#and im good at climbing n need to burn it out of my system. i can get by microdosing social connection for thr rest of my life i guess
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well.
#concert was rly rly fucking good lets focus on that. dont want to ruin my memory of it#and the rest doesnt matter. ill break down tomorrow when everyones gone i cant do it right now its too late and we have a guest#just so tired. doesnt even matter its just me. and i have to be myself the rest of my life. im never getting out of this labyrinth#well at least if no one else has my back the national always will.. the right kind of concert to be at while dealing w my stupid shit#and i can listen to their music on loop forever and ever ill be fine#give me a couple days and ill have repressed it into oblivion again and i can go back to living my sham life where everythings okay#until i get reminded again and it unspools. and then ill just scoop it back up and zip it back inside. over and over yippee#but it doesnt matter as long as everyone else is happy and they can pretend i am too so they dont have to care#im being stupid and melodramatic dont even worry abt it my brain is just so fucking broken and im incapable of human connection its cool#at least i wont hurt anyone else just keeping it all in here it doesnt matter!!!!!! well it does to me. but i dont count so its okay#at least yeah concert was rly rly banging i hope they play here again some time in the future and im still around for it#and ill get to remember how good it was every time i listen to them :-) which is basically every day woooo#god. im gojng to go to sleep before i fall apart and start ugly crying#at least tomorrow off too n climbinggg. so much easier hanging out with strangers bc it doesnt matter if they dont want me there#nothing to lose and they cant hurt me bc i can only get hurt by ppl i care abt and i dont know them that well so its all cool#and im good at climbing n need to burn it out of my system. i can get by microdosing social connection for thr rest of my life i guess#feel so so so ashamed for even feeling like this its such a prison in my head i hate it i hate it its fine ok stopping for real goodnight.#sorry for ventposting i cant go hurt myself instead bc ppl over. so here we are again ahh..#ah ahhh yeah anyway goodnight#.vent
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Rushingly Bittersweet (Javier Peña x f!reader) part 21
Pairing: Javier Peña x ofc//f!reader with name.
Summary: After the fall of Escobar everything starts happening way too fast for Javier; his raise, his new office, his new team, the Cali cartelâs operation, the sudden arrival of a new agent that was transferred to his team for no apparent reason, the way he was falling in love with her almost unintentionally.
And he couldnât seem to stop any of that.
Word count: +4.9k
Chapter warnings: uhm, this chapter is Javierâs perspective ehehe, so, beware fo feelings
A/N: This chapter is set in season three, episode ten. // again, i am really fucking sorry, but we are ALMOST DONE OMG, also i wanna say thanks to my official cheerleaders @queenofthefaceless and @maharani-radha-writesâ that helped me a lot and @alliterative-albatrossâ that made me feel sure of some of the ideas i had for this chapter, i love you lots, guys. While proof reading this chapter for the first time i understood why it was the hardest to write, it was because i had just to strip myself naked and understand more of Javier Peña as i had built him... i just... im not quite pleased with the second half of this, but i know its needed.
ao3 // fic index // Masterlist // fic playlist
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gif: @javier-pena (thank you so much for making this when i needed it the most, ily)
The air weighed on his chest; he felt his lungs struggling to find air; as he drove home, he felt his heart pounding hard and fast, as if it wanted to rip out of his chest and run and hide and die.
As if his heart wanted the same he did.
Javier couldnât sleep that night. He didnât even try to close his eyes after climbing into bed.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw you.
Jesus Christ.
His mind was reeling, he couldnât stop replaying every single thing you told him in his mind.
âMy name is not Florencia MartĂnâ
âA precarious situationâ
âAnother Los Pepes scenarioâ
âYou do care, you care a lotâ
He wanted to crawl into a deep hole and bury himself to stop his body from feeling.
Javier cringed deeply when he remembered he had told you he had fallen in love with you without even thinking about it.
That certainly wasnât the way you were supposed to find out.
He guessed, while tossing around on his bed, on the same sheets that still smelled like you, that he had it coming. He probably deserved it. But that didnât make him feel any better, it stung.
It burned.
Javier had stripped himself naked for you, more than just his body, he had let you see him; he had let you touch him; he had let you read him; he had let you know him.
He had let himself feel and⊠he had let himself think he deserved something good.
He felt like such an idiot, stupid and embarrassed because there you had been⊠Standing in front of him, in a place he thought it would become something close to his fortress, breaking him. And he let you.
God. He had known you for less than six months, and yet he let you have power over him. All that power to make him whatever you wanted. He had handed you a sledgehammer and his heart and soul on a porcelain platter for you to shatter.
And he just took it.
Javier huffed at his own thoughts while his eyes were glued to the ceiling.
He was an idiot, wasnât he? Having let himself feel all those things he had been so beware of for a woman he never really knew.
What else was fake about you?
He felt that sting, known and oh so foreign clench in his throat and he fought it. He fought it hard. Why was he feeling like that?
âA precarious situationâ
âYou do care, you care a lotâ
He sat up and brought his knees to his chest, clenching his jaw so tight his face started trembling.
He had to unclench it so he could open his mouth and gasp for air because his lungs were tightening in his chest and he knew he just had to let go. He shook his head to nothing and fought it again. He would not break. He couldnât.
But then he remembered he was all alone. Just him and his mind and... he stopped fighting for the first time in years and allowed his feelings to pour down from his eyes.
Javier clenched his jaw again as he felt the thick, years old tears pouring and pouring, clouding his sight, flooding his face.
âFuck,â he muttered to nothing, resting his face on his hand and his arm on his knee, his chest struggling with the silent sobs he was drowning in.
Javier cried for around an hour.
He allowed himself to cry, to cry for you, because if he had allowed himself to fall in love with you and he had allowed you to wield power over him, he deserved a chance to fall apart as well.
He had earned it.
His tears of grief and pain became tears of anger and pain.
He was so angry; at himself, because, thinking again about everything you had told him, you had said something right; he had dragged you into having whatever the hell you two had. He had kissed you and practically turned your wrist into starting something with him only, and just only because he felt lonely. Because he felt like maybe, for the first time in decades, he could have something good. Because he felt like maybe it was time for him to love and be loved again when, in reality, he didnât deserve to be loved by anyone.
He had let himself believe you could be something else, less complicated. But how wrong he was⊠Him? Loved? As if. Him? In Colombia? Laughable.
That country⊠It became more than clear how much he had lost by going down there.
He huffed again in between tears at how it took a massive hit to the heart for him to realize how much he had lost in the years he had been there.
He was so angry; at the system. The fucking system that forced you and him into taking assignments you didnât deserve to take. There wasnât another moment he hated more right then, than the moment he had said yes to returning to Colombia. His dad was right, he didnât like what he found. And it truly changed him before he could change it. How he wanted to have listened to him, how he wanted to not be the stubborn ass he was and just⊠said no.
And you? You had taken an assignment that promised unreachable things, one that forced you into turning into a liar, one that didnât let you be yourself.
Fuck, was he really trying to find justifications for what you did even though you had broken him in pieces?
He was so angry; at you. For lying to him and from dropping the facade, for taking off the mask that he had rushed to love, for thinking he deserved the truth instead of you leaving once everything was over. He thought it would have hurt less if you had just⊠disappeared.
He wouldnât be crying at three in the morning on his bed if you had just vanished into thin air.
Javier remembered seeing the hope in your eyes when you were telling him the truth, who you really were, he saw it and he wanted to tell you he forgave you. But neither of you deserved something that good.
He was sure it all was some kind of karma. A penance for all his sins, a way too high price he had to pay for all the shit he had done.
He realized then, while sitting on his bed in the middle of the night, the same one he had shared with you for nights that felt burned into his memory, that you and him werenât so different.
That you two had more in common than he had first thought. That you, as he had said to you before, when you were still wrapped around his arms on that same bed, were a person who was willing to do anything for a greater cause. That you as well were capable of doing anything if you thought it did good, that you also were capable of sacrifice, of losing everything as long as you were doing what you thought was the right thing.
And you had told him, as you cried your eyes out in front of him, facing him and facing and taking all the repercussions of your actions, that you really thought it was the right thing to do.
The realization was truly bittersweet. He didnât like that even when you had broken his heart and stepped on the pieces as you walked out, he still understood why you did it.
After that despaired, miserable night, he decided he was done bringing you to the front of his mind, so he shoved all the memories of you and tried to repress them in the back of his head along with countless others he didnât rather to address.
The next day he stepped into the office with less than half an hour of sleep he had seemed to catch while condemning himself in the solitude of his room and avoided looking at your still cluttered desk. Full of you.
He ignored Stoddard when he asked him where you were as he stepped out of the office to head to Cali an hour later and while the elevator brought him down to the lobby he tried to drown the way the mention of your fake name made him feel.
That morning you walked directly to the CIA office, every step you gave into the embassy hurt in your body, mind and soul as if each one had a dagger embedded deeply and an invisible hand was twisting each dagger deeper. You felt the weight of the world on your shoulders. You entered, unannounced, into Stechnerâs office, not even trying to hide the enormous amount of pain you were going through. You were tired of hiding things.
âAh, my favorite DEA agent,â Stechner said when he saw you walk in âwell, not anymore, I guess.â he smirked and you felt his gaze linger on your body, shamelessly.
âLetâs just get this over with.â you muttered, crossing your arms on your chest.
âOh, this is more than over, alright?â the man leaned back on his chair and reached a manila folder that rested on top of others on his desk and raised it so you could see it âresignation, what a word,â he said, putting the folder back on the desk, opening the folder and taking the sole sheet of paper on his hand âreally? after you failed almost epically?â Stechner smiled humorlessly and took your resignation letter in both hands and⊠ripped it in half.
You drowned a gasp.
âYou have a flight to Washington today at noon.â he let out softly, feigning a comprehensive tone.
âOf course I do.â you mumbled, dropping your arms to the sides, feeling your eyes flood with tears as you saw him tossing the parts of your resignation letter in the trash can.
You blinked the tears away and quietly took a deep breath, halfway achieving a fake sense of stability you had fed yourself since the night before.
What were you thinking, after everything you did they would have let you get off easy? Of course not you silly girl.
âOh, honey, you need a hug?â Stechner asked with a teasing gaze and a fake tone of worry âI bet breaking up with Peña really did something on you, you look like a messâ
You tightened your jaw and rolled your hands into fists, Stechner noticed, and his mocking face dropped.
âAnything else?â you asked him, voice hardened, with your eyes staring right into his, admonishing him, warning him. He knew what you were capable of, you knew he did.
He shook his head twice, and you lifted your chin up.
âI really wish you the best, sweetie.â he mumbled, dropping his gaze to his desk and trying to ignore the way your face turned into a scowl at the endearment.
âNo, you donât, you fucker,â you all but growled wanting nothing more than to erase that seemingly permanent smirk off his face that grew after he raised his head to look at you âyouâre happy that Iâm getting out of here like this,â you chuckled bitterly âyou wanted this to happen, I hope youâre satisfied.â you let out all the venom you had been keeping inside you for that man in the last sentence you spat to him.
âYouâre right, but I wonât say it,â he tutted and shook his head slowly âyou really cost us a lot, sweetheart,â he mumbled and you were sure you were about to spit foam from the rage inside you âI hope you know that.â
You sighed and smiled bitterly at the man. Ever so fucking disgusting. For the first time in your life, you wanted something bad to happen to someone. And you didnât regret it.
âI wonât ever forget it.â you spat at him in a soft voice that made him glare at you with a serious face.
You turned around and walked out of his office, leaving the door open, feeling his stare on your back.
Feeling, then more than ever, the insides of your mind finishing crashing down. Finally broken. Fully broken.
You walked towards the elevator and pushed the lobby button, hoping to dissolve in the way, hoping the elevator floor would just break and the void swallowed you and your body crashed against the concrete floor of the second basement.
But instead, the doors opened on the DEA floor and Stoddard stepped inside, shooting you a concerned smile as the doors closed.
âHi, Florencia,â he looked at you and you tried to give him a smile, knowing you failed âyou okay?â he asked, you blinked a few times before looking at him. He pushed his glasses up.
âYeah!â you let out in a squeal âjust peachy.â you drifted your eyes away and sighed again.
âI⊠thought you were in Cali.â Stoddard let out after a few seconds, you turned to see him with your brow furrowed.
âCali?â
âWell⊠yeah,â he shrugged âthe boss and the guys went back to Cali this morning.â
You let out a sigh, of both relief and worry.
âOh,â you said under your breath âno, IâŠâ you shook your head and tried to smile at him again and failed, this time he noticed âI needed to take care of something else.â
âI see,â he mumbled, the elevator doors opened and you stepped out âyou sure youâre okay?â he asked, looking at you, you nodded several times.
âYeah, Stod,â you assured him, trying to make him believe it, not quite sure if you believed yourself âIâm fine.â
Stoddard nodded at you as the elevator doors closed and you waved him once goodbye. Knowing it would be the last time. You walked out of the embassy in complete and utter shame, and some part inside you screamed that you deserved it.
Javier rescued another witness that day, because he still wanted to do something right even though he didnât feel right himself.
But then, after sending Guillermo Pallomari to Miami, he had to return to his office. That place he had thought was his fortress, and then it was turned into⊠a dungeon.
He didnât ignore your cluttered desk this time; he was alone in the office, there was no one that could say anything of him if he just⊠looked around.
A steel cup filled with different colored pens and only red markers, a pile of unsigned DEA reports, in one of the drawers a block of sticky notes running low, the same ones you made notes on and stuck on files when you reviewed them and that Javier hated to see because they were just so fucking bright, your red coffee cup you used when you didnât have time to grab some at his house because he just kept kissing you until you both were late, which didn't happen at your place because Javier always woke up before you and started the coffee machine, a gun holster you hated to use because it just never clutched the way you wanted to your jeans and a small, brown journal he had never seen before and that he took because there wasnât anyone that could say anything of him if he just⊠looked around.
He hesitated for a moment to open the journal, unsure of himself or of what he would find. The first page had your initials, your real initials written on the far left corner and just a list of names he didnât recognize, next a few scribbles and a phone number. Javier skimmed through the pages and around the middle he found his name. Written in your pretty handwriting, with a few numbers underneath that looked dangerously close to file codes.
He snapped the journal closed and left it where he found it. He shouldnât have looked.
In his office he found all the documents you had risked so much to gather and all the intel you just handed to him, pretty much as he had handed you his heart.
Javier let out a sigh and grabbed the folders, sitting behind the desk and opening the first one.
He re-read every single piece of information until his eyes stung from the exhaustion, or the cigarette smoke, or maybe more unshed tears he was once again fighting so hard to keep inside him.
Tears of sadness, it was a given. But also anger, and frustration and pain, and, as a bucket of freezing cold water, years of regrets fell on him.
Javier had tried, had tried hard to bury all that shit in some far, deep corner of his mind, as he had tried to bury you and all his memories of the last four? five? months. He really did. But at that moment, sheltered inside an office that didnât feel like his anymore, past midnight, alone and so damn vulnerable, it all rose to the surface and he found himself drowning inside a sea of his own mistakes and past sins.
It was unbearable to stay there. So he grabbed the files that felt like burning in his hands and took off.
And so, Javier went back to an empty apartment that even though had been his for a long time, felt emptier than it had ever felt without you and reminded him only of you.
Why had he allowed his house to become a fucking shrine to the time you had spent there?
Everytime he looked at everything, from the fucking lamp at the corner of the end table to the damn waterbottle you left the last morning you were there on his kitchen counter, an image of you invaded his mind. Like a suffocating wildfire, spreading with the simplest blow of the wind. Covering him, trapping him, burning him and turning him into ashes.
That night he drank almost all the alcohol he had left in his house and even then, with his body full of booze, his intoxicated mind all the time returned to you. To your face, to your eyes and that color that was so common yet somehow looked so unique, to your voice and how you called his name either on a whisper or on a scold, to your smile and how apparently you had one only for him, to your hands and how you used them one night to touch him and the next morning to grip a gun, to how you drove him crazy from the very beginning. Fuck, he loved you. And he hated you all the same.
You gave him your resignation letter, you had left a job you claimed you loved so much that you had taken on something that did you so much wrong. You quit because of what they made you do, and probably, just probably, he had to do the same. Because of what they did to him.
Was it worth it? Everything he did⊠Was it worth something? Anything?
He thought again of everything he had done in the past decade and felt sick at what his brain was showing him. It really wasnât.
The idea of doing something good, doing something that could give him a little peace invaded his mind and he spent half the night thinking of something he could do to finally, finally feel like he was helping.
The next morning he found himself sitting in the conference room with Crosby hovering around him. He huffed at himself, sitting there as if there was nothing wrong going around, with the ambassador looking at him with his ever so present judgemental smirk, as if he wasn't just pieces of a man that put himself together with the weakest glue when he got dressed that morning with less than two hours of sleep after being trapped inside his house that smelled like you with nothing but alcohol and time to think. His pop was right, they did something to him in that country. He just didnât know what.
âYâknow how many times Iâve gotten a call from the Department of Justice and State the same morning?â Crosby rhetored, Javier looked at him, already tired of the lecture he was about to get âcount âem on one finger, guess we have you to thank for that.â
Javier dropped his eyes to the oak table in front of him and absentmindedly tried to draw a pattern with the tip of his finger while half listening to Crosby telling him about his meeting with the Colombian president to demand that the gentlemen of Cali stayed in jail. He looked back at his boss and after half a second of pondering he told him he had a draft indictment of the presidentâs ties with the cartel, omitting the part of the story where he had drafted it half drunk the night before. And of course Crosby laughed at it.
Javier huffed again at himself when Crosby suggested he kept the draft to himself and he felt his blood starting to boil. He sighed and fought the urge to stand up and leave. What was he thinking? That a man like Crosby would back up a man like him? Just like that? What a naĂŻve thought.
âThe DOJâs not gonna topple a government, Agent Peña,â the ambassador told him, obviating the statement, Javier felt his chest turn âyou canât tell me youâre surprised by that.â
âSome part of me was holding out hope, I guess.â he muttered to Crosby, who walked around the table and stood next to him, Javier didnât even bother to hide his face from him, god how tired he was of hiding.
âWell, you should tell that part to grow the fuck up,â Crosby spat and Javier drowned a bitter chuckle âno, I mean it, Agent Peña, you should be happy,â the ambassador said and Javier frowned at the man âyou played the system like a goddamn fiddle, you won.â
Javier opened his mouth to rebut the statement but Crosby just walked behind his chair and left the room, leaving him with the word in his mouth.
He felt his stomach toss in disgust, at his boss, at his job, at himself. Fuck that.
âYes, sir.â he mumbled under his breath.
Did he really win something? The job that helped him escape from everything, the one at some point of his life felt like a dream, had become a nightmare. The woman he grew to love, after years and years of not feeling that, barely got out of there alive and the name he had whispered in extasis wasnât even hers. Everything he had once believed in was melting away like wax on a candle and being washed away by a sea of regret, desolation and anger.
Did he really win something when he had lost everything? He had even lost himself in the process of what he and everyone around him had called a once in a lifetime opportunity to end a War that was so familiar to him it almost sat at the table on Thanksgiving with him and his dad.
And when he got out of the conference room, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, the idea of following your steps and quit became a lot more attractive to him.
So he went back to his empty home filled with your memories, resigned that he wouldnât sleep much that night either, and stood in the middle of the living room, not knowing why he felt like a visitor in his own house, chain smoking, thinking about everything just because he wanted to stop thinking about you.
Javier walked to his window and dwindled himself to watch the cars down the street pass, the city was so unaware of everything. The country was so unaware of how it was being torn apart by the same people that were elected to take care of it. And he was so fucking angry, at everything and everyone, at himself. And so tired. Exhausted.
The phone rang behind him and he didnât even flinch at the sound, even when practically no one called his house phone. He just let the machine get it.
âHi, Javi, uhmâŠâ he stiffened in place when he heard your voice and turned his head to eye the cradle âI know you probably donât wanna listen to me right now butâŠâ you sounded small, your voice sounded thin, Javier turned around and walked towards the phone âuhm, I wanted to apologize again andâŠâ he felt like he couldnât think, his mind was filled with your voice as if it were a fog that clouded his vision, he wanted to pick the phone up, he wanted to ask you where you were and tell you to come home to him, but his brain wasnât letting him âIâIâm in Washington and I thoâthoughtâŠâ his eyes closed on themselves when he heard you sigh and choke down a sob âforget it, uhm, I just⊠fuckâŠâ
Javier looked at the phone, the sound of static still there, he pondered if he should just swallow his anger and his newfound pride and just pick up.
âI think someone will contact you about this and I just wanted to let you know IâI didnât tell them anything about... usâŠâ he heard you chuckle softly and he just stood there, rolling his hands into fists, waiting for you to say something else, âIâm sorry, Javi, uhm⊠I really think I did the right thing by telling you, Iâm just sorry it had to be like thisâŠâ you sniffed on the phone and Javier sighed, âI guess I also wanted, uhm, to hear your voice⊠shit.â he closed his eyes and grabbed the phone.
âHello?â he said and gripped the receiver when the sound of the cut line replied to him.
Javier threw the receiver on the floor and sat on the couch, cursing at himself for his weakness and his hesitation altogether.
He rested his head on his hands while thinking on the few things you had said, if you were in Washington talking to the directives that meant they didnât let you resign, that meant they were firing you. And you called him to let him know his involvement was minimal, because still after everything you were trying to divert the backlash from him.
God how he was tired.
Thatâs when he decided, he was going to do it. Not only for what you had made him feel, but because he just needed to leave back all the baggage he had been carrying with him for almost a decade. He needed to let go. He knew it, he needed to free himself of something that turned him entirely into a different person that wasn't even close to what he had been before, because no one else would do it for him.
And he had nothing else to lose. Absolutely nothing.
Once that thought occupied his mind, he finally could lay down on the couch and sleep.
The next morning Javier just re-dressed and called his journalist contact, he had decided, in his pre-sleep haze, that he was just gonna tell the truth. To everyone.
Just as you did with him, he was going to use all the information you had given to him to redeem yourself of your own baggage to get rid of some of his.
Even when he didnât want to think of you, you were still helping him.
And the truth went out as he told it, and he let himself out of the whole situation by following your steps.
Until the ambassador called him into his office later that day and that time⊠Javier felt like he could tell the man absolutely anything.
He had nothing else to lose.
When he walked into the office Crosby was watching the news about his little interview. Javier walked and sat in across from him, feeling something that looked like freedom. But his mind was still reeling with guilt and loss.
âYou didnât really call the country that weâre guests in a narco democracy.â Crosby asked without asking, Javier looked at the man and shook his head once.
âAre you sayinâ that it isnât?â he replied, looking at the ambassador tightening his jaw.
âThe state departmentâs livid.â
Javier nodded a few times.
âGood, theyâre responsible,â he let out and shrugged slightly âwe all are.â
âSamper is not going anywhere.â Crosby let him know, quite exasperated. Javier dropped his eyes to the manâs desk.
âWell, at least people know the truth.â he said, including himself in the sentence. No more lies.
Javier saw Crosby shake his head and study the four walls that surrounded them, and he caught himself wanting to read him like you would be able to.
âI want you gone, Peña,â the ambassador told him, Javier guessed so âso do the colombians.â
âI understand, sir.â Javier replied and Crosby said nothing else. He looked at the ambassador for a few seconds and saw also a shell of a man. He guesses that it wasnât so much the job that took a personâs humanity, but the context in which they do it.
He stood up and walked towards the door.
âYou knowâŠâ Crosby called, Javier turned around âany aspirations you had for your career just got dragged behind the barn and shot.â
Javier licked his lower lip and allowed himself to look intently at the ambassador, the man looked at him with something he thought was pity.
âI resigned from the DEA this morning.â
Crosby stood up straighter when he heard it, Javier said it almost solemnly, and saying it out loud not only made it more real, but it really made him feel light as a feather for the first time since he was a teenager when he walked out of the ambassadorâs office for the last time in his life.
âprevious // nextâ
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Hiraeth - I.X: Was it Worth it in the End? Part Two
pairing(s): Hybrid!Im Jaebeom x Reader, Witch!Mark Tuan x Reader, Werewolf!Jackson Wang x Reader, Vampire!Park Jinyoung x Reader, Supernatural!Got7 x Reader
genre: Supernatual!AU, Dark Magic!AU, very heavy Angst, eventual Smut
warnings: Mature language, violence, explicit descriptions of fighting and injury, weapons, blood and gore, brief mention of a mutilated animal corpse, minor character death, description of trauma and mental illness, brief mention of suicide, mentions of murder, satanic themes and ritual, etc.Â
Trigger Warning: This chapter does contain graphic and explicit themes regarding violence, trauma, and death. Please do not read if this will harm you. This is your final warning.
word count: 10,6k
synopsis: How far are you willing to go to find out the truth about Moon Dye Bay?âŠ
chapter directory
The nighttime is hushed, almost anxious as Minho maneuvers his way past gravestones and overgrown shrubbery. Itâs almost like nature itself is too afraid of accidentally provoking the witch, sensing the torpedo of dark magic and violent sorrow stirring through his veins. He peers up at the crimson moon, grateful for the illumination it provides, and continues down his pathâignorant of the cold air bleeding into his flesh.Â
Minho knows this is probably not the best time for a visit, aware that his ex-covenmates are likely plotting some sort of mission to overthrow him, but he doesnât careâhe canât care anymore. A part of him, the shameful, guilty part of his mind. actually hopes they will succeed, at least then, he would no longer have to endure the pain that comes with bearing this black magic. He can feel its poison rushing through his veins, seering his body from the inside out, killing his soul over and over and over againâŠÂ
But isnât this what he wanted? Revenge? Retribution? Minho performed that spell to hurt the very friends that hurt himâto hurt Mark, and he got his wish⊠so why does it feel like the world is caving in around him, swallowing him whole?Â
Once he reaches his destination, Minho collapses to his knees, unable to bear the weight of his burdens. His eyes burn with tears, but he doesnât allow himself to cry. A silent gust of wind strokes his cheeks, painting his skin red with bitterness and anger. He welcomes the cold air, accepting the punishment, before lifting his hand to splay his fingers against the even colder surface of the headstone.Â
âIâm sorryâŠâ Minho whimpers, âIt didnât have to be like thisâŠâÂ
The silence heightens his anguishâdeepens the wounds in his heart.Â
If he could take it all back, he would⊠but he canât.Â
âI wish you were here, noonaâŠâÂ
His murmur is lost to the wind, but it doesnât matter. He climbs back to his feet before sparing one final glance at the burial place of his lost friend. After a deep inhale and a wordless goodbye, Minho turns and hastily begins back toward the mausoleum.Â
He was allowed this one moment of weaknessânow he must get back to the horrible reality he manifested for himself.Â
✠✠✠✠✠⟠⟠⟠⟠âŸ
âCan you be any more obviousâŠ?âÂ
Mark quickly awakens from his mindless trance, discovering, to his dismay, Dahyun looking down at him with a single raised, all-knowing eyebrow. He fakes a cough into his elbow before shrugging his shoulders, âI donât know what youâre talking about.âÂ
âYouâre kidding me, right?... You literally havenât taken your eyes off of her since we met up in the forest.âÂ
Heat immediately rises to Markâs cheeks. As if on instinct, his eyes trail back to his subject of interest, watching as you wipe the sweat from Jaebeomâs girlfriendâs forehead and neck before shifting to do the same to Felix. Itâs such a simple action, but you somehow look so etherealâalmost like an angel sent from heaven.Â
He curses himself for his own cheesiness, then releases a defeated sigh.Â
âWe got into a pretty big fight earlier.âÂ
âThen donât you think you shouldâI donât knowâtalk to her instead of staring her down like a creep?âÂ
âI think the last thing she wants to do is talk to me.â Mark drags a hand through his hair. âI⊠said some really stupid shit in the heat of the moment. She probably hates me.âÂ
Dahyun scoffs, âGod, you are such a fucking idiot.âÂ
âWhat the hell is that supposed to mean?âÂ
âIt means you need to get your ass over there and apologize to that girl.âÂ
Her harsh tone doesnât falter beneath his glare, nor does her tenacious expression as the two proceed with their silent staring contest. After a minute or two, Dahyun breaks off the competition with a long, heavy sigh. Her eyes are soft when she looks back at him, and suddenly Mark finds the dried mud on his shoes a lot more interesting.Â
âMark, anyone can see how much you care about herâhow much she cares about you.â Even when a gentle hand caresses his shoulder, the witch keeps his attention to the floor. â(Y/N) could never hate youâno matter how much stupid shit you pull.â She snickers, âAnd you pull a lot of stupid shit, so that has to account for something.â
He canât help the amused chuckle that falls from his own lips.Â
âThanks, Dubu.â Mark says, tilting his head to finally meet the warmth of her gaze.Â
âSheâs a good oneâa really good one, Mark.â The wolf hums, âDonât let it be your fear that pushes her away.â She doesnât give him a chance to reply further, pacing to a nearby corner to join a conversing Bang Chan and Yugyeom.Â
Sparing the wolf trio one final glance, Mark musters up the remaining courage he has left and pushes from his perch against the kitchen countertop. He forces himself to walk in your directionâeach step releasing more butterflies into the confines of his stomach. Once he reaches you, close enough to touch your turned back, he almost chickens out, content with spending the rest of the night watching you like hawk, but the sound of Felixâs breathy voice locks him in place:Â
ââChannie-hyung and I have always wanted to go to Chicago⊠Is-Is it as windy as they say?âÂ
âEven windier.â You say with a laugh. âI canât tell you how many scarves I lost, and donât get me started on how freaking cold the winters are.â
Felix laughs too, although it resonates as more of a wheeze than anything.Â
You shrug, âItâs a gorgeous city thoughâprobably my most favorite place Iâve ever lived.âÂ
âThen why did you leave? If you loved it so much?âÂ
Markâs interest piques when he notices how your figure grows tense at the young boyâs croak. Heâs heard his fair share of stories of your heartfelt time in the Windy City, but he never quite figured out why you ultimately decided to move to Moon Dye Bay. Youâve always been reluctant to reveal certain details from your past, especially regarding your time in the foster system, but even then Mark has been able to pry the worst memories from your brain.Â
This subject, however, has been a brick wall.Â
âBecause I couldnât stay.â You finally answer, âItâs complicated, but something happened and basically IââÂ
â(Y/N)?âÂ
He silently cusses as Felix interrupts your explanation, but his annoyance dissipates at the panicked expression etched along the teenagerâs sweaty face.Â
âWhat is it, Felix?â You shift your position on his bedside to better face the boy, leaning forward to place a gentle hand on his forehead. Mark can only imagine how hot the skin is to the touch.Â
Felixâs words crack as they leave his lips, slicing at the witchâs heart like a dagger:Â
âAm⊠Am I gonna die?â
âOf course not.â You immediately say, but Mark can sense the uneasiness in your tone. âEveryone is doing everything they can to help you, okay?... Youâre gonna get through this, and one day you and your brother are gonna go see Chicago yourselves and try not to get blown away into the next century.âÂ
Felix sleepily chuckles, âThanks, (Y/N).âÂ
âYou should get some sleep.â The moment the command leaves your lips, Felix is already closing his eyes and diving headfirst into dreamland. Not wanting to startle you, Mark waits a couple secondsâpartly to give you time to regain your composure, and partly to give himself time to think of what to say. However, he doesnât have much of a choice when you suddenly turn, growing aware of his presence. A frown overtakes your face, and he instantly regrets ever leaving his countertop.Â
âDid you need something?âÂ
âNoâyes, I meanâshit.â Mark buries a hand in his tresses to tug at his roots, attempting to juggle between putting together the right spoken words and reminding his body to breathe. â(Y/N), IââÂ
âIf you came to apologize, I donât want to hear it.â He helplessly watches as you rise from the bed before tossing your used rag on a nearby table. âI think you made yourself pretty clear back at my apartment.âÂ
âI shouldnât have said what I saidââ Before you can storm away, Mark latches his fingers around your wrist. ââplease. Just give me a chance to explain.âÂ
Your shoulders rise and fall in a heavy sigh, but you make no move to tear away from his grip and he takes it as a chance to continue:Â
âAfter my mom died, I was so fucking angryâŠâ Mark notices your surprised gaze when you lift your head, but he doesnât meet your eyes. âI was angry at the world, at her, at myself⊠and when my magic began to show up, things got a whole lot worse.â He shakes his head, âI thought about just ending itâjump into the bay or maybe drink myself to deathâbut then I metâŠâÂ
âThen you met Jackson.âÂ
âHe taught me how to deal with the angerâto use it as a tool, not a weapon.â His eyes begin to burn at the countless memories that reel through his mind. âIt was because of him I learned how to control my powers, and I was able to bring the coven togetherâhell, he was the one who told them to nominate me as Regent, which right now, seemed like the worst fucking decision on the planet.âÂ
Mark takes a moment to blink away his tears before taking a seat on an empty cot. He still canât find it in himself to glance at your face, keeping his eyes trained to the wooden flooring.Â
âBut when Jackson had an idea, there was no stopping him.â He chuckles sarcastically, âThe bastard was as stubborn as a goddamn mule.âÂ
âWhat happened to Jackson, Mark?â Your voice is both a sweet lullaby and a screeching siren against his ears. âHow did he die? Really?âÂ
âThe initial plan was to infuse enough magic into Jacksonâs werewolf form so his venom would be lethal to the Primes, or at the very least, to Jinyoung. It all went smoothly in the beginning, I was able to channel enough power to complete the transformation⊠but something went wrongâ
ââJackson was different when he shifted. He was ruthless⊠He didnât want to just kill the Primesâhe wanted to slaughter every vampire along with those who protect the secrets of their existence⊠no matter if they were witch, werewolf, humanâthey all deserved to dieâŠ
âThe combination of his determination and the bloodlust drove him fucking mad⊠If Jaebeom hadnât ripped out his heart, thereâs telling what he would have doneâwho he would have killedâŠâÂ
Mark leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, attempting to hide his shame beneath the curl of his bangs. ââJaebeom may have dealt the final blow, but Jackson died because the dark magic I used turned him into a monsterâheâs dead because of meâŠâÂ
Silence encompasses the room like a vice grip to the throat. For a moment, Mark believes you left him, too disgusted and ashamed to even breathe the same air as him, but the entrance of your worn boots into his vision proves otherwise. The image is replaced by your face when you kneel in front of his broken figure, laying your hands over each bicep. He notices your touch is gentle, but not hesitant, and warmâalways so warm.Â
âYou canât blame yourself for his death, Mark.â Mark doesnât realize heâs crying until you wipe a tear from his cheek. âHow could you have known what that spell would do? You couldnât haveââ
âMagic always comes with priceâespecially dark magic.â He whispers, unable to hold back more liquid sadness as it trails down his skin. â(Y/N), if I ever lost you the same way I lost Jackson, my mom, IââÂ
Markâs voice cuts out into a sob, and once your arms wind around his form, he completely breaks, releasing every ounce of repressed sadness and despair and pain into the crook of your neck. He knows heâs selfish for melting into your embraceâfor consuming your comfort like a demon expelled from the heavensâbut he doesnât care.Â
When you guide his eyes to meet your own, Mark can spot the glassiness of your own orbs in the artificial lightâalong with enough compassion and ardor to send another flood of tears down his face.Â
âIâm not going anywhere, okay?â You affirm, your tone unwavering and stern. âIâm hereâand no matter how many times you fall, Iâm gonna be here to pick you upâŠ
âIâm here, Mark⊠Do you understand me?âÂ
He nods with a sniffle, tightly squeezing your hands between his own.Â
âIâm sorry.âÂ
You smile at his apology.Â
âIâm sorry too⊠for everything.âÂ
âJust⊠No more secrets. For real, this time.âÂ
âFor real, this time.â Markâs heart rate picks up when he suddenly notices how close his face is to yours. From this angle, he can count the constellations glistening within your eyes and map the delicate curves of your facial features. If he were to lean just an inch closer, just one tiny inch, his lips would be on your ownâ
âSorry to interrupt, but we have an issue.â At Yugyeomâs statement, you and Mark immediately wrench away from one another, almost as if having been caught engaging in forbidden territory. Mark pretends he doesnât miss the weight of your hands inside his own as he rises from the cot, making sure to put an appropriate amount of distance between his and your shoulders.Â
He clears his throat before humming, âWhatâs going on?âÂ
âChan wants to go and find Chaeyoungâs body.â Although Yugyeomâs face remains neutral, Mark can see the sadness lingering within his eyes at the mention of his fallen packmate. âHe doesnât remember exactly where she was, so him, Dahyun, and I are going to search the forest.âÂ
You immediately shake your head. âI donât think thatâs a good idea. Sunrise isnât for at least another hour, and we have no way of knowing Youngjae broke the curse yet.âÂ
âIâm with (Y/N) on this one, Gyeom.â Mark agrees, âWeâre safest here in the bunker.âÂ
âWe canât just leave her out there. I mean, sheââ Yugyeom cuts himself off with a heavy sigh, before continuing in a softer tone, âYou know how it feels to lose someone, hyung⊠Chaeyoung isâwas⊠our family.âÂ
Mark takes a moment of silence to ponder, conflicted between his common sense and Yugyeomâs pleading gaze. As you said, sunrise is an hour awayâbut Youngjae, the coven and the Primes should have overthrown Minho by now, right? Plus, he literally blew Changbinâs head off with that shotgun. Thereâs no way his body could regenerate that quicklyâŠÂ
âWeâre all staying together.â He finally says, moving toward the kitchenette to grab his weapon from its perch on the counter. âAnd if anything seems shady, itâs an immediate retreat.âÂ
Yugyeom delivers a nod before heading off to gather the other wolves. Mark moves toward the bunker exit, but is stopped by your form. A heavy sigh cascades from his lipsâjust from your expression, he knows this conversation isnât going to go his way.Â
â(Y/N)ââÂ
âIf youâre gonna tell me I canât go with you, donât even bother.âÂ
He shakes his head, âItâs too dangerousâŠâÂ
âIf someone tells me that one more goddamn timeââ He canât help the tiny smile that spreads across his face at the sassy way you roll your eyes. And he doesnât protest when you move to follow Dahyun up the ladder.Â
✠✠✠✠✠⟠⟠⟠⟠âŸ
Youngjae inhales a deep breath, taking the moment to feel his lungs expand, before releasing the air in an even deeper exhale. Even with the relaxation attempt, his body remains tense and his thoughts disorderly. He canât help but feel as if Minho is waiting somewhere in the darkness of the crypt, ready to pounce on him like a predator to its prey.Â
Would he toy with his catch first? Or would he skip the pleasantries and go right in for the kill?Â
A hand appears on his shoulder, wrenching Youngjae from his morbid daydream. He angles his head to meet Liaâs concerned gaze and immediately tries to mask his fear beneath an expression of indifference. Unsurprisingly, the female witch sees right through his facade:
âIâve known you practically my whole life, Youngjae. Whatever it is, you canât hide it from me.âÂ
His shoulders sag in defeat as a sigh blows past his lips.Â
âIâm just⊠worried about Mark-hyung. Heâs powerless out there.â
âMark is smartâheâll know what to do if he finds himself in trouble.âÂ
âAnd if he doesnât?... I-I mean, what if Minho or Changbin found him before he could warn the pack? He could be dead for all we knowââÂ
Lia silences his desperate quip with a shake of her head, âYou shouldnât think like that right nowââÂ
âWhat else am I supposed to do?â Youngjae runs a frustrated hand through his hair before gesturing toward the main exit of their underground penitentiary. âEven with yours and Jisungâs energy, I donât have enough power to take down the barrier spell.âÂ
âHelp is on the wayââÂ
âHow do you know that for sure?âÂ
Lia remains silent, simply continuing to stare at Youngjae. He feels almost uncomfortable beneath her gaze, resisting the urge to shrink back and become one with the shadows.Â
âI donât know⊠but I have faith.â She murmurs after a brief moment. âWeâve lost a lot, but I still believe that weâll all somehow manage to come out of this alive. You should try doing the same.âÂ
With that, Lia leaves to speak with a dangerously quiet Jisung. Youngjae spares the pair a single glance before heading toward the crypt entryway. A single beam of moonlight illuminates the exit stairway, almost as if mocking him about his inability to escape the dingy prison.Â
Youngjae knows Lia is rightâof course sheâs right. Worrying about the possible pitfalls of this plan wonât help him, or Mark, or anyone. He can only pray that his mentor safely found his way out of the cemetery and is sending backup right this very moment.Â
He needs to have hope, if nothing else.Â
âWhat if we somehow lure Minho down here?â Youngjaeâs thoughts quiet at Liaâs suggestion, angling his head to meet her gaze. âTechnically Youngjae just needs to touch him to siphon his magic⊠so why donât we bring him to us?âÂ
âMinho-hyung wonât step past the barrier.â Jisung dissents, dragging his fingers through his already tousled hair. âHe probably knows weâre planning something against him, so thereâs no way heâll believe whatever ruse we try to pull.âÂ
âThen we have no choice. Youngjae, are you sure you canât take down the spell?âÂ
Youngjae sullenly shakes his head.Â
âIs there something else you can siphon? Maybe the crypt itself?âÂ
âThe crypt was built by humans.â He answers, âI can only draw power from the supernaturalââ
âThen itâs a good thing my dear brother and I werenât turned into superwolf bait.âÂ
Youngjae, along with the other witches, nearly leaps a foot in the air at the sudden voice. He whirls around to face the stairwell, which to his surprise, is now occupied by the last person he ever expected to see:Â
Im Jaebeom.Â
Jisung chokes, scurrying backward into the shadows as the hybrid approaches the trio. After taking purchase against the doorway, he offers his signature sly smirk.Â
âEvening, Harry Potter and friends⊠Funny meeting you down here.âÂ
âNow is not the time for games, hyung.â Youngjae breathes a sigh of relief as Jinyoungâs voice echoes throughout the stone walls. Seconds later, he comes hustling down the staircase before shoving Jaebeom out of the way. The vampire then peers into the crypt, his gaze burning with the determination of a man at war. âIs anyone hurt?âÂ
âNo. Weâre okay.â Lia steps forward. âIf youâre here, Iâm guessing Mark reached the wolf pack?âÂ
âYour guess is correct.â Jinyoung nods, placing a hand against the invisible doorway. âMy brother and I will do everything we can to help disarm the rogue, but I think itâd be best to free you all first.âÂ
Youngjae joins the conversation. âI can take down the barrier spell, but Iâll need to draw energy from one of you to do so.âÂ
âLetâs do this quickly then.â Jinyoung goes to roll up the sleeve of his white shirt, but is halted by his immortal companion. Surprise filters through Youngjaeâs veins as Jaebeom shrugs the leather jacket from his shoulders with a huff:Â
âWith my luck, heâll drain you dry and Iâll have to deal with this voodoo fucker myself. I think itâs best we use my energyâsorry not sorry.âÂ
âAlright, then.â Youngjae hums, âIâll need you to push through the barrier just enough that I can touch you⊠Itâs gonna hurt. A lot.âÂ
âGood thing Iâm a sadomasochist.â Jaebeom snickers at his brotherâs unamused expression, âToo much?âÂ
âMove your hand through that goddamn barrier before I throw you to the superwolf myself.âÂ
The hybrid rolls his eyes, but follows Jinyoungâs instructions and proceeds to force his limb past the invisible blockade. He remains silent, but Youngjae can spy the uncomfortable twitch of his eyebrow and the tension along his stone-cold features. Blood begins to bud along his knuckles like a patch of blooming roses before flowing down his pale skin the more he presses against the barrier.
