,,, C O N E ,,,, and she made cupcakes in cONES but they still chose the sister who thought hAMBURGERS,,, in C O N E y island,,,, was a good idea!!!”

another inside game was to guess the personification of inanimate things but to food

“what must sadness taste like”

jin and you and the never-ending bickering between the two of you almost always fills in as white noise

yoongi and you are rather a quite dynamic duo

and as hobi explains that you could just really really catch on with his tempo

like at times they would just catch the two of you lying on the same couch but at the opposite ends with your feet meeting in the middle

awake and in complete silence

jungkook has his eyes squinted

“why are you texting each other????”

and it has him genuinely baffled but he’s just answered with a grumble and he CAN’T tell whether it’s from you or yoongi

just like with jin, there’s also a food approach

“that dumpling kinda looks like namjoon”

“i was JUST about to say that”

it wasn’t a showy type of friendship with yoongi; rather a more silent concern type of thing and the occasional hug

love language with him seems to be the both of you having a drum-off because he has a nervous habit of tapping his fingers

and he’s v thankful because oh :) you’ve just distracted me from that thing i was nervous about :)

also likes snoozing off so whenever you can, you squeeze in a pillow when his neck’s in an awkward position and when he wakes up and realizes he’s just like :) gummy smile :)

hobi is a force to be reckoned with

asking “hey r u ok” out of the blue even if you weren’t particularly sure how the other one felt and sometimes one of your heads would just whip and go “you noticed???? :(”

hanging with him whenever he scrolls at his phone and online shops

the only difference is that he buys what he wants

“you’re telling me that we scrolled for like an hour and you’re not buying any of the things you saw????”

and you just pass it off every time because although a pilot’s wage is above average salary, your future and earning isn’t as sECURED and SOLID as his was

that doesn’t stop him peeking at your cart when you aren’t looking and adding it to his and perhaps checking out :) i mean it’s definitely not from him when you see some parcels in your doorstep by the time you get home :) not from him :)

it’s become a constant thing to link your arms together!!!

even if you’re not necessarily walking, it is essential to link arms with you as he argues

one time jimin tried getting in between your linked arms with hobi bc he wanted to join

hobi IMMEDIATELY glares at him and jimin backed off like sheesh ok but u don’t get to do the things i do with y/n either

writing on each other’s forearms is a thing too

sometimes it’s to conversate when you’re not in the mood to talk verbally

sometimes it’s just about talking shit but don’t tell jin he has his coat on backwards he looks laughable

“can u choreograph something for twinkle twinkle little star”

“y/n i-...”

nAMJOON however feels like he should’ve met you earlier like WAY WAY EARLIER

he gets on with you so well and sometimes he just sulks to jimin

“why didn’t you introduce y/n earlier to me god what was life like before y/n”

brain talk is more prevalent than ever because there are thoughts that delve deep into your mind that sometimes only namjoon could get

noah fence but if you were to rant about this to jimin, he would just drone off and grumble and he’d turn to sleeping because he just can’t help it

movie symbolisms????? count that to him and jungkook

after watching parasite for the nth time, you’re sure all three of you had all bases covered but nO it was somehow bottomless

“isn’t it ironic and somehow oxymoronic that...”

he is eternally grateful for you because one night the boys wanted to have a seafood night and u may or may not have had some recipes sent in your airline gc with how your airplane food was made

(surprisingly it didn’t suck)

and you considered him since he hates it and you know what,, he gets something else cooked for him

god namjoon gets why taehyung is smitten with you

also joonie is a bit oblivious to this fact but the other boys notice that you always bring him back a trinket of some sort

you noticed (and jimin might have pointed out one time) that he tended to fiddle with things and do small tasks whenever he was ticked off or stressed out

you keep note that you should gift him one of those fun kiddie entertainment packs when you’re back to regular programming as a pilot

it’s also a constant thing for you to bury your head to his chest

for no reason at all

it’s really comforting to say the least

he could be preparing breakfast and you’re just trudging down the stairs still not fully awake

“hey. i’m making-...”

boop

“oh ok jus hang there if you want but u might get burnt by the pan but it’s ok it’s ur call”

jimin has become even much more of a precious being

gets in your nerves a bit more often than the last time but it’s normal at this point

head rubs that lull you to sleep are the best :((

taehyung sometimes looks to his hands because jimin got you to sleep instantly and he pouts

“how do you do that?? i wanna do that too pls”

jimin’s voice feels like a warm weighted comforter,, that you gotta admit

“your voice is very velvet-y and it’s unfair because i can’t stay mad at you”

“𝓲 𝓴𝓷𝓸𝔀“

you still make an awed face whenever jimin cracks his bones

you’re in the middle of being fond and being disgusted at the sound so it’s still a 50/50 whether you grimace or gasp at him

“can i pls borrow your hoops”

“you could ask a million times and i would still say no”

playing with his rings whenever you’re sad is a habit you would never grow out of

which is why you were attached to him by the hip,,, or rather hands ,,, when taehyung was in the verge of being an ass to you

jungkook is something ELSE

if you aren’t lingering around jimin or taehyung, you would definitely be around him

taehyung is most jealous with the two of you but no he didn’t say that :)

annoying each other is the no. 1 task 

but lately annoying feels like second nature now so it doesn’t seem like tradition anymore

you would be his audience whenever he’s drawing because you’re genuinely enthrilled with him and his work

“how are you so good at this”

you’re almost always trying to copy what he draws

“what were you attempting with this”

“i was attempting your drawing”

“lmao are you sure with that???”

jungkook likes playing with you by pretending that he’s annoyed

but when he sees that u made his art your lockscreen, he was so awed that he was literally about to BAWL

he pretends not to notice when you push your food to his plate because you either aren’t too keen with the dish or you’re just too full

when jimin calls you out for “y/n why are you putting ur food on jungkook’s plate” and jungkook with “and jungkook why are you accepting it”

kook just shrugs and comes to defend you

“nope i didn’t see anything hyung :D”

if you liked shoving your head to namjoon’s chest, you liked leaning on jungkook’s shoulder

seokjin looks most offended 

“not even half of me y/n not even H A L F of me”

this really warms taehyung’s heart

because not only are you close to him but also with his brothers!!

even if he wants to deck jungkook sometimes

and that he may need to work on his jealousy

but none of those things matter because he’s given the assurance that you’re exclusive

that he may be yours and you may be his 

as cheesy as that sounded

taehyung’s working on a plan to properly ask you out once bon voyage ends and not just steal cheek kisses from time to time

or hold your hand and avoid your gaze because he too will surely combust

or hug you from behind tenderly 

much to the teasing and the hoots of the boys

and jimin’s occasional scowls but that’s ok he’s moving on and slowly starting to accept the fact that he can’t be overbearing this much anymore

bon voyage wraps soon enough

and truth be told you didn’t want it to end because you were in such bliss!!

it was a very memorable trip that you now carry close to your heart

and the fact that they still have a commercial to be filmed with you and some billboards to be shot makes you very :D

since the commercial was to be filmed tomorrow and you lived close to the airport, jimin initiated the idea of “hey what about if we just sleep over at y/n’s place??” which was very applauded

taehyung squeals the loudest when the idea was pitched in

“lol no you don’t get to sleep in the same bed as y/n”

namjoon shoots jimin a look that he was being overbearing again

“or you could just let her decide :)”

it’s only been four days since they last saw you but needless to say that it was borderline chaos when they met you at your apartment that was more on the spacious side

“y/n’s uncle kinda owns the building” jimin explains at first because the building did look more lavish than the average complex

“d-do i get to meet y/n’s uncle??” 

taehyung is a bit nervous because he didn’t know that fact obviously and now he’s meeting the family and he is unprepared jesus christ and-

“no he probably won’t like you”

“jimin sTOP making taehyung nervous because he’s gonna start sniffling again”

the lot of them get to your apartment before you because your flight got delayed and therefore jimin just had to whip out his key you gave him as an extra

he does it fast enough before taehyung takes a deep dive to how he doesn’t have an extra key from you or something like that 

jimin does feel like he’s being a bit hard on tae so he lays off of it for now

taehyung has the ultimate heart eyes for you the moment you come home

“i missed you” in the most adorable and heartwarming tone

and there it was again

a cheek kiss and not just a quick peck!!

a tight hug to your waist and a nuzzle against your hairline!!