The siphoner raises his hand in preparation. âJust a bit more.âÂ
A mere couple seconds later, Youngjae feels Jaebeomâs bloody flesh brush against his own. The skin-to-skin contact is slight, but enough, allowing the hybridâs energy to spread through his veins like wildfire. Youngjae almost cries in relief as the magic conquers his entire bodyâa new kind of hope sparking somewhere within his chest.Â
âPhasmatos Siprum⊠Emnis AbortumâŠâ Youngjae murmurs, positioning both hands against the invisible wall. He feels it crumbling beneath his fingertips, unable to withstand the power flowing through his figure. âFasila Quisa Exilum San⊠Fasila Quisa Exilum SanâŠâ
A proud grin stretches along his features as the barrier buckles, then completely shatters. With Lia and Jisung in tow, Youngjae beelines out of the crypt and into the stairwell where Jaebeom, whoâs cleaning the crimson from his knuckles, and Jinyoung reside. The latter nods, which Youngjae is quick to return.Â
ââKay, theyâre free⊠Now what?âÂ
âNow we find Minho and end this once and for all.â Lia answers, not sparing the hybrid a glance as she dashes up the stairs. Youngjae and the rest of the group try to keep up with the female witch as best as they can, not faltering until they reach the surface. The cemetery is quiet when they emerge from the crypt, Youngjae noticesâalmost too quiet.Â
He takes a short moment to breathe in the fresh night air before turning to a tense Jinyoung, âI need to get close enough to siphon Minhoâs magic to perform the counterspell. You think you and your brother can find me a way in?âÂ
Jinyoung nods. âYou can count on us.âÂ
âStay closeâŠâ Lia warns with a sigh, âI wouldnât be surprised if the bastard already knows weâre freeââÂ
Lightning suddenly strikes a mere few feet from where Lia is standing, earning a chorus of screams and surprised gasps from the witch trio. Youngjae watches as Jinyoung speeds forward, grabbing Lia just in time to avoid being burnt to a crisp by a second bolt. With Jisung at his side, Youngjae quickly takes shelter underneath the overhang of a nearby tomb as even more lightning bombards the earth. He surveys the area, searching for the perpetrator responsible for the weather abnormalities.Â
âMinho!...â Lia screeches from behind a large tree, her tone far less than friendly. âQuit being a fucking coward! Come out here and face us goddamnit!...âÂ
Youngjae huddles closer to Jisung as the wind suddenly picks up, ripping at his hair and clothing like a vengeful spirit. He moves to speak to his younger companion, but his words die on his tongue as the subject of the hour waltzes into view. The heavy gusts donât seem to affect him, though thatâs no surprise since the wretched weather is his doing.Â
Minho smirks, âThey say lightning never strikes one place twice⊠You must be really special then, Lia.âÂ
âOh fuck off! Weâre tired of playing your stupid games!âÂ
âThis only ends one way, Minhoââ Jinyoung says, cautiously moving from Liaâs side to approach the powerful witch. His steps, however, are halted by another vicious bolt of electricity. Youngjae attempts to make out Jaebeomâs form through the blurriness of his wind-induced tears, but the hybrid is nowhere to be found. ââso we can do it the easy way, or the hard way! The choice is yours!âÂ
âLast I checked, this isnât your fight, Prime.â
âIt became my fight the moment you threatened my family and my friends!âÂ
Minho snickers, âTrust me, I had every intention of ridding this town of you and your brotherâs filth.âÂ
âWas it also your intention to kill an innocent werewolf girl!?â Youngjaeâs heart drops at the vampireâs following statement. âSon Chaeyoung is dead because of Changbinâbecause of you!âÂ
âEvery war has its casualties.âÂ
âAnd what of Felix!? Will his death just be another trivial loss in your obsession for revenge!?âÂ
This time, Youngjae notices the cockiness melt from Minhoâs features into something akin to trepidation. The wailing of the wind picks up to a screech, nearly drowning out the dark-haired witchâs weak inquiry, âWhat are you talking about?â
âFelix was bitten⊠and is dying as we speak!â Jinyoung shakes his head frantically. âDo you believe he deserves this, Minho!? Do you believe Chaeyoung deserved to die!?... You can fix thisâmake this right!ïżœïżœÂ
Minho remains silent, and for a moment, Youngjae wonders if the witch will actually come to his senses and call off this whole ordeal. But just as soon as it appeared, the pained look along his features transitions into something more sinister.  Â
âWeâre all gonna die someday, so what does it even fucking matter!?âÂ
âAre you hearing yourself!?â Lia screams from behind a nearby tree, âLook what youâve become, Minho! How would Nayeon see you right now!âÂ
âDonât bring her into this!â Minhoâs hiss blends with the moans of the wind. Massive raindrops begin to pelt down against the earth, immediately soaking Youngjae to the bone. For the first time, he notices the dark witchâs position in relation to his own. Realistically, Youngjae can be at Minhoâs side in mere milliseconds, before he has a chance to blink. If only he can get him to move a bit closerâŠÂ
As if reading his thoughts, Jinyoung attempts to coax the witch another step forward.Â
âPlease, Minho⊠I donât wish to hurt you.â
The latter shakes his head with a chuckle. âItâs too fucking bad that you think you can.âÂ
Minho raises his hand, harshly forcing the vampire down against the muddy earth. Youngjae watches in horror as Jinyoungâs limbs begin to contort and rearrange against his own willâthe sound of cracking bones and the vampireâs pained groans filling his ears like a haunting melody. He forces his gaze away from the gruesome sight and prepares to advance on the dark witch, but Jisung stops him with a hand to his shoulder:Â
âNot yet, hyung.âÂ
âBut JinyoungââÂ
âTrust me.â His eyes are wide with determinationâYoungjae canât remember a time heâs ever seen Jisung so fierce. âI have a plan. Wait here until my signal.âÂ
Though filled with confusion, Youngjae does as the young witch requests and stays in place while Jisung himself carefully maneuvers his way through gravestones and buildings, attempting to remain out of sight. A sudden burst of lightning cracks through the atmosphere, and at first, Youngjae fears Jisung has been caught, but quickly realizes Minho has his sights set on another party:Â
âI was wondering when youâd join the funâI looked forward to tearing your bitch-ass apart.âÂ
âI would say Iâm flattered, but I rather like my ass.â Jaebeom saunters across a nearby rooftop. In the midst of the storm, he almost reminds Youngjae of a superheroâor more likely in his case, the psychotic supervillain. âLook, youâve had your fun, kid. Now I suggest you release my brother and cut out all this petty-teenage bullshit before I break your body in places you never thought possible.âÂ
âThatâs it?... And here I thought youâd want the antidote?âÂ
Jaebeomâs face darkens.Â
â...So there is a cure?âÂ
âOf course. Every spell has its loophole.â Minho finally lowers his hand, ceasing the painful reconstruction of Jinyoungâs skeleton. Youngjae watches in confusion as the former retracts something from his pocketâsome sort of vial, it seemsâand offers it toward the hybrid. âThe blood which Changbin drank to turnâitâll heal anyone fallen victim to his bite.âÂ
âYou better hand that over before I rip your teeth from your skull.â Jaebeom growls darkly, hopping down from his overhead perch.
The witch shakes his head, âNot so fast, Mr. Wolf⊠See, there was only so much leftâenough to heal one lucky soul.âÂ
âYouâre a sick fucking bastard,â Jaebeom spits. âYou wanted this to happenââ
âYour little bloodsucking girlfriend is dying, isnât she?â Minho tosses the vial toward the hybrid, who effortlessly catches it between two trembling fingers. âIf you want to save her life, then I suggest you go before the venom does its job.âÂ
âJaebeom-hyung, donâtâ!â Jinyoung gasps, slithering across the muddy earth like an earthworm lost to the world.Â
âYou know she doesnât have much timeââÂ
âWe canât do this without youâwe need you!... I need you, hyung!â Â
Jaebeom, staring at the tiny container in his grasp, doesnât reply to his incapacitated companion. Youngjae curses the smirk that spreads across Minhoâs faceâa sign of victoryâand attempts to spot Jisung and Lia somewhere between the ferocious raindrops. He has no such luck, and instead decides to pray for a miracle instead.Â
âIf you hadnât fucked around with the few people I care about, I might have actually liked you.â Jaebeom murmurs with a sigh before tucking the vial into his pocket and sending the dark witch a malicious sneer. âWell isnât that too fucking bad.âÂ
Youngjae leaps almost ten feet in the air as lightning strikes for what seems like the millionth time, although this time, itâs inches from where Minho is standing. After searching the area, Youngjae discovers Lia and Jisung across the way, hands clasped, eyes bright with passion, uttering some sort of offensive charm. Minho attempts to sprint in the opposite direction, but Jaebeom easily tackles the witch before he can get far.Â
âNow Youngjae-hyung! Do it now!âÂ
At Jisungâs cue, Youngjae takes off into the rain. The bitter feel of Mother Natureâs tears against his skin quickens his movements, wanting nothing more then to end this hurricane, both literally and figuratively, once and for all. He reaches Minho in what seems like hours and hurries to grab his wristâbut just like the tides during a storm, the tables quickly turn.Â
At the wave of Minhoâs hand, Jaebeom goes flying across the cemetery, crashing into a stone statue and collapsing into the resulting rumble. White-hot pain spreads through Youngjaeâs veins like a poison, freezing his muscles and immobilizing his limbs from any further movement. He collapses to the ground, where mud immediately clings to his clothing.
Minho rises to his feet before stepping on Youngjaeâs hand with a cackle, âDonât you fuckers get it!? Iâm untouchable! You canât fucking win!âÂ
âThatâs where youâre wrong, MinhoâŠâ Youngjae chuckles, curling his fingers around the tread of the dark witchâs boot. Minho realizes his mistake as soon as the formerâs hand begins to glow, foolishly attempting to squirm from his touch.Â
Thunder roars in the distance as Youngjae grins in triumph:Â
âBecause unlike you⊠weâre not alone.âÂ
The last thing Youngjae sees before he loses consciousness is a flash of white and the bewildered face of the dark witch as he collapses beside him.  Â
✠✠✠✠✠⟠⟠⟠⟠âŸ
âI take it Mark apologized?...â You nearly leap out of your own skin at the sudden inquiry. With a less than agitated frown, you turn to acknowledge the culprit for your almost heart attack. If you didnât know any better, youâd swear some of these supernaturals have powers of teleportation or somethingâŠÂ
âGoddamnit, Dahyun. Not all of us have superwolf hearing.âÂ
âSorry, dearie. Force of habit.â The she-wolf offers an apologetic smile, moving forward to hook her arm with your own. She allows Yugyeom, Chan and Mark to gain a bit of distance ahead before repeating again, âSo MarkâŠ?âÂ
âWe both talked it out and apologized⊠so everythingâs okay now.â You humâthe tiny fib leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.Â
Truthfully, your encounter with Mark left you conflicted. Of course, youâre more than glad he finally opened up about his past, and even more glad that he trusts you enough to reveal his lingering feelings of trauma, but thereâs still a pretty big fucking elephant in the roomâone involving his dead best friend and the fact you can talk to him beyond the grave.Â
You should have told him then and thereâright after you promised to abolish all secretsâbut something inside you couldnât do it⊠and you donât know why.Â
âWhy are you so interested in Mark and Iâs relationship anyway?â You utilize your curiosity as a distraction from the guilt breathing down your neck, angling your neck to peer at Dahyunâs side profile. âIs there⊠history between you two?âÂ
âNo, noânothing like that. Mark and I have just known each other since we were kids. Our moms were close friends, so Mark, Yugyeom and I pretty much grew up together.âÂ
âHe never told me that.âÂ
âDonât take it personal, sweetheart. Mark doesnât like to talk about his pastââ Dahyun sighs, ââtoo many bad memories between his dad and the bullshit that happened with his mom. Heâll come around eventually⊠he just needs more time.âÂ
âI know his mom passed when he was a teenager, but Mark never actually mentioned how she diedâŠâ You bite your lip, sending a curious glance to your wolf companion. âItâs really not fair to ask you, butââÂ
âMark found her in their own kitchen with her entire throat ripped open.â Dahyunâs blunt answer leaves your throat dry, unable to speak another word if you wanted to. âThe sheriff ruled it as an animal attack, but Iâm sure youâre smart enough to figure out what really happened.âÂ
Your heart sinks, and you choose not to say anything further.Â
âDahyun! (Y/N)! Donât get too far behind!â Chanâs voice echoes from somewhere up ahead. With the black of night beginning to fade, you can just make out his, Yugyeom, and Markâs silhouettes a couple dozen feet away. Dahyun gives your forearm a gentle squeeze before releasing your conjoined limbs to catch up with her packmates. You do the same, meeting an armed Mark about halfway.Â
His eyes glitter with concern underneath the fading starlight.Â
âEverything okayâŠ?âÂ
âYeah, Dahyun and I were just catching up.â You inhale a deep breath before releasing it in an even heavier exhale. âBut there is something I need to talk to you aboutâabout Jackson and the whole resurrection thing.âÂ
Mark shakes his head, âYou have every right to make your own decisions, (Y/N), but I wish you and Youngjae would have come to me.âÂ
âI know that, but it was more complicated than thatââ You try to gather your thoughts while also attempting to make sense of your words. âI couldnât tell you because, wellâbecause Jackson toldââÂ
âMark-hyung! Weâve got an issue!â Yugyeomâs warning immediately cuts off your explanation. Mark shoots you an apologetic glance before hurrying the two of you forward to join the wolf trio. It only takes seconds for you to distinguish the cause of the betaâs distress.Â
A deer carcass lays precariously on the forest floor, and albeit itâs practically torn to shreds, you can just make out a single word carved into its bloody flesh:Â
Die.Â
âShitâwe need to go. Now.âÂ
âWeâve already come this far. Chae should be around here somewhere.â Chan ignores Markâs directive, stepping over the animal corpse to traverse further through the forest. He barely takes a step before the witch is grabbing his wrist. âLet me go, hyung.âÂ
âDonât be an idiot.âÂ
âDonât tell me what toââ
âShut the fuck up. Both of you.â Dahyun quietly hisses, âListen.âÂ
You try to do as the she-wolf says, but all that meets your ears is the combination of your own labored breathing and uneven pulse. Judging by the confused expression along Markâs face, heâs probably dealing with the same situation.Â
âWhat is it?âÂ
âWeâre being watched.â Yugyeom answers Markâs inquiry in a whisper. âMark, you and (Y/N) need to find somewhere to hide right nowâChan, Dubu, get ready to fightââ
As soon as the command leaves Yugyeomâs lips, Mark takes you by the arm and drags you behind a broad tree trunk. You fish Jinyoungâs pocket knife from your pocket while Mark cocks his shotgun in preparation. Who knew the day would come that youâd actually be grateful for the presence of two dangerous weaponsâŠÂ Â
âIf anything goes wrongâyou run like hell, got it?âÂ
You shake your head at Markâs demand. âIâm not just going to leave youââ Â
âYugyeom! Above you!â At Chanâs warning, youâre suddenly shoved to the ground by the witch, watching in horror as a deranged Changbin descends from the treetops onto the beta himself. His skin is a sickly ashen shade, and his black veins so prominent it would make a nurse weep. Thereâs no human emotion left inside his dark eyes as he strikes Yugyeom over and over again with his lengthy sharp talons, tearing open his skin like a birthday presentâheâs a complete animal.Â
âBin, stop!â Chan throws his arms around Changbinâs shoulders in an attempt to pull him from Yugyeom, winding a tight arm around his throat before thrusting a knee against his spine. âThink about what youâre doing!âÂ
With Dahyunâs assistance, the two wolves manage to separate the dark wolf from that of Yugyeomâs wounded self. Even so, Changbin clearly does not appreciate being stolen away from his prey. He easily escapes from Chanâs hold, landing a couple heavy hits against the latterâs nose before shoving him to the ground. Dahyun takes the moment to strike, bringing the dark wolf to kneel with a harsh kick to his knee, but the action does minimal damage. Changbin punts the she-wolf a dozen feet away as if she weighs nothing. You wince as Dahyun connects with a nearby tree trunk with a vocal thud before dropping to the ground with no movements of rejoining the fight.Â
âShitâŠâ You curse to yourself, âThey wonât be able to take him down by themselvesâheâs too fucking strong.âÂ
âWatch your ears.â You notice Mark aiming his gun toward the dark wolf, waiting for an opportunity with his finger on the trigger. At his discretion, you cover your ears just in time for him to fire a first and second shot. A ferocious growl echoes through the trees, spreading goosebumps across your flesh like wildfire.Â
You watch both Chan and Yugyeom take advantage of Changbinâs distraction. The alpha delivers a swift, yet heavy hit against his wounded shoulder while the beta goes for his legs. Similar to Dahyun, they manage to pin Changbin to the forest floor. For a moment, you almost believe the fight has concluded in your teamâs favorâbut the tides shift. In the blink of an eye, Chan is impaled with a large jagged branch and sent tumbling into some foliage whereas Yugyeom is dealt punch after strike after kick, unable to escape the barrage of Changbinâs wrath. He eventually, like the former two, collapses to the earth and makes no move to rise.Â
Changbin cracks his neck before stalking toward where you and your companion stand.Â
âMarkââÂ
âI got it!â Mark quickly feeds another couple shells into the shotgun barrel, cocks the weapon, then aims down sight. He manages to sink a bullet into your targetâs abdomen, followed by another in his bicep, but Changbin merely releases an annoyed snarl and continues charging forward.Â
âFuck, fuck, fuckâ(Y/N), move!â You leap out of the way just in time to avoid a powerful strike. Changbinâs hand splinters the trunk of the tree, sending pieces of bark in every direction. A particular shard catches the bridge of your nose, causing blood to warmly cascade down your skin. You quickly wipe the liquid from your right eye, ignoring the nausea fluttering inside your gut, before focusing back on the situation at hand.Â
You look up in time to watch Mark swing his shotgun harshly against Changbinâs skull. Taking advantage of his disorientation, you rush forward to stab your pocket knife into the wolfâs back. Changbin practically roars in fury, angling backward to land a hit to your face before you have time to react. The force of his strike throws you to the ground, a sharp pain lingering in your left cheek.Â
âDonât fucking touch her!â Mark throws himself against Changbin, delivering hit after hit to anything and anywhere. Still, Markâs human strength does little to outbeat the dark wolf, and you watch in horror as Changbin effortlessly pins the witch against his chest with a bloody hand around his throat. You desperately search for something, anything, in hopes of saving Mark from whatever deadly fate awaits Changbinâs bloodlust, but fate doesnât seem to be on your side.
âChangbinâplease donât do this!â You cry, praying to some type of deity that the wolf is sane enough to understand your words. Even so, your confidence is low, seeing as talking clearly had no effect during your last encounter, but youâre fresh out of options at this point. âYou know this isnât who you are!âÂ
To your surprise, Changbin actually answers, âYou donât know anything about me.âÂ
âMaybe not, but I know you donât actually want to hurt anyoneâŠâ You cautiously rise to your feet with a shake of your head, wary of the tight hold Changbin currently has on Markâs jugular. âYour thoughts are all sorts of fucked up right now because of the dark magic, so why donât you just let Mark go and we canââÂ
âDonât you fucking get it! This fuckerââ He yanks at Mark with more force than necessary, ââtook everything from me! He took my pack, my alphaâthe only people I ever felt safe with!âÂ
âI understand youââÂ
âNo, you donât!â Changbin wails, âYou canât even imagine how I feel! How fucking hard it is to wake up in a world you know youâll never belong! How much it fucking hurts just to go on and pretend like everythingâs normal when itâs fucking not!âÂ
âTell him itâs okay to feel angryââ You whirl your head around to find a seemingly exhausted, yet wild-eyed Jackson Wang at your side. ââbut none of this was Markâs fault.âÂ
Youâre mortified at first, having never encountered the ghost anywhere outside your bedroomâbut whether itâs the desperation etched along his features, or the flush of purple that overtakes Markâs complexionâyou quickly transfer back to reality:Â
âChangbin, itâs perfectly normal to feel angry and cheated, but this wasnât Markâs faultâdeep down, I think you know that.â
âWhat does it fucking matter anymore? Iâm all alone anyways.â The pure agony etched along his face has your heart splitting in two.Â
Youâve never seen a creature so strong and so powerful look so⊠vulnerable.Â
âYou said the exact same thing to me when we first metâŠâ Jackson murmurs softly.
âYou told Jackson you were alone at one point tooâŠâÂ
An obvious wave of tense silence washes through the forest, making the beat of your heart that much more prominent in your ears.Â
Changbinâs whisper is darkâdangerous. âHow the fuck do you know that?âÂ
âBecause⊠Because heâs here, Changbin.â You say, your eyes meeting Markâs as the words leave your tongue. âYouâre not alone because Jackson is still here.âÂ
You donât know what kind of reaction you expected from your revelation, but it certainly is not the heinous laughter that spills from the dark wolfâs lips.Â
âYou must have lost your goddamn mind⊠Jackson-hyung is dead!âÂ
âMaybe physically, but his spirit still remains.âÂ
âYou meanââ You turn to discover a bewildered Yugyeom unsteadily leaning against a tree, ââhis⊠ghost? YouâYou can see his ghost?âÂ
You nod.  Â
Changbin sneers with a low growl. âI donât fucking believe you.âÂ
âThereâs a cliffside back along the bay about twenty miles from the lodge,â Jackson begins, his tone a blend of nostalgic and sorrowful. âChangbin and I used to go there to watch the full moon rise before we turned into our wolf forms⊠I-Iâve missed that so muchâŠâÂ
âYou and Jackson would always watch the full moon rise on a cliff overlooking the bay before you transitioned,â You repeat. âHe says he misses those moments with youâŠâ
âStop it!â Changbin frantically shakes his head, âYouâre lying!âÂ
âHeâs here, Changbin⊠Heâs really here.â You move forward again, more confidently this time, and raise your hands in a sympathetic gesture. âAnd the last thing he wants is for you to make the same mistakes he did, so pleaseâlet Mark go and let us help youâŠâÂ
Itâs as if time freezes for a moment. Changbin seems to fight a battle with himselfâcountless emotions rushing through his teary eyes. You watch the dark wolf glance toward an unconscious Dahyun and Chan, then to a silent Yugyeom, before finally setting his focus back to you. You can only pray your face reflects the hope swirling throughout your veinsâpray that Changbin will do the right thing.Â
To your delight, the blackness of his veins gradually begin to fade and the sharp claws protruding from his fingertips recede. You donât realize youâve been holding your breath until Changbin finally retracts his hold from Markâs neck. Youâre quick to take the unsteady witch in your own arms before sending the now normal wolf a thankful smile.Â
âThank you, ChangbinâŠâÂ
He nods shyly before wiping a couple tears from his cheeks. You watch as Yugyeom cautiously makes his way toward the younger boy, murmurs something, then tugs the latter into a tight embrace that pulls even more liquid sadness from his eyes. The sight has your heart melting into a puddle of warmthâthe emotion doesnât last though, not when Markâs dark croak enters your ears:
âYou⊠can see JacksonâŠâÂ
You shrug sheepishly, âI wanted to tell you, but he said not to⊠He didnât want to hurt you anymore than he already had.âÂ
Mark remains silent. You try to search for his features for some kind of anger or disappointment, but are only awarded with his surface level blank stare. Worry flooding through your veins, you look to Jackson for any possible guidance, but the ghost merely shakes his head.Â
After a couple tense seconds or so, Mark finally murmurs, âJack⊠IâIâm so sorry. For everything.âÂ
âYou have nothing to be sorry for.â Jackson says immediately, âIf only I had listened to you, then maybe things would have played out different.âÂ
âHe says it wasnât your faultâhe should have listened to you.â
âWe both made some pretty shitty mistakes.â Mark hums, âI miss you, man. So fucking much.âÂ
You donât wait for Jackson to reply, already knowing his answer.Â
âHe misses you too, Mark. Just as much.â
âHow is this even possibleâŠ?â You and Mark turn to find the shocked gaze of Yugyeom, who is closely followed by the despair of that belonging to Changbin. âSupernaturals canât even see spirits, much less mortalsâŠâÂ
âWe never exactly figured that out. Jackson said he felt drawn to me from the Other Sideâhe kind of just showed up in my bedroom the night after Mina and Momo died.âÂ
âAny contact with the dead usually requires some sort of spell or medium.â Mark bites his lip in confusion. âIâve never seen anything like this before, not even in any of my motherâs grimoiresââ
âJackson!â Your body grows rigid as Jackson suddenly collapses to the ground with a pained groan. You hurry forward, kneeling next to the man, and reach for his shoulder. The realization of his phantom existence hits you like a bag of bricks when your fingers phase through his form. You settle for calling his name again instead, âJacksonâwhatâs wrong?âÂ
âWhat the hell is going on?â You hear Changbin stress from somewhere behind you, but your focus is completely on the ghost in question.Â
Jackson lifts his head with a gasp, revealing a line of blood dripping from his nose. âI-Itâs the witches!... They know about our plansâtheyâre trying to force me back to the Other Sideââ
â(Y/N)?âÂ
You shake your head feverishly, âItâs, uh, itâs the witches on the Other Sideâthey donât like Jackson crossing over, so theyâre trying to bring him backâŠâÂ
Mark nods. âWitches, dead or alive, will do anything to maintain the balance of nature.âÂ
â(Y/N)âshitâI donât have a lot of timeââ Your chest tightens at the urgency behind Jacksonâs words. âI know so much just went down, butââÂ
âDonât worry, Jack. I wonât let you disappear again.â You affirm before climbing to your feet to face your new subject of interest. âMarkâI need you to perform the resurrection spell.âÂ
âWoah, waitââ Mark shakes his head, â(Y/N), I canâ tââÂ
âIf we donât resurrect him now, then Jackson is gone forever!â Your warning spreads a new tension across the atmosphere, manifesting in the form of sullen and panicked expressions. âPlease, Markâwe have a chance to bring him back!âÂ
âI canât do the spell because I donât have any magicâŠâ Your heart sinks at Markâs revelation. âMinho absorbed all my magical energy back at the graveyard⊠Iâm so sorry, JacksonâŠâÂ
âHold on, you told me that thereâs different types of magicâŠâ You push, âCanât you draw energy from something? Like the forest, or the moon, or, orââ
âOr me.â You turn, discovering the speaker of the response to be none other than a determined Changbin. âMinho-hyungâs spell may be gone, but I can still feel the magical energy lingering through my body.âÂ
Mark hesitates, âI-I donât know if it will work⊠and if something goes wrongââÂ
âDo you want Jackson-hyung back or not?...âÂ
A moment of silence passes after Changbinâs question. You keep an eye on a repeatedly wincing Jackson, and the other on the witchâs face, attempting to decipher his thoughts inside the glow of his gaze. For a moment, you wonder if Mark will even provide an answer, until the words finally leave his lips:Â
âFuck the balance of nature. Iâll bring you back, JacksonâI promise.âÂ
✠✠✠✠✠⟠⟠⟠⟠âŸ
Jinyoung stares at the sun as it gradually rises past the horizon, bathing his skin in a warm, celebratory light. His gaze wavers across the cemetery to the notorious mausoleum, where he watches Lia and Jisung carefully assist a barely conscious Youngjae past the doorway. After this crazy night, the siphoner definitely deserves a good, long rest. Then again, so does everyone else.Â
He releases a heavy sigh before shifting away from the witch trio. After sparing one final glance to the sunrise, Jinyoung allows his feet to carry him through the early morning glow, past countless tombstones and other structures, and settles beside a second figure in front of a particular burial site. He silently reads the engravings along the headstone before addressing his companion without so much as a glimpse:Â
âI assumed you would be halfway back to the bunker by now.âÂ
Jaebeom doesnât respond, not that Jinyoung really expects him to. He peers at the hybrid through the corner of his eye, attempting to seek meaning beyond his blank features. Centuries later, Jinyoung still canât predict the workings of Jaebeomâs inner thoughts. Especially when it comes to the situation at hand.Â
âMark called. Changbin is no longer affected by Minhoâs spell.â He explains, âTheyâre also preparing a ritual to resurrect Jackson WangââÂ
âTzuyuâŠ?âÂ
Jinyoungâs chest tightens as the name falls from Jaebeomâs lips.Â
âTheir youngest, Ryujin, is looking after both her and Felix.â
âSo sheâs still aliveâŠ?âÂ
âIt seems so.âÂ
A brief moment of silence passes between the pair. The earth grows brighter and brighter as the seconds roll by, reminding Jinyoung that time is a friend to no one.Â
âHyung, did you⊠truly switch off your humanity?âÂ
âI did, at first.â Jaebeomâs answer is quiet, and Jinyoung can detect the subtle hint of vulnerability hidden beneath his gruff tone. âBut I guess I can never completely turn it off.âÂ
âItâs alright to feel, hyungâbe it anger⊠or passion⊠or fearâŠâÂ
Jinyoung notices Jaebeom shift uncomfortably before glancing down at the glass vial in the palm of his hand. For once, he can actually distinguish the emotions present within the hybridâs dark eyes. The knowledge only jabs at his heart.Â
âEverything is taken care of, right?âÂ
âThe night has ended, and Minho is safely sealed away in the crypt.â Jinyoung nods, âWe live to see another day.â
He watches his companion tuck the precious vial into the pocket of his jeans before turning away from the headstone. Jinyoung is not sure where the urge comes from, but he abandons his perch, grabbing Jaebeomâs shoulder before he can leave the cemetery. He ignores the hybridâs confused expression and pulls him into a tight embrace.Â
âThank you for staying, hyungâŠâ Jinyoungâs murmur is slightly muffled against the fabric of his jacket, but he knows his companion heard them loud and clear.Â
Jaebeom hesitates for a moment, clearly taken aback by the sudden act, but eventually winds his arms loosely around Jinyoungâs back with a gentle murmur of his own:
âYou will always be my family, Jinyoung⊠Always and foreverâŠâ Â
✠✠✠✠✠⟠⟠⟠⟠âŸ
âIâve never used magic like this before, so I canât promise this will work.â Mark glances to where he assumes Jacksonâs spirit is located inside the white circle makeshifted out of a bag of flour Dahyun managed to find in a bunker cabinet, before glancing to the companion at his side. âYou sure youâre up for this? Itâll feel like Iâm literally sucking the life force out of your bodyâŠâÂ
Changbin nods, âIf it means bringing Jackson-hyung back.âÂ
âOkay, then.â Mark turns to the surrounding crowd next, âIn order to do this, Iâll need to lower the veil to the Other Side. This will create a temporary door that Jackson can pass through to physically enter our realm. Once he crosses over, he should become mortal again.âÂ
âSeems easy enough.â Dahyun snickers, although the sound is dry and forced. âAnything else we need to know?âÂ
âWhatever happens, do not enter the circle.â His eyes drift from the she-wolf to your silent form. As if sensing the scrutiny, your gaze connects with his own, and knowing he has your attention, Mark continues in a darker tone, âJust as spirits can pass into our realm, we can cross to the Other Side⊠so for the love of god, donât do anything stupid.â
Your and Markâs staring contest ceases when your head snapes toward the circle. Seconds later, you break the tense silence with a soft murmur, âJackson says itâs getting worse. He can feel the witches trying to drag him back.âÂ
âThen I guess thatâs our cue.â He sighs before nodding toward the circle one last time, âIâm gonna do my best, Jack. Just hold on.âÂ
With one final glance to the grimoire you gave him earlier, Mark inhales a deep breath and takes Changbinâs outstretched hand into his own. He closes his eyes, focusing every part of his brain on the electrifying sensation of the magical energy coursing through the wolfâs body. Bit by bit, he feels Changbinâs power bleeding into his own veins, awakening the slumbering supernatural nature of his soul. Once heâs sure enough heâs acquired enough magic, Mark opens his eyes and begins the incantation:Â
âVita mortem, mortem vita est⊠Partis inferioris velum, partis inferioris ante illum vetumâŠâ Almost instantly, the wind picks up while the air grows uncomfortably cold. He ignores the violent shivers wracking through his limbs and proceeds to repeat the words as the temperature continues to drop. With each spoken syllable, Markâs head becomes dizzy and his flesh feels as if itâs being scorched off, but he continues.Â
No amount of pain could ever dull the hope of seeing his best friend alive once more.