MUCH WARMTH AND FUZZINESS

once jimin finally got to pry taehyung off of you because he claims that he’s hogging you all to himself, you’re met with very eager hugs and greetings

seokjin and basically everyone else are still in awe seeing you in your uniform so he squeezes in a quick pic in his phone 

you sent him a look and when you peered in, the picture turned out really cool with the nice lighting your apartment had

AND he’s really pushing it that it was good because of the app he downloaded that made pictures have a vintage film cam aesthetic to it

so you yielded and just told him to send the picture to you later 

aha ego boost :D

they insisted on cooking dinner since you did look a bit exhausted from your round of flights even if it was routine at this point (the highlight was when some people recognized you from the pics that went viral and asked to take a pic with you when you were greeting them out!!)

“are you really sure you’re gonna cook dinner, tae? i could always order-...”

“you don’t need to!! i wanna cook for you anyway!!”

that was heartwarming more than usual

jungkook clears his throat

“....,., and us”

“aha yes of course i meant for you and the boys as well :D”

you go to change clothes more than enthusiastically now

because things just seemed to be good with no complications at all

the idea of domesticity with taehyung makes you iMPLODE just by thinking about it

the thought was too soft and too fuzzy that you’ve become energized

maybe reading a couple of emails before taking a shower and cleaning up and getting yourself to look a bit more presentable isn’t a bad thing

it isn’t anything but sheer giddiness when you check your inbox and see an edited version of a run bts ep from a staff member you befriended during bon voyage!!!

you kinda get now what jimin was saying that you had the ability to have people wrapped around your finger

maybe it’s charisma you picked up from wanting to please people just so you could have extra credit???

anyways

it’s a run bts ep you get one of the first dibs on to watch so that’s always a reward

basically the context for it was that it was a hot tub confessions type of thing!! the twist was that they had to speak their heart out (their dislike is very much encouraged) over a certain someone bUT they had to rely on their ~telepathy because names wouldn’t drop

and it was a random selection to who would start the confession first and the others had to go with the flow and basically hope that they’re talking smack about the same person lol

only the name blank would be used and it for the pronoun!!

you were already making assumptions to who it would be about

it could be about jungkook because throughout the whole trip, he would literally gasp out of the blue and take the others in shock like seagulls going WHAT WHAT WHAT IS IT WHAT WHAT

or maybe jimin because he’s a lil shit and would pull chairs and that hobi fell victim and was so annoyed because he fell on his ass so hard 

last prospect was seokjin simply because,, as jungkook emphasized throughout this whole trip,, “ʲᶦⁿ⁻ʰʸᵘⁿᵍ ᶦˢ ˢᵒ ᵒˡᵈ ᵒʰ ᵐʸ ᵍᵒᵈ” just because he complained about his lower back one time

speaking of jin, he gets chosen to open the game!!

and he buffers for a moment that gets another tease from jungkook 

“ᵒʰ ᵐʸ ᵍᵒᵈ ʲᶦⁿ⁻ʰʸᵘⁿᵍ'ˢ ᵐᵉᵐᵒʳʸ ᶦˢⁿ'ᵗ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ᵃⁿʸᵐᵒʳᵉ ᵍᶦᵛᵉ ʰᶦᵐ ʰᶦˢ ᵐᶦˡᵏ“

“blank bought me an actual film camera!! bit more complicated than taehyung’s!! keeps telling me every five seconds about my settings and i!! i KNOW HOW TO WORK IT THANK U VERY MUCH!!”

although jin is a bit guilty about that because he admits that he has a more-than-sure feeling that most of his pics may or may not be either over-exposed or too dark

this reminds you of that time you bought a film camera for jin on a whim because it was on sale and you were talking about it the night before

lol what a coincidence

hobi takes second call

he is only about a quarter-percent sure to who jin was pertaining to so he trails around for a bit

“blank is like a broken kitchen timer”

he plays it safe with that one 

although there is some sort of edge with his bluntness because everyone might be a little drunk hehe 

“blank looks at things as if it was born yesterday!! literally goes :O”

even goes so far to imitate said expression and it makes everyone gIGGLE

yoongi snorts with that and now he’s a bit more feisty since he’s tipsy

“it joins me in my silence”

wait

“texts me even if i’m in the same room like wtf i can see you”

wait

hold on

“likes hUGGING ME TOO MUCH”

you really didn’t like making things about you because other people doing that makes you tick

but there’s this unsteady feeling in your gut

something that makes you think deep in thought and in doubt

jimin was next to speak so that calms your nerves

he would never, right??

maybe you’re just taking things to heart!! the boys really aren’t talking smack about you, right??

your breath is just held because jimin was surely taking his time in making a show with inhaling so deeply so he could yell a bit more dramatically

“DOES IT NOT HAVE ITS OWN CLOTHES????”

oh

your eyes flicker for a moment to the sweater that’s by your dresser

something of jimin’s that you forgot to return

oh.

“needier and whinier than jungkook”

it was the youngest’s turn to cackle

and at this point you’re only half-listening

you’re a bit too preoccupied with the hurt blooming in your chest

“i!! am!! not!! a!! baby!!”

jungkook’s meltdown makes everyone else laugh because right now he had his fists clenched and his face looking like a baby’s

“blank always wants to be included it’s not funny anymore”

there was just a little bit more hope lingering that this may no be about you at all

but god it was getting too specific 

too specific when it came to namjoon who was a bit more eloquent in speaking and wanting to get his point across

“.... trying to memorize my rap in UGH! .....”

fuck this really is about you

and it’s not just sadness that’s overtaking you

makes you more than deflated than you thought you could ever be

“at this point i sometimes avoid her”

and god there’s this more than familiar laugh that fills your ears through and through

“lol namjoon where do you hide?? i hide in the pantry”

taehyung even?

at this point you can’t even bear watching the video anymore

willing your laptop closed so forcefully that it bOUNCED back open but you can’t even begin to worry that you might have put a crack on the screen

shoving it to your desk with the screen facing anywehere instead of you being the best option

the hurt is painfully fresh and oddly felt so surreal

god were you really that intolerable?

you didn’t know how to cope with what you’ve just heard nor experienced

but the only thing you were sure about is that your situation has just been too good

perhaps this was the complication you were looking for because you weren’t used to things being so good

and you know for sure that this feeling isn’t good at all

and you hated it

at this point you’re just trying to go about your previous plans of showering and cleaning up but the eagerness isn’t there anymore

nor is the eagerness to see the boys

nor is the eagerness to see taehyung

didn’t even notice that you were taking up much time that jimin was at your door knocking, voice gentle and inquiring

“y/n did you fall asleep??”

you’re very much tempted to not go out at all because you lost your appetite for eating too

very much so that you make no move at all and actually think that jimin’s given up on knocking at your locked door

but then your phone rings and he knows for sure that you haven’t gone to sleep because it would’ve been put on silent

“are you hiding???”

you pretty much are and you don’t wanna go out at all

but you basically had no choice to

it was a pressure to wipe at stray tears and say “i’m coming” in an unwavering voice and even more-so pretend that nothing’s wrong at all

or the fact that everyone’s eyes are on you and jimin’s prodding makes everyone else wonder

“are you crying??”

the question doesn’t faze you but it does take you by surprise now that you aren’t comfortable with the situation nor the new attention

taehyung’s getting worried because now he notices the redness in your eyes and the bit of puffiness in your lips

“just sleepy. my eyes tear up when i’m sleepy, right?” you’re using jimin’s knowledge about you against him and he agrees to that almost instantly

can’t help thinking that something was fishy though

you weren’t telling him off when he was bickering to taehyung that he shouldn’t sit next to you for dinner

didn’t react either when tae let off a little victory giggle and grinned when he sat next to you not one bit of acknowledgement when a replay of cake boss was on your tv with jin’s eyes flickering over to you repeatedly but he doesn’t receive an excited glance back

even yoongi found you oddly too quiet and he was tempted to pull out his phone to text you

it’s weirdly off

there’s something missing

namjoon was starting to get worried because you aren’t really engaged in this conversation with a topic he’s direly interested about

“and something done to that degree would just be far too suspicious, right?”