âHoly shitâitâs actually working!âÂ
Mark doesnât realize he had shut his eyes until he opens them, nearly yelping in delight when he discovers the image of said friend standing in the center of the white circle. Jackson looks no different than the day he last saw him, and he canât decide if he wants to laugh out of irony or burst into tears.Â
âThe veil is down! Iâm gonna start the spell to cross you over!â Mark yells over the howling of the wind, clutching Changbinâs hand tighter as he transitions to the next phase of the spell. âOhto eestanay as vazat esvet ohnaz eespalit⊠Ohto eestanay as vazat esvetâfuck!âÂ
A brutal force comes down against his head, almost resembling that of a punch, before spreading hot fire down his neck and to the rest of his body. Mark doubles over with a wheeze, attempting to fight against the painful sensations by grounding himself in Changbinâs touch. However, as soon as the first wave concludes, a second, even more excruciating one follows. He feels as if someone is trying to crush his brainâto kill him from the inside out.Â
âMark-hyung! Whatâs wrong!?âÂ
âItâs the witches!...â Mark is thankful that Jackson answers Yugyeomâs panicked inquiry, âTheyâre trying to break the spell!âÂ
âLike⊠hell they willâŠâ Mark hisses, righting himself with a pained groan before grabbing Changbinâs other hand. âIâm not going down without a fightâhold on!...âÂ
He jumps back into the spell, weakening the manipulated pain through the absorption of more of the wolfâs energy. Borderline high off the power, he pushes everything he has into the ritual, determined to see it through to the end. After a minute that passes like a decade, Mark detects a shift in the atmosphere, indicating the near completion of the spell, and shouts:Â
âJacksonâget out of the circle! Get out now!âÂ
As if in slow motion, Mark watches Jackson quickly move to escape the white border. But just as soon as his toe brushes the edge, he is wrenched away and lifted from the ground.Â
Dahyun cries, âWhat the hell is happening!?â
âThey wonât let me cross over!â Jackson squirms and writhes, attempting to escape whatever invisible grip is holding him hostage. His efforts are futile, and he continues to rise higher and higher off of the ground.Â
âHang on, Jack!â Mark releases Changbinâs hands and raises his own palms in Jacksonâs direction. However, the same torturous pain from before returns once more, hitting his nerves like a sledgehammer to a brick wall, and throws him to the earth. âShitâno! H-He has to pass through the circle!âÂ
â(Y/N)! Donât!âÂ
Mark raises his gaze at Dahyunâs shriek, only to watch in horror as you rush past the flour boundary and grab hold of Jacksonâs hand. A blinding light immediately erupts from your clasped palms, expanding through the area until all Mark can see is white.Â
After a long moment, his vision eventually returns, and he finds the forest completely silent. The temperature is no longer frigid, he notices, and the strain within his brain is gone. For a moment, Mark is filled with prowess, victorious at the fact he successfully carried out an ancient resurrection ritual, however, his triumph is temporary, especially when he notices your form laid motionless in Dahyunâs arms.Â
â(Y/N)âfuck!â Mark hurries to where you lay, stealing your figure from the she-wolf to cradle you in his own hold. âShit, shit, shitâsheâs not breathing! Fucking goddamnit!âÂ
His panic only grows tenfold when he hears the murmur cascade from Dahyunâs lips:Â
âMark⊠whereâs Jackson?â
✠✠✠✠✠⟠⟠⟠⟠âŸ
Jaebeom scales the final rung of the ladder before making his way toward the corner where the snoozing trio resides. He moves cautiously, mindful not to awaken the young werewolf caretaker, yet eventually finds himself perched on the edge of a familiar cot. His heart thunders inside his chest, and he cannot tell if itâs out of anxiety or hope. Though at this moment, Jaebeom can really care less to find out.Â
âItâs about time you showed upâŠâ He winces at the broken husk of his companionâs voice, attempting to keep his expression as neutral as possible. âI thought you were actually going to leave me to die in the hands of a neurotic teenage wolfâŠâÂ
Jaebeom doesnât respond to her quipâhe canât find it in himself to do so.Â
Tzuyu raises an eyebrow, âWhatâs with the face? Did you take down the witch or not?âÂ
âWe did.â He hums, âThe spell is broken.â
âGood thingââ The vampire pauses to cough, and the sound is like broken glass against his ears. ââyou and your brother are safe for the eternity to come.âÂ
âTzuyu⊠I found the cure.âÂ
âWhat are you waiting for then? My consent?â She snickers playfully, âWe fuck for over a century and this is the most gentlemanly behavior Iâve ever seen from you, Beomie.â
Again, Jaebeom remains silent.Â
Recognizing the obvious tension in the room, Tzuyuâs face falls. âBut⊠I guess itâs more complicated than that, hm?âÂ
âThereâs only enough forâŠâ Heâs unable to finish his sentence, not when his companionâs eyes are gazing at him with such sullenness and sympathy. Jaebeom has to look away for a moment, though the action does little to relieve the tightness of his chest.Â
âAh, I see.â Tzuyu hums, glancing across the way to a slumbering Felix. Her pale lips twitch, as if attempting to upturn to a smile, but it instead appears as a weak grimace. âYou know, I really never meant to hurt (Y/N)⊠or you.âÂ
âTzuyuââ
âIâve known you for decades⊠but Iâve never seen you look at someone the way you look at her.â Another violent cough wracks through her body, expelling a mass of dark blood past her lips. Jaebeom is quick to wipe the splotch from her skin with the blanket, trying not to dwell on the fact that her skin is ice cold. âIâll admit, I was jealous at first⊠Iâve always wanted someone to look at me like thatâŠÂ
âI know youâre afraid to careâto love, Jaebeom.â Tzuyu murmurs sadly, lifting a hand to rest against the hybridâs cheek. âEspecially someone like (Y/N)⊠and youâre right to. Sheâs too good⊠too human.Â
âOne misstep and you could lose her forever.âÂ
âI want to be selfishâŠâ Jaebeom whispers, âI want to be selfish so fucking badââ
âBut you canât be, Beom. Not with her.âÂ
âThen let me be selfish with you.âÂ
Tzuyu smiles.Â
âIâve lived over three lifetimes, and he is barely a ways into his oneâso youâre going to give the cure to that damn kid, Im Jaebeom.â He leans further into her touch as she caresses the apple of his cheek. âPromise me that youâll stay away from herâto keep her safe?â
He nods.
âGood⊠Can you hold me for a moment? Iâm cold.âÂ
âIâll hold you as long as you want me to.âÂ
And so Jaebeom takes Tzuyu into his arms. However, itâs not until the vampire grows still does he allow a single tear to cascade from his eye, staining the bloodied bed sheets with the agony of a heart that has been broken too many times to count.
#got7#got7 fanfic#got7 fic#got7 imagines#got7 x reader#got7 angst#got7 smut#got7 au#im jaebeom#im jaebeom x reader#im jaebeom fanfic#mark tuan#mark tuan x reader#mark tuan fanfic#jackson wang#jackson wang x reader#jackson wang fanfic#park jinyoung#park jinyoung x reader#park jinyoung fanfic#kpop fanfic#kpop au
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promise me - part 3
2845: EXILE
synopsis: Itâs the year 2845. A year where Earth is in shambles and space is the new frontier. You are sent along with other cadets to a distress call about some type of unknown creature. You are new as an engineer on the ship Shiganshina and you have to work for your boss and leader of your group Levi Ackerman. But remember, in space no one can hear you scream.
pairing: levi ackerman x female! reader words:Â 3,068 genre:Â violence, gore, romance, fluff, space au, series, future au
a/n: im actually rlly proud of this chapter. now its when the door starts opening up and new secrets are revealed and even more questions arise. ty all who have given support and love to my writing and this series. i work rlly hard on this so it makes so happy to see u guys love this. tysm.Â
The feeling of being useless was horrible. There laid Guntherâs lifeless body-leaning against the blood soaked wall. The hallway was once sparking with violence and fighting it felt so hollow to you and so quiet.Â
âOh my God.â You gasped, covering your mouth with your hand. âI canât believe this happened.â
The tips of Gunterâs fingers were turning blue and his hands were as cold as ice as you held onto it tightly.Â
âY/N,â Levi coughed out raspy. âY/N.â
You wiped your tears away and slid towards Levi. You looked at his face then saw his wound. There was a orange size burn-from the saliva of the alien-that was red and a rash. It was splayed across his ankle and was oozing.
âYouâre going to be alright. How bad does it hurt?â
âNot that bad,â he winced. You could tell he was holding it in. He was trying to be strong for the mission.Â
You rummaged through the first aid kit. In there was a bottle of pain pills, Band-Aids, and a cream to help with bacteria and burns. âTake some of these,â you popped the pills in his mouth. âThis should help with the ache.â You splattered some cream onto your hand and evenly spread it on the burn. Levi barely moved a muscle. His strength was truly evident. You wrapped his ankle with some gauze and your gaze met his. Your heart became still. His features were handsome to his thick, black, long eyelashes to his soft looking lips.Â
You shook your head, tearing the day dreams away from your mind. âYou think you can stand?â
âI think so.â Levi gripped the wall as he pushed himself up. He stood up and took one step, leading him slipping to the ground.Â
You caught him in your arms and guided his arm atop your shoulders. âI got you,â you smiled small. âLetâs try to get to shelter and take a breather.â
You didnât know what was next. What the plan was. All you worried about was now but the thought of how you were going to survive replayed. You saw many outcomes of you dying and everything seemed impossible. To everyone you portrayed this know it all, knowing every step you took but in reality you were a lost soul.Â
Turning a corner was a double bed room for the workers. âSit here.â Levi laid back in the bottom bunk bed. Pain evident, slightly, on his features. In quick motions you gathered items around the room to place in front of the door, barricading it in case any monsters tried to get through. âI think weâre good.â Sweat dripped down your neck.Â
You sat opposite from Levi on the other bottom bunk. You noticed Levi sweating as well, his face red. Touching his forehead, you realized he was burning up. âNot good,â you told yourself more than him. Grabbing a glass of water you led him to drink water, hoping that would help. âIâm in fear the venom is getting in through the skin to your blood.â You tapped your lip in thought.
âGreat,â Levi scoffed.Â
âWhat do you mean?â
Levi sat up. âI need you to promise me something Y/N. If I donât make it, finish the mission and save those that need help.â
You sat in front of him and grabbed his cold hands. âYouâre not dying. Iâm not letting you.â The thought made your lips tremble as your e/c eyes became glassy.
âJust promise me,â Leviâs calloused hands rose to your cheeks, wiping your scared tears that escaped your captivity of your eyes. âPlease Y/N. I need you to be okay?â
â...Okay,â you breathed out.Â
âI know youâre scared but I donât think you know how capable you are. You are made of greatness Y/N. You can do this, with or without me.â Levi laid back and tried to get some sleep.Â
You walked to the window showing space. A vast area that sometimes is made up of unknown. Scared was an understatement. You didnât know what that âthingâ was, where it had come from and why was it here? There were so many missing pieces to the puzzle.Â
You couldnât help but want to discover more to this mystery and you couldnât just sit there and do nothing while your friend laid there dying. If this monster was on Marley and it was going to show its face more often you needed tools. You couldnât bare being defenseless against that thing. âIâm coming back Levi,â you saluted to him. âI promise, just be patient.â
You checked the map of the ship and noticed the weapons room was far north away. It was on the opposite of the ship. âAre you kidding me?âÂ
As you raced to your destination you saw all the damage that was on Marley. So many wires were pulled and sparks exploded, scaring you. The thought came up of what if you hadnât had taken this job? Would you still be in your garage being a mechanic? There was some sneaky stuff happening and some things didnât feel right? Then you thought of Annie and the fear she must be feeling. What if she was dead? You had to know, you had to see if!Â
Finally you had made it to the warehouse but the gate was locked. âHmmm? Maybe thereâs an issue with the power?â You checked the computer system nearby and saw all the power was made to keep the vents open. It was either the vents or this gate. âIâm going to close the vents.â You locked in the correct kep numbers. The gate opened wide and you stealthily walked in to not grab attention.Â
You took a step and a loud bang was heard across the room. Your pulse quickened and your mouth became dry. You tore up boxes and compartments and they were empty except one at the very end. There was no cover there so if the alien was with you it would see you. âI have to be quick,â you thought.
You rolled to that area and looked to find a motion detector, a flamethrower and items to make a molotov. Now you felt more confident. âFinally,â you got set on making the molotov. But you didnât feel the presence behind of the alien growing tall and hovering behind you. It roared loud, baring its teeth.Â
You turned back and screamed, dropping the weapons. You were going to crawl away when a shot ringed your ears. You looked up to see a wounded Levi shooting at the alien.Â
âLevi?!? What are you doing?âÂ
âJust run! I got it!â Levi repeatedly shot at the monster, calling it to him. âYeah, come this way.â
You quickly grabbed the weapons and ran to the vents to jump in it. âCuss!â The latch was locked in order to get in the vents. You then remembered you closed the vents which means the alien was in here with you the whole time. âLevi the vents are closed! I gotta go back to the systems and open it up! You keep him distracted!â
âIsnât that what Iâm doing?!?â Levi was up against this huge creature.Â
Running with all your might back to the computers you typed in that the gate would shut and the vents would open. Levi was still stuck in the warehouse. âLevi get out of there!â You had your hand out.Â
Levi ran backwards shooting vigorously at the monster. âClose it! Close it!â
You punched in the numbers and Levi ran past the gate, it was a hair away from closing on him. It instead closed on the alien. The alien was caught in between. His hands were trying to bust the gate open.Â
âClimb! Climb!â You ushered Levi to get up the ladder to get to the vent. Levi climbed up and offered his hand to you. You took it climbing and the alien grabbed onto your legs, pulling you. You tried and you tried with all your might. Veins protruding and teeth clenching. With a roar you and Levi pulled away from the alien and climbed in the vents. They were tiny and cramped.Â
You both walked on your hands and knees to get through.Â
âIf we take two rights and 4 lefts then we should be at the room we were at.â You recalled from the map.Â
âWhat the cuss was that?â
You shrugged, âI needed to get items.â
âYeah, you could of died.â
âYou just told me I could do this without you and now you donât want me to. Which is it Levi? Because Iâm getting very confused!â
Levi shook his head, âYes, I remember what I said but you idiot but you donât have any weapons. What would you have done if I wasnât there?â
âFought the best I could. I know I can do this. You donât have to worry so much.â
Levi scoffed and led the way.
You sighed, âyouâre right. I should of had some type of weapon, that was dumb. But I got a ton. Now we can defiantly use these against him.â
âWhat did you get?â
You showed him all that you had found. âPretty neat huh. We get to use these bad boys on that son of a cuss.â
Levi couldnât help but smile at how brave you were and ruffled your head, âjust, please be careful next time. Okay?â
Finally, you and Levi made it to the end of the vent. Jumping out and now creating a new plan to exterminate the alien.Â
The fuzziness of the voice on the intercom blared loudly. Who was still alive? It took a second for someone to speak. âIs that Annie?â Your ears were open.Â
âLevi and Y/N, itâs Reiner... if youâre still alive please, meet up with me at the control base. I, I need to show you two something. ASAP!â Then it shut off like it never was turned on in the first place.Â
âWhat if- what if something is wrong? Maybe he found Annie?â
âOr killed that thing,â Levi suggested.Â
Making to the control base wasnât easy. You had to be on the look out for the alien. Any sound you made came with gut wrenching fear. At one point you were even certain that your heart pounding would be too loud and it would hear you. Every moment spent alive was a miracle.Â
There was a large wall of glass separating you both from Reiner. Unknowing you were present, he was facing the glass, sitting on a chair, focusing on the computers. He seemed not stressed at all. You would think because his friend and fellow ship mate was taken or dead that he would be more on his toes but he seemed not worried about a thing. Maybe he didnât really like to show emotion. It was true that being emotional at the moment there was no time. Your eyes traveled up to see his back was facing a huge vent.Â
âHeâs really stupid isnât he?â Levi knocked on the glass to get Reinerâs attention.Â
Reiner ushered you both over.Â
âAny news?â Reiner and you said in unison.Â
âYou first,â Reiner said.Â
âWell,â you threw all your weapons on the counter top near the computers set up. âWe went to the weapon base and contained all these! We didnât realize the moment we stepped on Marley that we were gonna need such heavy equipment.â
âThatâs what I wanted to talk to you about,â Reiner stood up and faced away from the two of you, as if he was disappointed in himself. âI know you all have many questions.â
âThatâs an understatement,â Levi sat, annoyed. âWhy did you bring us here Reiner? It seems like you want to get something off your chest.â
Reiner turned around, seeming so stoic. âI want to tell you two how this thing got on here.â
It was the question you were thinking about the whole time you were here.âYeah, what did you mean that it started with Ymir? Whoâs Ymir?â
âYmir was one of our ship mates. See when we first were dispatched on this mission we were told that we were going to different planets to find life. We went to what we named planet 13. Me, Annie, my friend Bertholdt and Ymir went and it seemed fine at first but then we found some...eggs.â
âEggs?â Levi questioned.Â
âEggs. I was taking some samples when I heard a scream and Ymir had touch one of the eggs. It was on her face and we took her to the medical bay to get her back to her health. But we didnât know that she would never get better and as I was running tests on her the thing came out of her chest. It was, so confusing. We didnât know what to do. It escaped and thatâs where weâre at now.â
You were shocked. âNow I have more questions than answers.â
âCuss,â Levi muttered under his breath, not knowing what other move to make.Â
âWe need to learn more about this creature, do you happen to know Reiner if this is the only one or are there more on here?â
âThe one-â Reiner was starting but then the computers started beeping.Â
âWhatâs that?â Levi pointed to the map on the screen. âWhat are those ripples and dots?â
Reiner sprinted to the chair and checked the monitor, âcuss. Itâs another shower, itâs gonna be longer and much stronger than the last one.â
âWhat do we do?â Your balance is thrown off when one or a few meteorites hits Marley. The ship starts beeping, alarming guests. âWhat happened?â
âItâs made a huge hole.â
âWhere?â Levi looked at the model on the computer screen.Â
Reiner pointed to the head of ship. âWe need to fix it quick or else it will ruin the whole ship.â
âI got this.â Levi grabbed a few of the weapons and was about to exit but fell due to his injuries.Â
âLevi!â You ran to his aid and lifted his trousers. It was starting to look infected and you could tell it was affecting him because his lips were turning white and he had more bags under his eyes. âYouâre not well.â
âIâm fine,â Levi tried getting up but fell in your arms.Â
âYouâre not going anywhere. You will stay here and wait for me. Iâll patch up the hole.â You took the weapons away from Levi.Â
âNo Y/N!â
âAre you sure Y/N? It could be dangerous.â Reiner said.Â
You rolled your eyes, âJust watch the cussed thing.â You grabbed a walkie-talkie and threw one at Reiner. âKeep me updated please.â
âThe same to you.â
You ran to the head of the ship, using your motion detector to make sure the alien wasnât near you. It was odd how it wasnât busy like it usually was. Something was wrong.Â
âIs this thing broken?â You asked yourself as you smacked the machine. âOk, Reiner, where is the hole?â
âYouâre near it. You have to make 3 lefts and itâs by the electric pad made for that area.â
âAlright,â you whispered and all of a sudden a loud bang was heard nearby. You quickly built a molotov and held your flamethrower in front of your chest, pointing it forward. You hated this playing game. If it was going to hunt you down, you were ready to face it. But nonetheless you moved on stealthily. The wooshing of the air leaving and space pulling everything out notified you that the hole was there. âI see the hole!â
Reiner continued talking while your motion detector started to beep rapidly. Your face turned into horror and something pulled you towards them. You screamed loud and could hear Reiner and Levi on the other end.Â
âY/N? Y/N!â
You looked behind and saw it was the alien dragging you towards the hole. You kicked it in the eye and went to get your flamethrower but you realized it had fallen when you were dragged and it was on the floor far away.Â
âCome on!â You were in survival mode as you kept kicking with all your might. You got a good blow as you kicked it in the throat. You crawled to the flamethrower and as the alien was about to pounce on you, you produced flames, almost killing it.Â
âYeah, get back!â
It was now trapped. You held the trigger of the flamethrower as long as you could, backing it up more and more to the hole. You were going to kick it out.Â
The space was pulling and you had to hold onto a medal bar attached the wall. Because of the strength the bar was slipping and almost detached. The alien tried to hold onto that as well but instead held onto your leg. You pointed the flamethrower at it and it ended up losing fuel. The alien smiled wide and crawled up your leg, now face to face with you.Â
âNo!âÂ
The alien tried to stab you with its claws but you punched its hands away, getting bruised. It brought itâs tail up and was about to stab your stomach, when you pulled, with all your strength, the metal bar that was attached to the wall, that you were holding onto. Nothing was holding you back from being sucked out into space. You were willing to risk your life to kill this thing. You lifted the bar high in the air and struck it repeatedly on his face. You both were falling, almost reaching the blackness and stars. When you pulled from your pocket a made molotov and threw it at it. It shrieked and exploded as it got sucked out.Â
You were almost getting sucked out when you held onto a corner of the wall and grabbed a piece of metal and shucked it to the hole, covering it. You fell to the floor and went to screw that piece of metal to that hole. You smiled, proud of yourself. You killed the alien and patched up the hole.Â
âI did it guys! Iâm alright!â
There was no answer from them, just only static.Â
Your lips quivered as you didnât think of nobody else except Levi.Â
As you walked upon the control base, it looked like a disaster. All the computers were thrown off and everything was moved, misplaced, and just thrashed every where. Whatâs worse there was no signs of Reiner or Levi anywhere.
a/n: no levi!!! hehehe im so bad lol. i feel so bad w levi in the manga as of recently with everything that has happened to him he just has no emotions like even less now and he just doesnât care. its like everything has been ripped away from him so poor levi, ive rlly given up on every other character as well lol in the manga except levi. i also am not a fan i know shoot me lol of annie and armin idk not rlly into it.Â
#attack on titan#aot#snk#snk levi#aot levi#snk manga#levi ackerman#levi ackerman x reader#x reader#x you#levi x reader#levi ackerman x you#snk levi x reader#fanfiction#snk x reader#aot x reader#attack on titan x reader#aot levi x reader#2845: exile#space levi#space au#au#alien#future au#alternate universe#promise me#series fic#levi fic#levi ackerman fanfiction#levi ackerman imagine
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» in your arms tonight - jeongguk scenario
Jeon Jeongguk - BTS
words - 5.2k
genre - college!au, smut, established relationship, domestic!au, drabble
warnings - oral sex (fem and male receiving) / fingering / riding / nipple play / edging + orgasm denial / unprotected sex / switch!jeongguk / dom!reader / gukkie finds out he has a new kink ( or fetish man idk) / this is mostly soft so donât expect some hardcore bdsm / this was meant to be a drabble but clearly i have no idea what that word means (5k words im really,,,,,,)
soundtracks - beabadoobee, soren & dance with me (please listen to them, these songs sound like what falling in love feels like)
He heard the rush of water from the tap in the bathroom come to a halt, followed by the patter of your bare feet against the tiles as you searched for a towel to wipe your mouth with. Your movements were in time with the gentle patter of rain rushing from the skies above. The sound did something to his heart, a wave of contentment floating through his body as he wiggled in the bed sheets. He almost wanted to get up and join you but the ache in his legs from yesterdayâs workout kept him cemented to the soft comforter beneath him. And the pillows smelt like you too â at least like your shampoo. It was peach or something and he couldnât help but bury his nose into the fabric, eyes fluttering close.
The towel hit his head with a resounding thud.
âYah! Are you not going to get up and brush your teeth?â You didnât sound annoyed so Jeongguk didnât retaliate, still enamoured by the way his bed smelled like you. But he did toss the towel into some corner of his room - heâd find it tomorrow morning.
âLater,â He whined instead, cracking open his eyes to find you standing at the door of his bathroom, one of his white t-shirts bellowing around your minute frame and a miffed frown on your face. It hid the shorts you had underneath but from where he was situated it looked like you were wearing nothing but his shirt. He didnât expect the jump in his heart when that small realization hit him. âCome here.â
âDo I look like a dog to you?â You retorted, shutting the bathroom door as you moved forward, a small smile on your face. âOrdering me around with your stinky breath. Heathen.â
âShut up, you know you like it.â He rolled back, pulling down the sheets heâd cocooned around himself so you climb in beside him. You rolled your eyes in response, tossing aside the pizza boxes Jeongguk had dumped on your side of the bed and clambering onto the mattress. The small act had his shirt raising up your bare thighs and oh â oh.
âYou removed the shorts?â He asked, acutely aware of how his voice sounded constricted in his throat.
You hummed in response, collapsing beside his figure, the fabric of his shirt bunching around your waist as you did so, fulling exposing the little black underwear you had on. In a second, the sight that had Jeonggukâs heart thrumming against his chest and his blood flowing to places he was too tired to deal with, was gone â covered by the sheets he suddenly abhorred.
âFuck.â
You tutted, shifting upright so you could grab the laptop perched precariously on his bedside table. âNope, donât you dare. You said youâre too exhausted for sex tonight.â
âI am!â He replied, writhing a little bit so the semi he was sporting could disappear. âYouâre just doing that a purpose!â
âI did absolutely nothing.â But he didnât miss the glimmer in your eyes when your said that, or the way the corners of your lips titled upwards in the smallest smirk.
âI hate you.â
âSure you do,â You easily replied, fingers swiftly taping away at the keyboard. âWant to watch a movie?â
âWhy not.â Hopefully that would distract him from the burning desire to fuck you into the mattress. As much as he wanted to, his thighs couldnât take it â Hoseok had gone too rough on him at the gym yesterday and coupled with his training for baseball Jeonggukâs legs felt like absolute mush.
âWeâre not watching a good one because Iâm sick and tired of your commentary.â
âItâs not my fault you donât have an artistic eye for cinematography,â He sharply retorted, delivering a poke to your waist. âWhiny baby.â
You snorted. âMe? The whiny baby in this relationship? Please go take a look in the mirror.â Jeongguk kicked you shin. âAw! Fuck off! And itâs not just the cinematography you take a dig at everything â the character development, the plot line, the dialogue â do I need to go on?â
âYou donât get to say anything â you enjoyed Twilight.â
âYeah when I was fourteen!â
âI saw you watching it last weekend when you were supposed to be studying.â
âEdward is a hot vampire. Like anyone can agree that Robert Pattinson looked good despite that terrible makeup.â
He huffed, raising a hand to ruffle through the soft chestnut strands sticking to his forehead. You reached out your own, fingers slipping through his own as your nails dragged across his scalp. He sighed into it, back arching slightly as you drew patterns on his skull, the feeling of your nails scraping against his skin send shock waves of pleasure through his system. âI donât care if he was hot, the special effects for that movie were disgusting.â He let out a soft gasp that had your rubbing your thighs together, his eyes closed in pure bliss. âI thought you were Team Jacob.â His voice was husky, telling sign that youâd set him off once more.
âIâm Team I Would Like To Be Fucked Tonight.â You stated, blatantly ignoring the stink eye he shot your way. âBut clearly thatâs not on our agenda. Have you ever seen Vampires Suck?â
âObviously not â it sounds horrendous.â
The laugh you let out made something twist in Jeonggukâs gut, a rush of disappointment radiating through him when you retracted your hand. It was bizarre to him, how much he craved your touch. Even the smallest of encounters left him breathless. For fuckâs sake you were just giving him a half-assed head massage and he was riled up again.
âOh youâre going to hate it,â You replied, oblivious to the wanting look Jeongguk had on your face. The blue screen illuminated your features, eyes bright and sparkling with mischief as you searched up the terrible film. He couldnât help but smile, a crushing urge to kiss your nose rising in his chest. Sometimes you were so cute and it made him feel like his heart was bursting.
âItâs so stupid but kind of funny at the same time? Itâs like a badly made version of Twilight,â You continued, pulling it up on the screen.
âA badly made version of Twilight? Babe, Twilight was terrible, how much worse can it get?â
You beamed. âSo much worse.â
âGod the things I do for you,â He groaned, shoving his face into the pillows. To be honest Jeongguk didnât care about what you were watching tonight. His body already felt heavy with sleep and he was most likely going to knock out as soon as the opening credits rolled in.
âScoot stinky boy,â You commanded, sliding back down into the comforters with the movie loading on the screen. You grabbed a pillow, propping it underneath the device as you scuttled into Jeonggukâs space, your legs landing right above his.
He sniffled, pushing up the pillows with his head so he could get a better view of the screen, âIâm not stinky, you smell,â He countered, wiggling his legs until yours were intertwined with his and your bare thigh was pressed against his own.
Sometimes Jeongguk regretted wearing nothing but boxers to bed. Yeah it was more comfortable but fuck if it wasnât annoying to have you so close and not have the energy to fuck you the way he wanted to.
âPhew what was that? Smells terrible in here, close your mouth.â Jeongguk wanted to kiss the smile off your face.
âShut up the movie is starting,â He instead chose to say, trying to distract his mind from how warm you felt against him, how his skin literally tingled with every gentle graze of your skin against his own, and how his dick was starting to become hard again for the third time that night.
It took five minutes of the opening scene for Jeongguk to realise that this was going to be the worst thing heâd ever see with his own two eyes and for his persistent boner to deflate like a popped balloon.
âWhat the ever living fuck was that?â
You giggled, leaning over to place a finger on top of his pink lips, the action causing Jeongguk to subconsciously pout.
âShh, Bella is saving Edward.â
âThey covered his dick with a disco ball! Why is he stripping in Italy? Why are there fan girls smashing each other with garden tools? Whatâs with the girls in bikiniâs dancing in a jello fountain? Y/N what is this?â
âA masterpiece,â You murmured, pressing a kiss on his check â one that had Jeongguk leaning in for another, preferably on his mouth but you pulled away, flicking him gently against his forehead. âNow shut it and watch the movie.â
âFine,â He retorted but his mouth was open a second later, eyes already observing a fault in the way the movie was shot.
And thatâs the way the rest of your Saturday night ensued, Jeongguk throwing comments that whole movie was a pile of shit while you defended it (and occasionally critiqued because god this movie was horrible). Somewhere along Jeongguk had found a way to envelop you in his arms, pulling you right against his bare chest. Heâd slug one of his legs over yours, fully dwarfing you in his hold as he pressed his warm mouth against your neck. His fingertips followed next, idly drawing lazy patterns against your skin while his eyes stayed sharp on the scene. But the movie got boring for him quick, the jokes were sub-par and the style it was shot it physically hurt his soul.
It didnât take long for his mind to digress, nerves picking up the warmth you were emanating in his arms. Or the way his shirt had ridden up your thigh once again and the only barrier between you and him was the fabric of your panties which was pressed right against his own thigh. And his boxers but that wasnât on the forefront of his mind. He could slide his thigh in between your legs if he wanted too, he couldnât help but think about that, dragging a finger against your neck.
The shiver that jerked through your body jostled your backwards, further into his arms until the familiar curve of your ass was pressed right against his crotch.
He forgot the movie was playing in an instant.
You felt his hands suddenly drop to your waist, grabbing at the fabric that had bunched up there, his grip firm as he ground into the curve of your ass. It didnât take long for you to start dripping, the need for his touch already buzzing beneath your skin just from being near him. But you werenât going to give in that easily, despite how good his felt against your ass or the little sighs he made as he grew harder by the second.
âNope, no,â You yanked yourself free, immediately yearning for the feeling of him against you.
âBabe~â There was a nip at your neck, one that nearly had you melting right back into him.
âNo â no. You said you were exhausted. Sleep.â
âI retract that statement. Please, fuck, I need you.â
âI canât hear you over this funny joke,â You taunted, making a point to laugh loudly.
âThat was terrible joke and you know it,â He replied, yanking your back into his chest. You whined, raising your fists against his broad chest. Your hands hit taunt muscle as Jeongguk crawled on top of you, pulling underneath his hulking figure.
âNo â Jeongguk,â You wheezed out, a laugh stuck in your throat. âThe laptop, youâre going to drop it-â
He grabbed it before it could descend to the floor and shatter. In an instance it was slammed shut, abruptly cutting off Bellaâs scream, and Jeongguk tossed it back onto the stool it was previously perched on. When he returned his attention to you, you couldnât help but squirm, a rush of wetness slipping from your pussy at the sight of his dark blown out eyes.
âI was watching the movie,â You said indignantly.
âWe can finish it later,â He breezily replied, âWant you now.â The peck on your nose took your off guard but when he pulled away, eyes glimmering with something you couldnât use words to describe, you couldnât help but grin.
âI donât think you know what you do to me,â Jeongguk continued, a hand on your hip tugging you closer underneath him. You swung your legs over his waist, giving him the room to lean down and nudge his cock right against your wet clothed pussy. The sigh he gave at the contact made your stomach flutter with need. âFuck, babe, you have no idea what you do to me. Youâre always so fucking cute even when youâre talking shit.â A press of his lips against your forehead as his hips rolled into yours. You groaned at the movement, revelling in the weight of your boyfriend over you. âYou talk back all the damn time and it just makes me so hard. Even when you know youâre wrong â and youâre always wrong.â Another roll of his hips, this time rougher, one that had your cunt dripping. You nearly smacked the side of his head for the backhanded compliment but the next thing that slipped from Jeonggukâs mouth had you halting. âI love that â I love you.â
âFuck,â You whispered, hands finding themselves entangled in his hair. âFuck, I love you too.â
He stuttered to a pause, cock still pressed against you, staring at you with wide eyes. âYou â you donât have to say it back, if you donât mean it.â
âNo, I want to. Wanted to for a while now and I mean it. Jeongguk I love you.â
The bewildering laugh he let out echoed in your chest, the smile on his face so wide you couldnât help but cup his cheeks and grin back. âI love you too Y/N.â
Then his lips were on yours and you could only melt into it. His tongue slipped beside yours, coaxing soft broken moans from your lips that had him bucking harder against you. Jeongguk tasted like the pepperoni pizza youâd gotten for dinner and coupled with the mint flavoured toothpaste you used the combination was not the best but it didnât even matter because the boy above you loved you. Youâd know for a while that this relationship was something else because Jeongguk made you feel things you didnât even know you were capable of sometimes. Things were always so comfortable with him, even if they werenât always easy. Being with Jeongguk felt right.
And he felt the same, even if he could only communicate it with nips to your lower lip and the tight hold on your hips as he rocked you into the mattress. Jeongguk felt like he was ablaze, from the tips of his toes to the heart slamming against his chest. He never expected you to say it back, at least right away. He didnât even expect it to come out, it just happened. And the fact that you feel the same has him on the fucking moon and incredibly hard. He could only kiss you harder, map out your mouth with his own because he wanted to imprint the feeling of you whining into him in his memory for the rest of his life.
âJeongguk,â You pulled away, exposing your neck when Jeongguk immediately latched on to. He was never going to stop kissing you. Never.
âYeah,â He groaned into your skin.
âNeed you to do something else with your mouth.â
âWhatever you want baby.â
He took the hint, sliding down until his breath was hot against your blazing cunt, His arms had pulled up the shirt and you reached down to yank it over your head when Jeongguk stopped you.
âKâkeep it on please.â
âWhy? You donât want to see my tits?â
âFuck,â He sighed, fingers digging into your naked thighs. âNo I do, I love your tits⊠Itâs just â I canât explain, could you keep it on though?â
You raised an eyebrow but dropped your arms, complying with his request. You didnât miss the little exhale he let out. And then his eyes were trained on your pussy once more.
The first lick made you jolt, even though it was through your underwear you could feel the familiar knot of tightening in your gut. It didnât help that Jeongguk looked so pretty between your legs, how his wide eyes would flicker to yours for reaffirmation that he was pulling you apart.
âTake them off,â You whispered, after Jeongguk had delivered a kiss to your cunt. He did so with protest, eyes darkening when they landed on the slick covering your inner thighs.
âLook at you princess, you made such a fucking mess. Should I clean it up for you?â He hummed, brushing his nose against your inner right thigh.
âYes, please fuck-â
He didnât bother to open you up like he usually would. Jeongguk would take his time eating your own, sliding his tongue down your cunt, tongue dipping below to play with your entrance until he dragged it back up and teased his way to your clit. Tonight Jeongguk immediately latched onto your clit, swirling and flicking in sharp swift motions at had your toes curling in pure bliss and your hands fisting the sheets.
He abruptly pulled away, leaving you heaving as you glanced down. He grinned at your confused expression, lips coated in your slick and a rose flush on his face, and then reached out to direct one of your hands onto his head.
âPull at my hair,â He murmured.
Oh â oh that you could do, and were about to state it when he resumed his assault on your clit, effectively making your brain melt from the pressure of his tongue on your cunt.
âHoly fucking â Jeongguk!â Your hips moved on their own accord, bucking into his mouth in search of something that would help you topple over and come because you really needed too. It didnât help that Jeongguk had a low vibration going on his throat, the humming resounding into your cunt with every wet lick and press of his tongue on you. You couldnât help but claw at his scalp, yanking helplessly at the strands there.
âPlease, fuck! Let me come, please let me come.â He didnât reply, choosing to instead slip two of his fingers between your thighs, circling your entrance with them as he gazed intently at you. The stretch you felt as he pushed them into you had you throwing your head back, legs spreading further apart so he could get deeper. It took a moment or two for him to establish a rhythm that kept in time with the ministrations of his tongue but it didnât take long for you to come undone underneath them.
The need to orgasm was becoming unbearable. The small tremors in your thighs that you moaning into the heated atmosphere made Jeongguk grin, the flicks against your cunt speeding up. And then he crocked his fingers upwards, the pads of his fingertips slamming right into something that had you screaming his name.