“mhmm yeah”

:(

even jungkook who’s kinda throwing himself at you and you’re just barely responding

he’s wriggling himself to fit by your side and just curl up and when he looks at you expectantly to do something, he just gets a pat on the head

a pat??????

hobi’s being over the top with his reactions right now to try and gauge a reaction from you but to no avail at all

normally he would’ve made you laugh or atleast smile at this point

but there’s nothing

just nothing

taehyung gets you alone on the couch because everyone else was just dispersed at this point and are bumping into each other asking if they knew what happened to you

jimin himself is pressured because he prides himself in being your closest friend aND HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOU

tae is a lil bit more confident that he could coax out to why you were acting so differently

even gets far as to hold your hand and nuzzle his face to the crook of your neck

“everything okay, baby?”

god and he’s only called you baby only for a handful of times

“yeah”

that didn’t hurt taehyung’s ego

not at all

or make him overthink to why you’re not all that willing to open up to him nor even look interested in this conversation he’s carrying alone on his back

no not at all

not even when jimin has the most balls out of the group and is the testing point to see how the waters would go

while the night’s coming to an end and everyone’s slowly starting to settle in

“aha so where are we gonna crash anyway?”

you know what he’s trying to get at 

but seeing to it that what you just watched prior to this and perhaps for even a longer period besides that particular episode you don’t even wanna watch

you might as well not give anyone the sense of satisfaction nor pride; even if the question took you by surprise with how bluntly he addressed it

“uhm well the guest room now has two beds since some friends come over from time to time”

“but-”

“yeah the huge couch could fold over as a bed”

“but-”

“i could also-...”

“but y/n you have a king-sized bed!!”

jimin blurts out and almost whines out, a frown evident on his face as you keep your will not to break

“oh. just wanna sleep alone, jimin, yeah? kinda tired because of work today.”

he almost always gets what he wants and this blooming feeling inside him isn’t because of the embarrassment that you didn’t grant his wishes of just plopping beside you on your bed 

it’s because he’s thinking of why not

taehyung tries his best to just swallow the lump in his throat because he may or may not have daydreamed that he’d get to share beds with you

nothing but cuddling in his mind and the tiny bit of friskiness but that’s beside the point

he doesn’t wanna think about how there are no goodnight hugs

the closest thing to it was jungkook receiving a pat on the shoulder

because it happened that his arms were outsretched awkwardly

no cheek kiss for taehyung either

yeah it’s perhaps just fatigue as hobi tried to reason

they don’t know if they’re convincing each other or just themselves

maybe tomorrow would be better :D

...

aha no 

in fact at this point of morning when everyone knows that you’d be awake and it happens to be your off-day before the shoot tomorrow

and that whenever they’re around, you’d rather linger around them than to stay cooped in your room because you would be too sluggish then go back to sleep again

“blank always wants to be included it’s not funny anymore”

yeah you’d rather keep your pride at this point

jimin knocks again and you know you have no choice if you wanted this to go as discreet and as smooth as possible without raising suspicions that you knew

jin panicked for a moment because he was making french toast that he saw from damn milktpapi to try and catch your attention so when he hEARD your door click he was rapping litanies faster than the rapline ever could

they unconsciously just gravitate towards the couch and are practically hovering around you

you’re awfully quiet and the only input you give is when you’re asked a direct question

the only noise was coming from them reminiscing about their bv trip 

namjoon keeps bringing you up with “yahhh do u remember when y/n-....”

yoongi makes a point to keep laughing and have his arms protruding and therefore nudging you each time

at one point he almost shoves you but he’s barely met with a reaction

goddamn does he need to throw you off a cliff or something just to get a rise out of you

they really think that there must be something wrong 

so right when they wanted to open it up, they literally get interrupted but this time with a doorbell

you practically leap at that opportunity because quite literally were you saved by the bell

you don’t know who’s ringing your bell and why but you’re willing to take it 

jimin knows that you aren’t expecting anyone besides them as he’s made you promise

he might as well square up right now and be huffy about it

you’re bordering on confusion and curiosity as you open the door and even more-so your audience behind you who may or may not be in the same state

“theo??”

yoongi’s ears immediately perk up at that while his eyes go the widest

he’s toppling over as he scrambles for a vantage point that would get to see theo but without neither you nor theo seeing him

oh my god is this really your prfoessional basketball player for an ex-boyfriend

the boys are panicked to how yoongi’s acting and they even help him adjust his position even if they don’t know what it’s for

“wHAT YOONGI WHAT WHAT WHAT”

“BE QUIET”

he’s racking his brain for the description you gave and the picture you showed him

tall? intimidatingly. shoulders? perhaps even broader than seokjin’s. muscles? even more defined than jungkook when he lived in the gym. fluffy and silky-looking hair? enviously so :((

oh god it is theo

is he supposed to fanboy now

wait 

what was your ex doing here anyway

“i’m just gonna be out for a second, yeah?”

you say aimlessly and yoongi catches your gaze and he pretends to eat french toast while he’s stretched out on the floor to not break his cover

no one even has a chance to question nor respond because you’re already shutting the door

“WHO WAS THAT”

“WHY IS HE HERE”

“i sWEAR i saw him on tv once”

“taehyung are you ok”

yoongi’s bombarded and even if he’s shocked at the the turn of events because one second ur eating french toast with them and the next you’re out the door; he does have a bit more of an idea

“oh that was theo”

...

“are we supposed to automatically know who tHEO is???”

“you gonna add more context to that or????”

“even jimin doesn’t know!!!”

“theo’s a basketball player”

there are a couple of awed reactions

even namjoon’s explosive “aHHHHH so that’s where he’s from”

but there’s this question that’s begging to be asked

jimin taking front line as he asks with so much spite

“why is theo here then??”

this baffles yoongi too

most times he just doesn’t sugarcoat things and his mouth speaks the truth before he could even think of something else

“aish i don’t know i just know that she’s y/n’s ex so stop asking me if-...”

jimin’s in the corner with his mouth dropped, tongue poking at his cheek

“oh uhm i didn’t know that”

taehyung is sat on the floor with his attention not on the french toast anymore

eyes distant and not blinking as he’s nodding

“i see”

both jimin and taehyung clearly need time to process this bit of information

the conversation ends at that and everyone else staggers around

jimin’s in thought because why didn’t he know that??

shouldn’t he know that?

and what’s it with yoongi knowing instead of him?

taehyung, on the other hand, is conflicted with what he should feel

he’s jealous that’s for sure

the both of you covered masses of topics during the outing

but it never came to the topic of past flames

were you meaning not to tell him? or theo wasn’t talked about because the topic never came????

is this insecurity that he’s feeling

jungkook has to hold taehyung’s head still because he’s still nodding while deep in thought

you really weren’t expecting theo to show up at your doorstep

it’s in good intentions and you remained as friends but he was just too unexpected

“didn’t you know?? i’m gonna be one of those extras tomorrow for your airline commercial and it’s just a lil cameo but still!!! i don’t know i just wanted to visit you since i was in the area too :D”

and that’s what ended up with you coming with him to the little cafe at your complex with the promise that it was just gonna be quick and you’ll show him out

and perhaps that you don’t wanna be in the same room as them either

avoiding is good

yeah it would be good

:)

jimin doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove either but there’s this tug on his chest that basically yelled at him that he was a shitty friend

hasn’t been an hour ever since you left but he’s kinda sitting there fazed, whatever the other was saying coming in his ear and going out the other

“i lost my charger :(((”

jimin’s mindlessly answering to a pouty namjoon

“y/n has the same laptop. you could just get the charger by her desk”

he says naturally as if it’s clockwork and only waves him off when namjoon asks if it would be okay with you

he smiles at that and practically bounces to your unlocked room

quickly finds your desk and looks for a familiar charger

oh uhm it’s still connected to your laptop

jimin already said it was no worries so namjoon sleekly takes it out of the port with little hesitation

why did your laptop turn on

wait

is that his face??

is that

is that them in a hot tub

jimin’s wondering why namjoon is taking so long

he himself hasn’t been in your room for a long time and the thought makes him spring up

“hyung??”

fuck

oh god

it feels like freezing cold water was just splashed onto their spines without warning

jimin immediately pales

it’s taehyung who piles in last to your bedroom with all the commotion he could hear

he wants to absolutely deck himself 

everyone’s just speechless when they clicked play on the video even when they had this underlying feel to what it was

there’s a collective intake of sharp inhales because they couldn’t even finish the episode in which they basically talk shit about you for a solid three minutes

jimin has his face on his hands and he’s visibly stressed as everyone else is

couldn’t even tell on which blow was the hardest because they were all so harsh in their own ways

basically hit where it hurts most 

they were drunk beyond their comprehension and weren’t necessarily thinking

the episode was filmed pretty much in the first day of bv 

and whatever circumstance that night was in, it was still no excuse

absolutely no excuse to how they acted

maybe they took joking and overexaggerating too far

but whatever route they took, be it honest or not, no doubt that they were sure it hurt you

god a mental breakdown is already creeping at the back for all seven of them

tAEHYUNG’S SOBBING

jimin’s shaking

jungkook’s rubbing his eyes

jin and namjoon are repeating themselves

hobi’s dead silent

yoongi’s hands are practically trembling

it’s when you go home that you’ve momentarily forgotten that everything was going downwards because you spent the last hour or two being distracted by theo in just your pajamas

but it’s when you know that they know

and some can’t even look you in the eye

jimin’s the first to shoot up from his seat and god he looks somehow wrecked

“y/n i-...”

“m’sorry for being introlerable and all of those things, yeah? won’t happen again.”

everyone tenses at that

you shouldn’t even be apologetic!!

in fact they’re the ones who fucked up and you’re the one who’s acting as if you did

this makes them even more guilty

they all pipe in and try to point that out but you just easily drown them out with a tilt of your head

taehyung who’s standing by your doorframe just buffers as if to reach out for you but he retracts it quickly

they’ve really done it this time huh

it’s all just in characteristically empty spirits

the shooting next day was painful

having to drive together and be squished in between yoongi and jungkook whose mouths were so dry and eyes glossy

“i didn’t mean it”

jungkook first says under his breath and it’s quite a hitch in his throat when he adds on to it

“we weren’t thinking at all”

it’s a quiet show as jungkook and yoongi try to apologize to you and you’re in the middle trying to just sit through it all

it’s a quick nod as you have for a response before you hurriedly go down the van in perfect timing

you did listen and the apologies were sincere and heartfelt

just not too keen on forgiving something of that gravity in an instant

even with their promise that they could work something out to have that bit cut out or even scrap the whole episode if necessary

you just couldn’t wait to get the day over

you’re rigid with them and them trying to get to talk to you in between takes

the skits required more of them than you anyway so you just sat that one out

all while they try to get genuine with the feelings and lines indicated in their script

taehyung was the most distracted

even if people expected more of him given his acting credentials

and when it’s your turn to be filmed at, he can’t help staring

you looked blank

there’s this certain hyunbin (and also to your surprise) that’s gonna act as your co-pilot that got to make you smile a time or two after making a fool out of himself

if only taehyung knew that theo’s gonna be here as an extra

he would flip and THEN bawl

and as if things wouldn’t get even more unfavorable for you, they decide to cram in the photoshoot for the billboard at this very day too

multiple shoots of you being in the middle of them with a commercial-like smile

you having a solo one

them having one too

the boys wearing your airline’s flight attendant uniforms

trying to have a candid shot but all of you should be laughing and smiling as per the director

that was painful

that was really painful for the staff to watch

most painful for the eight of you

they even had to count to three so you could laugh together even if that takes away the essence of a candid shot

jimin wants so badly to hold you and talk to you

taehyung wants to get on his knees desperately if it means earning your forgiveness

the shoot raps and you’re zooming out the set

tae breaks down yet again because they’re gonna be held up by your ceo for awhile

:(

things feel empty and slow

everyone got around to texting you their apologies because as much as they’re desperate to apologize, they’ve done enough damage and respecting your space is the least they could do

that doesn’t stop jimin dropping in from time to time to leave something by your door

nor taehyung who doesn’t give up with all his texting and calling and sometimes waiting on your door

jimin and him coincidentially went at the same time and they just teared up and sulked together

you weren’t even home at that time

of course you’ve read their messages

trying to talk it out too as you’ve refused to succumb into your passive-aggressiveness

admittedly

you don’t wanna lose what you have either

:(

it’s only been two weeks so far

progress as you reply to texts here and there

slowly warming up again!!

namjoon earning back his partner for talking about movie symbolisms and perhaps everything wrong in this barren earth

seokjin getting to send you incorrect quotes from cake boss again left and right

hobi gaining his online shopping partner back 

yoongi making you promise that you’d hug him when he gets to see you again

jungkook vowing to teach you how to draw and makes sure to send daily content so he could make you switch wallpapers

jimin

well jimin

jimin’s going over the top as he has a lot to mend

but forgiveness was clear in the path and when you finally agreed to meet up with him after your shift

(he’s made the effort to wait for you in your lounge hours before as he got to pull some strings)

and then when you have a drink over it and talk about what happened properly, it just ends in a massive hug and some tears shed :((

“i missed u so much”

“i know”

“i could really be a fucking asshole sometimes”

“you are”

“you are none of those things and i don’t ever wanna stop having you as my friend”

“aha yes”

“you love me too much and i love you too much and this is forever now ok pls don’t get mad at me ever again”

basically everything was slowly returning back to normal

taehyung hasn’t texted you for a couple of days

even if you barely responded and miss him as much

it’s something you still have to come to terms with because his blows hit the hardest

you’re losing sleep just by thinking about him :(

you try to get on with your days with the knowledge that you get on with the six of them

things becoming more hectic for you because sometimes you forget that you’re famous now

but sometimes it was just lackluster if you were to admit

you basically sprint at the chance to pick up a normal shift again because you’ve missed flying

you liked being pampered for shoots but being tired from flying is the ache you’ve been craving for :((

it’s when you’re briefed that the plane you’d be flying isn’t your usual aircraft yet you still have the clearance for it

it’s when you just had the kick to be extra punctual and jump at the chance to greet passengers boarding

it’s these little extras in your day that you were so eager for things

that things just seem to be aligning

:)

taehyung’s by the front-most seat

hyunbin by his side as he gets up and goes to the cockpit to do nothing but take your place

it’s oddly warm just by looking at taehyung

no apologies have been said yet and it’s when that hyunbin practically says over the mic that “y/n take a seat and put your seatbelt on jesus christ” you do beside tae

the atmosphere’s just a loving type of warm

you really can’t explain it

it’s the same type of slow burn the both of you felt in the outing

the same anticipation you had for each other even if the other was doing the bare minimum

“hi”

taehyung croaks out after an eternity, a grin he tries to earnestly keep as it breaks out

“let’s talk.”

he’s nervous as he sees you relax to your seat, knowing in routine that the plane was to take off 

taehyung ever-so slightly shifts in his seat, shoulders touching with yours and hand in an armrest as he flexes them so slightly -- only supposed to be an attempt at a loving tease but it’s when you shift towards him and have your hand skim his for the slightest fraction

:)

“let’s talk.”