It happened faster than you expected, one second Jeongguk had you unravelling with the sharp jabs into your sopping cunt and the next one you were clenching down on his fingers, thighs shaking with every tidal wave of pleasure that coursed through you. The only thing you knew was him name and he couldnât help but bask in it. You looked gorgeous like this â mouth thrown open and your eyes on the brink of shutting. It made him so unbelievable hard that it was starting to hurt.
âFuck,â You exhaled, blinking at the ceiling as Jeongguk pulled his fingers away, immediately cleaning them with his own mouth. The movement garnered your attention and you were left mesmerized as he licked you slick away before giving you a bright smile.
He rose upward, taking his place above you, heart leaping at the sight of your small figure still lost in his shirt but this time with a glow on your face.
âIf you want we can do that agai-â
The taste of you on his mouth didnât deter you. In fact you pulled him closer, your fingers grazing his abdomen, taut muscles involuntarily fluttering at the contact. Jeongguk was built magnificently â you could not deny his hours in the gym really paid off. And it made you want to climb him like a tree.
When Jeongguk detached himself from your lips, he huffed a small laugh landing another peck on your nose. âYour nose is so cute. Have I ever told you that? I love your nose.â
âMy nose is ginormous you idiot. Stop trying to change the conversation.â You hand had wandered further down, dipping into the black fabric that strained against the curve of his cock. You didnât know whether to start with him in your mouth or to sit on his dick immediately.
âBaby,â His mouth was in your neck, âI wasnât joking when I said I couldnât fuck you tonight. I donât think I can handle being on top.â
âThen you donât have to,â You retorted simply, causing Jeongguk to pull back so he could look you in the eyes. âDo you want me to sit on you first or would you prefer it I sucked you off instead.â
He was visibly stunned, a bewildering look glazing over his eyes. âI-â
You palmed at his cock, relishing in the way he arched into your touch, his eyes falling shut as a choked âShitâ slipped from his lips.
âPick one baby.â
âWanna fuck your mouth.â
You grinned, gently pushing him off so you could roll on top. Â He was now beneath you back against the mattress as his eyes eagerly followed your moments. You kissed the crock of his neck, hands dragging down to roll his nipples in your fingertips. He reacted the way you expected him too, with a soft groan and a curse that went straight to your core.
âLook at my baby, such a good boy,â You whispered against his ear with another flick to his nipples. âYouâve treated me so well tonight and I promise to do the same but I need you to do something for me. Only come when I say you can. Is that okay?â
He nodded so hard his head jolted the pillows apart. That was more than okay for him. You rarely ever took the dominant role in the bedroom but when you did he found it incredibly hot. He wouldnât come until you let him, even he was aching to right at this very moment.
The only reason why you wanted to withhold his release was because you wanted Jeongguk to feel so good could he couldnât help but come, you needed to see him like that tonight.
You pressed a satisfied kiss against his mouth, no tongue this time, and then found your way down to his boxers, kneeling forward before the hardness there. This stupid thing should have disappeared ages ago.
Jeongguk tossed them off at your command, leaving his cock exposed to the warm air, curving against his stomach, the tip red and dripping with precum. Your lips wrapped around it with a soft kiss, the welcoming wetness of your mouth leaving Jeongguk groaning as you sunk down on his cock. Where your mouth couldnât reach your hands occupied.
Your wrists snapped up and down, twisting around his length in quick motions that you knew he liked. You tried to keep up with the pace youâd created with your hands but Jeongguk was thick enough that it was difficult to swallow his cock easily. Especially from this angle. But you pushed through the ache that was burning your jaw and kept the tight hold of your mouth around his dick, tongue swirling around the tip as your hollowed your cheeks.
âFuck baby, fuck! Like that, yes, fuck Iâm gonna â shit Iâm gonna come-â He remembered what youâd requested but your mouth was so warm and so wet he couldnât help but want to come down your throat, not when he could hear the way you were gagging around him. So when you pulled off with a disapproving look he didnât feel sorry at all.
âJeongguk,â You slapped his thigh. âYouâre terrible at being a sub.â
âSorry,â He replied, mouth twisted in a languid grin. âI havenât jacked off in a couple of days and youâre mouth was â yeah your mouth was really nice.â
You sighed, bunching up his shirt at your waist. That revealed the new coat of slick coating your cunt that had the smile tumbling right off Jeonggukâs face. âDo you really need to come right now?â
âYeah, fuck yeah I do.â
âWhere do you want to come? In my mouth or in my pussy?â
Jeonggukâs brain went haywire.
âWeâre â weâre not using a condom?â He choked out, painfully aware of how his dick twitched at the prospect of being buried inside you with no barrier.
You shock your head. âNo, I want you like that.â
âYou sure?â His tone was incredulous.
Another nod.
âBaby, I love you but, like, Iâm not ready to be a dad.â
You hit his arm with a laugh bubbling from your mouth. âIdiot my period starts really soon.â
âReally?â
âYes â please just pick a place to come.â
âYour pussy obviously, shit, come here,â He was reaching out for your hips, dragging your over his crotch. You hovered above him, cunt aching to have something inside it.
âWant me to keep the shirt on?â
âYeah,â He replied dreamily, eyes enamoured with the way your pussy looked covered in wetness that he was responsible for.
âJeongguk,â You continued innocently, a sharp look in your eyes.
âYes baby,â His fingers were digging into your hips, gently pulling you closer to his cock.
âDo you have a kink for me wearing your clothes?â This halted everything.
He didnât look you in eye as he mumbled out a hasty rambling sentence, âMaybe I do.â
âSo thatâs a yes?â
âYeah, is that a bad thing?â He looked so innocent like this, gazing at you with the widest eyes that were brimming with apprehension. He looked like fucking deer caught in headlights who didnât know whether to run forward or wait for the incoming disaster. You chose not to reply, instead wrapping your hand around his length and lining it up with your entrance. His own fingers were still digging into your hips, tensed as he awaited your answer.
âJeongguk,â You said, using his cock to toy at your entrance. He groaned despite his uneasiness, the veins in his neck twitching. âAnything you find hot, I find hot. Just know that youâve just given me free range to steal all your shirts now.â
The snarky reply on his tongue transformed into a groan of pleasure as you sunk down on him, your wet pussy sucking in every inch of his cock. You welcomed the stretch, pushing yourself down as your walls fluttered around his dick. Eventually he was burrowed inside you, your entrance flat against his crotch and the fabric of his shirt brushing against his abdomen.
Every time you had sex Jeongguk always found himself losing it at the feeling of your walls contracting and stretching around him. Â It felt like absolute heaven because you were always so wet and warm and welcoming for his dick. Heâd never felt so connected to a person during sex, but with you even when it was a rough quickie before class, Jeongguk felt alive. Like this was where was meant to be â between your legs giving you everything he ever had.
You sighed, eyes wavering shut, and hips shifting slightly as you adjusted to the familiar stretch of his dick inside you. Jeongguk swore, his hips painfully still as he waited for you to start. His hands were grazing your thighs as he did so, hands trailing to your back so he could give you ass a tight squeeze.
For some reason, one Jeongguk couldnât wrap his mind around, you in his clothes looking like this made his gut seize up with desire heâd never felt before. You just looked so beautiful like this, mouth open and pussy wet because of him and only him. And the fact that you were wearing his clothes â it was like a signal in his mind that this is for him. That you were for him.
âBaby, remember you canât come until I say so.â Your smile was lazy as your forced open your eyes, hand on his stomach. You leaned forward and then you started moving. The grip on your hip tightened as you bounced on his dick, your pace quickening with every slap of his skin against yours. It took Jeongguk a second to process the pleasure exuding from his core, he couldnât even speak, only watch in awe at the way your breast bounced gently beneath the fabric of his white shirt. Or the way your slick leaking all over his dick, making a mess that he wanted to touch.
You jolted up with the pad of his finger hit your clit, immediately moaning when he established a rhythm that had you jerking up and tightening around his dick.
âJeongguk!â Heâd raised his knees so you could lean back, the grip on your waist know purposeful as he fucked up into you with harsh precise thrusts.
âSay my name,â He groaned as you squeezed his cock, using one hand to guide your bounces with the other made quick work of your clit. âSay it baby.â
âFuck, fuck! Jeongguk â fuck! Love you so much, ugh, love y-youâ You threw you head back, screaming his name as your second high came crashing down upon you, pussy clamping down tightly around your boyfriend as you creamed around him. You couldnât anything else but his name as your rode out your orgasm, toes curling in delight as the tremors cause your shudder above him, mouth wide open.
Jeongguk briefly projected from his body. You were so snug and tight around him he couldnât help but grab at your hips, pulling your down roughly as his own hips bucked upwards, in a mad chase for his own high. He found it quickly enough, but forced himself to wait until you were coherent.
âCan I come?â He ground out, as you rested your palms against his stomach. You felt the muscle quiver beneath your touch, his stomach caving in with every thrust inside you pussy. You could tell we need to come so badly and yet he had waited for your permission. How was Jeongguk even real?
âYes, yes, come baby.â
âFuck,â His eyes were screwed shut as he fucked you through his orgasm, hips stuttering against your own as waves of ecstasy shot through his veins in bursts of pleasure.
It was strange, feeling his come inside you but it was feeling you welcomed. That was until you rolled off and it started slipping out of you. Your knees hit the mattress with a thud as you flopped down beside him.
âYou owe me a thigh message,â You muttered into the air coloured by the scent of sex and your joint heavy breaths.
âYour thighs hurt?â
âMhmm.â
âGood, now you know what I was feeling,â
âFuck you Jeon Jeongguk,â You replied, the stupidest smile on your face as you whacked at his sweat coated arm.
His grin matched your air, brown hair tousled from your hands and eyes twinkling as he gazed at you. âYou just did baby. Give me thirty minutes and we can go again.â
âUgh, for that you have to get up and turn off the lights.â
#jungkook smut#jungkook x reader#bts smut#jungkook fanfiction#jungkook scenario#bts fanfic#this the third time im making this post because the tags always break#like wtf
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Would You Lie With Me & Just Forget The World?
Chapter 2
SUMMARY: The world is a dangerous place. It can be big, scary, and almost overwhelmingly dark. But despite all the negative aspects, despite all the pain and turmoil, Katherine Howard has always found a brief reprieve in the other queens. Particularly, in her older cousin. (And as loathe as they are to admit it, the other queens have to agree with her.) Anne Boleyn can be chaotic, wild, and reckless ⊠but sheâs also passionate, kind, and effervescent. Her boundless energy acts as a barrier against the bad in the world. But when that barrier breaks and the world turns on its head, can Kat manage to navigate the turbulent waters without her cousin by her side? Â
CHAPTER ONE //Â
TW: Implied abuse/neglect, Implied sexual abuse, Panic Attack, Car crashÂ
A/N: sorry this chapter took so long! I ended up having to trim parts out and it isnât as smooth as I was hoping for, but this is one of the rougher chapters to set up because of all the background. (Iâm setting this in my own AU verse/idea that Iâm still writing up the lore for, if anyone wants to hmu for that feel free!)Â
TAGGING: @the10amongstthese3s @radcowboyalmondtree @tonight-we-are-live @the-queen-bee-is-here @everything-insanity @whoufflewhovian200311 (if you want to be added, just reply to this post, send me an ask, or hit up my ims! these are the people I know who were interested!)Â
âAnnie, Iâm scared.âÂ
Anne froze, the almost inaudible admission tugging at her heart. She climbed down from the garage roof as easily as sheâd climbed up. âYou donât need to be scared, Kit. Iâve got you, okay? Just trust me.â Anne smiled mischievously, shooting her brightest gap toothed grin at her cousin.
Kitty visibly relaxed, and Anne showed Kitty how to use the materials lining the side of the building to get to the top. (After it, it wasnât more than a few feet in the air.) But as ordinary as the view may have been, it was extraordinary because they were there together.Â
Anne dropped to book bag sheâd brought with her, unrolling the blanket and wrapping it around Katâs shoulders. âCanât let the birthday girl get too cold now, can I?â She asked with a teasing grin. She reached into the bookbag, unaware of the surprise on her cousinâs face. She handed Kat some silly plushie she picked up at the store, and a (terribly smashed) attempt at a cupcake.Â
âYou...you remembered?â Kat asked, looking down at the presents her cousin gave her as if they were the greatest thing in the world. The genuine shock in her voice startled Anne.Â
âOf course I did Kit...why wouldnât I? Itâs not everyday your favorite cousin turns seven, after all.âÂ
âDad and the boys sometimes forget...â Kitty attempted to appear nonchalant, although it was obvious she was upset.Â
âThey do what?â Anne growled, and Kitty flinched away at the change in her voice. Not now, Anne chided herself, using every ounce of teenage self restraint she had in order to plaster on the cheesiest grin she could muster. âIâm sure theyâre just...planning a surprise or something.âÂ
âMaybe.â Kat mumbled, but it was clear she didnât believe it.Â
They sat in silence, before Anneâs lips curved back into their usual grin. She nudged her younger cousin. âWhy donât you spend the night? We can play board games and watch movies. Iâll even let you-oh.â
Sheâd been cut off mid sentence by a hug, and found Katherine peering up at her. âYouâre the bestest, Annie! I love you.â The younger girlâs face shone with excitement that hadnât been there moments earlier.Â
Anne couldnât help but mirror that joy. She ruffled Kitâs hair, laughing at the expression it produced. âI love you too, Kit. And Iâm here for you. Always.âÂ
But their short moment was cut short as her fatherâs voice echoed up from the ground down below. âANNE BOLEYN, GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW! THE LAST THING WE NEED IS YOUR POOR HABITS RUBBING OFF ON LITTLE KATHER-âÂ
And with that, Anne woke with a start. She damn near fell off her bed with a yell, catching herself last minute and blinking sleep out of her eyes. The other side of the bed was empty. Thank god. It meant Kat had slept with Jane instead, and she hadnât accidently interrupted what little sleep the girl managed to get. Anne flopped back down on her bed with a sigh. Her heart hammered against her ribcage, energy buzzing in her exhausted muscles demanding that she get moving. She glanced at the alarm clock. 6:03 A.M.Â
Well, that was as good a time as any to start the day, wasnât it? She rolled out of bed, quietly, and made her way to the bathroom. She ran through her usual morning routines : brushing her teeth, throwing her hair up in a tight bun, changing out of her pajamas and into running gear. By six thirty, she was ready to run. With her headphones fixed firmly in her ears and music blasting, she let her muscles guide her. The song playing pulled up another memory, a little fuzzy around the edges but still soft enough to pull a smile from her.Â
Family Christmas parties, everybodyâs favorite time. Except not really. Anne dealt with it as best she could, which was ignoring damn near everyone and doing her own thing. She was choreographing a dance routine to a song that had just come out, earbuds in and focus completely on the movement of each muscle in time with the beat. Which is why she didnât notice George until it was too late. He slammed into her side roughly, knocking her off her feet and sending her sliding across the floor. Anne stared slack jawed for a moment, recovering her breath, before yelling âWhat the fuck George!âÂ
âCareful Ninon, donât let dear old dad hear you using that language.â George answered with a smirk, towering over her. The gleam in his eyes made it clear he was in one of his moods, which meant Anne was in for it. If there was one thing George excelled at, it was pushing her buttons.Â
âWhy donât you go bother Mary for once?â
âBecause Maryâs actually socializing with the family, unlike you.â
âSorry, not sorry, but Iâm trying to have fun. Iâm not interested in being judged for stupid reasons, okay? I just want to be left alone.âÂ
âDonât want to be judged, donât give them reasons to judge you. Itâs simple, really.â George answered with a shrug. âBesides, considering your âŠ. reputation I donât think theyâre stupid reas-âÂ
âI donât really care about your opinion, George.â Anne snapped, face immediately heating up. She pushed herself to her feet, taking a couple steps away from him. âMaybe you should shut up.â
âMaybe you should stop being such a sl-â He didnât get to finish that thought as a pink blur knocked into his legs. It caught him off guard; he flailed his arms wildly to no avail and ended up tripping over his own feet and landing on his ass. Anne blinked in surprise. George pushed himself to his feet quickly, visibly seething. âWhat the fuck!âÂ
Ten year old Katherine Howard, about two feet shorter and at least a hundred pounds lighter, didnât break eye contact with George from where sheâd positioned herself; she stood directly in front of Anne as if she were a human shield. âSorry, didnât see you there.â She deadpanned.Â
âBrat.â George hissed, pointing a finger at the young girl menacingly.Â
Kat just shrugged, but she could feel her hands trembling. âTakes one to know one, right?âÂ
Anne laughed, making her brotherâs face flush six different shades of red. George, thoroughly humiliated and beyond angry, stormed off. Almost immediately Katâs shoulders deflated. Anne pulled her younger cousin into a side hug. âKitKat, you are my hero.âÂ
âWeâre family.â Kat answered back, her voice muffled by Anneâs shoulder. âWe always protect each other, donât we?âÂ
Anne smiled. âWe do.âÂ
The memory faded. The burning in her muscles, and the unfamiliarity in her surroundings, made it clear sheâd gotten lost in her head longer than sheâd meant to. Crap. It took her nearly an hour to find her way back. She made a beeline straight for the fridge once she did. She gave the calendar a quick glance as she opened the fridge to pull out a carton of orange juice, before doing a double take.Â
November 4th. Kittyâs birthday was less than a week away! How in the hell had that happened? Anne was usually on top of these things, but between the interviews and the show and her work on choreo...she could feel guilt flooding her system. Shit. She wracked her brain, trying to remember whether or not Kitty had been acting strange recently. Sheâd seemed a little lethargic but Anne had chalked that up to being overworked with the showâŠ
She didnât think twice. She rushed up to Cleves room, flinging the door open in a panic as she shook the other girl. âAnna!â She hissed, voice low but pressing. âAnna, wake up!â
âAnneâŠ?â Anna asked groggily. âWhat time is itâŠâÂ
âItâs eight.â
âWhat are you doing up? We didnât go to bed until almost tw-â
âShh, that doesnât matter right now. Iâm going to the store. Do you want to come?âÂ
Anneâs voice brimmed with urgency, but Anna was too tired to register it. She buried herself deeper into her blankets. âWith your driving? No thank you, Miss Boleyn, I choose life.â She waved a hand dismissively, eyes never so much as cracking open. The warmth of her bed was too enticing.Â
Anne heaved a sigh, but accepted Annaâs answer. She ran to the kitchen, scribbled a quick note on a post it, and attached it to the fridge.Â
Need to run some errands. Urgent. Be back later. XO, Anne.Â
And with that she disappeared through the door, the orange juice still sitting forgotten on the counter.Â
The shopping went quickly. Or well, as quickly as it could go when Anne Boleyn was involved. She spent hours loading her cart with Kittyâs favorite snacks and movies, picked up random little knick knacks that she thought Kitty might like. (Hell, she even managed to find some cute presents for the rest of the queens.) Brimming with excitement about her haul, and eager to show it to the others, Anne was in a phenomenal mood when she hopped back in the car. She was jamming along to every song coming over the radio, grinning from ear to ear.Â
The buzzing of her phone on the seat next to her snapped Anne out of her private karaoke concert. It was probably just Kat calling to check up on her. She could feel warmth spreading through her chest as she let out a breathless giggle, turning down the music and running a quick hand through her hair. She found Kittyâs worry endearing, although she half wished Kitty would realize that Anne would be fine. After all, she always was.Â
She half debated it letting it ring to voicemail, just until she could answer without taking her hands off the wheel. That wasâŠ.until the name on the caller ID caught her attention.Â
THOMAS HOWARD.
Suddenly, all the mirth sheâd felt drained out of her like air out of a popped balloon. She hadnât spoken to her uncle in YEARS. The last time sheâd seen him was the day that she had left, Kitty tucked under one arm and spare clothes under the other. He made good on his promise to ostracize both of them.
Kittyâs head is buried in the crook of her neck, tears staining the collar of her shirt. âIâm sorry,â Kitty chokes out between sobs, barely comprehensible. âIâm sorry, Iâm sorry, Iâm sorry. Anne, itâs my fault. Itâs all my fault.âÂ
Anne could feel a storm building beneath her skin, aching to break free and wreck every single person that had driven her cousin to this. SHE WAS A CHILD! But over the last few years, Anne had watched the light drain from her eyes. She was just kicking herself for not realizing what was going on earlier⊠But she canât focus on that. Not right now. Instead she rubs soothing circles on Katherineâs back, rocking the girl back and forth. âIt isnât your fault, Kit.â Emotion rubbed her voice raw, and it takes everything in her not to cry. âNone of it is. Not a damn thing. Do you hear me? Not a single damn thing.âÂ
If anything, that just seems to make Kat cry harder. âIt is, it is Annie. I know it, and he knew it, and, and, and everyone knows it.â Sheâs cut off by a sob that shakes her frail shoulders. âHe knew it, he said it, he-â
âHeâs a piece of shit, Kit! Iâm sorry, but itâs true. Your dad sucks. I wish it werenât true, I wish you couldâve had the life you deserve. Somewhere far away from this bullshit.â Anne croaked out, a few silent tears falling as she fought to maintain a steady voice. âBut you didnât get that, instead life gave you a crappy hand and Iâm sorry. Iâm sorry about everything. But I can promise you one thing.â Anne tucked Kittyâs head under her chin. âI know it isnât much, but Iâm here for you. Always. Whatever you want, whatever you need, Iâm right here. And Iâm always going to be right here, okay?âÂ
With a few sniffling breaths, Kitty nodded. Slowly, hesitantly, she held out a hand with her pinkie extended. In a small voice, she asked, âPinkie promise?âÂ
Anne was all too happy to link their fingers. âPinkie promise.âÂ
They made themselves more comfortable in the living room, still a tangle of limbs but this time a tangle of limbs under a blanket. Before drifting off to sleep, Kitty squeezed Anneâs hand. âAnnie?â She asked, drowsily.Â
âHm?âÂ
âEarlier...earlier you said that you werenât much...but you are. Okay? Youâre the best. And I love you. I donât know what I would do without you.âÂ
Anne squeezed her hand gently three times. I love you. âDonât worry KitKat, youâll never have to find out.âÂ
Anneâs thoughts flashed to every time since then that Kittyâs tears staining the collar of her shirt, to the way the poor girl had trembled from nightmares that stole her breath. She remembered rushing out on errands like this, doing anything and everything to pull a smile out of her cousin, who spent the week leading up to her birthday WISHING for that call from the rest of the family. Thomas Howard failed as a father consistently over the past two years, and thereâs almost no one Anne hates more. (When she thinks of him, all she can see is Kat trembling, crying out my fault, my fault, my fault. Just thinking about it makes her jaw clench.) Even now, in what she assumes is an attempt to make amends, he was calling her and not Kitty!
She reached over, answering it swiftly and bringing it to her ear. âDonât. I donât want to hear what you have to say, I need you to shut the hell up for two seconds and listen to me, Thomas.â Â Anger boiled in her veins and sharpened her tongue, but blurred everything else. In the haze of her own hatred, her focus on the phone pressed to her ear, she missed the truck that was swerving on a path directly towards her.
#six the musical#six the musical fanfic#beheaded cousins#anne boleyn#katherine howard#Would You Just Lay Here?#<-- it has a tag now!#THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE honestly its what keeps me writing sometimes#i'm already working on the next few chapters#don't worry#BUT YEAH LOTS OF PAIN IN STORE but what can you expect from a grey's anatomy inspired fic?#okay im done rambling im gonna go to sleep
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Orphanage farm-endïżŒ
Norman awoken by the morning greetings of little Susie and it didnât take long before the room was live with action. He stretched his arms up as he yawned then pulled himself up. He glanced over at Henryâs empty bed and felt the sadness creep back in. He does miss Henry but not as much as Joey was. And Norman could tell by the look of Joey that he had been crying silently. He felt so bad for the poor guy. He had lost his best friends because of Sammy. They both understood the position Sammy was in but Joey hated him now. Norman couldnât blame him. Yet he was still going to keep Joey from hurting Sammy.
Speaking of Sammy, Norman turned towards his bed and made eye contact with him. Poor guy had guilt all over his face. Norman can see he was hating himself over Henryâs death. He came over and sat next to him, letting him lay his head on his chest. âIâm ..im sorry....â he mumbled but Norman could understand him. âI didnât want this to happy!â
Norman hand ran though the blonde morning hair. â your not the blame for this Sammy.â Norman whispers in his ear. âMom is who to blame for letting us die like this.â He reminded him. âYour just trying to stay alive.â Sammy nodded because it was true. He was just doing this to stay alive. âand soon weâre escape this place, together.â He kisses his head to help him feel better.
They sit there for a while longer letting the room grow emptier by the minute as everyone leaves for breakfast. Once they were the last two Norman slowly pulled away. âWe got to join the others now... or mom might become suspicious.â Norman told him.
Sammy nodded whipping his face clean with the back of his hand. âYour r-right.â He spoke with a bit of fear but a lot of sadness in his voice
He and Norman quickly made there beds nice and nearly then got on there plain white uniform, heading down the stairs. As they entered the dinning room everyone was already setting up the tables with plates, bowls, cups and silverware. âYou help the others, sam. Iâll go help Joey finish breakfast.â Sammy nodded and went over to one table to help them.
Norman went inside the kitchen where Joey was working on some eggs and watching over the pancakes that was in the pan. He looked behind him once he herd the door closed and looked relieved. âOh. Finally. You can help me with these eggs.â He said in annoyance, handing Norman the eggs.
About 15 minutes later most of the children was feeding there faces and talking to there friends around them. Norman noticed Sammy didnât feel like talking and Joey on the other hand wasnât much for talking or
eating this morning. Even mom noticed.
âJoey my dear. I know your sad about Henry being adopted but remember heâs happy now.â She smiled a motherly smile at him that only made joeys blood boil in rage.
Though out the next few days Joey didnât talk to Sammy at all. He hated Sammy for what heâs done to Henry. Joey hardly talk to Norman as well. The two only talked when their alone out in the woods, planning there escape. Pretty soon they had their plan set to bring everyone with them to escape. They had the supplies they all needed like food and rope. They had train the younger ones to climb run and jump and they knew it was time. Best thing about it was that Sammy never found out about all this.
Sammy was apparently woken up by a hand covering his mouth in the middle of the night. He woke up wide eyed by this and started thrashing around, trying to kick whoever it was off. âSam. Calm down. Itâs me.â A kind voice said and Sammy immediately calmed. Normanâs face appeared in his line of vision and he removed his hands. âSorry. I couldnât have you waking up mom now.â He smiled an apologized smile.
Sammy nodded at him in forgiveness but then he wondered why he was up in the middle of the night. Sammy sat up in his bed and saw everyone of them had there day clothes on and a backpack filled with stuff. âWhat...whatâs going on..?â He looked at Norman.
âWeâre escaping Sammy. Tonight. Right now.â Norman replied. â I even got your bag ready with you knowing.â He smiled proudly at himself for outsmarting the spy.
Sammy looked at everyone face to face. Little Susie, jack, Wally and the rest of them. âNorman..itâs impossible to escape here...â He glanced back over at Norman. âThe demon will catch each and everyone of yâall...they will torture them before they kill them, while you and Joey would be dragged back here.â Sammy said with tears in his eyes. âDont make this mistake...â
Norman frown at his best friend. âSammy. Itâs to late to stop our plan. Joeys doing his part right now!â He explained to him.
âWait. What was the plan?!â Sammy asked confused.
Before Norman could explain anything
to him, Alison slammed opened the the bedroom door. â itâs time!â She yelled. âSheâs fighting the fire!â
âLetâs go!â Joey called out behind her. All the children made there way out of the room to follow Joey out. Norman looked at Sammy one last time. âSammy. Please. Come with us...â
Sammy had a good thing coming with this deal with mom. He didnât want to ruin it by being stupid now. Not with his 12th birthday is this close. Sammy shook his head no as he took a step back from Norman. âN-no. Iâm s-sorry. I -I canât...â Sammy sobbed especially with Norman looking disappointed at him.
Norman sighed sadly then he raised up his chin with a finger and kisses him for a moment,before parting. âIâll come back for you Sammy. I promise.â With that he left into the smoky filled hallway.
He soon found himself standing outside the orphanage, watching it be engulfed in flames. Mom was standing next to him after she tried to put them out and failed to do so. Sammy was the only child that stayed but she knew there was no recovering from this. Her children had escape and she would most likely be killed once Sammy turns 12.
Mom looked down at him and felt sorry for him. She had been him turn on his friends for years, telling her everything. She knew how This children felt. She was once in the same position as he was and turn to the dark side to live.
Mom gave him a blanket she had saved from the fire so he wouldnât freeze and die before his birthday. Sammy gladly took it and wrapped it around himself. Together they watched their home burned down by Joey. Sammy was secretly happy they had escape and mom was to.
âââ-
Since the orphanage was gone, the demons told Isabella bring Sammy in that morning. Together they walked down the path to the gate in silence for a while. As they grew nearer Sammy turned to mom. âHey mom. Do you ..really love us?â
Mom smiled down at him and nodded. âbelieve it Sammy. I do love all my children. Thatâs why I tried to make it as happy as I could for you all.â
Sammy couldnât help but smile. He gave mom a big hug before they entered the tunnel. âAlright Sammy. Right here.â Mom instructed him to do then went into some doors.
Sammy leaned on the brick wall and wonders how the others are doing. Weâre they far away? Have they been captured? Or have they succeeding? Weâre they dead? Sammy didnât know. He hoped for the best for them.
Another door opened after a few minutes and mom popped her head out. âSammy.â She called.
Sammy walked over to her and entered the bright lit room. After a moment he saw a creature he only herd off. The one. How he knew that was beyond him, nonetheless he knew. The one was the ruler of all demons. He was the one everyone obeyed. Sammy bowed down to the one in respect.
The one observed him for a good long time. Then the demon reached over to the boy with his cold none human limbs, stroking his cheek. âAh the boy is already such a loyal servant.â It spoke, making chills run down Sammys spine. âYou did an amazing job Isabella.â
Mom Bowed to the demon and smiled wickedly âThank you, the one. I have always provided what is needed.â
He excuse Isabella out of the room only for her to be killed by her failure of keeping the children. The one and Sammy left for his Layer. Sammy stood by the ones side no matter what. He watched other humans get punished for doing something wrong, he watched other children get experiment on and he watched new girls being trained to be moms.
He sometimes hears about Norman and Joeys group. Once they killed a few demons he herd. They also save other children from other farms before they get killed. The one is extremely angry with them because they are a problem in this System. Sammy never lets it show but heâs extremely happy there still out there and he still holds on to Normanâs promise.
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LOT/CC fic: Thief and Assassin (Seven chapters of 12)
Leonard is the head of the Centralis Thieves Guild. Sara, unexpectedly, has found herself the head of the Assassins Guild. To save their city and the kingdom, they'll have to work together-and they might find themselves falling for each other in the process.
So, barely two weeks ago, I was thinking about all the fantasy books I used to read and still love. And the germ of an idea started-what about a CaptainCanary fantasy AU? Thieves and assassins are fantasy staples, after all. What, I thought on my commute home that day, if Leonard and Sara were the heads of the Thieves and Assassins Guilds, respectively, and had to work together to save their city?
And this happened. I'm posting seven chapters now, with four more and an epilogue to come soon. (Three more chapters are done and the rest are close.) I adore this AU, and I hope you do, too!
Many thanks to @larielromeniel for the beta and @pir8grl for reading, encouragement and many tips on useful clothing and setting-type things! For @dragonydreams
Iâm just posting Chapter One here, since I posted so much at once. Full chapters posted here on AO3 and here at FF.net.
âBoss!â
Leonard, whoâd been leaning back and contemplating the old fire-blackened beams overhead while balancing a dagger on one calloused fingertip, let his chair thump back to the floor, raising an eyebrow as his second in command thundered up the stairs and into his office. Mick tended not to run anywhere for nearly anyone these days, so this must be goodâŠor bad, as the case may be.
His old friend halted in the doorway, catching his breath and grunting as Leonard merely looked at him with an inquiring expression. But Len didnât speak, and Mick quickly got tired of waiting for his boss to ask.
âThereâs a new head of the Assassins Guild,â he said shortly, folding his arms. âAnâ she did it like youâthe old way.â
That wasâŠnot even remotely news Len had expected. Heâd admit that his mouth fell open, but he quickly closed itâalthough not before Mick saw the expression of shock and smirked victoriously.
Len ignored the expression but climbed to his feet, straightening his black tunic and thinking furiously.
âThen DarhkâŠâ
âIs dead.â Mick actually grinned. âAs a doornail. Cold meat. All that stuff. I think some of the junior Guild members threw âim off the South Gate cliffs.â
Given Darhkâs appetites and what heâd done to the once-respected Centralis Assassins Guild, Len wasnât really surprised. But he was more concerned about other things at the moment.
âHer, you said.â he frowned thoughtfully. âSomeone local?â He doesnât know of anyone currently in the Guild, male or female, both or neither, whoâd be able to take Darhk. If he did, things would have been different long before now. Heâd have seen to that.
âWord is no. Newcomer to the city.â Mick paused. âFrom what I hear, I donâ think she knew what she was doing.â
Len paused in tucking a few stilettos up his sleeves. âShe didnât mean to kill him?â
âNah. That, she meant. She didnât know it would make her Guild head.â He shook his head. âOrâŠso Sarab said. I was down at Saints nâ Sinners when he came in. Itâs still quietâŠbut it will be all over the city soon.â
Len winced, reaching out to collect his dagger from the desk. With a quick spin, he sheathed it at his belt. âThatâŠâ
âThat could be real good--or real bad.â Mick nodded. âYou wanna talk to her, boss? âFore it all crashes in on her?â
Len paused, eyes fixed on the other item on his desk.
He remembered. He remembered what it was likeâŠthe determined challenger, the terrible Guild head who seemed hellbent on destroying everything that made the Guild system in Centralis work, the knowledge that loss meant death, and a particularly brutal one--and the realization that, even after victory, the hard work was just beginning.
âYeah,â he said, picking up his Guild emblem and lowering the heavy platinum chain over his head, wrapping long fingers around the snowflake-shaped sapphire depending from it. âI do.â
Sara AâStella, Ta-er al-Sahfar, master assassin, newly made Guild head in Centralis, was slowly, methodically, banging her head against the smooth, dark surface of her new desk.
Not hard enough to hurt herself, oh no. But enough to distract herself, from what sheâd blundered into here and what sheâd done to her future when she did.
She doesnât regret killing Damien Darhk. Sheâd spent barely three days in Centralis and had known nearly immediately what needed to be done. But she hadnât realized what that death, at her hands, would mean here.
Her fingers closed around the chain of the Guild emblem around her neck. The nearly black stone had belonged to Darhk, although Sara would be expected to get her own stone soon. The sooner the betterâshe hated having something that Darhk had owned on her person.
But what a new emblem would meanâŠ
âSara!â Amaya AâZambesi, Saraâs dearest friend, whoâd accompanied her to Centralis and thus gotten herself embroiled in this whole mess, too, poked her head in the door and frowned. âStop that!â She paused, and Sara could very nearly hear her snicker. âYouâre going to damage that very nice desk.â
Sara let her forehead rest on the surface. âIf I knock myself out,â she pointed out thoughtfully, âI wonât have to deal with anything for a while.â
She heard Amaya sigh. Her friend, whom sheâd met while traveling, wasnât, properly speaking, an assassin, though she was a very talented warrior and mageâwhere she came from, the traditions werenât always separated. Still, sheâd made it clear to the members of the Assassins Guild that she wasnât leaving Saraâs side, proper assassin or not, and Sara was beyond grateful for that.
âWell, hereâs another reason to stop, then,â Amaya said then, just a bit tartly. âThe head of Thieves Guild is here to meet youâto âpay his respects,â he says.â Â She paused as Sara lifted her head to stare at her, then smirked. âHeâs quite attractive, actually. And very highly respected, from all Iâve heard.â
Sara sat up hastily, running a hand over the pale braids pinned up to her head and checking her clothing. After the battle early this morning, sheâd scrubbed for what seemed like an hour and sent the clothing sheâd been wearing off to be burned. She still didnât feel entirely clean.
She wasnât sure she ever would again.
Amayaâs eyes were sympathetic as Sara glanced back at her and cleared her throat. If something were amiss, Amaya would have said something, Sara knew. But she also understood.
âThat was quick,â Sara said after a moment.
âThieves always have the best sources of information.â Amaya paused. âHis secondâs with him. YouâŠâ
âYouâre my second.â Sara stood, trying to sound uncompromising.
âNot an assassin,â Amaya reminded her. âThe GuildâŠâ
âTough. Theyâll have to live with it for now.â Sara shook her head. âIâm not taking anyone who had any kind of position of power under Darhk just because âthatâs how things were always done.â Thatâs how they got Darhk to begin with.â She hesitated. âThieves Guilds traditionally work together with the Assassins Guild. I know we havenât been here long, butâŠâ
Amaya was shaking her head. âNot here.â She nibbled her lip. âI have done some asking. There hasnât been that sort of arrangement here at least since Leonard took over the Thieves Guild. No love lost.â
That can only be a good thing. âLeonard,â she mused. âNo patrial?â And no patronym, although those are rare, only given by high nobility or royalty to families for services to the kingdom.
Sara doesnât use hers.
Amaya shrugged. âAâCentralis, I presume, although he didnât give one.â She eyed Sara. âAnd you probably shouldnât keep him waiting any longer.â
Sara waved a hand. âAll right. Uh. Do I go down to him, orâŠâ
Of course, Amaya had already found all that out. âIâll send him to you. But be standing until he gets here, or youâre treating him like a supplicant.â
âCanât have that.â
Amaya gave her one more encouraging smile, then departed. Sara fidgeted a little, looking around as she stood there in Damien Darhkâs old office, wondering how this had become her life.
Sheâd come to Centralis to join the Guild here because it was relatively close to Stella, and she couldnât go back thereânot yet. She hadnât known that a mad man had taken over the Guild, that he was ruling it with an iron fist (and not in a good way), that sheâd regret her decision to join nearly immediately and plan to leaveâuntil sheâd walked in on him âdiscipliningâ three apprentices early this morning when she arrived to turn in her Guild token.
Two of the kids hadnât made it. The third was still holding on. Everyone had known Darhk had a touch of magicâmany people did. But until then, Sara hadnât realized it took the form of blood magic.
There was a quiet step at the doorway. Sara looked up, trying to look both receptive and deadly. She knew she was both, but it was different trying to exude that.
The head of the Centralis Thieves Guild was a tall man with close-shaven graying hair and piercing blue eyes, eyes that were looking directly at her with an intent and curious expression. Amaya was right, Sara realized, eying him: He was attractive, graceful and poised with lean but undeniable muscle. Older--Sara put him at about 10 years her seniorâbut definitely attractive. Sexy, even.
And that was so completely not what she should be thinking right now.
Sara cleared her throat. âHello,â she said quietly. âIâm Ta-erâŠSara AâStella. And I suppose that you know by now thatâŠâ She spread her hands, indicating the office around her. ââŠIâm the new head of the Assassins Guild.â
The man regarded her another moment, then inclined his head, those remarkable eyes still holding hers.
âThank you,â he said quietly, his voice low and intense and every bit as attractive as the physical aspect. Damn.
Still, the words werenât what she was expecting. âExcuse me?â
âFor taking out Darhk.â The man shrugged, a one-shouldered gesture, as he took one step into the office, pausing before going far enough to connote any sort of threat. âIâd dreamed of doing it myself, butâŠ.â He let his voice trail off, then shrugged again, smirking at her.
âAnyway,â he drawled, spreading his hands out before him just like she had. âLeonard. Head of the Thieves Guild. AâCentralis, but I generally just use âLen.ââ
Sara lifted her chin, watching him, wondering what he was thinking. âLen,â she returned. âAnd why is that?â
The question was imprecise, and she regretted it immediately, but Len zeroed right in on what she really meantâand chose to answer it.
âBecause he was bad for the guild and bad for this city,â he said flatly, looking her right in the eyes. âReally bad. I did whatever I could to counteract it. But there was only so much, andâŠâ He let both shoulders rise and fall. âI had my own to watch out for.â
âYour own.â
âMy guild.â For the first time, there was a crack in that smooth façade. Sara, watching, saw anger and determination and even a touch of regret in those ice-blue eyes. âI took it 10 years ago. In the old wayâsame as you.â
The old⊠âYou killed your predecessor.â
âI did.â Len dipped his head. âAnd for much the same reasons. ButâŠI knew what I was getting into. I donât believe you did.â
Was it that obvious? Well, to anyone who hadnât been there when a Guild member had moved to give her Darhkâs chain and emblem and Sara, still covered in blood and with a sword in her hand, had recoiled?
There seemed to be no point in denying it, though. âI didnât.â She tipped her head to him. âInâŠin most places Iâve been, there would have been a vote after the dust had cleared. I figured Iâd justâŠremove my name from contention. I didnât realize Centralis went by the old ways.â
There wasâŠno, not sympathy, thank godsâŠin Lenâs eyes. Understanding, though. âThen why,â he asked quietly, âdid you do it?â
If he knew as much as he had shown so far, he probably knew this too. But Sara can understand why he would want to hear it from her.
âI walked in on Darhk practicing black magic,â she told him bluntly, folding her arms, watching him carefully. âOn three apprentices whoâd flubbed a mission. Because of his shoddy training practices and handling of Guild matters, but that didnât matter to him. He was taking their life energy.â She sighed. âTwo of them are dead anyway. Weâre not sure about the third.â
He had an excellent card-sharpâs face, did this Leonard, but he either let her see his thoughts or didnât care to hide them at the moment. Satisfaction, regret, and a cold, cold fury chased each other across his features until they resolved into determination. He stared off into the distance a moment, then nodded firmly and transferred that blue gaze back to Sara.
âThe Thieves and Assassins Guild traditionally work together, in most cities,â he told her. âThat hasnât been the case here since I took over--and then refused to deal with Darhk.â He nodded. âIâd be honored to try to reestablish that allianceâŠwith the Guild under you.â
Despite the seriousness, was there something suggestive in that tone, in those words? Oh, Sara thought there was. But to her own surprise, it didnât anger her or even annoy her, although by all rights the presumption should.
She liked Leonard. Liked him with an instinctive and surprising thoroughness. He had a thiefâs caution, but her instincts told her that heâd spoken truth to her and, what was more, shown her truth in his own unconcealed expressions.
She made her decision right then and there. But he didnât need to know that yet.
Instead, Sara lifted an eyebrow at him. âYou donât even know me,â she returned.
A quick smirk, and Len leaned forward. âIâm a very good judge of character,â he drawled.
Sara, trying not to smile, smirked back. âWe shall see.â
âI look forward to it.â And then, with a wink, Len rose again to his full height and became serious again. âYou know youâll have to be formally presented to King Hunter and the captains of the Triple Guards,â he told her. âSoon: within the next 48 candlemarks.â He paused. âIâll sponsor you, if you wish. But if you donât, theyâll presume you might not be planning to abide by the usual set of rules.â
Sara stared at him, then sighed. She hated court functions. But he didnât need to know that or how she knew it. âAnd Darhk did?â
âHe knew how to play the game. It gave him a measure of safety.â Len hesitated, eyes still serious. âTrust me when I tell you that Hunter will be pleased. Even a monarch canât just remove a Guild head. And there had been threats made to his sonâŠâ
Hunter? Sara didnât realize sheâd murmured the name out loud until Leonard lifted an eyebrow at her. She shook her head. âIâll never get over just howâŠhow mainstream the so-called Lower Guilds are here,â she told him. âYou call the king by his patronym?â
Lenâs lips twitched, and Sara saw mischief in his eyes. âMostly thatâs just to annoy him,â he told her. âBut, yes.â He shrugged. âThieves and assassins happen. Especially in any sizable city. Best to have them regulated and trained and policing themselves. Itâs worked here for a long, long time.â
âUntil a Damien Darhk happens,â Sara reminded him.
Len tipped his head to her. âUntil then,â he agreed, then changed the subject. âIâd be honored to sponsor you in front of the king. You took power this morning; if you are going to play by the rules, we should probably go to court tomorrow afternoon, if not tonight.â A look of distaste crossed his features. âIâm not a fan of evening court; too much posturing. Afternoonâs bad enough.â
âTomorrow is fine.â If she canât find a way out of this by then, she never will.
âYouâll need court formal garb.â He rather too obviously avoided studying her worn leathers, perfectly serviceable for every day, but hardly impressive.
Sara rolled her eyes, inspecting his own unrelieved black. The starkness of the outfit contrasted with the cut, which she knew perfectly well was tailored and would not have been cheap. Her fellow Guild head knew he looked damned goodâand may have been trying to impress her.
âI can handle that,â she informed him. Or, more correctly, Amaya would. âAndâŠthank you. I do appreciate the offer.â
A flicker of something in those amazing eyes again.  âBelieve me when I tell you, SaraâŠâ Argh, the way he said her name! ââŠthat itâs my pleasure.â
For all the suggestiveness in the tone, there was a very real thread of sincerity too. Sara dipped her head, agreed to wait here for him at two candlemarks after noon the next day, and watched as he turned for the door.
She didnât realize that she was going to tell him until she did it.
âSomeone put him into power. Darhk,â she said, watching those impressive shoulders under the night-black tunic freeze. âSomeoneâs been pulling strings. Thereâs something rotten going on in this city.â
After a long moment, Len looked back at her. âI suspected that,â he said quietly. âButâŠweâll talk?â
âYes.â
And with that, the head of the Centralis Thieves Guild left her office, more questions than answers in his wake. Sara thoughtfully watched him goâand wasnât ashamed that she admired the ass in those tight black pantsâthen sank down into the chair with a sigh.
âThis is either going to be a lot of fun,â she murmured, thinking of Leonard and his sexy voice and his friendly innuendo. âOr an utter disaster.â
Keep reading here at AO3 or here at FF.net.
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Wanted | 01
pairing: Jungkook x reader genre: space!au, alien!au, sci-fi, alien!Jungkook, smut (future) words: 8.7k+ rating: sfw warnings: swearing notes: as per usual i have jumped in over my head and this is going to be longer than the one shot it was meant to be soooo.... im splitting it in parts!!! i hope you like it!! more will be coming very soon :) (dont forget, this will have smut in the future!!!)
You were a deserter, a renegade, a wanted âcriminalâ. It was never in your plans to crash land on that planet, and it most certainly wasnât in your plans to fall in love with itâs handsome ruler. Â
masterlist | moodboard | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | complete
The cavern was serene, the towering walls lined with tiny, glimmering jewels that shone and hummed with an energy of their own. Large, dripping stalactites hung from the ceiling that loomed above, barring the entrance and preventing any creature larger than yourself from entering. They, too, were embedded with sharp crystals, and youâd had to be extremely careful when slipping between them so that you werenât sliced on the way.
Youâd travelled for weeks, months even, to find this place. Youâd puzzled over stolen maps, run into dead end after dead end, and pieced together so many broken clues it felt at times as though your head was going to split into two. But finally, ultimately, you had been led hereâ and here was where you needed so desperately to be.
You were on thin ice. Ever since youâd started on this trail youâd been dubbed a wanted criminal, a traitor to the garrison and, by extension, the union. You hadnât really done anything wrong, per say, but that certainly hadnât stopped the ships and fighters that had been snapping at your heels for the past few months. You had one of the best crews you knew of in the galaxy, yet constantly running, evading, fleeingâ having to always be one step ahead of those that were after you was exhausting. Words couldnât encapsulate the sheer relief you felt now, at the end of the map and with the object youâd been seeking the entire time firmly in your grasp. It almost brought tears to your eyes, but you werenât so foolish as to let your guard down just yet.
Your hand rose, fingers running along the leather cord of your necklace before you slipped it back beneath your shirt, hidden from the eyes of the world once more. Your eyes swept over the space of the cavern once more, years of training telling you to check the coast was clear, and make sure you werenât in any immediate danger. Nodding to yourself, you took a step away from the large stalagmite in the middle of the roomâ the top had been cleaved straight in half, and in the middle there was a worn groove, now empty. Your boots landed in shallow water, the sound echoing across the space. Youâd retrieved the object youâd come for, and now it was time for you to get the hell out of here.
There was a short buzz of static before a familiar deep tone sounded from your earpiece, ây/n, did you get it?â
You brushed down your leather jacket, adjusting your pistol in its holster. You turned towards the entrance and began to weave your way out, gaze trained longingly on the bejewelled walls. Youâd already nabbed a handful of the jewels from their places when youâd first entered, and now they rested safely in a pouch against your hip. With any luck, theyâd be worth enough to get you the supplies you needed for the next month or so. âYeah, I got it. Taehyung, did youââ
You were cut off by a large tremor, the ground beneath your feet shaking and rumbling deeply. A select number of crystals were shaken from the walls, thinner stalactites dropping and shattering into dust and shards on the cave floor. The air itself seemed to vibrate as something massive flew close over the top of the cave. Alarm rang through you, freezing you in place as Taehyungâs voice sounded in your ear once more, urgency and fear threading through his tone.
ây/n, theyâre here! I donât know where they came from, but theyâre hereâ you have to get out of there, now!â
You nodded, forgetting he couldnât see it. âAffirmative, Iâm heading out now. Prepare the ship for departure.â
Taehyung rushed an affirmative before the earpiece cut off and you were left to your own devices, the cave still rumbling dangerously with the remnants of your enemyâs sudden arrival on the planet. You took off as fast as you could in a cave full of sharp edges, your hardy boots slapping loudly in the shallow puddles that littered the floor. Your heart was racing, a customary reaction when the people that wanted to execute you for your crimes found your whereabouts, but you tried to stay calm for your crewâs sake. It was your fault they were in this mess, after allâ you owed it to them to take care of them.
The entrance of the cave approached quickly, the rosy light from the planetâs twin suns casting a glow upon the luminescent crystals and refracting glimmers over the walls. You held your breath as you slipped quickly between stalactites and into the open air once more, but despite your best efforts in your rush you felt the sharp double point of a crystal slice into the flesh of your thigh above your knee. Instantly, the gash burned, and you knew it was a reaction caused in part by the nature of the crystalsâthey thrummed with energy, burning hot against skin wherever it touched, and were made up of a material that was so foreign to your body it simply didnât know how to react to it.
Cursing, you ignored it for nowâ it wasnât life threatening, but there were other factors at hand that most certainly were. The high-pitched thrumming of an engine you knew so well grew closer with each second you were in the open, and fear urged you into motion once more. The forests on this planet werenât dense, but along the ground the shrubbery was thick and you were weaving between crooked branches and curling flora as you went. You really didnât want another cut to match the one on your thighâ especially since the plants on this planet were known for the toxins theyâd developed as a defence system. You didnât want to think what would happen if any of those entered your bloodstream.
Taehyung had parked the ship nearby and it wasnât long before you finally burst through the treeline and came face to face with your ship. The metals and materials on the exterior that had once shone in pride now sported dents and scorch marks from lasers and beams you hadnât been quick enough to dodge, upkeep a lot more difficult when you were one of your solar systems most wanted and on the runâ supplies were sparse and parts even more so.
The cargo bay lay open, ramp down and awaiting you as the shipâs engine thrummed and prepared for a prompt take-off. Taehyung was no doubt in the cockpit, communicating to the rest of your crew and keeping an eye on the enemy.
âPull up the ramp!â you ordered as you climbed into the cargo bay, feeling the immediate jolt in the ship as the ramp groaned and lifted, sealing the large doorway with a reassuring thunk. Being so close to the engine room you could hear it thrumming, rumbling as the shipâs thrusters warmed up and prepared to lift.
You climbed from the bay with ease, slipping into the main hallway and running towards the cockpit. A barrage of sounds became known to you at once as you burst inside, quickly taking your seat in the seat alongside Taehyungâs. You might have been the main pilot of your ship and crew, but Taehyung had been your second in command, and he knew how to fly. You flew into action with ease, listening as you hooked your earpiece back into the ships radio and Namjoonâs voice filled your ear, broken only by slight static in the middle.
âThereâs only two of them but theyâre both commander vesselsâ kkksssshbfbfâ they havenât spotted us yet but if we remain where we are they will soon.â
A dread you were used to feeling at this point filled you; it had been the same two commanders that had been hunting you this whole time. Taehyung nodded, flipping the necessary switches and grasping the thruster, his warm eyes turning to you as he awaited your next commands.
âAlright, get out of here,â you ordered the rest of your crew, reaching and pulling down the shipâs defence controls. The joysticks slid into your grip with practiced ease, and you felt the shipâs cannons unfold from where they were stored in the exterior in unison. âHead to J-009, go as quickly as you can and once you get there lay low. We wonât be far behind, weâve just got to shake them first.â
âAffirmative,â Namjoon sounded, and then you could hear him instructing the other two in the ship he was currently on. You thought you heard Hoseok whine, but pushed it from your mind to instead focus on your current situation.
âOkay Taehyung, get us out of here,â you instructed, watching the screen before you and adjusting the canons accordingly.
The male nodded, listing his actions as he did them, like heâd been trained to do. The muted tone of the ships low-level AI greeted your ears and Taehyung grasped the rotational controls in his other hand, pulling back on the thruster and launching the ship off the ground with a jolt. The ship buzzed as the landing gear retracted back into their storage spaces and Taehyung pitched the nose of the ship upwards, resting on the thrusters and preparing to leave the planetâs atmosphere.
He was two seconds too late. Before he could pull back the ship jolted violently twice in quick succession and veered, metal groaning, the screens before you lighting up with warnings and loud piercing notifications that told you youâd just been hit. You cursed, having forgotten to pull up the particle barrier in your rush to board and take off. There wasnât enough time to do it nowâ it took three whole seconds to warm up before it was fully functional, and after the blow youâd just taken it wouldnât be good if it was struck while warming up.
The screens blared, the shipâs AI sounding a loud warning, âAttention: rear landing gear on right side severely damaged. Rear right shield generator severely damaged. Suspected damage to right fuel tank and navigation system: running assessment.â
âFuck, fuck, fuck,â you cursed loudly, removing one hand from the canon controls to grasp your own rotational joystick and turn the ship while Taehyung managed damage momentarily. As expected, the looming hull of not one, but two commander vessels entered your field of vision and you cursed once more, returning your grasp to the canon controls. âTaehyung, we canât focus on damage right nowâ we need to get out of here. Iâll cover us, but get us out, okay?â
From your peripheral vision you saw Taehyung nod and take the rotational controls back in his grasp. Taehyungâs screen switched to the very front of the ship as he turned the nose once more, and yours stayed locked on the vessels behind you for combat. You shifted your hands forward, the canons extending and shifting with them, and aimed carefully.
âAlright, Taehyung, go!â you ordered, flicking the clear case from the buttons at the head of the joysticks and pushing them in with your thumbs. Beams of concentrated energy blasted at the vessels, and your impeccable aim had the lasers hitting right near where you knew the flight deck to be.
Unlike you, your enemy had the time and thought to put up their particle barriersâ your shots hadnât put a single dent in the actual ship, but the impact upon the barrier was enough to give you an opening to escape. Taehyung pulled the thruster back and the ship shot off, powering through the resistance that the planetâs atmosphere posed. You were exiting fast, but nowhere near as fast as you should have beenâ the damage theyâd managed to do to your ship was impeding your escape more than you anticipated, and a sick feeling of dread began to fill your abdomen.
As you sped away you aimed another couple of shots, each of them meeting the same fate as those before. The massive, hulking commander vessels were something your smaller ship didnât stand a chance againstâ your craft may have been built for speed, manoeuvring and quick offense, but theirs was built for battle. From the beginning your only chance at surviving the encounter had lain in your ability to flee, and now even that was in jeopardy.
âAssessment complete: right fuel tank intact; navigation system has sustained medium damage. Assessment also found: right thruster sustained light damage. Maintenance advised.â
You cursedâ a damaged navigation system meant that if you shot off into hyperspace there was no guarantee where youâd end up. You grit your teeth as you fired another two shots, the barrier blocking them just as youâd expected. The second commander vessel veered around the side of the other and began in your direction at an alarming speed. The apprehension curling in your stomach intensified.
Taehyung did his best to lead the ship away from the planet, hurtling from the atmosphere with the commander vessels hot on your tail and gaining. Your mind whirled trying to come up with solutions to your problem, but there were none. With the current state your ship was in, you wouldnât be able to get away fast enoughâ speed was what you usually relied upon, since the commander vessels were significantly larger, but with your right thruster damaged you didnât have a chance of getting away quick enough that way. Your next plan would usually be hyperdrive, but with the shipâs navigation system so damaged⊠there was no promising where in space your ship would arrive.
Taehyung jerked the rotational joystick to the right, dipping out of the way just in time to dodge the large laser beam that shot your way. Despite the fact that you knew it would do no good, you aimed your canons once more and fired at the vessel closest to you, as a means of distraction if nothing else.
ây/n, weâre not going to be able to get away like this,â Taehyung said, a note of desperation colouring the edges of his tone. Your teeth sank into your lipâ you knew that, you knew, but you didnât know how to fix this situation. A glance at Taehyungâs expression told you he too knew the only other alternative you could possibly take, and you turned your attention back to the vessels rapidly gaining on your ship.
You spoke, voicing your concerns as he rolled the ship out of the line of fire once more, the spacecraft shuddering, âTae, with the damage weâve sustained, I donât know if weâllââ
The male turned to you, and for a moment you werenât looking at Captain Kim, your second in command and your crewâs genius engineer and co-pilot, but Kim Taehyung, your best friend and the person you would absolutely die for. You bit your lip, reading the look in his dark eyes and turning back to your screen. âAlright, prepare the ship for hyperdrive. Input coordinates for J-009, and letâs hope it gets us at least somewhere close. If the navigation system doesnât fail us, the thrusters mightâ but at least weâll be far enough away that weâve lost them.â
Taehyung nodded, quickly inputting the coordinates and flicking switches. You released the canon controls, pushing them so they retracted back to the ceiling, and fastened yourself to the seat before leaning forward and preparing the rest of the ship for hyperdrive. The navigation system wasnât your only concernâ entering hyperdrive when the ship was already damaged in other parts posed the risk of worsening the damage, and if you were hit again before you managed to leave then it was possible you could lose parts of the ship in the process.
But you didnât have a choice.
âShip is secured, preparation for hyperdrive complete,â Taehyung spoke aloud, flicking up the plastic casing over a keypad and entering the code only yourself and your crew knew. You watched, stomach cramping in anxiety, and input the code in your own keypadâ this ship required the code from both co-pilots when in dual-pilot mode to unlock and engage hyperdrive.
âCode entered,â Taehyung whispered, and for a moment it was silent. You watched on your screen as the vessels grew closer, a glow beginning to gather around the canon as they prepared another shotâ one that might very well be your last. You clutched the necklace around your neck anxiously, seeking any and all comfort you could get; youâd come so far, gods, just please let you survive this. You had the object youâd been searching for but your job wasnât done yet.
âEngaging hyperdrive.â
Taehyungâs thumb pressed into the button and your ship shot off, space warping across your screen, just split-seconds before the vessels fired another shot into the space where youâd been. You sailed smoothly for all of two long, heavy seconds before your ship groaned and creaked, beginning to shake violently. The AI spoke up once more, informing you of the rapidly growing list of damage to the ship and it was all you could do to close your eyes and try not to grow nauseous from the shaking.
Alarms blared into the air, and you heard Taehyung fastening himself to the seat beside you as the ship rattled and vibrated in ways it most definitely shouldnât be. There was a loud bang from the right of your ship, and you were thrown from hyperdrive and hurtling through space at an alarming speed.
âWarning: right thrusters compromised. Maintenance advised. Thrusters disabled to prevent further damage.â
The last thing you saw amongst the crimson flashing across your screen was a planet, cerulean and jade in the light of the nearest star, and the ship was hurtling towards it at an alarming speed. Heat glazed the sides of the ship as you entered the atmosphere too fast, too quick to register. Before you could even think there was a loud, resounding BANGâ
Everything went black.
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The first thing you were aware of, was the burning sensation encompassing your thigh and right arm. The air was warm, and something was dripping onto your face, slowly bringing you further and further into consciousness. A gasp tore from your throat, your eyes wrenching open and blinking rapidly. On your next inhale your throat constricted, rejecting the air wrought with the thick, cloying smoke from the wreckage around you and you coughed violently, falling from your place on the pilotâs seat and onto the ground. The belt had snapped, and you didnât want to imagine where youâd been right now if you hadnât been wearing it in the first place. You coughed and hacked on your knees, trying to clear your lungs and rid your mouth of the acrid taste coating your tongue and throat. When you could finally breathe once more, you tried to ease your body from the floor of your wrecked ship.
Your limbs protested vehemently against movement, but your heart ached more at the sight of what had once been your pride and joy lying in ruins around you. Tears stung your eyes from a combination of smoke, pain, and emotional distress, but you refused to let them fall. Instead, finally bursting free of the fog that had been lingering over your mind since awakening, your thoughts went straight to the other person that had been on board with you.
âTaehyung!â you gasped, throat raw and voice a mere croak. You coughed, holding your singed sleeve over your mouth in a half-hearted attempt at filtering the smoke from your breath. You spun, your eyes searching for a tell-tale sign of your co-pilotâ a sign that he was still alive.
There was a groan from your left and you spun fastâ too fast, you nearly toppled on your weak legsâ and lurched towards the noise. âTaehyung!â
The front of the cockpit had been blown apart upon impact, the metal exterior and frame peeling away in front of Taehyungâs seat and dread began to fill you before you caught sight of the prone form several feet in front of the ship. You ran forward, legs shaky, and rejoiced the fact that it seemed heâd only flown from the ship after impactâ things mightnât have been so fortunate had he flown earlier.
âTaehyung, Taeâ Tae, come on, wake up man,â you urged, sounding somewhat desperate, as you fell to your knees next to your best friend and checked him for wounds before rolling him carefully onto his back.
The blonde blinked blearily, coughing slightly; he wasnât in the ship and therefore wasnât surrounded by as much smoke, but the burnt, singed smell in the air certainly wasnât pleasant to wake up to.
ây/n?â he croaked, blinking as your form came into focus before his eyes. He immediately lurched up, a groan sounding as he threw his arms around you. âShit, youâreâ weâre alive! God, Iâm so glad we survived.â
Even in a situation like this he managed to make you chuckle. You returned his embrace before he was pulling away, looking over your form before he even thought to look over his own. His eyes zeroed in on your arm, and then your thigh. His voice grew high-pitched, âYouâre bleeding!â
This was news to you. Surprised, you looked down to see you were, in fact, bleeding from the arm and thigh. You remembered slicing your leg on a crystal in the cave, but you didnât know where the large gash above your bicep came from. You nodded in affirmation to his words, slightly desensitised after the whole ordealâ honestly, the outcome could have been a lot worse. You were happy things had turned out this way. Sure, the ship was totalled, but the two of you were alive and neither of you were mortally wounded or anything similar. Although, from the way Taehyung was freaking out and ripping strips of cloth from the bottom of his shirt, you might have been the only one that thought that.
Even in his frenzy to take care of you he managed to stop himself, teeth finding his lip as he recalled the basics of his first aid training. Every garrison cadet was trained in first aid, it was one of the first things you learned when you began your training.
âWe need to clean your wounds before we bandage them,â he mused, significantly calmer now that heâd gotten over the initial shock of the whole ordeal. He bunched the cloth up in his hands, rising onto shaky legs with a soft groan, and proceeded to help you up so you were standing with him. You shifted your weight, testing your legs, and you were glad to find that despite the pain you were adjusting quite quickly after crashing your ship into a foreign planet. That reminded you, where exactly were you?
You turned your gaze around you, trying to discern which planet youâd managed to crash on while Taehyung continued, wobbling about and peering around in search for something in particular, âNeed water,â he mumbled to himself, blinking through the smoke that was finally beginning to disperse. Your burning wreck of a ship was now just a wreck, strewn about in the middle of a forest on some alien planet. âOr any fluid, really.â
Your eyes were trained on the flora surrounding you, in awe at the way the plants shifted and swayed in the slight breeze, stunningly beautiful flowers perching on the end of curling branches and glowing in mesmerising bioluminescent blues and pinks where shade fell upon them. Glowing spots speckled over the leaves and trunks, the grass-like organism beneath your feet not exactly luminous but not dull, either. You were surrounded by such vibrant and peculiar colours and shapes, you couldnât help but be entranced. âTaehyung, this place is beautiful.â
He huffed, having trained himself to ignore your nonsense, and you were brought suddenly back to the present. You turned, making your way over to him. âDo you recognise any of these plants? I have no idea where we are.â
Along with first aid, while you underwent training as cadets you were also taught about alien lifeforms and the flora and fauna present on other planets significant to the union. Of course, it wasnât information that everyone remembered in full, but it could help in situations like this where you found yourselves on a foreign planet without any idea where you were.
Except neither of you recognised any of the flora enough to know where you were. A slight flaw in the system, but it couldnât be helped.
âNoâŠâ he said slowly, squinting into the distance. âWe can breathe though, so this place is definitely similar enough to Earth. The plants and trees⊠they look kind of familiar, but I canât place where Iâve seen them before.â
You hummed in agreement, letting out a surprised noise when Taehyung suddenly grasped your hand and moved towards the back of the ship. The cargo bay lay painfully open, the massive door torn from the ship and crumpled several metres away. The blonde let go of you to duck inside, disappearing only to re-emerge moments later with a water bottle and the smoking remains of what had once been your first aid kit in hand. Your guess was the rubbing alcohol within had caught fire, and to be honest you werenât really surprised. Carrying outdated first aid packs had its risks, after all, but youâd stored the newest and best one on the ship Namjoon was on and so had been left with this. You followed obediently when Taehyung guided you to a crate that had clearly flown from the ship upon impact but somehow remained miraculously intact. You took a seat and he placed the makeshift bandages and ruined kit beside you.
You peered around as he cleaned and wrapped your wounds, the occasional hiss escaping you as he rinsed dirt and soot from the open lacerations.
âI donât know where we are, but we should probably get off this planet as soon as possible,â you were stating the obvious, but speaking your thoughts out loud allowed you to organise them better. Taehyung hummed along, doe eyes focused on the task at handâ you winced as he moved to the large gash on your arm that was still dribbling blood. You had to remove your jacket so he could access it, and you were glad it seemed to be relatively warm on this planet. âI donât think the ship is going to help much, and we donât know if thereâs a civilisation here let alone if its friendlyâŠâ
You turned your head to watch him work, gears churning in your mind. âWe need to let Namjoon and the others know what happened⊠do you think the radio is still in one piece?â
Taehyung pinned you with a look that told you exactly what kind of state he thought the radio was in, and you resisted the inappropriate smile that wanted to tug your lips as he went back to work with a sassy roll of his eyes. âHonestly, Iâm surprised weâre in one piece after that landing. Hoping anything else survived in that mess of an aircraft is wishful thinking.â
You wanted to pout and rebuke his blunt statements, but honestly he was right. You were lucky to be in one piece, let alone alive, after that horrendous landing. You kept your gaze on Taehyungâs deft fingers as they tied the strips of his shirt and remaining bandages around your arm, silent for a few moments. Taehyung didnât speak, but let out a sigh once he was done, running a hand through his blonde locks.
âIt would probably do us good to have a look at it anyway,â he shot you a smile, âAfter all, I am the best mechanical engineer the garrison had to offerâ how could I rightfully claim that title if I couldnât fix one measly radio?â
You snorted, rolling your eyes, and Taehyung flashed you a boxy grin.
Minutes later, as you stood before the remains of what used to be the shipâs radio now strewn across the dirt, the grin fell from his face. You both stared for a moment, in awe almost at just how destroyed the radio had gotten.
You let out a sigh, âTae, itâs irreparableââ
âNo!â he cut you off, squatting and making as though to reach for a part but his hand hovered, unable to decide whichâ and there were a lot. âNo, itâs fine. Iâm sure I can fix it. It just might⊠take a while, dig it?â
You gave him an odd look at the weird speech and simply shrugged, too tired to bother formulating a response. You let him tinker with the remains, moving back to the crate and plopping down with a groan. Your wounds were wrapped now, but your entire body still ached.
There was a peculiar burning at the nape of your neck that continued down the cervical portion of your spine and had been present ever since youâd woken, and was gradually making itself more known. You wondered idly if it had anything to do with the mark that had appeared there months ago when youâd first left on your journey⊠before you dismissed the idea. While you didnât exactly have an explanation for the pretty, intricate tattoo-like marking that had appeared on your skin out of nowhere, you were pretty sure the burning ache was just from whiplash or something. You tilted your neck, stretching the tense muscles in an attempt to ease the pain. It helped a bit.
Taehyung was mumbling to himself as he hovered over the radio scraps, organising pieces this way and that in an attempt to make sense of them, and you were left somewhat to your own devices. With a sigh, you decided to be useful and search the ship for anything that wasnât absolutely destroyed in the landing, and eased off the crate with a soft groan. You made to move towards the wreckage, boots heavy on your feet, when there was a sharp crack that had you freezing in your steps. The hair on the back of your neck rose and you had the sudden, overwhelming feeling you were being watched.
âTae,â you called, glaring when he ignored you for the radio. âTaehyung! I think thereâsââ
You didnât get to continue, a sharp feeling of alarm piercing your gut and your trained senses going off. You ducked and rolled, dodging just in time as an object pierced the air where youâd just been standing with a light whistling sound. You gasped, eyes taking in the carved dagger now embedded in the side of your totalled ship before you spun to face the tree-line where it had come from. Taehyungâs head whipped up, his hands full of radio parts and chocolate eyes wide. ây/n?â
âShit, Taehyung thereâsââ Another whistling sound pierced the air before you could continue and you rolled out of the way just in time once more, using the momentum to tumble to your feet and knock Taehyung out of the way of the knife aimed for him. The radio parts cluttered to the ground along with your bodies and you groaned in unison, your wounds singing out in hot, throbbing pain.
You rolled off the male, scrambling on your back and trying to find purchase with your boots in the soft soil the landing had uprooted beneath you. You attempts were halted, however, by a gleam before your eyes and sudden sharp point at your throat. Your lungs froze, throat constricting in fear as you gazed up into the deep eyes of a masked form, eerily human in build, the freckles that littered its body glowing a dangerous bright crimson, luminous against its skin. All at once recognition lit in the back of your mind and you knew exactly which planet youâd managed to land on. Dread filled your stomach.
Apparently there was civilisation here after all.
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You wished you could have commented on the walk through the forest to get to where you were now, but alas you hadnât seen any of it. Youâd been out coldâ thanks to some sedative youâd been shot with in your moment of weaknessâ probably thrown over someoneâs shoulder the entire time like nothing more than a sack of potatoes, and only now were you beginning to awake.
Apparently just in time.
All of a sudden you were dropped to the floor unceremoniously, a pained groan tearing from your throat as you landed on your wounded arm. There was a similar sound as what you guessed to be Taehyung was dumped next to you, his leg flying and kicking you in the shin. You let out a sharp yelp in response, glaring at the blonde while you tried to right yourself into an upright position as best as you could with your hands bound behind your back. He looked back at you with wide eyes, seeming every bit like he was panicking internally and to be honest you didnât blame him. Not only had you crash landed on some alien planet in a bid to escape people that wanted you dead, but after said landing youâd been jumped in the middle of the forest by the planetâs inhabitants and now you were god knows where, completely at their mercy. Needless to say, this wasnât shaping up to be the best day of your lives.
The aliens that had taken youâ you were just going to call them men, since they looked so eerily similar to your human selvesâ spoke amongst the other, the language completely foreign against your ears, their speech riddled with clicks and trills that youâd hardly known such human-shaped mouths were capable of making. It bothered you that you couldnât understand a word of it, as ridiculous as it was. Youâd studied many alien languages and were proficient in a good amountâ it was something that had helped land you such a high position at such a young age, back in the life you left behind.
Taehyungâs panicked eyes met yours as the âmenâ spoke above you, before you turned your gaze to the room you currently found yourselves in. ây/n, please tell me weâre not where I think we are,â he whispered desperately, kicking you again when you didnât respond. ây/n! This is serious!â
You turned to him, mouth turning down. Honestly? You were fucking terrified right now. Youâd read about this planet, heard of these aliensâ the Kelkie were almost never seen venturing amongst the stars, not much known or even spoken about them besides the fact they bore a striking resemblance to humans, told apart by the luminescent patterns over their skin and other minor features, and were rumoured to be the most bloodthirsty, ruthless race to ever grace the galaxy in the history of creation.  All youâd ever heard of them, including in your time as a cadet, painted them as cruel, merciless monsters with a bloodlust that could never truly be sated. They were the horror stories parents told misbehaving children at bedtime to keep them in line, the threat whispered against darkened hallways in shady interspecies bars and hangouts across the galaxy. They were the ultimate warriors, the deadliest weapons, and youïżœïżœïżœd never seen one in your life before this very day.
Yes, you were terrified.
You didnât want to be, you wanted to withhold judgmentâ it wasnât your style to blindly believe rumours spread with no viable proof. Everyone knew of the Kelkie, but strangely enough, when asked, they didnât know anyone who had ever met oneâ the same went for you. You had no way to verify what kind of species they were, what kind of creature, for yourself.
âI know itâs serious!â you hissed back at Taehyung, observing the room around you so if an opportunity arose, you had some idea of where to run. It was a large room, the floors a decadent combination of obsidian-like stone and something resembling marble, inscribed with runes and symbols, patterns and pictures that threatened to distract you from your current task at hand. âStop whispering so loud or youâre going to get us in trouble!â
Taehyung glared at you, kicking you again and you groaned, catching the attention of one of the men. Youâd surmised that they had to be something similar to soldiers, guards maybe. They wore masks across their eyes that hid their identities and the glowing freckles across their cheeksâ one of the only other things you knew about the Kelkie was that their spots displayed the emotions they were feeling at that moment, and you guessed that hiding them was a tactic that helped them on the battlefield.
Then again, the arms of the men were bare of any garment, and the freckles were on full display. Maybe you were reading too much into it.
The Kelkie that had noticed your pained noise looked down at you, saying something at you in his tongue that bounced right back off your human ears. You blinked up at him owlishly despite your fearful trembling, and the alien growled slightly at your lack of response. What did he expect? You clearly couldnât understand him.
Taehyung was shooting you looks that clearly told you to quit doing whatever you were doing, and you decided after catching sight of the sharp, carved blades at the Kelkieâs waist that it would probably be best to listen. You averted your gaze down, hand coming to finger the necklace and pendant resting against the top of your sternum. You heard the guard shift back to face the other and resume the conversation, and turned your thoughts to something more pleasant, ignoring Taehyung for the meanwhile. Your eyes shifted to the feet of the guards and you pondered their clothing.
It was a strange material, nothing like anything youâd ever seen before. It moved like fluid with each shift of their bodies and shimmered in a fashion similar to silk from Earth. It was pitch black, glinting midnight blue in the light, and over their upper half it acted as a vest with a high collar that stretched up their neck and fit their form until their hips, where the material split into something resembling coattails on either side of their body. The pants were straight until the ankle where they flared and then fastened in a harem-like fashion, tucked into ankle boots that were lined and plated with that looked like a metal similar to silver. For a species rumoured to be bloodthirsty and renowned warriors, they had only a surprisingly small amount of armour. From what you could see, it was only the boots on their feet and the plated bracers over their wrists. There was a metal choker around their necks, but it looked like it was more for decoration than anything, along with the silver dangling from their ears and adorning their fingers.