[cdelphiki]

There Are Worse Ways to Spend Christmas

Honestly, holiday travel was the worst, in Tim’s opinion. The absolute worst thing on the face of the planet, and an all around terrible way to spend time right around Christmas.

Between crowded airports, snobby entitled irate passengers, and frequent weather cancellations, traveling during December was probably the worst thing ever.

And yes, that was very much exaggerating, because Tim’s mind immediately supplied several things that had happened that year that beat flying near Christmas in the ‘terrible’ category, but he just wasn’t in a good mood, so he was going to be dramatic about it.

Bruce wanted the lot of them to meet up at the cabin in Colorado to have a nice, quiet Christmas with just the family. Which, on paper, sounded nice. Christmas with all the kids plus Alfred and Bruce, far away from Gotham and the social engagements they’d be expected to attend otherwise sounded incredibly relaxing.

But that was before Tim processed that he’d have to fly with Damian, commercial, to Colorado to meet up with everyone else.

Why?

Because his family hated him, obviously.

The private plane was currently in Japan, where Bruce and Alfred were finishing up a series of meetings at the Tokyo office, and since it would be bringing them to Colorado that day, it was unavailable to bring Damian and Tim, the only two left in Gotham so close to Christmas, to Colorado. Stupid school lasting until the Friday right before Christmas Eve, which was on a Monday that year, meant they couldn’t have just left early to allow the jet to bring them all.

No.

Tim Drake and Damian Wayne had to fly commercial. On Christmas Eve eve.

First class, of course, but on small little regional jets, first class was a paltry comparison to the comfort to which they were accustomed. And the whole “unaccompanied minor” thing was really grating at Tim’s nerves. Because Damian wasn’t unaccompanied. Tim was right there. He was 16, and according to the airline’s policy, that made Damian accompanied. But that didn’t stop the stupid flight attendants from being extra attentive.

At least they were being left relatively alone during their layover in Chicago.

Which was how Tim found himself curled up into one of the kind-of comfortable waiting chairs near their gate, playing a game on his iPad, completely ignoring his little brother. It was the most peace he’d had all day. He could still see Damian over his knees. Kind of. Saw his spiky hair in the next seat over, at least, so he wasn’t being entirely neglectful.

But Damian wasn’t bothering him. Wasn’t trying to pick a fight or release his frustrations on Tim, so Tim was going to enjoy every single second of it.

Then, of course, the gate agent had to ruin the entire night.

“Attention passengers, Flight 1029 to Aspen has been delayed,” she announced over the speaker, and Tim couldn’t make out the rest of her announcement over the loud chorus of groans from everyone around them. Because the flight was supposed to begin boarding in about 10 minutes.

His phone buzzed with a notification from the American Airlines app, which informed him that it was delayed by three hours.

“This is ridiculous,” Damian pouted, hitting Tim’s legs with his coat as he slung it off himself to stand, “the third weather delay today. You would think airlines would be used to flying in the snow. It’s not like it doesn’t happen every year.”

“It’s one of those dumb named storms,” Tim said, scrolling through the weather report in Aspen to see if in three hours it would be any better, “it’s basically a blizzard.”

“That does not change my opinion,” Damian drawled, rolling his eyes as he stared out the window directly behind Tim.

“So because hurricanes happen every year, pilots should know how to fly through those? Get real, Damian.”

“Tt. It’s just snow.”

“Snow and wind and zero visibility,” Tim said, flipping to the Hilton app to reserve a room at the airport’s hotel. The weather report wasn’t looking good, and he had a feeling that the flight would be outright cancelled. If that happened, he wanted a room in the airport. He’d rather not deal with crowded shuttles to an off-site hotel once the airport finally cancelled all the flights to the areas being assaulted by Winter-storm Fisher.

Seriously, why the hell did they name snowstorms now?

Tim reserved the room under Bruce’s name, because it would be impossible otherwise to get a room for a 10 and 16 year old. The hotel really didn’t need to know that Bruce wasn’t even in the country and wouldn’t be staying with them.

“Damian?” one of the gate agents said, as she approached the two of them in the waiting area, “So the flight has been delayed by-”

“Yes, three hours. We are aware,” Damian snapped, “As I keep telling you people, I do not require your hovering. My father did not request the unaccompanied minor service, so I do not see why you are providing it anyway.”

“We are just ensuring that-”

“I don’t care,” Damian said, waving a hand at the woman as he turned to gaze out the window again.

Tim just shrugged at the slightly flustered woman and offered a simple, “Sorry. We’re tracking though, thanks.”

“Tt. I am never flying commercial again.”

“Bold declaration for 10,” Tim said, just before he sighed and sat up. It was nearing 6pm. They should probably go grab dinner while they had the time, on the off chance that the flight actually did happen.

“I am a Wayne, if I want to fly exclusively by private jet, there is literally nothing stopping me.”

“Except Bruce hogging it,” Tim said, shoving his iPad and headphones into his carry-on. For the first time, he was so glad Alfred had convinced them to pack into carry-ons instead of with checked luggage. He enjoyed the freedom and ease of traveling with just a simple messenger bag to carry around, but knowing that they had their clothes and toothbrushes with them was a relief. They wouldn’t be buying ridiculous Chicago themed clothing tonight in one of the overpriced gift shops.

“What are you doing?” Damian asked, eyeing Tim as he slipped his boots back on and tied them.

Instead of answering, Tim asked, “Chili’s or the Macaroni Grill?” as he stood to his feet, attaching his coat to the top of his luggage.

Damian straightened up a bit, to Tim’s amusement, at the prospect of food and shuffled to gather up his items as well. “The Macaroni Grill,” he finally said, making a face at the suggestion of Chili’s.

Dinner went a lot smoother than Tim was expecting. In fact, the entire day until that point had gone smoother than he expected. Even with leaving for the airport at 5am and spending nearly every moment since together, the two of them really hadn’t fought much. Every once in a while Damian would make a scathing remark, but would then be quiet for at least half an hour after he did so.

It was nice.

“Why’re you being so good,” Tim asked over their pasta. They still had a little over two hours until boarding. Perhaps he shouldn’t be looking this gift horse in the mouth, but he was genuinely curious.

“I know how to behave in public, Drake,” Damian drawled, pushing around the last bits of his dinner on his plate before taking a sip of his soda.

Aside from the fact that Damian did not know how to behave in public, that really didn’t answer anything.

“Besides,” Damian continued, “our every move is being watched here, and Father told me if we get arrested by security for any reason he’s holding me personally responsible.”

“He did not,” Tim said, grinning wide.

Damian scowled at Tim and snapped, “That was not a challenge, Drake. I will inform Father if you sabotage our travel for the express purpose of getting me grounded.”