Taehyung waited a while before he tried talking to you again. His eyes sought yours once more, voice a hushed whisper, ây/n, how are we going to get out of here?â
You resisted the urge to shrug, because you knew it would stress him out if he knew you didnât have a plan, but also because heâd probably kick you again and your shin was already throbbing.
âIâm working on it,â you murmured, peering around the massive hall once more. Honestly, there wasnât an entrance or an exit that was close enough and provided a good enough chance of escape; you had no idea how you would even begin trying to get out of here. Even if there was a good enough exit, your captors were faster than you, stronger than youâ theyâd be on you in the time it took you to draw in your next breath. Something about the situation did draw your focus, however, and your eyebrows drew together. âWhy are we just sitting here in this room? Theyâre not doing anything, itâs like theyâre waiting for someâ"
Before you could finish a large set of ornate doors swung open to your right, your head whipping to face them as the guards shot ramrod straight. Within seconds they were gripping you and Taehyung and dragging you closer to a large obsidian throne that you couldnât believe you hadnât noticed before. Taehyung shot you a horrified, panicked look and you couldnât even offer a smile of reassurance because god damn it you were currently feeling the exact same way. The guards had picked you up with ease with only one arm and soon enough you were being dropped unceremoniously on the ground once more.
You landed on your arm yet again and couldnât help the groan that escaped you, only just dodging Taehyungâs leg as it kicked out just like it had last time. God, these aliens were rude. They could have at least walked you over instead of manhandling you.
The guards began speaking once more in their foreign tongue as you struggled to sit up, abdominal muscles aching from the constant effort. You were still so sore from fucking crash landing on an alien planet and you were only accruing more injuries as you went.
In focusing on the pain currently making itself very well-acquainted with you, you hadnât noticed the three other figures that had entered through the door and prompted your sudden relocation before the throne. At Taehyungâs gasp and the sound of a new voice, your gaze whipped over and you froze.
The Kelkie currently speaking was the shortest of the three, raven hair pushed back with some strands falling over his forehead. His eyes were dark as they flicked between yourself, Taehyung, and the guards and his voice was light and airy as it caressed the clicks and trills of his mother tongue, lips plump and pink. His form was toned, dressed in garb similar to the guards but decidedly more ornate and lighter in colour, and his warm skin was scattered with fine freckles that glowed icy blue and resembled the smattering of stars in the night sky. He was shorter, but his entire form emanated power and your senses were telling you that right now you were in danger.
Taehyungâs leg was trembling against yours and you nudged him softly, subtly, before flicking your gaze to one of the other Kelkie as he began speaking. His tone was deeper, and his eyes trained solely on the guards as he spoke. He was taller than the first, but dressed in a similar fashion and his own raven hair wasnât slicked back, his freckles glowing deep blue. All of a sudden panic began to well up in you as the gravity of the situation finally began to sink inâ fuck, you were going to die.
Immediately your eyes began searching for an out, an exit close enough that you and Taehyung could make it and have an actual chance at getting away. Your heart stopped in your chest and your blood froze in your veins as the final person in the room spoke.
His voice was powerful, commanding, catching your attention without any extra effort on his part and even without looking you could tell it was directed at you. Taehyung trembled, and you slowly turned your gaze to the Kelkie standing in the middle of the other two, his dark, doe-like eyes boring straight into yours as he spoke at you in a language you couldnât understand. Your breath caught in your throat because standing right before you was the most ethereally handsome being you had ever seen.
His stance was strong, unyielding, and he was bulkier than the other two yet had the kind of body proportions that had heat fighting to rush to your cheeks. He was dressed in that same silken material, almost obsidian over his form, but glinting deep burgundy instead of midnight blue in the light. The edges were embroidered in silver, the choker around his neck and the bracers over his arms engraved and shining along with the thin circlet over his forehead and the silver in his ears. Instantly you could tell that he was the most important one in the room, the most powerful, and you were instantaneously afraid and in awe.
He was speaking to you, voice a pleasant timbre against your ears even if you didnât know what he was saying, and when you didnât respond his eyebrows furrowed. He turned to the guards, his own inky locks flicking as he demanded something of them. They responded obediently and he was looking at you once moreâ you couldnât take the intensity, the weight of his gaze, but you couldnât avert your eyes. He watched you a moment, gaze flicking between you and Taehyung, before he said something shortly. Immediately the guards grasped you once more and fear spiked behind your ribs, stomach cramping in panic.
He strode forward and instinctively you tried to pull yourself from the guardâs gasp, your efforts achieving nothing but an annoyed growl in response as you stayed firmly in place, his grip like iron on your arm and digging into the bandaged wound. You stopped only at the sharp pain, wincing, and it was all the opportunity the Kelkie needed to step closer and press two long fingers against your forehead.
It was like you were jolted at his touch, a spark of electricity coursing beneath your skin and warmth gathering beneath his fingers where they pressed against your forehead. There was a slight, sharp pain on both sides of your head, your brain throbbing against your skull for a moment before he pulled back, fingers glowing slightly. He exhaled, eyes closed a moment while you recovered from the sudden and weird experience before he opened them and pinned you with his intense gaze once more.
âYou,â he said, your eyes shooting wide at the sound of your own language leaving his mouth instead of the one youâd been hearing the past couple of minutes. His voice caressed the notes and sounds with a clear accent, having difficulty articulating words and sounds so different from what his mouth was used to. âWho are you and why have you come to this planet.â
It wasnât a query so much as a demand, and before you could speak the guard holding your arm yanked it, slicing your binds and holding out your wrist for the male to see. To your further shock and surprise, he spoke in your tongue as well, âYour majesty, the mark on her wrist.â
You could have sworn your heart stopped in your chest at the sound of the title, your eyes whipping to the aforementioned male in horror. Your majesty. He was a king, an emperor. You heard Taehyung cursing softly next to you as the ruler of this planet stood before you and gazed at the tattooed marks on your wrist.
His reaction was instantaneous, eyes shooting to your face and a hiss escaping his teeth as the smattering of freckles over his cheeks and nose flared bright red. âThe garrison?â he almost snarled, voice a low rumble in his throat. You cursed yourself for the excited beat your heart skipped at the sound. âThe Intergalactic Union is not welcome hereâ breaking the accord in place has dire consequences, and you will be punished accordinglyââ
âNo!â you gasped, eyes wide as you yanked your wrist back, the accursed numbers inked on your skin glaring back up at you. You rushed to explain, very aware that your life was currently on the line, âNo, not the garrison! Iâm notâ weâre no longer in the garrison, no longer in the Union. We defected.â
The King pins you both with a narrow glare, teeth gritting. The shorter of the two beside him is observing your every move with shrewd, dark eyes, his arms crossed. âIf you are no longer in the garrison, then what is your business here, girl?â he demanded, and you resisted the urge to cower that rose suddenly within you. âYou come to my planet in a garrison ship, bearing the mark of a soldier, and you set my forest ablaze in your arrival. These are not actions of peace.â
You gulped, realising how bad this must have looked. The Intergalactic Union may have composed a majority of the galaxies inhabitants, but that didnât mean it was always looked upon fondlyâ you knew better than anyone that missions and actions issued by the union to be performed by factions like the garrison werenât always on the morally correct end of the spectrum. Decisions were always made at a price, and for many that price was too much to withstand, to accept, to support.
âI apologise for the damage our arrival has caused,â you said evenly, trying to regulate the hurried, anxious beat of your heart. You didnât doubt that with their trained senses they could hear each panicked thump it made against your ribcage. âIt was not our intention to land here. We were fleeing from the garrison and our ship was damaged, so when we entered hyperdrive⊠it did not take us where we meant to go. We didnât plan to crash here.â
The Kingâs eyebrows rose, markings shifting from hot vermillion to a shade between crimson and indigo. The taller of his companions spoke, arms held behind his back as his dark eyes met yours, expression hard. âWhy would the garrison be chasing their own soldiers?â he demanded, the unspoken threat in his tone sending a shiver of fear down your spine.
âWe⊠My crew and I defected, several months ago,â you answered truthfully, pretending the slight shake in your voice hadnât been present at all. âTheyâre after me because I stole something important from them and they want it back.â
The shorter male let out a humourless scoff, shifting his weight on his legs. âStole? So you are a thief, then.â
You grimaced, since he technically wasnât wrong and you couldnât really deny it. âWell, technicallyâŠâ you stopped yourself, rushing to defend your actions, aware that is wasnât just your life on the line right now. âBut it wasnât for no reason! I did it to stop them from doing something horrible.â
The short one went to interrogate you further when the King cut him off. âEverything youâre telling me right now could easily be a lie,â he said, markings a cool ice blue as he glared down at you and Taehyung with a firm, unwavering gaze, jaw clenched and a tick appearing before he continued, âI will not trust humans who trespass on my planet while bearing the mark of the garrison.â
You were scared, panic filling your lungs at his words at what he was going to do. The King turned to the guards. âTake them to the east wing. I want them restrained and on separate sides of the room. They are not allowed out, and no one aside from Seokjin, Jimin and myself are to enter. Understood?â
The guards nodded immediately and the King turned his hard gaze to you. His eyes burned your skin where they raked over your form. âWe will hold you for one week. If you are truly on the run from the garrison as you say you are, then they will not come to rescue you and at the end of the week you will still be here. If they come,â his marks flashed vivid crimson, dark eyes boring into your soul. âThen I will kill you and every single human that comes to retrieve you myself, for attempting to deceive me and breaking the accord between Kelkie and The Union.â
Fear struck home in your heart, and having said all he wanted the King nodded to the guards. âTake them,â he ordered, and they immediately hauled you and Taehyung from the floor. They dragged you, strong fingers digging into your wound, and your eyes fell upon the King of the deadliest race known to the galaxy and his advisors.
His dark gaze followed you the entire way out, a different colour tinting his marks, and even when you were hauled from your room the sight remained burned into your mindâs eye.
The marks had been deep, reddish pink.
masterlist | moodboard | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | complete
#kpoptrashtag#kreativewritersnet#boy group writers net#jungkook x reader#jungkook smut#jungkook series#alien au#alien!au#alien jungkook#alien!jungkook#alien!jungkook x reader#alien jungkook x reader#space au#space!au#scifi#jungkook scenario#jungkook imagine#bts smut#bts series#bts scenario#jungkook oneshot#bts oneshot#reader insert#my work#smut#wanted#rbuns#next chapter incoming soon!!!!#also lowkey but highkey#soulmate au
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--- THIGHS OF DEMISE
summary: #bittercoffee! an avengers dinner party leaves you and bucky trashed. they do say alcohol is liquid courage! thigh riding happens. you establish a new pet-name. rating: she be short, but she be steamy so 18+ on this one! word count: 1.5k a/n: for the anon who requested this and for those whoâve put up with my nsfw headcanons for long enough!
                     wanna read more about these two?                            HEREâS THE MASTERLIST!
Bucky canât remember the last time he was this plastered.
Maybe before the Battle of the Bulge. The Howling Commandos had celebrated their death sentence then. He was young. Boyish.
Right now, though, he canât really think about it -- heâs busy tripping through the doors of his quarters, your legs hitched around his waist as you tangle your fingers in his hair and kiss him breathless. Bucky groans, teeth and tongue mingling with yours as you press your chest to his, nearly climbing his torso as the hulking vigilante crosses the threshold of his room.
Itâs hot. Youâre hot. Heâs hot. Like, sweating, because your hips rut into his own and Christ, heâs trying to close the door but heâs a little busy, so Bucky gives up and falls back against it anyways. The room is spinning when he finally tears his lips from yours -- youâre⊠angelic, lips red and hair mussed and eyes dark as you eat him up -- and Bucky has to swallow down the L Word bubbling on his tongue as his blue eyes search your features.
Itâs a beat of a moment, and it passes the second his fingers scales your cheek to tug you back in.
Heâs drunk. Everything feels slow, hazy. Blue and orange. The lights under the cabinets glow warm and mingle against the blue lights outside the tower. You move, kissing him again, and itâs slower than before. Your nails graze the hot skin of the back of his neck. Metal fingers twist in your hair.
It feels good. All of it does.
Itâs sloppy -- youâre just as drunk as he is; Asgardian mead mingles in his system like the coconut rum mingles in yours. It was apparent that you two werenât going to last the night. Longing looks and lingering touches dragged you two together like magnets searching for their better halves.
You both slide along the wall, getting sidetracked with increasingly more violent kisses each stop -- itâs all becoming a blur of feverish need, and you can feel him against the juncture of your thighs as you claw at his shoulders and bite his lips and knock teeth.
Buckyâs calves hit the couch and he settles backwards, dragging you down to the loveseat with a devilish grin. You laugh, loud and brave, and his mouth settles against the column of your throat. He bites a cherry red mark there, stubble burning as he drags his lips along the skin there. Fingers tug his hair. His hands settle into your hips, gripping you tightly as if youâd vanish into thin air. You lean backwards. He chases you.
âYouâre so fuckinâ hot,â you slur, eyes heavy-lidded as you shift in his lip, rocking your hips against the evident arousal pressing in his jeans. Bucky swallows, jaw clenching as you do, before you drag yourself up and away from him. âLook at you.â
You finger skims his mouth, tugging at his bottom lip as you stand.
Your knees buckle, legs heavy with lead and love and lust.
âDoll,â his voice is hoarse as he watches you, and you see his chest stutter with a clipped breath as you worm your fingers into the hem of your sweater, âGet back here.â
âMâ hot.â
âYeah,â he laughs -- itâs deep and throaty and dark -- as his eyes rake over the exposed skin you bare as you toss the sweater over the back of the couch. His eyes are glued to your fingers working at your belt, the way you push your jeans and boots off in a less than graceful way. âYou are.â
âNo,â you stumble, swaying slightly as you do before fixing yourself and grinning back at him, âLike mâ sweating.â
âChrist, me too,â he mumbles, tugging at his collar as you sway towards him. His gaze is hungry, devouring every inch of skin, every delicate swirl of lace along your panties and bra, and his hands hit your waist as you drape yourself across his left thigh. His skin is hot through his jeans and you grin, mouth searing back to his as the dance begins again.
It escalates again, to biting kisses and muffled moans and hands pulling hair and nails clawing up his back as he bites deep purple bruises into the curve of your shoulder as your hips start to rut against his thigh. He can feel you, and his hands are quick to meet your hips, guiding the frenzied movements with a predatory eye.
âLook at you,â he breathes, gut swirling with arousal as you chew your lip, one arm draped across his shoulder as you cling to his shirt. Your nails tighten into the fabric and you huff -- his hands are big and warm and pressing you against his thigh with each rock. His nose brushes yours, lips bruised and red, âMy pretty little kitten.â
Your chest clenches, mind going a little hazy as you surge upwards to catch him in another reckless kiss. You can feel that trademarked Barnes smirk against your lips as he lifts his knee, pressing just the right way against the hotness building between your legs.
Things escalate. You claw his shirt off of him, tossing it across the room as your nails drag down the muscles there -- youâre gaze is just as heavy as his nimble fingers land on his belt buckle and he groans, fingers knotting into your hair as he battles against tooth and tongue and affection and arousal. Your fingers skim along the evident bulge there, palm pressing just right along the curve and head and Bucky shudders against your mouth as you grin and tug your lips from his bite. Movements arenât so drunk anymore, not off the alcohol, but off one another.
Another breath of a pause. He watches you, blue eyes looking not so blue, but more grey with big pupils and heavy lids. His hands urge your hips on. You trail a gentle touch along the silhouette pressed to his jeans.
âCall me kitten again,â you slur, lips ducking to skim along the stubble of his jaw, âI think I like that pet-name.â
âDo you?â itâs soft, voice a little wrecked as your fingers press against his cock. His eyes screw shut. He feels like heâs been punched in the chest. You pulls the words from his lips, watching with a greedy gaze as you set a rhythm with your touches. âY-you like it when I call you that, kitten?â
You chew your lip again, and Bucky thinks this is definitely heaven. Heâs died. His heart gave out and he died in his sleep in this a dream in heaven. This isnât real because youâre moaning against his mouth and his thigh is slick with your arousal and fucking hell, his brain is on the haywire from the heavy touches driving his heart to hammer home.
Your nails drag against his back as his hands guide your hips, eyes screwed shut and breath hitching with every rock of his thigh against your core. Your skin mingles against his, hot and soft. Buckyâs getting desperate now too, breathing labored and eyes nearly rolling into the back of his skull as he jumps his own hips into your hand, clutching you like his life depended on it.
In a lot of ways, it does.
And you pull his hair. Press a purple love-bite to the tendons in his shoulder. You mumble against his skin, voice high with the tight-wound of your orgasm heating your words. âSo handsome, Buck, you should see yourself.â
He falls apart then, muffling a high whimper into your neck. He comes hard, fingers tightening as he clutches you, fingers pressing into the skin of your hips. Your own orgasm washes over you. Itâs all you need and itâs blinding and heavy and your whole body rushes against his like youâve been slammed with the crushing weight of the tide. Your fingers grip him tightly, kneading into the metal plating of his shoulder as he pants, your own brain going fuzzy with a warm bliss.
Youâre both quiet for a moment, still against one another as your breaths become the only sound in his room.
And then he laughs.
Itâs a soft exhale, not more than a little breath puffed against your shoulder, but you know itâs a laugh. It makes you do the same. You pull your head upwards, muscles warm, before you blink at him. His eyes are heavy with exhaustion. He looks good. His hair is mussed and his face is pink and heâs littered with little hickies that fade with every second.
âWeâre horrible.â
Itâs your turn to laugh, smother a little laugh as you shift in his lap. His jeans have suffered the brunt of the fun, damp in areas with the aftermath of it all. His stomach jumps, muscles tightening as he laughs again.
âI canât say Iâve ever had heavy petting like that,â you slur, words heavy with the downturn of the alcohol and your orgasm, â...Get it, because Iâm your kitten?â
You fight a laugh, but Bucky doesnât and itâs loud. Genuine. His teeth are pearly in the glow of the kitchen lights. You grin. You card sluggish fingers through his hair.
âWe should probably shower.â
âMm,â he nods, âMâ hungry.â
âMe too,â you whine, head lolling back as you slump in his arms, âCan we order pizza?â
âPlease.â
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#bittercoffee#bucky x reader#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes x you#winter soldier x you#winter soldier imagine
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Cost of Freedom (25/52)
Summary: In which Heiji has been found out, Kaito and Shinichi grab the files and Aoko and Ran return to the police station. Prison!AU
[Beginning] Â Â [Previous Chapter] Â Â [Next Chapter]
"What th' hell is goin' on?"
Heiji takes a step back, drops the hand carrying his phone to his side and lets out a strangled gasp, breath constricting as he glances over at the girl he has been in love with since he was a child. It feels almost like his heart is attempting to squeeze through the gaps of his ribcage, the valves constricting in a way that brings him nothing but pain.
"Kazuha," he breathes, pressing his thumb against the touch screen of his phone, ending the call without glancing down at the screen.
He keeps his gaze on Kazuha, searching her face for any reaction other than shock. How is he going to explain this... how can he possibly explain what he's doing in a short enough time to be able to convince her to not only keep his secret, but to let him continue?
"What are ya doin' back...?" He asks, glancing down to Kazuha's empty hands. He'd been so certain, so completely sure that she'd be down at the coffee shop long enough for...
"I forgot my bag..." Kazuha says, stepping forward and closing the door behind her. She leans against it, almost as if she's attempting to barricade them both inside and keep any other police officers out. "Heiji... what's goin' on?"
Heiji bites at his lip, running a hand through his hair. "N-nothing."
"Tha's a load'a crap." Kazuha whispers, eyes narrowing as she stares him down. "You ain't a liar Heiji, when ya lie it always shows on yer face..."
Not good, Heiji thinks, not good at all.
"I don't know w-what yer talkin' abou'." He stumbles over the words, goes to take a step forward, but hesitates at the expression on Kazuha's face. For a second, there is just faint horror - that he's been lying to her, hiding more than she could have expected - and then, it shifts to distrust and shock, puzzle pieces clicking into place.
"Oh god," she lifts her hand up to her mouth, stifles a gasp and shakes her head. Heiji isn't sure whether she's blinking away tears of anger or horror, but her eyes are wet and she's looking at him as if she doesn't know him. "Tell me ya didn't..."
"Kazuha-"
"You were talkin' to those escaped criminals," she whispers from behind her hands. Then, tearing her gaze away to look at the ground, she adds, "you helped âem, didn't ya? Heiji have ya gone mad?"
Heiji takes a step forward, frown forming across his face. "You wouldn't understand."
Hell, Heiji isn't even sure if he fully understands - he'd knows that there's at least a small element of insanity to his actions, he shouldn't have helped break Kudo out... but he was on death row for crying out loud...
"Then explain it to me." Kazuha says, raising her head. She takes a step away from the door, crosses the space between them and glances up at Heiji - her glare is overwhelming, like flames licking at his skin, the heat burning him from the inside out. "Explain how you ain't completely insane."
"Kudo didn't do it." Heiji says, "and they were gonna kill 'im. He was framed."
Kazuha throws her hands up. When she speaks, it's with a raised voice, the volume bordering on a shout. "Where's yer proof, Heiji?"
Heiji frowns, glares back. "I looked into th' case myself idiot, I know he's innocent."
"Then why didn't ya get a' Â appeal on th' case? If he's innocent, then why did ya need to break 'im out?"
He takes a step forward, tells Kazuha to quit yelling. It's... The evidence he's put together is circumstantial, nothing that would hold in a court of law against fingerprints and lacking alibis. But there had been clues at the scene that had gone overlooked - he wonders whether Hakuba and the others have picked up on them when overlooking the case...
"Quit yellin'," Heiji hisses, "and jus' trust me on this, okay?"
"No wonder yer dad refused to let ya visit this Kudo guy," Kazuha says, reaching forward to aim a punch at his arm, "he's manipulated ya into thinkin' he's a good guy, an' not a serial killer."
That's - that's not true, Heiji tells himself. He'd... there had been truth to the conversations he'd had. Maybe Kudo was a little bit odd, and maybe he'd been thrown into solitary confinement because he'd had to protect himself through violence but - but Kudo wasn't a killer.
"He's not a serial killer!" He cries, and it feels almost as if his anger is burning, provoked by Kazuha's own fiery glare. "I know tha' he isn't!"
"You wanna know why yer dad told you not to visit this guy?" Kazuha spits, "It's 'cause ya look fer puzzles where there ain't any - ya can't believe tha' a detective is responsible for those deaths right? So ya mind made this fake case to make 'im out to be innocent."
Heiji takes a step forward, glares and looking down his eyes at Kazuha, he growls, "Kudo is innocent."
Kazuha flinches away, and like that, any anger Heiji feels is extinguished.
She...
"I'm not lettin' ya do this," Kazuha says, shaking her head, "they're criminals."
His stomach twists. Heiji doesn't know what to do - Kazuha just doesn't understand, won't understand because she's too focused on murders and is trying to rationalise things. For someone who believes in the supernatural, sometimes he thinks she's a little too close minded.
"Give me today," Heiji whispers, "give me today ta convince ya he's innocent. After tha', if you don't believe me... I'll turn 'im in myself."
They don't slam the door behind them, but it almost sounds like it when Kaito closes the archive door behind them, holding his breath as they wait to see whether anyone has seen them enter the room. Opposite him, Shinichi lowers the phone from his ear, glancing down at the screen with wide eyes.
"What...?" Kaito breathes, as Shinichi passes the phone over to him. The screen glows amongst the shadows, and he leans over to press the light switch.
Light illuminates the room, and for a moment, Kaito glances at the rows of bookshelves, each containing files from various old cases. There are four rows, roughly fifteen foot long, and it leaves him wide-eyed wondering how they'll be able to find Shinichi's case files within the thousands of files.
"Hattori hung up," Shinichi says, and he makes his way down the aisle on the far left, eyes skimming over the labelling system, never once stopping to examine anything. "It looks like we're on our own right now until he can call us back."
Kaito slips the phone into a pocket, racing after the ex-detective, escape plans spurring into life as they make their way to the end of the row.
"I see now what you meant when you told me you had to come along to find those files," Kaito says, falling into step beside Shinichi, "a simple search around would take too long."
Shinichi nods, "exactly," before dropping down to his feet, nails digging into the gaps between one of the tiles - he exhales, lifting it up, tile scraping the edge another.
Inside the gap, there is an aluminium case, a padlock sealing it, keeping it shut. Shinichi pulls it out, placing it in front of Kaito.
"Can you pick it?" he asks.
"I really don't think we have the time-" Kaito mutters. The look he receives however, forces him to glance down at the padlock, pointing it upward. He's always been quick with padlocks, and this one doesn't look like it's rusted at all. It shouldn't take any longer than ten seconds. "Yeah, sure, whatever."
Shinichi mutters a thank you, watches Kaito as he pushes his picks back into the lock, feeling the pins with the top pick, jiggling the lock until they're all firmly up. It takes five seconds, and then, he's pulling the lock off, passing the box back over for Shinichi to open.
Inside, there is a mobile phone, a case file and a set of keys. Shinichi pockets the phone and the keys, offers Kaito a sharp smile that begs him not to ask right now, before placing the case file - it's thick, at least a centimeter thick - on the inside of his suit, inside the pocket Kaito had incorporated into the disguise.
"Okay," Shinichi says, as he closes the box, placing the lock back on. "We need to get out of here."
"That would be nice," Kaito responds as the other teen places the box back into the hole, putting the tile back into place. "I do think maybe we're pushing our luck inside a police station."
"This was your entire idea!"
"I know that," Kaito says, standing back up and glancing over at the door, "and I'm not saying this isn't a good idea, but we're still pushing the limits and as fun as it is, I don't think we'd survive the ridicule of being caught the day after we've escaped prison."
"They'd probably throw us in solitary confinement forever," Shinichi sighs, "not that I'd complain."
Kaito shudders, remembers the image of Aoko staring across at him, her voice ringing in his ears. The movement is visible, shows in the quake of his shoulders and for a moment, Shinichi stops, offering him a small smile. It's meant to be reassuring, but it seems more like pity.
"Let's avoid being locked up again," Kaito says after a while, dragging himself to his feet. "Especially if it means no solitary."
At the door, Shinichi and Kaito share a look, offer sharp nods, before forcing themselves back outside into the corridor. Excitement curdles away into nervousness, and Kaito forces the door closed behind him, glancing up and down the corridor.
If there's anything he's learnt from his heists, it's that it is always easier to get inside a location, than out of it.
"Ran-chan!" Aoko shouts, climbing the steps from Kudanshita station to the street above, where Ran is waiting. "Aoko's so sorry for running late!"
The fact that they've still got over an hour until they're meant to all meet at the police station, leaves Ran wondering whether Aoko notices the irony of her own statement. Instead, she smiles, tells the girl that it's alright and they start their walk towards the police station.
Aoko had called her, asking if they could go to the station earlier today, before either Saguru or Hattori could arrive. Ran knows that she and Saguru have promised not to keep secrets, but she's accepted without telling him about it - she doesn't want to give Aoko any reason not to help them find Shinichi and KID.
"Come on!" Aoko says, offers a grin, and grabs onto Ran's wrist, pulling her along the street until they reach a taxi. And then, Aoko pushes Ran inside, offers another quirked smile and demands for the driver to take them to the police station.
The urgency makes Ran feel nervous.
As the taxi pulls away, Ran crosses her legs, turns to Aoko with a question in her voice. She says, "you never explained why you wanted to go to the station earlier."
Aoko leans back, rests her head against her seat. When she speaks, her previous smile has faded, leaving behind a blank expression not unlike the one's that Ran has read about in KID's case file. "Aoko wants to rewatch the psych files with Ran-chan, just with the two of us."
"Why?"
"She wants to rewatch the first interview, the one where Kudo-kun said working the case from two sides was exhausting," Aoko says, and she leans forward, her gaze meeting Ran's. Her irises dance with conviction - Ran purses her lips in response. "Aoko thinks that Kudo-kun was telling the truth."
Ran narrows her eyes, "Shinichi isn't a criminal."
"Aoko hasn't decided on that yet," she admits, shaking her head. "No, Aoko means that the case was exhausting to him. Aoko wants to rewatch the videos to see if he drops any hints as to why - Kudo-kun said it himself, he's leaving the case for whoever watches the recording."
A frown, Ran feels something fluttering in her stomach, although she's not sure whether it's nervousness or relief. In thinking that Shinichi was fully innocent... has she overlooked what he's been saying? Had he been leaving messages behind for people to look into...
"But... Surely he's leaving it up to the psychologist who was studying him... not for whoever was watching the video recording...?
Aoko bites her bottom lip, shakes her head. "He didn't keep full eye contact with the psychologist. Aoko noticed that he looked at the camera more often that he looked at her."
Ran hadn't notices that - in fact, she's pretty sure that none of them did. She and Hakuba had been so certain he was innocent, that they'd been focusing more on his words and overall body language. How they'd overlooked Shinichi's eye contact...
"Good find," Ran mutters, as the taxi pulls up to the pavement, the police station looming over them. "Let's head up to the computer then, shall we?"
"I thought ya said they were meeting ya at 10 o'clock," Kazuha asks, leaning forward over at the CCTV cameras. Heiji watches her from the corner of her eye, considers the sudden calmness in her voice, and turns to face the monitors. "But those two are here early."
Heiji watches, nervous, as Aoko and Ran walk in through reception, holding his breath. Then, his eyes flicker over to another camera, the outlines of Kuroba and Kudo in their disguises walking down the corridor.
Despite showing no outward signs of being on guard, Heiji can practically feel the paranoia they must be emitting.
"Yeah," Heiji says, pulling at the collar of his shirt - is it hot in here? Or is he just starting to feel the pressure?
"And this is Kudo an' Kuroba?" Kazuha asks, moving her finger to point up at the two criminals, as they take a left down the corridor, towards the staircase.
Heiji mutters a 'yes', and she frowns. "That's gonna be troubling. Tell 'em to stay away from tha' stairwell."
Heiji sends the text without thinking, before asking why.
Kazuha moves her finger down to another screen, the real Takagi and Sato standing in the entrance to the first floor's stairwell, talking to a twin-tailed traffic officer. Heiji feels his heart leap up his throat, tries to reach up to drag it back into his ribcage, and fails.
"Oh shit," Heiji mutters. "I need to tell them."
"Ya can't," Kazuha says, "'cause Nakamori-chan, and Mouri-chan, are on their way. They'll chase after 'em as soon as they can, an' it'll look weird if ya don't go with 'em."
The groan that seeps from his throat, is nothing short of helpless.
"Gimme ya phone," Kazuha says, leaning down to her bag and pulling out a pair of headphones. Placing them in her ears, she glares until the mobile is in her phone. She plugs them into Heiji's phone, unlocks it - she's known the passcode since before he'd even set it, somehow - and turns back to the CCTV footage. "Go help with th' search."
"Kazuha?"
"I promised I'd hear ya out didn't I?" Kazuha mutters, pulling up the records of his most recent calls. "I can't do tha' if yer in jail for abetting criminals. So... jus' for now, I'm on yer side."
The text message, Kaito thinks, offers no explanation, but since it's from Hattori, he accepts it and turns around before they can even set foot in the stairwell.
Minutes later, he overhears the outburst of 'they're in the what?', assumes the worst and realises that things aren't going as well as they could be. Glancing over at Shinichi, he offers his best poker face, a calm exterior to the worried paranoia he now feels.
And then, the phone goes off.
Kaito picks up, relief spreading through his bones as they rush down the corridor, back in the direction of the archives. How did they wake up so quickly - and even then, how have the detectives been discovered so early?
"Oh thank God," Kaito breathes, pulling Shinichi left, rather than right like the ex-convict seems to want to go, "you can get us out of here right?"
"I'll try."Â
The voice is not Hattori's.
Unless Hattori has suddenly learned how to mimic voices, Kaito is extremely certain that the voice does not belong to the detective. The accent is still Osakan, but that doesn't mean anything to him - in fact, it only makes him feel more confused. His friend Kazuha then...? But why would Hattori-
"Heiji ain't available," Toyama Kazuha says, and her tone is quiet, "but I ain't a bad alternative. Turn right."
"I'm not sure I understand what's going on," Kaito asks. He takes her direction anyway, making his way down the corridor with a quick gait, steps like thunder across the floor. "Where is...?"
"He's searchin' for ya, like th' others," Kazuha says. "I found out he was helpin' ya when I came back fer my bag, and he still owes me an explanation, but this once I'll help."
Kaito exhales. He still feels nervous, energy building in him at the sight of danger and the unknown, but there's also a source of comfort there - even if it's not Hattori, there's someone on the other side of the phone willing to help them. He still doesn't know whether he can trust Kazuha, but for now, they don't really have a better alternative.
"Left," Kazuha orders, and then, another left. A right and then the two of them falter when Kazuha tells them to take a right here.
"But that's a dead end," Shinichi mutters. "We can't go down this way."
"Yes ya can-" Kazuha breaks off, and there's muffled conversation, "this room has th' best wifi, I'm watchin' videos while I wait for Heiji... look, do ya want a headphone - ya look stressed, I've got th' best cat video- no... okay..." another pause, "head down that corridor."
Kaito does, and as they're walking down the door, he realises why she's sending him down a corridor with no stairwells or obvious exits.
"What was that about cat videos, miss?" Kaito asks, as they come to a stop at the end of the corridor. He taps his hand against the window, glances at the lock at the bottom and nods his head. It's a fairly low window, almost seems like a hidden fire exit for police officers who need it.
"I'm playin' on my phone, while talkin' to ya on Heiji's. If anyone asks, these headphones are for videos I'm watchin', not talkin' to you guys."
"I almost feel like you need an award." Kaito mutters, glancing at the window, Shinichi keeps guard opposite him, looks over at him as he works on the lock, phone balanced between his shoulder and ear. "That's downright devious."
"Heiji told me ta get ya there," Kazuha says, "an' he's on his way with Kudo's girlfriend... an' yours. Don't take it by surprise, when they notice ya, get out."
She doesn't offer anything else, the line going dead.
Kaito doesn't understand why they need to see him - wait... it clicks almost instantly. If Hattori is seen openly trying to catch Shinichi and Kaito, he loses any suspicion that might fall upon him - it's almost genius. He wonders who came up with it, Hattori, or his protector Kazuha.
It seems almost odd to think that Hattori, supposed kendo champion needs to be protected, but looking at his decision to work with two escaped criminals, breaking laws to help them, it almost makes sense.
"I get it," Kaito says, turning to Shinichi and offering him a small smile. It's weak, worried. "Shinichi, we're gonna get company pretty soon."
"Shit..."
Kaito agrees wholeheartedly, but keeps his mouth shut. The sound of footsteps leaves him moving away from the unlocked window, pulling Shinichi backwards so that he's standing nearer to him.
Hattori comes into view, and then Shinichi's girlfriend, Ran-chan, and then, finally - Aoko.
He offers a wave, a smirk that seems to satisfy the growing hysteria building in his stomach as she faces him. Kaito doesn't even know why it unnerves him to see her face, to watch the wide-eyed stare she gives him, watching it slowly transform into a frown.
"Ran-" Shinichi breathes from beside him, and he takes a step forward, as if to walk towards her.
"Shinichi!" Ran calls, and she's moving forward, in front of Hattori who's frozen, in front of Aoko who is simply staring. "Shinichi?"
More footsteps - it seems that Hattori has brought a legion of police officers along with him, steps sounding more like a death march leading him back to prison.Â
The sound brings him to life again, forces his attention away from Aoko, the curve of her eyebrows as she frowns, the openness of her body language, the way her expression is shuttered, a blankness not even he can read.
"Shinichi," Kaito says, raising his hand so that the teen can't move forward, "do you trust me?"
Shinichi glances at him, shakes his head ever so slightly, and responds, "with your mental state, not particularly."Â
He pushes Kaito's hand down, stares past him to Ran. Kaito feels a fleck of irritation throb at his forehead, wonders whether he can get them out before Shinichi's own love-sickness can get him caught, and decides that there is only really one thing to do.
"That's the spirit," he chirps, and pushes Shinichi from the window.
Ran surges forward, and Kaito uses this moment, to pull a piece of paper from his pocket, tossing it to the ground by her feet.
"Sorry to cut all the reunions short," he says, offers a quick, small bow, "but we've got somewhere to be."
As he throws himself from the window himself, Kaito tries to ignore Aoko's call of 'don't leave.'
(Like with everything else she ever seems to say, it's completely impossible.)
#This is almost 4k long#niceeee#If y'all wanna yell at me in the tags#I'm completely fine with that#In fact I really wanna see your reactions on this one xD#Am I a cruel writer?#I feel like I might be#Fic: Cost of freedom#mywriting#DCMK#Kudo Shinichi#Kuroba Kaito#Nakamori Aoko#Mouri Ran#Hattori Heiji#Toyama Kazuha#Hakuba Saguru#What do you think Kaito dropped - *hint hint* - what do we love KID for?#xD#Also#Kaito's fuckin' savage#ShinRan#KaiAo#KazuHei#(kinda shippy because it mentions feelings and fic pairings)
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Sixty Fifth Encounter-- Above and Beyond
look at all this fucking kleivenn lore. also, we finish the Starbound arc!