Tim just laughed and said, “Unlike you, I’m not a demon, I wouldn’t do that,” just as his phone started buzzing in his pocket.

When he pulled it out, he saw Bruce’s face staring at him. “Speak of the devil,” Tim muttered as he slid to accept the call, “Hey Bruce.”

“I see your flight has been delayed again. How are you two holding up?”

“Let me talk to him,” Damian said, reaching out for the phone.

Tim swatted Damian’s hand away and said, “We’re fine. Annoyed, but we went ahead and got dinner. I know we were supposed to eat together there, but you know.”

“We had to land in Seattle and won’t attempt again until morning, anyway. Dick and Jason got in just before it started to snow, and Steph and Cass are still in the air, but I don’t think the flight will make it to Aspen. So most of us won’t get there until tomorrow, anyway.”

“Yeah, I’m expecting American Airlines to just cancel to try again tomorrow,” Tim said, taking one last bite of his food, “so I booked us a hotel tonight just in case.”

“Let me know if you have trouble checking in. The storm is moving across the country toward you, I would not be surprised if O’Hare cancels flights tomorrow as the storm passes over you there.”

“Great,” Tim said dramatically, leaning back in his chair. Damian was just glaring at him expectantly, “Damian wants to talk to you.”

“Okay. Stay safe and just be patient. Delays and cancellations are better than plane crashes.”

“Yeah, thanks for that thought,” Tim said just as he handed the phone off to Damian.

“Father, I refuse to fly commercial ever again, this method of travel is-” Damian started, then paused and listened with a pinched face, “Yes, but- No. No.”

Tim tried his best not to look too amused as Damian went from smug and entitled to adequately chagrined as he listened silently to Bruce for a full minute. Bruce must have lectured him pretty hard.

“Fine. But I will not fly commercial at Christmas. This holiday is ridiculous and the number of people in this airport is unacceptable. Yes, Father. I will. Goodbye.”

“Sounds like you will be flying commercial again,” Tim said in amusement as he took his phone back and pulled a $100 out of his wallet to give to the waitress to cover their meal and her tip.

“Shut up, Drake,” Damian mumbled as he dragged his suitcase behind him in the most pout-filled way Tim had ever seen.

And that’s how the rest of the evening went. Silently as Damian pouted. As their departure time came and went without so much as a boarding call, Damian began getting antsy.

“This is the fourth time they’ve delayed us by 15 minutes,” he exclaimed after yet another announcement over the PA system, “this is unacceptable.”

“You know they’re going to cancel the flight, right?” Tim said, turning the page in a book he’d picked up in the airport bookstore, “We’ll probably sit here another 30 minutes while they continue deluding themselves about not cancelling a flight on Christmas Eve eve.”

Damian let out an angry growl, which just sounded like a child throwing a tantrum, and flung himself down on the chair next to Tim. “I hate this.”

“Take a nap,” Tim said as he pulled his coat out from the chair under him to let Damian use it as a pillow, “I’ll wake you when they decide what they’re doing.”

“I will not take a nap,” Damian pouted, “I’m not tired, just frustrated.”

“You’ve been awake since 4am, you’re tired.”

“So have you.”

“Yeah,” Tim said patiently, “but I took a nap after lunch, so.”

“I will not take a nap,” Damian repeated, aggressively grabbing Tim’s coat to lay against.

“That’s fine,” Tim hummed, trying not to smile as he continued reading.

“And Christmas Eve eve is not a thing,” Damian mumbled, burrowing himself down into Tim’s coat with his own wrapped around him, “stop being ridiculous.”

“Of course it’s a thing,” Tim said, lifting his feet up onto his suitcase so he could get settled back a little more comfortably, “It’s what today is.”

“Hmph.”

It took another 45 minutes, but finally the flight was outright cancelled. By that point, everyone was too exhausted to put up too much of a fuss, and the groans heard around the gate were more out of obligation than actual anger. Tim had heard several people all around him make arrangements for the night already, so this was clearly no surprise to anyone.

Tim took his time using the hotel’s app to “check in” before he began gathering up his things. He put his boots on and shoved his book and tablet back in his bag before he finally nudged Damian.

“Okay, Demon, nap’s over.”

“I was not napping,” Damian mumbled, rubbing at his eyes as he sat up.

Tim grinned and liberated his coat out from under Damian. “No you’re right you were just resting your eyes.”

“Shut up, Drake.”

Checking in was remarkably easy. When Tim told the person at the desk that ‘his dad had checked in on the app,’ he was easily handed a couple keys to the room without a single question.

Tim took his time in the shower as Damian lay on one of the two beds in their room, watching the news report. When Tim finally emerged from the bathroom, Damian said, “Much of Colorado is without power right now, and the storm is expected to hit the midwest just as hard.”

“Well isn’t that just dandy,” Tim said as he dried off his hair, “you packed a toothbrush and stuff, right?”

“Yes, Drake, I am not incompetent.”

“Right, whatever. Take a shower if you’re going to, I’m going to sleep. The flight is scheduled for 8 so we need to get out of here absolutely no later than 7, preferably earlier. We’ll have to pass through security again.”

“I hate everything you just said.”

Sighing, Tim set his phone to wake him at 5:45 while he listened to Damian slam the bathroom door.

Being responsible for little children was just so fun.

Next thing Tim knew, his alarm was going off. He sat up to find Damian already awake and watching the Weather Channel on mute. It took blinking for a minute before he could make out the numerous notifications on his phone, but the one he had wanted to find the least was another delay notification.

Now the flight wasn’t going to attempt until 10.

“The storm hit early,” Damian said, glaring at the television as if it were responsible for everything going wrong in their travel.

“Well do you want to sleep in longer or get breakfast?” Tim asked, rubbing at his face. He’d enjoy sleeping more, but he had slept for a good 6 hours. It was certainly more than he was used to.

“Breakfast,” Damian said simply, “I was waiting for you to wake up so we could order room service.”

“We could go get something. There’s time now.”

“Look outside. I’d rather stay here where it’s warm and dry.”

“Right,” Tim said, picking up the room service menu. After he called in their order, he looked at the weather report for the day and went ahead and extended their stay one night. If this storm cancelled all flights leaving Chicago, it would be much more difficult to get a room. Bruce honestly wouldn’t care about spending the money unnecessarily if their flight really did take off at 10.

But of course, it didn’t. At just past 8, they received the notice that the flight was cancelled.

Bruce called again, within minutes of Tim getting the text, to check up on them and assure them that the family wouldn’t do Christmas until Tim and Damian made it to Aspen.

“I’ll come pick you up myself,” Bruce said over speaker, “The weather should be fine tomorrow, I’ll head to the airport and get you boys, okay?”

“Tt,” Damian pouted from where he lay on his bed, arms crossed and glaring at the ceiling, “If you ever suggest I travel alone with Drake again, I will return to Mother.”

“Ouch,” Tim said, “he’d rather live in a ninja death cult than travel with me.”

“Damian,” Bruce sighed, “I’m sorry, but we’ll extend our vacation out until after the New Year, okay? I’ll make it up to you.”

“He’s pretending to ignore you,” Tim said, grinning at the scathing look Damian shot his way for the comment, “he’ll get over it.”

“The pilot wants me to turn my phone off, so I’ll text you when we land. How about we all FaceTime tonight, okay?”

Tim nodded. “Yeah, that’ll be good. Dick wanted us to watch The Polar Express tonight, we can always just do it while facetiming. I’m sure I can find a copy somewhere around here.

“Okay, Merry Christmas, boys. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve and I’m stuck in a snowstorm with you,” Damian said once Bruce had hung up, still glaring up at the ceiling.

Shrugging, Tim said, “There’s worse company.”

“Doubtful.”

“Don’t worry. Santa will still deliver your presents to the cabin tonight.”

That finally made Damian sit up, but only to throw a pillow at Tim. “Santa’s not real, Drake.”

“Now you’re ruining my Christmas,” Tim said, laughing, as he caught the pillow, “You’re probably on the naughty list, anyway.”

“Tt.”

“You’re not exactly good,” Tim continued, having fun now at Damian’s expense.

“Shut up, Drake,” Damian snapped, throwing another pillow at Tim.

“Or nice.”

“Shut up!”

“Actually, yeah,” Tim said, laying back on the bed, “there’s no way you’re not on the naughty list, now that I think about it.”

At that, Damian got up from his bed and stormed over to the bathroom, slamming the door as he went. Tim jumped at the loudness of it, then frowned.

He hadn’t meant to push the brat that far. He’d just been teasing. Having fun. Sometimes, Tim forgot for as much as Damian could dish it out, he couldn’t take teasing. At all.

It was easy to forget. Especially when they went a few days without fighting.

‘Help,’ Tim texted Dick, ‘made D mad. Probably crying in bathroom. What do?’

The response was almost instant. ‘You made Damian cry?! Tim, why??’

Tim sighed and responded with, ’I mean, maybe? I haven’t tried to listen in on him or anything. He might just be pouting.’

‘Did you try talking to him?’

‘Why would I do that?’ Tim asked, smiling at himself because he already knew what Dick’s response to that would be.

‘You want to fix it but you don’t want to talk to him.’ And Tim could just see the flat stare Dick would have while delivering that sentence. Hear the deadpan in his voice.

Tim snorted. ‘Precisely. Glad you understand.’

‘Tim.’

‘Yeah, fine. Good big brother, coming up.’

After another minute, Tim finally got up and trudged over to the bathroom door. When he knocked, he could tell something was pressed up against the door, and was willing to bet his entire salary that it was pint sized and 10-years-old.

“Hey D? I was just teasing, you know.”

“Go away, Drake,” Damian hissed from the other side of the door.

So he wasn’t crying, at least. That’s good.

“Uh yep, nope. Can’t,” Tim said, sitting down on the floor outside the door, “The room isn’t big enough.”

Tim could just barely hear Damian’s signature ’tt’ in response.

“I wasn’t trying to upset you,” Tim offered, unsure of where to start. Or how to even do this. He’d been the little brother being talked down, never the older brother doing the talking down.

“Weren’t you?” Damian drawled.

“No, I wasn’t,” Tim said, resting his head back against the door, “I was just teasing you, that’s what brothers do to each other. They tease. You should know, you tease me constantly.”

“I do not tease you.”

Tim rolled his eyes and said, “No, of course not. You just make fun of me in hopes of getting a rise out of me. That’s totally not the definition of tease.”

“Then you admit you were trying to upset me.”

“Fine. I’m sorry, Damian,” Tim said tiredly, and perhaps a little too flippantly in his tone, “I shouldn’t have said that stuff, okay? You’re probably on Santa’s nice list. He’ll bring you presents tonight.”

“Shut up, Drake,” Damian snapped, banging something against the door. His elbow, perhaps. “I do not care about that ridiculous tradition.”

“If you aren’t upset about me saying you’re on the naughty list, then why are you upset?”

“I have been very good the past couple days,” Damian nearly shouted, “and the past year. I have worked so hard to behave myself and be what you and everyone in Father’s family would consider good. But at every turn, everyone, especially you, completely ignores all my actions and efforts and writes me off as a ‘bad person.’ I am sick of it.”

Tim blinked and ran a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t… writing you off,” he said lamely, “I was just teasing you about Santa. I know you’ve been good.”

“Then why would you say I’m not?” Damian demanded.

“It was just a joke,” Tim said, a bit more forcefully this time, “it’s just what you do at Christmas with kids. You tease them about Santa and being on the naughty list. Did the league not do Santa?”

Damian huffed out an annoyed breath and said, “The league didn’t do Christmas. So no, we didn’t ‘do Santa.’”

“You… didn’t do Christmas?” Tim said, in almost a whisper. He really wasn’t sure if Damian could even hear him. “So wait,” he added, much louder, “is this your first Christmas then?”

“Yes,” Damian bit out before slamming his head back against the door. At least, Tim as pretty sure that’s what Damian hit the door with.

“Does Bruce know this?”

After a long moment, Damian sighed and said, in a much calmer tone, “Maybe. I do not know what Father knows.”

“You should have told him,” Tim said softly, like he was talking to a victim as Robin, “He would have cancelled his meetings in Japan, I bet.”

“I don’t see how it would have mattered. It was my first Christmas here, regardless of everything, and he still left me with you.”

“Well,” Tim said, “In his defense, we were supposed to see him yesterday, so this isn’t entirely his fault.”

“I guess,” Damian said, softer than Tim had ever heard the child’s voice be.

The two of them sat there for another few minutes while Tim just frowned at the closet door in front of him. The annoying closet door that was actually a full sized mirror. So basically, Tim was staring back at himself, looking right at the terrible person he was. That he’d been over the past couple days.

Thinking back over their travel time, Damian really had been good. He’d been trying really hard to keep it that way, even when Tim teased and poked at him, or just flat out ignored him. And all because he didn’t want Bruce angry with him over his behavior. Which, usually wasn’t an issue for Damian. He never seemed to care when Bruce threatened him with grounding.

And Tim had barely acknowledged the effort.

Was Damian just trying to stay on Bruce’s good side because it was Christmas? Because he wanted a happy Christmas, just like how the holiday was always depicted in media?

Damian was only 10, after all, and all he had to go on was television.

Tim felt the bathroom door open behind him and leaned forward a bit to prevent from falling back. Damian stood in the doorway and glared at Tim using the mirror before saying, half-heartedly, “Move, Drake.”

“So if you’ve never celebrated Christmas before,” Tim said slowly as he got to his feet, “that means you’ve never done a Christmas movie marathon.”

“Thankfully,” the little brat drawled as he pushed past Tim into the bedroom.

“What Christmas movies have you already seen?” Tim asked, completely ignoring Damian’s likely feigned disinterest.

Flopping down dramatically onto his bed, Damian said, “What part of ‘first Christmas’ don’t you understand?”

“So you’ve never seen any Christmas movies?” Tim asked in exaggerated horror.

Damian just shrugged.

“Frosty the Snowman?” Tim asked, and when Damian shook his head, he said, “Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer? How the Grinch Stole Christmas?”

“No, Tim,” Damian exasperated, “none of them.”

“Oh my god,” Tim said, “Okay. That’s what we’re doing today. Starting with The Year Without a Santa.”

“Whatever.”

After a quick trip to one of the shops in the airport to purchase candy canes and a ridiculous amount of candy and cookies, because no Christmas movie marathon would be complete without a coma-inducing amount of sugar, Tim started up a playlist of all his favorite Christmas movies on his laptop.

Four movies into the marathon, Damian said from where he lay beside Tim on the bed, “These are ridiculous, you know?”

“I know, isn’t it great?” Tim said, opening another bag of Oreos for them to devour. Alfred would have a heart-attack if he knew they skipped lunch and were going to skip dinner in favor of cookies. Store bought cookies.

“I suppose,” Damian said as he took a couple cookies from the bag between them, “there are worse ways to spend Christmas Eve.”

Tim didn’t even have to look to know Damian was smiling as the opening scene to Elf began to play.

Yes. There were much worse ways to spend Christmas Eve.

-

Cross posted from AO3. 

[qqueenofhades]

Question for you. When you have time. And if you want. I know things are busy for you. What do you mean by end stage capitalism? Thanks.