The IT once again comes to a stop on the outskirts of the Kleivenn city rather than inside of it. The creature from before does not seem to be near the IT, however, giving them a safe entry. Karumet: Don't suppose we'll be able to get in without being let in...unfortunately, if you had a way to speak to someone in the city, you probably wouldn't have needed to make this trip... Collin: Well, no one thought to give me a magical Kleivenn phone, so it wasn't really an option. At least the giant messed up ones aren't wandering around at the moment. Karumet: Regardless, we should probably try to get someone's attention. As she steps out onto the sands of the city, Nine's voice answers from what is simultaneously everywhere and yet nowhere at all. Nine: Don' be so ridiculous! Y' think I ain't gonna notice ya walkin' around my place? I knew yeh were comin' b'fore y' even stepped out. Now, I'm guessin' yer wantin' 'n audience 'r some'in'? Collin: Essentially, yes. There's something we'd like to talk with you about. Nine: Well, pick a door; I ain't got all day. Well; I guess I do; but there's better stuff t' be doin'. Collin: What, you didn't want to see us again? He answers while he walks over to the closest building and pushes the door open. The door opens to the same hallway; transitioning from battered, dusty sandstone to clean tiles and proper stone, leading into the actual city. Nine: Nah, it ain't like that; I like yer comp'ny; I jus' don' like sittin' around in one place too long.
sounds more like a spiral problem than a nocturne problem
Collin and the others walk down the hallway toward the city. "I suppose I can't blame you there. I assume everything's been alright on your end so far?" Nine: Everythin's been pretty av'rage; jus' a bunch a' th' same ol' stuff. Makin' sure everyone's alright; makin' sure none a' th' 'beasts come slippin' in...borin' stuff. The hallway lets out to an entire courtyard of sorts; a rather large water fountain sits in the center with a large, serpentine, stone dragon in the center of that; the dragon itself is coiled around a large, crystalline vase that pours a seemingly endless amount of water out of it. Around the fountain are four rounded stone benches, and four pathways stretching out from beneath them; two of which lead into the city; one of which leads off to where Nine's "office" is. On the edges of these paths are patches of grass and flowers, various flowered bushes and trees lining the edges of the stone archways and passages. Though there are no visible sources of light, the area still seems to be well lit. More interesting, however, is the fact that the sun has mostly set within the actual city, while it was midday when you landed. Collin: Uh, was that hallway longer than I remember it being, or is there another reason why the sun is in a completely different position now? Nine: Nah, 's always daytime out there. 'S a desert, after all; 's s'posed t' make y' uncomf'rtable. Collin: So time moves differently in here? Nine: Nah; tha' city y' show up in ain't real. If anythin', time don't move out there at all. Collin: Ah. Well then... that's something to think about, I guess. The group continues on down the path to Nine's office. Draped across the arms of her chair, Nine continues to stare up at the ceiling as the group enter the room. She has made no effort to repair or replace the table that Tori broke during their last visit; she's simply shoved it into a corner of the room where it's out of the way. "Anyway; y'all have some'in' t' say?" alienrabitt: Uhh, yeah, I guess. Did you guys ever get attacked by...what was their name; Xentrilis? Blinking a bit, Nine looks over towards the group. "Nah. Ain't seen 'im since th' war. Ain't nobody seen any 'f us since th' war." Collin: Well that's good to hear. Maybe what you saw was the future, then?Nine: Ain't possible. He's dead. Ev'ryone's dead 'cept fer me.
youâre taking that surprisingly well. then again, I guess Nineâs had a few hundred years to get over it
Nydins: But if it hasn't happened, then it will, right? This is the city you saw all torn up and burning down? alienrabitt: Yeah, unmistakably. Nine: Look, y'all clearly ain't gonna listen t' someone who was there; how 'bout y'all scoot on down t' th' library 'n ask Holly t' tell yeh 'bout th' damn war; maybe then you'll realize why Xen ain't gonna come getcha in th' middle a' th' night. Collin: Alright, we'll bite, but this conversation isn't over yet. Stranger things have happened than a dragon god coming back from the dead. Nine: While tha's true; it ain't th' case fer this. Y'll see. Collin sighs and turns to the others. "Alright, I guess we need to find a library for now." Backtracking to the courtyard; the group sort of meanders through the city for a bit before finding the library in question. A young kleivenn, serpentine in body, yet with several sets of wings, is coiled up patiently behind the front desk. Her entire body is a dusty, rose pink, with glowing runic markings barely stretching out from beneath her multiple layers of fluffy, warm clothes. Adjusting her goggles, she chimes out a sincerely welcoming greeting as she waves at the group.
it her
Fawkes: Hello! Are you Holly? ???: Me? Oh, no; I'm only her secretary. Holly's probably in the history section; I can't even remember the last time I saw her leave. Fawkes: Ah, could you point us in that direction, then? Stepping out from behind the desk, the secretary slinks along like a ferret among rows of tables and bookshelves; carefully coiling her tail around her body and folding her wings so as to not knock anything over. "Certainly! This way, please." The group makes their way after her, trying carefully not to bump into anything as well. Guided by the pink secretary; the group arrives at a desk no bigger than three feet wide surrounded by stacks upon stacks of books at least seven feet high each. The desk itself is covered in a multitude of tiny papers and notes; most of which are handwritten in ink by a quill made from a feather no longer than 5 inches. Squeezing around one of the book stacks is a white dragon equally as small as her desk space; tiny frills on the sides of her cheeks and the top of her head similar to Karumet's flap anxiously at the size of the crowd around her workspace. Blinking tiny, red eyes the size of marbles, who you can only assume is Holly adjusts the long, green scarf trailing behind her so that she can be heard around it: "Iris; tours do not extend to my workspace." Iris: Oh, well, yes; I understand this; but these outsiders came to speak with you specifically! Glancing you over in particular, Holly starts climbing one of the stacks of books, a muffled jingle being made with each movement. "Yes; outsiders indeed...must be Nine's doing..." Collin: I'm guessing this isn't the first time she's done this, then? Holly: While it isn't the first time; you're probably the first human to set foot in these walls in over a thousand years. Though I am not offended by your presence; I am...curious as to how you found this sacred place as you are. Collin: Ah, right, I suppose that'd need explaining. To cut a long story short, a little while back Tori and a few other Kleivenn needed help after we escaped from someone doing experiments on them. Karumet brought us here, and Nine helped us out. He gestures casually to Tori and Karumet as he mentions their names. "We came back to warn Nine about a..."vision" that Tori had, but he said that it was impossible and told us that you could tell us why." Holly: ...Interesting; a clairvoyant saa; a wish born from...paranoia? Uncertainty? Insecurity? Depressing.
Iris: M-miss Holly...!! Holly: Well, what in the worlds was this vision? Demo: Xentrilis; crushing through your home like Godzilla; burning it all down. Holly: ...As amusing as you think you are; that's entirely impossible. Only the Holy Mothers left behind godshards; the remaining Eight of the Nine were destroyed entirely. Again, she glances you over. "You should know; you're the ones who killed them all." Collin: Hey, don't give me that. I'm Tori's wishmaker. If anything, I'm on your side. Holly: Then you are either impossibly old, or incomprehensibly in danger; either way, my condolences. The life you lead is neither simple, nor would I truly call it a life at all. Still, I can see why Nine chose to send you all to me; so allow me to educate you. Climbing over a few stacks, Holly grabs one of the top books, shoving it open to a picture similar to the one on the scroll in Lou's house. Holly: Several thousand years ago; when the Earth was inhabited by truly intelligent life; the cosmos aligned in a unique manor that would, in all likelihood, never occur again within the lifespan of the solar system. In this moment; from the concepts of the Earth; rose the original Kleivenn Mothers. Known simply as "Stardust" and "Phoenix" among humankind; the Holy Mothers would, gradually, over the span of their blessed days among humanity, bring the Nine into creation... Holly: The Nine, known as the Holy Others; consisted of Artemis; Orion; Chariot; Xentrilis; Cadivan; Halcyon; Venzibaar; Omnivus; and...Nine, whose true name they have refused to share with us. These Holy Others created the various breeds of kleivenn that continue to walk the span of the multiverse to this very day. Holly: In the more "recent" years of the Earth's life, humanity rapidly grew threatened with the power the kleivenn possessed, ultimately deciding to attempt to drive us to extinction upon the discovery of the common saa. Using methods ranging from creating unique poisons; turning saas upon their wishmakers; and even attempting to create hybrids by merging the known organs and physical forms of both creatures, humanity slowly began to wipe our kind off the face of their homeworld. Holly: Without the help of our kind, and with no human willing to keep a saa alive long enough to find out our weaknesses, humanity began to lose their own war. Out of fear; out of desperation; out of madness; or perhaps a combination; they turned to the only being they knew that would be capable of helping them in their time of need: one of our own gods; Xentrilis. Holly: Xentrilis agreed to help humanity destroy kleivenn-kind under the conditions that the Mothers were to be targeted first, and that he would go unharmed. Agreeing to these blasphemous terms; humanity agreed to this alliance, and began to use saas as grenades; using the combined forces of the magic expelled upon their destruction and the wishes made upon their deaths to shatter and scatter our Mothers, and to bring an end to seven Others. Holly: Incapable of locating Nine after the destruction of our very birthplace and home- Kujaar, the very city you stand in today -humanity decided that the war they had waged had been successful enough; the remainder of our kind now godless, powerless, and fearful. With nowhere else to turn, and with no faith, Xentrilis lost his ability to overpower the humans that had feared him in the war, and he, too, was destroyed by captive saas. Holly: With saas no longer being stolen from the homes of survivors; of the injured; of the sick; of the poor; of the hopeless; of the helpless; the remainder of the kind members of humanity silently swore that they would continue to keep those remaining out of the public eye. From this point on, saas are not known in human history as the creatures you know us as now. They are known as figureheads; politicians; as warriors; as peacemakers; as saints and legends...but, primarily, we are known as myths; as mere whispers on the wind, and flickers in the shadows; simply bedtime stories for children who would never be capable of seeing us, and who would fear us should the day come that this should change...
Collin: Dear God... I knew the war between Kleivenn and humans was bad, but... Fawkes: A genocide. And using members of its own group as weapons... Collin: I don't even know what to say to this... Holly: Yes; I'm sure most of you wouldn't. Carefully, Holly steps away from the book and closes it, returning to her initial stack of books. "And even if Xentrilis had somehow been shattered and scattered; there's simply no way he could return without every single shard being gathered back to one place. The closest he, or the Holy Mothers, could get to returning, in that regard, would be if a saa were to absorb one of their shards into their heart; however that process has never been attempted on any known shards, as the sheer raw power of the Holy Mothers would be too much for a saa to contain, and would reduce them to their crushing point almost instantaneously." Karumet: ...Would it be possible for a saa who hasn't granted their wish to contain a shard after reaching their crushing point? Holly: Hypothetically speaking, if a saa were to maintain both their consciousness and their physical form long enough, and their wish was to return to their form, then yes, perhaps a saa would be capable of containing godshards. This has been entirely unrecorded in the entirety of kleivenn history, however, and would be far more than unlikely. Collin: Uh, that's sort of an oddly specific question, Karumet. Why would you ask something like that? Karumet: When Tori reached his crushing point; he saw two dragons, right? The Mother of Saas and Xentrilis? Holly: ...You were visited by Phoenix Herself? The Phoenix; Nine's lover? And Xentrilis? You're either a saint, or going to kill every last one of us... Karumet: I'm just wondering; if it's possible for a saa to take in shards, and Tori saw Xentrilis attack Kujaar; could it be possible that, in his final moments, he took in the remnants of a god? Holly: ...Are you implying that this saa is Xentrilis reincarnate? This Saa? Born from the wish of a human begging for a chance at life? Absolutely not. His body would reject it, and it would destroy him. Collin: Not only that, where would Tori even get these shards, and why would he want to do something like that? Holly: These shards are not as physical as you might be thinking. With the two of them presenting themselves to your saa in his final moments, it's entirely possible he could have taken either of them in in that instance; however Xentrilis would be highly unlikely. I believe he would have a better chance of taking in Phoenix. Karumet: He reached his crushing point from taking in magic involuntarily; what's saying he stopped being capable of doing that before he reformed? Collin: So, what, are you saying there's a 60-40 split between Tori either being the reincarnation of the mother of all Saas, or the Other that destroyed them all? Holly: 60-40? He either took Phoenix in or reincarnated without them; even then, this entire conversation would've surely spurred some sort of reaction had he truly taken in a godshard. Hearing about the deaths of all your friends and family wouldn't sit well with anyone... Well, I hate to break it to you, but she's right; I don't remember any of that. It just sounds terrifying, and that's probably how it feels for most kleivenn... Karumet: But that doesn't make any sense...why would you see Xentrilis destroying Kujaar if Xentrilis isn't here? Holly: Perhaps it was simply a dream. Dreams can just be dreams at times, no matter how vivid. Fawkes: You are right, technically. However, things are rarely just coincidence in our little group... Holly: And as much as I hate to disappoint you; a rarity is still a possibility... Collin: I guess so... Regardless, I appreciate you telling us all of this. Holly: Certainly! Should you ever have further questions about our history or culture, do not hesitate to return. As intimidating as you are, I see no harm in educating a human sincerely willing to learn for the good of others. Collin seems genuinely surprised. "Intimidating?" Holly: ...You are a human, after all...
wouldnât be the first time Collinâs been intimidating; though itâs...not very hard to scare Rio
Collin: I mean I get that, but- Ergh, nevermind. We'll keep you in mind in case anything else turns up. Nodding, Holly gestures for Iris to return the group to the exit, which she does just as carefully as she the first trip. Iris: Well, what an interesting visit! She seemed to be in a pretty decent mood; I haven't seen her that engaged over a subject in quite a while! Collin: That was a decent mood? Iris: Oh yes; usually she won't even speak to visitors. Collin: Ah. I see... Iris: Hopefully you all found out what you needed to know? Collin: Well, it definitely answers a few things. I'm a little concerned at how easily everyone seems to be brushing us off, though... Iris: Brushing you off? ...Well, while it does sound concerning, Holly has a point; Xentrilis simply doesn't have the same resonance as any pre-existing race of kleivenn; so nothing would be capable of handling the power of so much as one of his godshards, assuming any exist to begin with... alienrabitt: ...But...what if something new existed? Something like a saa, but not one? Iris: ...New? Nine hasn't been able to make anything since the Others died...but..if something new that was similar to a saa came into existence, I suppose that, if it were truly that terrible, then perhaps it could under similar conditions to those your friend described... Collin: ... You guys aren't thinking what I'm thinking, right? Demo: ...First of all; I'm right here...secondly, you heard Holly; if I'd actually taken in some godshard or whatever, I would've reacted to all this already, right? Get real... Collin: I... guess? I don't know what to make of all this, honestly. Demo: There's nothing to make; y'all are paranoid, and there's a reason nobody else here wants to take you seriously.
weeeeeelllll....
Iris: I wouldn't call them paranoid; just...curious! And creative. All this hypothetical is interesting! A breath of fresh air, in my opinion. We could use more of that, honestly. Things get a bit dull around here... Collin: I suppose it would, although in a place like this, dull is better than some of your other options. Iris: ...Yeah, I guess so...regardless, I'm afraid you're out of leads... Fawkes: It seems you are right. So, what should we do now, guys? Should we just go back and leave? Guess so...can't say we didn't try, at least? As the group returns to the IT; XL stops at the console instead of going to her room. "Silky messaged me? She usually doesn't try to do that until way later in the evening..." Nydins: Oh, you two have been talking this whole time? Like pen pals? That's cute... XL: She insisted; Null's not exactly the best company. Tapping away at the keyboard, XL pulls up Silky's latest video message. The camera, rather than being in any sort of office, seems to be in what appears to be in a rather large, vacant room, save for Silky, whose helmet has been connected to the rest of her armor, and some sort of yellow avian with a rather large, red crystal dangling from a cord around his neck. Bouncing excitedly, the avian places a feathered arm around Silky's shoulders, bringing the camera close with his free hand. "Exalaar!! Exalaar!! Hahaha! We have a proposition; Exalaar!! Â You've stolen something precious; Exalaar!! Now you have to return it; Exalaar!!!" Bursting into hysterical laughter for a moment, the avian settles down, grabbing the camera with both hands as he brings it mere inches from his face. "The R-10. Bring it home; Exalaar. Put an end to this cat and mouse; Exalaar. Your time is up; Exalaar." With that, the video ends.
Exalaar 8 sounds more like the name of a star or planet, right?
thatâs XLâs real name
Collin: .... That wasn't good. Rio: H-he...you're not going to...? No...no, no, I can't be scared...it doesn't matter what he wants; he can't actually hurt me... Nydins: What?! We're not just handing you over to some bouncing lunatic!! Besides; if that helmet's functional, he's done more than just hurt Silky...!! Rio: But I can't let him hurt anybody else...Kluex isn't going to stop just because he thinks he's already won... Collin: So that weird pigeon's name is Kluex... but why does he want you? Weren't you just one of Greenfinger's helpers? Rio: ...No. I wasn't just reprogrammed; I was repurposed. I don't totally understand what it all is...I just know I have bits and pieces of technology from all across the sectors. Every time we went to a USCM base, they would try to see how "complete" I was. I remember that I was put through tests of some sort; but I don't remember what they were. Something to see how some sorts of functionalities were working; but every time they did that, I couldn't remember what I'd done... Collin: ... Alright then. I don't know what he wants you for, but he's not laying one stupid feather on you. On the other hand, we still need to rescue Silky. Can we find out where that video came from? XL: I can trace the message and have us there by morning. Collin: Then do it. We don't have any time to waste.
there was supposed to be a break here since everything after this is a new setting. theorettically I couldâve made a new log, but eh
As the IT comes to a stop, the group gathers in the console room. XL and Rio seemingly have not left since yesterday. XL: I've warned Almiet. I don't know if she'll find us or not; but either way, she's looking for trouble, and she's bound to find something. Other than that, whatever's out there is arguably as equally ready for us as we are for them... Collin: Fair enough. Do you know where we've landed? Rio: The coordinates traced back to an avian planet in the X sector...we peeked outside; there's some sort of...absolutely massive ship parked in the building. I'm surprised it even fit... Collin: Fair enough. So we're breaking into a ship, huh? Do we have a plan, or are we just kicking down the front door and letting ourselves in? XL: They called us; I'm sure they'll let us in... Collin: Well, fair enough. I want Rio sticking close though. I'm not letting anyone lay a hand on her. Rio: ...Um...alright...I'm not exactly sure how well that will pan out, but it's still comforting... With that, the group heads out of the IT towards the other ship. Interfacing with the door, Rio is capable of opening the ship herself. Entering the ship, the group finds massive, metallic, gray and white halls; most of which have long lines of colored light accenting them. Different halls seem to have different colored lines, as if the lines signify sections of the ship. From the main entrance, there are three choices; two varying shades of blue, and one white. alienrabitt: Well, which way should we go...? Rio: ...The white one. I don't want to go any other direction...honestly, I'd be happier to just...leave; but we can't... As the group starts towards the white-striped hallway; a low, mechanical voice interrupts them from overhead: "No, no; you don't go that way. Your friends? Yes. You? Absolutely not. Stand in the circle and wait. Failure to comply will result in punishment." Collin: And why the hell would we do that? ???: R-10 is cargo. Do not fear for her safety. She will go unharmed. She is arguably more valuable to our purposes in her current state than she was upon her construction. It's exciting, to say the least! Please don't stand in our way; we don't like stooping to the violent levels of organics.
I think I managed to convey that they all speak as a âcollective,â but they all have separate views. theyâre kinda like The Delightful Children from Down the Lane tbh. not really a hivemind, but unified in goals and mentality
Collin: Carg- You better tell me your name right now so I know who to disassemble once I get up there! ???: We are the Pentagonal. This is your third and final warning: separate from R-10; or the hylotl will be subjected to punishment. Collin clenches his fists and begins taking several deliberate breaths to try and steady himself. He glances over to Rio, unsure of what to do. Glancing up to the ceiling briefly before looking to XL, Rio starts backing away from the group. "They're right. They can't hurt me. And Nydins is right, too; Silky's already in trouble...I...I should..." Demo: ...Why? Why are they making us choose? They're? tough, right? If they really wanted you, they could've just taken you by force already and been done with it. ???: Absolutely not! With all of you surrounding R-10; it would be too likely that she would be damaged in the process. Even the smallest amount of damage to the proper places would kill her in an instant. We refuse to take such risks. But you refuse to leave your friends behind. You will comply. Collin: God /dammit/. Rio, I... Rio: ...It's okay. I'll be okay... With that, Rio enters the circle designated on the floor. There is a low rumble as the circle begins to sink below like an elevator, and the floor closes up seamlessly behind Rio after she lowers out of sight. There is no response from the Pentagonal; leaving the group in silence.
has a bit of a Star Wars feel, huh?
After a moment, Collin swings his fist into the closest wall, which crumples with the ease of a soda can. Collin's arm and gauntlet seem completely unaffected by the impact, and he shakes his hand out as he speaks. "They're going to pay for this..." XL: I fully intend for them to. The entire resistance will find us sooner or later. Almiet has a solid record when it comes to dealing with these people. One way or another, this war is coming to an end tonight. Collin: Good to hear. Let's get moving then. The group continues following the white-lined hallway. Though it too branches into three paths at the end; the center path is blatantly the correct way to go; leading to a large, empty, circular room, where Silky stands by a different avian than the one from the call. This new avian, baby blue in base color, has brilliant red and yellow markings dyed into his feathers. Aside from the long, red cape draped over his shoulders, he wears little more than a simple, navy loin cloth, and a large, golden, bird-shaped pendant; an equally large, red jewel latched into its talons. Kluex: ...So this is it. The human who killed Atlas, and the hopeless gaggle of misfits that assisted him. These are Inari's precious guard dogs? I can hardly believe it. Collin: You're not exactly an intimidating sight yourself. Did you wake up late and forget to put some clothes on before you ran out the door? Kluex: Says the human in an Aperture jumpsuit. At least I've changed clothes.
There is the sound of a door closing on the opposite end of the room as a woman calls out to Kluex: "Step aside; I can handle the rest from here." Beady eyes narrowing, Kluex glances behind himself. "You want to be left alone with these heathenous cowards?" The woman, who is likely in her early to mid 20s, steps into view. Dressed in mostly purple and black; the lower half of her face is obscured by a bandana; while the right side is mostly obscured by her black hair, which is significantly longer in the front than the back. Crossing her gloved arms, the woman clacks her boot on the floor impatiently. "This isn't about opinions; it's about impressions; Kluex. And if you don't get moving, you'll be leaving quite the impression in the floor."
I wasnât kidding; she really does look kinda like Sombra
Straining to hold in his contempt, Kluex breathes out a quiet, yet respectful "Understood" before taking his leave. Collin: It looks like we're meeting all sorts of new people today, huh? I assume you already know who we are, though. ???: So we are! I've been looking forward to meeting you in person as well. The other human...the legend...the foil...it's impressive! You come onto the scene out of nowhere, and take out in an instant two figureheads that the resistance couldn't even find over the span of the entire war on their own! How could I not want to bring you here? But I'm being rude; you aren't from around here, so you aren't familiar with our names. I'm Asra Nox. XL: You?! You're the Asra Nox? But you're just-- Asra: Human? Yeah; I get that a lot. Collin: Uh, someone wanna fill in the people who aren't from this universe? Asra: Everyone knew there was a fifth party involved in this little arms race between races; but nobody could put any faces or names to them. Some suspected I was a novakid; or perhaps a penguin; but no...I'm very much human. Not a cyborg; no magical prowess; simply...organic. Atlas and Greenfinger were curious about me, to say the least. The Pentagonal saw potential in allying with me, and personally sought me out, offering to meet my demands in exchange for the opportunity to observe me in the process. Kluex was the only member that seemed hesitant to have me on board; he doesn't see my potential like the others. He seems convinced that I have...bigger plans... Collin: Then what are your plans? You seem to be playing with some some very big names here, after all. I would assume whatever you want would have to be pretty big to require doing that, right? Leaning up against Silky, Asra snaps her fingers. "You would be correct in that assumption." The entire back wall lights up as a giant screen; five, humanoid silhouettes are seen seated at a table; two of which are already on the edges of their seats. After a few more moments, a large rig of cords and wires lowers from the ceiling in front of the wall, Rio strung from them like a puppet, her accents and the eyes in her visor now a dull gray color. Collin: RIO! What did you bastards do to her?
The figure on the furthest right bounces eagerly in their seat. "This is it!! This is it!! This is the R-10!! It can do anything! It can interact with anything!!" They pause, clapping excitedly. "What should we shut down first?!" Asra: ...Any suggestions? I'm feeling pretty generous. XL: Let her go!! Let them both go!! Put an end to this madness!! Asra: I am putting an end to it. You said it yourself, right? 'This war is coming to an end, one way or another?'
see originally Asra was gonna have some long-winded conversation with Collin about his opinions on the aliens and such heâd befriended, only to tell him that all of them were bad and selfish and that they were likely lying to him to gain his trust just so they could use him; this wouldâve spiraled into the Bad Route where Asra wouldâve âofferedâ to âhelpâ Collin see the âtruthâ about things like them, but thatâs one of two alternates that never happened
Collin: What, do you really think turning Rio into some kind of hacking machine is going to end the war? The other interested Pentagonal chimes in: "Dial her up, Asra. Before one of us dies of suspense." Turning to face Rio, Asra responds: "Get me Almiet." The screen on the back wall divides in half within seconds as Almiet answers on a different ship. Almiet: "Asra Nox! It's been too long." Asra: We haven't met face to face before... Almiet: "Oh, don't worry; I'll fix that real soon." Asra: I'm afraid not. This game is over. Almiet: "Guess again." The view of the room she's in widens to reveal a significantly smaller control room than that of the S.S. Koi. "I'm alone. And I'm coming for you myself." Asra: You always think you're one step ahead of everyone; don't you? Almiet: "No; I never think. It takes too long. I already know what I need to do; and I'm doing it." Asra: Then you and I might not be so far behind each other. Snapping a second time seems to cause every ounce of lighting save for the emergencies in Almiet's ship to cut off. Squinting briefly, Almiet pulls up her hood. Almiet: "Everything's off. Even the air. Even the engine. You're trying to strand me." Asra: I don't try; I get results. Almiet: "Then I'd say you and I are actually on the exact same page." Reaching down to grab her spear, Almiet visibly braces herself for impact. As if on cue, her video cuts out in the very instant the larger ship rocks slightly. XL: ...You're right. The war will end. But it's our win. Not even giving Asra the decency of hearing her violin; Almiet comes barreling down the hallway, blade at the ready as she skids to a halt. "So you finished the rig? Big deal! This is Rio we're talking about!! She's one of us; so you can't possibly hope to keep her down!!" Asra: ...Now who said I wanted anyone out of the picture? Tell me, are you familiar with Erchius? XL: ...This...this ship isn't the Pentagonal...it's a cage!! Stepping forth into the small crowd, Asra points to Collin and Tori before making a downward gesture. Within an instant; the pair is beamed to a different part of the ship with Asra. Collin: Shit! Where did you just take us? Asra: ...The two of you. I was told there was only one person responsible for everything; but when the Pentagonal "interrogated" your friend, she knew about both of you. It was like watching a second timeline; entirety inexplicable, and yet...the only thing that made sense. We had such little time to prepare; I couldn't find a proper way to put an end to something like him...but I did find something to slow you down. Asra makes an upward gesture this time, and Tori is restrained against a large sheet of metal within moments. Collapsing down into a chair, the metal's new form no longer hides the massive tank of sickly blue liquid behind it. Flickering between his lighted form briefly, Tori groans as he struggles to free himself to no avail, giving up uncomfortably quickly. Collin points his gauntlet straight at Asra. "I don't know what the hell that is, but you let him go right now or I guarantee that you are not leaving this room." Asra: ...You don't want to do that. I'm the only one that could release your glitch friend without destroying her personality. Besides; she's going to be here in a moment. Would you really want her to see you do something like that? Collin: What? Why are you bringing her here? Asra: Because I need her to open the door for me. Erchius is obedient; but it can get...eager. Collin: What are you talking about? Who the hell is Erchius?
well, more of a what. sheâs actually talking about the Erchius Horror, which is from the Erchius Mining Facility (the codex entries are super fucked)
As Rio lowers down into the room, many of the cords and wires disconnect, save for one large, central one. Making eye contact with both Collin and Tori briefly, Rio turns her attention to Asra, speaking in a flat tone: "It's ready." Asra: ...Can I ask you something personal? Would you do this? Would you want to? Rio stares at her for quite some time before giving a response: "...No." Asra: ...Then I won't push this envelope further. Get the door; we need to work quickly. alienrabitt: ...I don't know...what you're doing...but don't...don't make her do it to him.... Asra: Oh no, she won't be involved. It's only me and him. I don't want to kill either of you. Collin: Do what, dammit? You still haven't answered to anything I've said! Asra: ...You'll find out firsthand. I won't need to answer. Stepping across the room, Asra heads for a door that does not open until she is immediately in front of it. "This way." Collin: And just leave Tori hooked up to this...thing? Asra: ...Let me ask you something; if I were to step down; let this entire war slide; let your friends go; would you even bother hearing me out? Collin: ... I'd be extremely confused as to what sort of game you're playing here, but... I can listen. Asra stands in the doorway for what feels like hours in silence before stepping back into the room. "...At a loss for how to handle it; the  delegates and diplomats of each race met to develop a plan to stop the beast responsible for destroying an entire planet that was still roaming free among the sectors. The ceature that ate the planet Earth...was sealed away in a meteor. A giant meteor. This was the only solution anyone could come up with that would bring no harm to other parties..." Asra: But a meteor of that size doesn't form naturally. And a creature that size doesn't just slide into a meteor, either. It would have to be created by other means...by magic. An art form long thought to be gone; there were barely any left who practiced such things; let alone those with power strong enough to create and maintain something of that size. They burned through a multitude of magic users to create the meteor, my mother included. This stopped the creature for a time; but the meteor was frail on it's own, and soon, it began to crack like an egg... Asra: At a loss for what to do, these delegates accepted that the creature would break free, slowly consuming the sectors one planet at a time. But humanity is unique in comparison to all these...things. We deal with everything in extremes; right down to the very emotions we express. My father, the last magic user; The Last Mage; stepped forward when no others could. With the futures of multiple civilizations on the line; he didn't even stop to question whether his life was a fair price to pay. Reinforcing the meteor with every ounce of his magical power; my father lost his life to the creature as well; but saved every being among the sectors. Asra: ...Twenty years later; that very meteor is coming back. Contained to a point, but alive, that creature is seeking out freedom; seeking out more...
ah yes, The Ruin...beware; starbound spoilers
Collin: ... And you want us to stop it, am I right? Asra: ...You could. Or, we could do what I've been doing, and keep running. Collin: Run? What good is that going to do for anyone? Asra: It would bring an end. To the war. To the boundaries of the sectors. To every single soul that...demanded my parents die for them...out of their own ignorance and cowardice... Collin: You expect me to just stand aside an let an entire universe's worth of life be wiped out by some planet-sized blender? You realize you'd be throwing away what your parents died for in doing that, right? Asra: They shouldn't have died for them to begin with!! They knew what the consequences would be shouldering that kind of thing on their own; they should've known better than to just...give up! There had to be a better way to handle it; out of all the technology available; none of it could stop something like that? I can't believe that! Collin: I... don't have the answer to that. I don't know enough about this universe's technology, and I certainly can't see into theoretical futures. Regardless of whether or not it was the best decision, it was a decision that they made. I'm certain that they wouldn't have made such a grand sacrifice if they truly thought that there was another option at the time. Asra: ...It doesn't matter which one of us is right. That thing is still coming...if none of us can stop it for good; everybody trying to fight this war, good or bad, is going to die. alienrabitt: ...Why...? Asra: Because of the giant--!! alienrabitt: ...Why did you call it here...? Asra: Wh...what? alienrabitt: ...You lied...Erchius...it isn't here...you used it...used Rio...to bring the meteor here... Collin: What? How did Rio bring a sealed up planet destroyer here? alienrabitt: ...It's a chain of fish. Asra rigged Erchius...Rio manipulated Erchius...Erchius manipulated the thing...it's dragging the meteor here... Collin: Well, so much for the "run" plan, huh? alienrabitt: ...Don't be ridiculous. We parked the IT...in front of her front door... Asra: ...Where are you even drawing these conclusions from? alienrabitt: I can see it...I can see...everything you're trying. The coffin; the fragment; our friends. You steal the IT...you take it to our Earth...between the two of us; you get what you want; but you're not happy...we're not people like that...you know that...you regret it...what you did to him...so don't. Don't run...you can make this right... Backing away in discomfort, Asra finally starts looking nervous. "I...I..."
this oneâs an interesting one; 2riâs talking about the Bad End Asra wouldâve caused. I actually debated trying to make Asra a separate person for a bit, but ultimately I decided against it. she still wound up acting different from this point, though, which is what I wanted
alienrabitt: ...Go upstairs. End this. You have to...someone has to...or it'll kill us...all of us... Collin: For what it's worth, I can lend a hand. There's a bit more to me than you might think at a glance. Asra: ...If you can, then feel free to try. I wasn't kidding; I don't even have a fraction of my parents' power. Collin: Let me do the heavy lifting then, I can take it. Just let me know what needs to be done. One last time, Asra gestures up, bringing only her and Collin to the upper levels of the ship. Pulling down the bandanna covering her face, Asra heads for the area where Almiet crashed in. "...He was right. All your friends are stuck back on your ship. I wasn't planning on killing any of you." Collin follows behind her. Collin: Could've fooled me. So, what's our objective? Seal this thing away, or try to end it here and now? Asra: ...It's already sealed; just not enough...dad did what he could; but...he wasn't perfect. No normal human could totally seal this thing alone... Collin: Well, here's a little tip for you... His eyes flash purple for a split-second. "I am not your average human."
I kinda knew who we were gonna see next based on that tbh. I was pretty hype
Asra: ...Then we might stand a chance after all. Stepping out onto the upper half of the small ship Almiet undoubtedly hijacked from somebody else, Asra looks up to the sky, already beginning to darken as some large, misshapen "ball" begins to block out the sun. Collin: I'm gonna make a quick guess and say that's our target. Am I right? Asra: Seems like it. Think you'll be able to handle that? Collin: Shouldn't be too hard. I had to actually wrestle the last giant monster I had to deal with; this one can't even fight back! You guys just enjoy the show, we've got an idea. Asra: ...'We'? Collin climbs out of the hole Almiet's ship made and drops all the way down to ground level. His leg's air shard sends out a cushion of air which scatters the grass and cushions his landing, and he strides out a ways from the ship until he's surrounded by a decent area of land. He takes a deep breath, stretching out his arms to the side, and speaks briefly to himself. Collin: Alright... I think I get the plan, but I'm going to need some help with getting enough power for this. I knew I should've just topped off from Firefly's tanks before we left. Maybe we can- Right, nevermind, later. Alright, let's do this thing! Collin's eyes turn purple again, and he is consumed by a flash of purple light. When it fades, a young man has taken his place. His torso is completely obscured by a purple cloak, its surface shifting and swirling like oil floating over water. He wears a simple pair of circle framed glasses, although one lens is covered by a small eyepiece cast in brass. He extends his arms out to the side, opening his robe, and the inner surface of the cloak appears to be a galaxy spotted by countless stars. His body is covered by various utility belts lined with pouches and containers of every size, and at his hip is a golden wand wrapped in weathered paper and capped with bone at either end, which quickly snaps to his left hand. He looks up at the object obscuring the sun, and smiles slightly. ?: They were so close... the poor things. Rest easy, your work shall not be in vain. I have sealed things far more powerful than you, monster. Take heart, for your prison will be one of the finest this universe will ever know. He begins moving his wand around in slow, fluid movements, casually turning his body in a circle as he does so. Certain areas of the ground begin to glow with runic markings, and as he finishes his circle, the runes are ripped up out of the ground, and the six mounds of earth instantly take the shape of diamonds, one point at each tip and four points ringing the middle in a square. The man's motions change to sharp, directional swings, and the diamonds begin to etch themselves with glowing runes, each diamond possessing a different color. He then snaps his wand straight up, and the diamonds hurtle sharply into the air, coming to stop instantly in a ring high above his head. He spins in a circle and then points his wand directly at the ball in the sky, and the diamonds skyrocket through the atmosphere up to the object, each one taking a position around the ball to form a three-dimensional cross with the ball at its center. The man slashes the wand downward, and the diamonds slam into the surface of the ball, spinning rapidly as they bore into the surface, quickly digging themselves down to their midpoints before stopping. Finally, the man points his wand directly at the object, and a burst of white light erupts from the wand's tip, hitting one of the diamonds' points and arching out to all of the others. There is a blinding flash, and as the light dims, the ball's surface is now converted into an incredibly complex and intricate series of interlocking circles and runes, with the diamonds jutting out from its surface. The man casually stows away his wand and retracts his arm back into the robe, smiling in a satisfied way, and Collin returns in another flash of purple light, his markings completely gone save for his left hand.
Squinting at Collin, Asra shakes her head. "Maybe not so human; yeah..." Collin looks up at the newly formed prison in the sky, and then flops backwards gracelessly onto his back, limbs spread out haphazardly on the grass. He calls out from below to whoever can hear him. "I'm okay! Just... a little winded..." Glancing from the ball to Collin, Asra carefully attempts to get closer to the ground. "You...you? You did it; I'm not sure how; but you did it! I'm impressed. Confused; but impressed." Collin: It was... a group effort. Thank Precantaro, he... he did most of the headwork making that thing. He says it was remarkable work, but they didn't have the...manpower to finish out the details. He just polished up the design a bit, added his own touch... Nothing's breaking out of that thing... Asra: You shapeshifted; or something like it. I've never seen anything like that. It was phenomenal; but unfortunately Kluex's empire might've been the only other witnesses. There shouldn't be any backlash, though; the sun's almost equally sacred to them, so if anything they'd be grateful. Though I don't think any of them would know what that thing is from here... Collin: Well, I'll take what breaks I can get. Just as long as they don't want me to move that thing too... I'm sure you guys can handle that. Collin rolls over and pushes himself onto his feet, pausing to dust himself off. "Now then, get Rio out of that godforsaken machine, give us Silky back, and let us out of here." Asra: ...Right. Turning back to the ship, Asra makes several vague gestures before stepping back through the hole and interacting with a panel on the nearby wall. Several moments later, the IT is dragged through the ship like a prize in a claw machine, carefully placed beside Asra in the hallway. "Rio should be up with your other friend in a bit."
that image is so silly to me, omg...