Aha. I am sorry that this has been sitting in my inbox for a while, since I’ve been busy and doing stressful things and not sure how to answer this in a way that wouldn’t immediately turn into a pages-long rant. Nothing to do with you, of course, but just because I have 800 things to say on this topic, none of them complimentary, which I’ll try to condense down briefly. Ish.

In sum, end-stage capitalism is at the root of everything that’s wrong with the world today, more or less. It’s the state of being that exists when the economic system of capitalism, i.e. the exchange of money for goods and services, has become so runaway, so unregulated, so elevated to the level of unchallengeable dogma in the Western world (especially after the Cold War and decades of hysteria about the “scourge of communism”) and so embedded on every level of the social and political fabric that it is no longer sustainable but also can’t be destroyed without taking everything else down. Nobody wants to be the actual generation that lives through the fall of capitalism, because it’s going to be cataclysmic on every level, but also… we can’t go on like this. So that’s a fun paradox. The current world order is so drastically, unimaginably, ridiculously and wildly unequal, privileging the tiny elite of the ultra-rich over the rest of the planet, because of hypercapitalism. This really got going in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan, still generally worshiped as a political hero on both the left and right sides of the American political establishment (even liberals tiptoe around criticizing Saint Ronnie), set into motion a program of slashing business and environment regulations, reducing or eliminating taxes on the super wealthy, and introducing the concept of “trickle-down” or “supply-side” economics. In short, the principle holds that if you make it as easy as possible for rich people to become EVEN MORE RICH, and remove all irksome regulations or restrictions on the Church of the Free Market, they will benevolently redistribute this largess to the little people. To say the very least, this….does not happen. Ever.

Since the 1980s, in short, we have had thirty years of unrestricted, runaway capitalism that eventually propelled us into the financial crisis of 2008, after multiple smaller crises, where the full extent of this philosophy became apparent…. and nobody really did anything about it. You can google statistics about how the price of everything has skyrocketed since about the 1970s, when you could put yourself through college on one part-time job, graduate with no student debt, and be assured of a job for the next 30 years, and how baby boomers (who are responsible for wrecking the economy) insist that millennials are “just lazy” or “killing [insert x industry]”. This is because we have NO GODDAMN MONEY, graduate thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt (if we can even afford college in the first place), are lucky if we find a job that pays us more than $10 an hour, and often have to string together several part-time and frangible jobs that offer absolutely nothing in the way of security, benefits, or long-term saving potential. This is why millennials at large don’t have kids, buy houses, or have any savings (or any of the traditional “adult” milestones). We just don’t have the money for it.

Even more, capitalism has taken over our mindsets to the point where it is, as I said, at the root of everything that’s wrong with the world. Climate change? Won’t be fixed because the ruling classes are making money from the current system, and if you really want to give yourself an aneurysm, google the profiteers who can’t wait for the environment/society to collapse because they’ll make MORE money off it. This is known as “disaster capitalism” and is what the US has done to other countries for decades. (I also recommend The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.) This obviously directly contributes to the War on Terror, the current global instability, the reason Dick Cheney, Halliburton, Blackwater, and other private-security contractors made a mint from blowing up Iraq and paying themselves to rebuild it, and then the resultant rise of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other extremist reactionary groups. The bombing produces (often brown and Muslim) refugees and immigrants, Western countries won’t take them in, right-wing politicians make hay out of Threats To Our Way of Life ™, and the circle goes on. Gun control? Can’t happen because a) American white supremacy is too deeply tied to its paranoid right to have as many guns as it wants and to destroy the Other at any time, and b) the NRA pays senators by the gigabucks to make sure it doesn’t. (And we all know what an absolute goddamn CLUSTERFUCK the topic of big money and American politics is in the first place. It’s just… a nightmare in every direction.)

Meanwhile, end-stage capitalism has also systematically assigned value to society and to individuals depending entirely on their prospects for monetization. Someone who can’t work, or who doesn’t work the “right” job, is thus assigned less value as a human (see all the right-wing screaming about people who “don’t deserve” to have any kind of social and financial assistance or subsidized food and medicine if they won’t “help themselves”). This is how we get to situations where we have the ads that I kept seeing in London the other month: apps where you could share your leftover food, or rent out your own car, or collectively rent an apartment, or whatever else. Because apparently if you live in London in 2019, there is no expectation that you will be able to have your own food, car, or apartment. You have to crowdsource it. (See also: people having to beg strangers on the internet for money for food or medical bills, and strangers on the internet doing more to help that person than the whole system and/or the person’s employment or living situation.) There is nothing inherently wrong with capitalism as an economic theory. Exchanging money for goods and services is understandable and it works. But when it has run out of control to this degree, when the people who suffer the most under it fiercely defend it (see the working-class white people absolutely convinced that the reason for their problems is Those Damn Job Stealing Immigrants), when it only works for the interests of a few uber-privileged few and is actively killing everyone else… yeah.

Let’s put it this way. You will likely have heard of the two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max airplanes in recent months: the Lion Air crash in October 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019. Together, they killed 346 people. After these crashes, it turned out that the same malfunctioning system was responsible for both, and that Boeing had known of the problem before the Max went on the market. But because they needed to make (even more) money and compete with their rivals, Airbus, they had sent the planes ahead anyway, with unclear and confusing instruction to pilots about how to deal with it, and generally not acknowledging the problem and insisting (as they still do) that the plane was safe, even though it’s been grounded worldwide since March. There are also concerns that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is too deep in Boeing’s pocket to provide an impartial ruling (and America was the last country to ground the plane), and other countries’ aviation safety bodies have announced that they aren’t just going to take the FAA’s word for it whenever they decide that the Max is safe. This almost never happens, since usually international regulatory bodies, especially in aviation, will accept each other’s standards. But because of Boeing’s need for Even More Money, they put a plane on the market and into commercial passenger service that they knew had problems, and the FAA essentially let them do that and isn’t entirely trusted to ensure that they won’t do it again. Because…. value for the shareholders. Or something. This is the extreme example of what I mean when I say that end-stage capitalism is actively killing people.

It is also doing so on longer-term and more pernicious everyday levels. See above where people can’t afford their basic expenses even on several jobs, see the insulin price-gouging in the US (and the big pharma efforts in general to make drugs and healthcare as expensive as possible), see the way any kind of welfare or social assistance is framed as “lazy” or “bad” or “socialist,” see the way that people are basically only allowed to survive if they can pay for it, and the way that circle is becoming smaller and smaller. The American public is also fed enduring folk “wisdom” about “money doesn’t buy happiness,” the belief that poverty serves to build character or as an example of virtue, or so on, to make them feel proud of being poor/deprived/that they’re doing a good thing by actively supporting this system that is responsible for their own suffering. And yet for example, the Nordic countries (while obviously having other problems of their own) maintain the Scandinavian welfare model, which pays for college and healthcare, provides for individual stipends/basic income, allows generous leave for parenthood, emphasises a unionised workplace, and otherwise prescribes a mix of capitalism, social democracy, and social mobility. All the Nordic countries rank highly for human development, overall happiness, and other measurements of social success. But especially in America, any suggestion of “socialism” is treated like heresy, and unions are a dirty word. That is changing, but…slowly.

In short: the economic overlords have never done anything to give power, money, or anything at all to the working class without being repeatedly and explicitly forced, they have no good will or desire to treat the poor like humans (see: Amazon) or anything at all that doesn’t increase their already incomprehensible profit margins. The pursuit of more money that cannot possibly be spent in one human lifetime, that is accumulated, used to make laws for itself, and never paid in taxes to fund improvements or services for everyone else, lies at the root of pretty much every problem you can name in the world right now, is deeply, deeply evil, and I do not use that word lightly.