Collin: And Tori? Did you already get him out of that freaky chair thing? Asra: Who did you think Rio was bringing? Inari's in the box with the rest of your friends. Collin: It's "Silky". Asra: ...Yeah, Silkwaltzer Inari; also known as Mizuchi's Jewel. I remember seeing her on TV as a kid; she was beautiful...but Atlas ruined that, too. Fortunately, he didn't plan on the person responsible for that armor to see it again. It'll take some time, but I'm sure I could find a way to force the armor to unbind from her without killing her. Also, the helmet doesn't function. She thought I didn't notice; but I don't think she knows I made the whole set.
yyyep, thereâs Silkyâs reveal too!
Collin: You what? Asra: I made that armor myself. I wasn't magical like my parents, but I'm smart. Damn smart. If I made it; I can break it. I can set her free; fix the mistake Atlas made. If I'd known he was gonna use it on her, I would've made it way more dysfunctional... Collin: Dear God, when? This would be huge for her! Asra: Probably about 5 years ago. I'm sure I still have the blueprints; I could look it over for a while; probably bust her out in a week or two... Collin: Let me go get her, she needs to hear about this. Asra: Be my guest. Collin quickly steps inside the IT. The remainder of the crew, including Almiet and Silky, are in the console room. Silky has long since ditched her helmet, and her and XL have been speaking with Almiet this whole time. Almiet: ...Oh; it's the guy! The Collin one, right? It's so hard to tell humans apart... Collin: I mean, I'm the only one with a prosthetic leg like this... I hope? Almiet: That's...fair. Well, watcha got? Collin: That Asra person made Silky's armor. She thinks she can break Silky out of that thing. XL: ...The leader of the opposing factions of the war wants to help the ex-girlfriend of her late co-conspirator? Why? She knows the helmet didn't work, right? Collin: Actually yeah, she knew the helmet was busted the whole time. Silky: ...She didn't bust me in front of the Pentagonal... Almiet: She also didn't stop you from bringing us all back here! I'd say she figured you'd help us out alive no matter what. Y'know, despite everything, she really is still a good kid.
interesting thing Almietâs been saying that nobody pointed out; Almiet knew Asra before all of this
XL: Why are we trusting the war criminal suddenly? Collin: Aren't you guys also technically criminals? Almiet: Mostly me. But we did it for good! Asra; not so much... Collin: I can't argue there, but I think she's trying to redeem herself, to some degree. If you want to chase this, be my guest, but I can't make you trust her. Almiet: And if you still don't trust her; bring Rio. Wherever she is... Collin: Asra said she and Tori were on the way here. I imagine they'd be here soon. Maybe I should wait outside, though... Almiet: I'm sure we're not the only ones she needs to make up to; so I'd have to agree. Collin: You're welcome to come with if you want to question her yourselves, but I'm heading out. Collin turns and heads for the IT door. Asra is standing out in the hallway with Rio and Tori. Tori, however, is mostly draped over Rio instead of really standing on his own. Asra: Sorry about the speedwell; I tried to seriously water it down with other things, but I wasn't sure what would actually work or not. Fortunately, you didn't overdose or slip into a coma... alienrabitt: Nah, don't feel too bad...it wasn't as bad as it looked. Honestly, the worst part was how out of whack it was making me. I couldn't stop, well, seeing things. It was hard to pick out what was going to happen; what was possible; and what was actually happening, honestly. Collin: Okay I'll try one last time: Does anyone wanna tell me what the hell that chair thing was? Asra: The chair was hooked up to a tank full of some incredibly low-grade speedwell poison. The flower's totally harmless to literally anything and everything else; but it's a different story for whatever your friend is. It was hard to tell myth from fact around here, though, since there's barely been any recorded cases of anything like him here, so I just went under the assumption that giving him a solid dose would absolutely kill him and tried to use as little as possible. Realistically most of that was a bunch of other stuff I had for similar purposes.
speedwell poison is an even older reference to my like, very first persona
it was inspired by Taggerung, âcause Dayna had a marking shaped like a speedwell flower
Collin: ... Suddenly I'm right back up on the fence about you. Asra: Like I said, it was only enough to slow him down. I didn't want him breaking out and stopping me before I'd...well, nevermind. alienrabitt: Oh, so you actually were planning on doing that? Fuck you. Asra: But I didn't! I'm glad I didn't; he's alright. Collin: ... Do I want to know? Rio: I'm guessing this is about the Erchius shard. Th-the fact that you even had that...I don't even want to think about what that would actually? do to a person... Asra: Less than you'd think, but more than you'd like. Collin: I really don't like what this conversation is implying... Asra: Listen, Erchius is entirely safe in a controlled environment; you just need to be very careful about it. If it gets too eager or something, it'll start messing with whatever it wants; but otherwise, it's very precise. Probably would've taken a few tries, but-- ah, gosh, old habits; I just can't help it, though; everybody told me Erchius was too self-centered to be used practically; but I did it. Honestly; it's like these people never tried to train anything before... Rio: Y-you used that on multiple people?! Asra: Only for Kluex's bird buddies; I never really got to-- ahhh, you almost got me again! You rascal. Collin pinches the bridge of his nose. "God, I don't know how much more of this I can take..." Asra: Well, if it makes you feel any better, the personality stays in tact. Erchius doesn't like that kind of thing. alienrabitt: I swear to the gods, if I could actually move... Asra: Hey, hey, I backed down...nobody got hurt... Collin: I'm really beginning to question your trustworthiness here, Asra. Asra: Listen, I would never hurt another human. I just didn't know if you'd try to fight your way out of the situation before you found out all your friends were actually safe. Had to find a way to stop you somehow.... Rio: You could've just...left me alone? Asra: But then Almiet wouldn't have shown up. Everything had a reason; don't worry... Collin: I... guess? I don't know, I'm just worn out at this point. Precantaro took a lot out of me back there... Rio: Maybe you should have seafood instead...
no, no, heâs not italian food...
alienrabitt: I...think he's talking about-- nevermind. We should go. Asra: Suit yourselves. I'll start looking over the armor, then. See you later! Collin: Right, I... guess we'll check back in later? He shrugs, and then pulls open the door of the IT for Rio and Tori. Slightly nervous still, Rio half-heartedly waves goodbye to Asra as she helps Tori back onto the IT Collin steps in after them and closes the door.
whew, alright; that one was a bit longer. next one should be way less âactive,â whatever it is.
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Letâs not fall in love - Jaebum scenario
Jaebum x reader word count: 2582 genre:Â angst, kind of fluff? warning: language, mentions of blood. author: sammy
AN: This scenario was inspired by the anime Kaichou Wa Maid Sama, so it follows the asian schools pattern (kinda) I hope you all enjoy it.Â
P.S.: This is my (Sammy) first scenario in english, sorry if thereâs any mistake
After climbing a lot of stairs, I finally found the apartment number 502.
I knocked twice and wait, holding the anxiety in my belly.
âAct like the student council president, not like a little girl in loveâ, I mentally repeated to myself.
No one opened the door, I knocked again, harder.
âGuess heâs not thereâ, a random guy smoking said.
âYouâre his friend?â
The stranger seemed to think.
âYou can say soâ
âI need to talk to him, do you know when he will come back?â I asked the guy, he looked somewhere and release smoke through the nose.
âIn two seconds maybeâ
Seconds? Nice, crazy people.
âCan you move away from my door?â
I turned and saw him, he was wearing and black hoodie and smelled lightly cigarette.
âIm Jaebumâ
ây/n l/nâ
âTo you is President l/nâ
He looked away discontent.
âWhat you want with me? Came to a private visit?â
He havenât change.
âYou donât come to the school its been two months. The tests will begin next week, you still have the chance to not repeat for absence. If you donât go, your name will be no longer in the school registerâ, I opened my backpack and took the folder âThose are the subjectsâ.
âNo, thanks. Can you move away now?â
I took a large breath.
âThatâs what you want for your life? Seriously? Just because ofââ
âYah! Do you think you have the right to say something?â He stared deeply at me.
âAs the president of the school that you supposed to be at, I think I do. Â You have one week to come back, or youâll be expelledâ
âNot that you care, but the last time I was there, I punch half of the basketball team. Is that someone that you want in your school?â
âI donât care about what you did. By the way, if you come back I will erase this episode off you recordâ he raised an eyebrown.
âYou seemed to care a lot when that happenedâ he said with a serious tone âIâll think about it. Now moveâ
I smiled and moved away, going to the stairs, but feeling his stare at my back.
 âMorningâ I said the next day, sitting behind my table.
âGood morning presidentâ the other council members answered.
âPresident, the month is about to end, should I remove the name of Im Jaebum off the students system?â
âNot yet, Sato. I gave him one week to come backâ
âY-you talked to him?â my friend, the vice president, asked.
âYes, I got his address at the systemâ I opened my math book.
âYou shouldnât do that anymore, heâs dangerous, he could hurt youâ
No one at the council knew about the two of us before the basketball episode happened, not even my best friend Yui.
âStop the drama, Yui. Heâs not a bad guyâ
âHeâs hereâ someone said looking through the window, I stood to see as well.
Jaebum was wearing the same black hoodie under the schoolâs uniform. His backpack was hanging in the shoulder. Some girls that talked over there backed away quickly.
âYou can go now, warn the 3C teacher that Im Jaebum will be thereâ
âOkay, see you later presidentâ
âBye, Y/nâ Yui said.
As soon as everyone left, he entered and sit across my table.
âSoâŠIâm hereâ he said.
I grabbed a bubblegum package in my pocked and gave to him.
âYou havenât quit the cigarette, huh?â he took the pack and eat one.
âYouâll remove that suspension off my record or not?â
âI removed yesterdayâ
âWhat? Why?â
âI knew that you would come if I askedâ I smiled at him. He laughed ironically with that beautiful smile I used love to see.
âHow cockyâ he took his backpack and moved to the door, I followed him.
âDo you still remember whereâs your looker?â
âI remember everythingâ his eyes stared at me and I knew what he was talking about.
âWhy didnât you come back?â I looked down âYou were suspended for only two weeks, Jaebumâ
âMaybe I didnât want to come back. Who could blame me?â I held his stare for less then ten seconds âWhat happened to the moron basketball team captain?â
âHis father took him out of schoolâ
âGreatâ
We left the room and I locked it.
âHey, youâ I called the kid that was walking by the corridor âWhereâs your pass?â
He keep walking pretend he didnât listened, but Jaebum grabbed him by the collar.
âShe asked âwhereâs your passââ Jaebum said intimidating the boy. He got nervous and grabbed the pass out his pocket. Jaebum let him go and the boy ran to the bathroom.
âThat was unnecessaryâ I said.
âI though funny, he got paleâ
âGo to your class, and donât disturb anyoneâ
âPresident?â he called, soon his arms were in the wall behind me, his face got close and whispered âYou wonât get rid of me easily nowâ
âI knowâ
 The last class was physical education. Yui and I changed in the locker room, ready to play volleyball. But before going to the court I saw a familiar face sitting on the bleacher with a cheerleaders pompom and a sarcastic face.
âWhy Im Jaebum is cheering for us?â Yui asked.
âPick a team, Yuiâ I told her and went to Jaebum âWhat youâre doing here? Youâre supposed to be on the basketball teamâ
âMy back hurtsâ he said with a fake pout. I knew that this was only an excuse.
âGo the nursery room thenâ
âI wanted to see you playâ he smiled  âYou still wear this shorts after what happened?â he pointed to my short shorts.
âThatâs the physical education uniform, all the girls wearâ
âYou could use a large oneâ I sense the jealous in his voice.
âIâll take you to the nursery myself after the gameâ
âPresident youâre at my team!â Hana raised her hand.
I loved the volleyball classes, boys stayed away and I could calm down around the girls.
The school boys messed up a lot, always intimidating the girls and the weakest ones. When I became the council president I had to fix their behavior, and⊠well, I hasnât the most loved one because of this.
âHey, Jaebum wasnât expelled after that fight? Whatâs he doing here?â a girl at my team asked.
âHe was just suspendedâ Yui said.
âHeâs hotâ another girl said looking at him and missing a ball.
âAttentionâ I said.
They keep quiet until the subject returned.
âIs it true that he knocked the basketball team because of a girl?â
I freeze.
 âJaebum! What are you doing?!â He was on top of the team captain, Jaebumâs fist was covered in blood and it keep hitting the captainâs face. ïżœïżœïżœJAEBUM!â
 âY/n!â
Before I could raise my hands to defend the ball it was already in my face, and I was at the ground.
My nose burned and I could barely breath.
When I opened my eyes all the girls were around me and blood ran through my nose violently.
âMove!â a hand pushed away the girls and I saw Jaebumâs worried face âWho needs to go to the nursery now?â he said in a low voice.
Yui was terrified, asking if she should call someone or and ambulance.
âIâm okay! Enough dramaâ I covered my nose wishing that it didnât break.
âKeep the game, Iâll take her to the nurseryâ Jaebum took my free hand helping me stand and put the other hand on my waist giving support. But soon as I stood everything started to swirl, my feet didnât seem to be on the ground.
âThe ball hit you hard, it must had hurt your internal earâ I felt something behind my knee and I when I realized, Jaebum was carrying me.
âJ-Jaebum put me on the ground, if someone see me like thatââ
âShh, stay quiet, okay?â
I was dizzy and with too much blood on my face and mouth. Jaebum carried me slow, I placed my head on his shoulder so the world stop spinning.
For a moment the memories came back.
 âWe shouldnât be here. My class will come to the volley and yours to basketâ I whispered feeling his lips at the sweet spot on my neck, his hand caressed my thigh.
âI donât wanna play todayâ his voice tickle my neck.
âBut I have to, sorryâ I lightly pushed his shoulders. He sighed with the forehead on my shoulder.
âFine, but seriously, think about using a larger shortsâ
âWhy? Boys hate me anywaysâ
âI donât hate youâ he pouted cutely. I couldnât resist and I pecked him before moving away from his lap. I quickly ran my hands through my hair.
Some voices echoed in the locker room when the basket team entered.
âIâm not saying this again, Im Jaebum, keep your stuff inside your locker. This is a school not your houseâ I threw the jacket that was on the ground at him. I turned to leave and the team was quietly listening my fake fight.
Before I leave someone said âDude, whatâs her problem with you? You guys looks like Tom and JerryâŠâÂ
That was the only way we could spend some time together so no one get suspicious.
âThe first day Iâm back and already have to rescue you. How did you survived two months without me?â
I didnât answered. Soon I saw the white nursery room. Jaebum slowly put me on the bed there.
âDonât lay down, stay sitâ he left for seconds and came back with a damp fabric. He took my hand off my face and cleaned the blood âHold this. Is your nose hurting? Donât seem brokenâ he searched for something in the first aid box and took a large band aid.
âA littleâ I finished cleaning the blood off my face and lips, not feeling dizzy anymore. Jaebum put the band aid on the top of my nose.
âThereâs still blood on my face?â I lifted my chin at him.
âYes, over hereâ his face was already close to mine, now there was no distance between us when his lips touched mine. I tried to pushed him away because of the blood taste, but he hold me close and deepened the kiss. His hand ran up my exposed thigh and squeeze it hard.
ây/n?â I heard Yuiâs voice at distance. Jaebum backed away slowly.
âIâm here, Yuiâ
After long minutes trying to convince her that I was fine she finally gave up the idea of taking me to the hospital when the bell ranged.
âThis is so embarrassingâ I lowered my head ashamed of the band aid on my nose. Some people looked at me worried, other ones looked disgusted, to those Jaebum stared a threatening look. I stopped at my locker to pick my stuff and check my face at mirror.
âDude!â I heard Jacksonâs voice. He gave Jaebum one of those âmen hugâ. âI didnât know that have you returned. You gonna play on the team again?â
âNo, Iâm trying to stay away from issuesâ he quickly looked at me through the mirror.
âWhat happened to you president?â Jackson asked worried.
âJust an accident at volleyâ I touched my nose and he hissed.
âSo⊠whatâs your status now?â he pointed to me and Jaebum. Jackson knew about us, and the basketball episode.
Before I could answered something, Jaebum whispered something to him, Jackson laughed and leave.
âWhat did you said?â I asked.
âNothing muchâ he kissed my cheek and went to his locker.
 After I changed back to my uniform clothes, I went to the teachers room and talked to the 3c teacher.
âDonât worry, y/n. I will keep an eye on himâ
âThank youâ I said and leave, ready to go home.
âI need no nannyâ Jaebum said soon as I left the room.
âYou were listening?â I sighed âItâs not a nanny. Just a guaranteeâ
We walked slowly outside the school where the sunset colored the streets orange.
âGuarantee that Iâll not punch anyone else?â he asked offended stopping in front of me. I remembered that day again.
 I stepped out the locker room and joined the girls at the volleyball game. We took half of the court and the boys the other half. I focused at our game and only realized what was happening on the other side of the court when a girl screamed âPresident!â
I ran to see what was going on, some boys from the team were lying on the ground. I recognized Jaebum's black hair.
âJaebum! What are you doing?!â
He was on top of the team captain, Jaebumâs fist was covered in blood and it keep hitting the captainâs face.
âJAEBUM!â
I pulled him by the arm, almost getting hit. His face was red in anger. Some students took the captain to the nursery room and called an teacher. The teachers demanded that I suspend Jaebum.
âWhat was that?!â I asked him soon as we stayed alone. He didnât look me in the eye, his hands were shaking. âAnswer me!â
âHe was talking about youâ
âSo what? People do talk about me whyââ
âHe was talking disgusting things about you! About what he would he do with you in that freaking shorts!â his face was red again. I breathed deeply.
âDid anyone else heard this?â
âNo, just meâ
âIâm sorry Jaebumâ he looked at me confused âYou are suspended for two weeks for attacking an colleagueâ
âWhat?! What about him?!â
âI canât prove what he said, the other boys told that you attacked him without a reasonâ
âYou must be kidding meâŠâ
âTake your things, you must leave until the next class startsâ
He looked pissed, but turned and leave.
âI had to do something. You put me in deep trouble, I thought the three of us were getting expelled that dayâ I sighed âI donât wanna see you like that againâ
âWhat was I supposed to do? Listen to that son of a bitch talking those things about you?â we slowly walked toward my house.
âDonât you think that if I cared about those kind of comments about me I wouldnât get expelled myself?â
âYou donât understand, y/n. He was looking at you as an animal, and still had the courage to whisper at me what he wanted to do to you. Not even Buda would let a guy say those things and walk away without a punch.
âJaebumâŠâ
âListen to meâ he stopped in front of me again âI know youâre tough and shit, but I rather get my hands dirty so your name stay away from those assholes mouthsâ he stepped close, his hands held my face and looked me at the eye âYouâre the only one I true care aboutâ
I grabbed him by the tie pushing him to a kiss. He kissed me lightly, carefully to not touch my bruised nose.
âI missed youâ I said.
âBe my girlfriend" he whispered. His words shocked me, I looked into his eyes to see if he was serious about it. âBe my girlfriendâ he repeated.
I lowered my head resting on his shoulder thinking about us. I mean, I like him, how he made me feel, his protector instinct, his smile, his kissâŠ
But his temper worried me.
He waited patiently my answer, caressing my back. I lifted my head and pecked his lips
âOnly if you promise to control your temperâ
âFine, with the condition that youâll wear a lager shortsâ I laughed and he smiled.
âDoneâ
#Im Jaebum#jaebum scenarios#im jaebum imagine#im jaebum scenarios#got7 scenarios#got7 imagines#jaebum angst#sammy#igot7 shorts
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Where global warming gets real: inside Nasaâs mission to the north pole
The long read: For 10 years, Nasa has been flying over the ice caps to chart their retreat. This data is an invaluable record of climate change. But does anyone care?
From the window of a Nasa aircraft flying over the Arctic, seeming down on the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, its easy to assure why it is so hard to describe climate change. The scale of polar ice, so dramatic and so clear from a plane flying at 450 metres( 1,500 ft) high enough to appreciate the scope of the ice and low enough to sense its mass is nearly impossible to fathom when you arent sitting at that particular vantage point.
But its different when you are there, cruising over the ice for hours, with Nasas monitors all over the cabin streaming data output, documenting in real day dramatising, in a sense the depth of the ice beneath. You get it, because you can see it all there in front of you, in three dimensions.
Imagine a thousand centuries of heavy snowfall, piled up and compacted into stone-like ice atop the bedrock of Greenland, an Arctic island almost a quarter the size of the US. Imagine all of modern human history, from the Neolithic revolution 12,000 years ago when humans moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from there, eventually, to urban societies until today. All of the snow that fell on the Arctic during that entire history is collected up in just the top layers of the ice sheet.
Imagine the dimensions of that ice: 1.71 m sq km( 656,000 sq miles ), three times the size of Texas. At its belly from the top layer, yesterdays snowfall, to the bottom layer, which is made of snow that fell out of the sky 115,000 -1 30,000 years ago it reaches 3,200 metres( 10,500 ft) thick, virtually four times taller than the worlds highest skyscraper.
Imagine the weight of this thing: at the centre of Greenland, the ice is so heavy that it warps the land itself, pushing bedrock 359 metres( 1,180 ft) below sea level. Under its own immense weight, the ice comes alive, folding and rolling in solid river, in glaciers that slowly push outward. This is a head-spinningly dynamic system that we still dont fully understand and that we really ought to learn far more about, and rapidly. In theory, if this massive thing were fully drained, and melted into the sea, the water contained in it would stimulate the worlds oceans rise by 7 metres( 23 ft ).
When you fly over entire mountain ranges whose tips-off scarcely peek out from under the ice and these are just the visible ones its possible to imagine what would happen if even a fraction of this sum of pent-up freshwater were unleashed. You can plainly see how this thing would inundate the coasts of the world, from Brooklyn to Bangladesh.
The crew of Nasas Operation IceBridge have seen this ice from every imaginable slant. IceBridge is an aerial survey of the polar regions that has been underway for nearly a decade the most ambitious of its kind to date. It has yielded a growing dataset that helps researchers document, among other things, how much, and at what rate, ice is vanishing from the poles, contributing to global sea-level rises, and to a variety of other phenomena related to climate change.
Alternating seasonally between the north and south poles, Operation Icebridge mounts months-long campaigns in which it operates eight- to 12 -hour daily flights, as often as weather permits. This past spring season, when I joined them in the Arctic, they launched 40 flights, but had 63 detailed flight plans prepared. Operation IceBridge seeks to create a continuous data record of the constantly changing ice by bridging hence the name data retrieved from a Nasa satellite that ended its service in 2009, called ICESat, and its successor, ICESat-2, which is due to launching next year. The Nasa dataset, which offers a broad overview of the state of polar ice, is publicly available to any researcher anywhere in the world.
In April, I travelled to Kangerlussuaq, in south-west Greenland, and joined the IceBridge field crew a group of about 30 laser, radar, digital mapping, IT and GPS engineers, glaciologists, pilots and mechanics. What I saw there were specialists who have, over the course of virtually 10 years on this mission, mastered the art and science of polar data hunting while, at the same period, watching as the very concept of data, of fact-based discourse, has disintegrated in their culture at home.
On each flight, I witnessed a remarkable tableau. Even as Arctic glaciers were losing mass right below the speeding aircraft, and even as raw data gleaned directly from those glaciers was pouring in on their monitors, the Nasa engineers sat next to their fact-recording instruments, sighing and wondering aloud if Americans had lost the eyes to watch what they were ensure, to see the facts. What they told me uncovered something about what it means to be a US federally funded climate researcher in 2017 and what they didnt, or couldnt, tell me revealed even more.
On my first morning in Greenland, I dropped in on a weather meeting with John Sonntag, mission scientist and de facto field captain for Nasas Operation IceBridge. I stood inside the cosy climate office at Kangerlussuaq airport, surrounded by old Danish-language topographical maps of Greenland, as Sonntag to present to me that the ice sheet, because of its shape, can make unique weather patterns( the ice isnt flat, its curved, he said, making a little knoll shape with his hands ).
The fate of the polar ice has occupied the past decades of their own lives( Im away from home so much its likely why Im not married ). But at pre-flight climate meetings, polar ice is mostly of fear to him for the quirky route it might affect that days weather. The figure in Sonntags mind this morning isnt metres of sea rise, but dollars in flight period. The estimated price tag for a flight on Operation IceBridge is about $100,000; a single hour of flight time is said to cost $10 -1 5,000. If Sonntag misreads the climate and the plane has to turn back, he loses flight period, a lot of taxpayers fund, and precious data.
I would come to view Sonntag as something of a Zen sage of atmospheric conditions. He checks the weather the moment he wakes in the morning, before he eats or even uses the bathroom. He told me that it wasnt simply about knowing what the weather is. With weather, there is no is. Whats needed is the ability to grasp constant dynamic change.
What Im doing, he told, is correcting my current reading against my previous one which he had constructed the last possible moment the night before, just before falling asleep. Basically, Im calibrating. The machine that he is calibrating, of course, is himself. This, as I would learn, was a pretty good summary of Sonntags modus operandi as a leader: constantly and carefully adjusting his readings in order to better navigate his expeditions changing conditions.
Nevertheless, despite the metaphorical implications of his weather-watching, Sonntag was ever focused on the literal. At the climate session, I asked him about his concern over some low cloud cover that was developing a situation that could result in scrubbing the flight. Was his concern for the functionality of the aircrafts science equipment, its ice-penetrating radars, its lasers and cameras?
John Sonntag on board Nasas Operation IceBridge research aircraft at Thule airbase, Greenland. Photograph: Mario Tama/ Getty Images
On that day, as it turned out, Sonntag was more worried about pilot visibility. You know, so we dont fly into a mountain, he explained, without taking his eyes off the blobs dancing across the monitors. That kind of thing.
A few weeks before I met Sonntag, a reporter had asked him: What makes this real to you? The topic had startled him, and he was evidently still thinking about it. I candidly didnt know what to say, he told me.
Sonntag cuts a trim, understated figure in his olive green Nasa flight suit, fleece coat and baseball cap, and his enthusiasms and mellowed ironies tend to soften his slow-burn, man-on-a-literal-mission intensity. I could imagine how a reporter might miss the underlying zeal; but get to know Sonntag and youll learn why, even three weeks later, that topic was still rattling around his head.
Im still kind of at a loss, to be honest, he told me. What makes it real ? I entail, wow, where do I start?
It is indeed a strange question to ask someone who was once on a high-altitude flight when temperatures fell so low that the planes gas turned solid, nearly sending it straight down into Antarctica, immediately on to the ice, in the middle of the darkest of nights. Each of the 63 flight plans for this season in the Arctic was the result of months of meticulous planning. A squad of polar scientists from across the US sets the research priorities, in co-operation with flight crews, who make sure the routes are feasible; the mission is managed from Nasas Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Sonntag is there at all phases, including at the construction and installing of the scientific tools, and he is the person in the fields responsible for executing the mission. He is supposed to have a plan for every contingency: if the plane goes down on the ice, hes get plans for that, too. He is responsible for inducing assured that his crew have adequately backed up and stored many terabytes of data, and that their own creature comforts are taken care of. On days off, he cooks gumbo for them.
The reporter likely had something else in intellect. The melting of ice, the rising waters, and all the boring-seeming charts that document the connections between the two what stimulates that real? To Sonntag and his crew, it is as real as the data that they have personally helped fish out of the ice.
Sea levels, which were more or less constant for the past 2,000 years, have climbed at a rate of approximately 1.7 mm a year in the past century; in the past 25 years, that rate has doubled to 3.4 mm a year, already enough to create adverse effects in coastal regions. A conservative estimation holds that waters will rise roughly 0.9 metres( 3ft) by the year 2100, which will place hundreds of millions of people in jeopardy.
Given the scale of sea- and ice-related questions, the vantage point that is needed is from the air and from space, and is best served through large, continuous, state-supported investments: hence Nasa. There is a lot we dont know and a lot that the ice itself, which is a frozen repository of past climate changes, can tell us. But we need the eyes to see it.
First constructed during the cold warto way Russian submarines, the P-3 Orion aircraft, a four-engine turboprop, is designed for long, low-flying surveillance missions. IceBridges P-3, based at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, is armed with a suite of instruments mounted under the plane and operated by engineers sitting at stations in the cabin. A laser altimetry system which bounces laser beams from the bottom of the aircraft to the top of the ice and back determines the height and topography of the uppermost layer of ice; a digital mapping system takes high-resolution photos of the ice, helping us ensure the patterns in which it is changing shape; and a radar system sends electromagnetic pulses through the ice, thousands of feet and a hundred thousand years to the land beneath.
This data shows us where the ice is growing and where it is shrinking, and helps researchers ascertain its current mass. The IceBridge data has furthermore helped create a 3D map of an ice-locked land that no human eyes have ever seen: the territory of Greenland, its mountains, valleys, plains and canyons, and also a clear position of the layers of ice that have grown above it. Nasa repeats its IceBridge flights annually, to chart how the ice changes from year to year, and, by comparison with earlier satellite data, from decade to decade. For the integrity of the data, it is best to repeat the flights over exactly the same terrain. The track of each IceBridge flight must adhere to a line so narrow that they had to invent a new flight navigation system, which Sonntag cannot help but describe with boyish hilarity( We basically trick the plane into thinking its landing !).
In trying to grasp how the ice runs, its necessary to know the shape of the underlying terrain: in places where the land slopes up, for example, we know that ice will flow slower. IceBridge data helped discover and chart a canyon in northern Greenland the size of the Grand Canyon. In addition to being a wondrous discovery in its own right, this was useful in understanding where, and how, the ice is moving. One effect of this giant valley system can be seen at the coast, where sea water can seep into cavities, potentially melting lower layers of ice. Other aerial data has shown how glacier fronts, which served as corks holding back the ice flowing behind them, have lessened and unleashed the flow, causing more ice to flush into the sea at increasingly rapid paces.
Fantastic 3D maps of the ice sheet created with IceBridge data have also helped researchers locate rare, invaluable Eemian ice, from more than 100,000 years ago. This was an era when the Earth was warm similar to today and in which the seas were many feet higher, which resembles the world to which we are headed. By drilling deep into the ice, glaciologists can excavate ice cores containing tinges of materials such as volcanic ash, or frozen bubbles that preserve precious pockets of ancient air that hold chemical samples of long-departed climates. Because of IceBridge data, researchers know where to look for these data-rich ice layers.
These are among the reasons that John Sonntags head hurts, and why he doesnt know where to begin or what to think when people ask him what constructs this real for him. Behind even well-meaning questions is a culture of ignorance, or self-interested indifference, that has constructed it easy for a Republican-led, corporation-owned US government to renege on the Paris climate agreement, to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, and to slash billions of dollars of climate change-related monies from the federal budget this year. When the White House lately proposed cuts to Nasas climate-change research divisions, the media has enabled them along by interring the story under speciously positive headlines: Trumps Nasa budget supports deep space travel, crowed CBS News. The worlds coasts are facing catastrophic sea rise, but at the least Americans can look forward to watching their countrymen grill hot dog on Mars.
The US constructed Kangerlussuaqs airfield in the early 1940 s, and they still preserve a small airbase there. In 1951, America constructed a giant fortress on the ice, Thule Air Base, in north-west Greenland strategically equidistant from Russia and the US where it secretly maintained armed atomic weapon. In one of naval historys more ambitious armadas, the Americans cut through the ice, made a port, and effected a conquest second in scope merely to the D-day invasion. And all they had to do was uproot an Inuit settlement.
The USs history in Greenland devotes the lie to the notion that ice research is inherently peaceful, much less apolitical. Glaciology advanced as a field partly through the work of US scientists serving the needs of their countrys rapidly growing nuclear war machine in the 1960 s, helping to build Camp Century, a fabled city under ice in northern Greenland and designing Project Iceworm, a top-secret system of under-ice passageways nearby, which was intended as a launch site for concealed nuclear missiles. In 1968, at the high levels of the war in Vietnam, a nuclear-armed B-5 2 crashed near Thule. A flame, started when a crewman left a pillow over a heating ventilate, resulted in four atomic weapons hydrogen bombs plunging into the ice, and releasing plutonium into the environment.
When our flight landed in Kangerlussuaq, we passed rapidly through passport control, but our bags were nowhere find work. For 40 minutes we could see the one and only commercial aircraft at this airfields one and only gate simply sitting on the tarmac, with our purses still in it. This wasnt a serious problem Kangerlussuaqs one hotel was just up a short flight of steps from the gate but it did seem odd that the purses hadnt come through customs. Another passenger, sensing my confusion, approached me.
Yankee? he asked.
Yankee, I replied.
Customs, âthe mensâ told me, was actually only one guy, who had a tendency to mysteriously disappear.
By the route, he added conspiratorially. You know customs here has a special arrangement with the Americans. The customs guy, the stranger told me, turns a blind eye to liquor headed to the US Air Force bar on the other side of the airfield.
Kangerlussuaq( population 500 ), or as the Yanks prefer to call it, Kanger, still feels like a frontier station. Most locals run either at the airport or at the hotel. Next to the airfields main hangar, local people house the huskies that pull their sledges. The roads of Kangerlussuaq can be dicey; there are no sidewalks. Once you leave the tiny settlement, there arent roads at all; and if you go north or east, of course, theres only ice. Decommissioned US air force Jato bottles plane boosters that, to the untrained eye, resemble small warheads are ubiquitous around Kangerlussuaq, usually as receptacles for discarded cigarette butt. In the hotel cafeteria you can see American and European glaciologists, greeting each other with astound and hugs, because the last period they met was a year or two ago, when they ran into each other at the other pole.
Kangerlussuaq in Greenland. Photograph: Arterra/ UIG/ Getty
When I ultimately got my bag, I constructed my route down to the 664 barracks, where the crew was bide. But before I fulfilled the crew, I fulfilled the data itself. In a small, slouchy barracks bedroom, near the front doorway, I encountered two Nasa servers. IT engineers could, and often would, sit on the bed as they worked.
The window was cracked open, to cool the room and soothe the crackling servers, whose constant low hum, like a shamans chant, was accompanied by the pleasant fragrance of gently baking wires one of the more visceral stages of the daily ritual of storing, transferring, copying and processing data captured on the most recent flight. After years of listening to Americans debate the existence of data demonstrating climate change, it was comforting to come in here and reek it.
When I first arrived, I found one of the IT crew, garmented in jeans, T-shirt and slippers, and with big, sad, sleepy, beagle eyes, reclining next to the server, his feet up on a desk, chowing on a Nutella snack pack. He explained the irony of his struggle to keep the servers happy in the far north. A week earlier, when IceBridge was operating its northern flights from Thule Air Base, they couldnt seem to find any route of get the server rooms temperature down: Were in the Arctic, but our problem is seeing cold air.
For a moment he paused to consider the sheer oddness of life, but then he shrugged, and polished off his Nutella snack. But we just chug on, you know? he said.
This attitude captured something essential about IceBridge: its scrappy. Its the kind of operation in which the engineers are expected to bring their own off-the-shelf hardware back-ups from home.( As one radar tech told me: if your keyboard violates in the Arctic, you cant just go to Walmart and buy a new one .) More than one crew member described IceBridges major piece of hardware, its P-3 aircraft, as a hand-me-down. When the Nasa crew âwas talkin about aâ their P-3 they sometimes sounded as though they were talking about a beloved, oversized, elderly pet dog, who can act dopey but, when pressed, is amazingly agile. IceBridges P-3 is 50 years old, but as one of the navy pilots told me, they baby the hell out of it. It just got a new pair of wings. I got the strong sense that this climate data gathering operation was something of an underdog enterprise the moodier sibling of Nasas more celebrated deep-space projects.
But these unsung flights are not without their own brand of Nasa drama. The IceBridge crew would tell me, with dark witticism, the story of the time a plane was in such dire straits that everyone aboard was panicking. One man was look at this place a photo of his children on his phone, and in his other hand, was clutching a crucifix. Another man was pinned to the ceiling. Someone actually hollered Were gonna die !, like in the movies. John Sonntag, on the other hand, sit there, serenely assessing the situation.
During my time in Greenland in April this year, I didnt witness Sonntag manage a distressed aircraft, but I did watch him carefully navigate a Nasa crew through a turbulent political season. In the week I was there, the group was preparing for two anxiety-provoking scenarios, politenes of Washington, DC. One was an imminent visit from several members of Congress. As one engineer put it to me, We just get nervous, candidly, because we dont know what these politicians agenda is: are they friend or foe?
The other was an impending shutdown of the entire US federal government: if Congress didnt make a decision about the budget by Friday that week, the government would close all operations indefinitely.( The sticking point was budgetary questions related to Trumps proposed perimeter wall .) If the governmental forces shut down, Operation IceBridge was done for the season; the Nasa crew would be sent home that day.
This had happened before, in 2013, just as IceBridge was on the way to Antarctica. Congressional Republican shut down the government in their effort to thwart Obamas diabolical plot to offer medical care to millions of uninsured Americans. Much of the 2013 mission was cancelled, with millions of dollars, many hundreds of hours of preparation, and, most importantly, critical data, lost.
I still cant actually talk about that without feeling those feelings again, Sonntag told me. It was kind of traumatic for us.
The crew of IceBridge was facing an absurd scenario: living in dread of a shutdown of their work by Congress one day and, shortly thereafter, having to smile and impress members of that same Congress.
Conditioned by the tribulationsof modern commercial airline travel, I was unprepared for the casualness of my first Nasa launch. The feeling in the hangar before the flight, and as the crew prepared to launching, was of shifting workers who are hyper-attentive to their particular tasks and not the least pay particular attention to gratuitous formalities. The flights were long and the deployments were long; the key to not burning out was to pace oneself and to not linger over anything that wasnt essential. Everyone was a trusted pro and nobody was out to prove anything to anyone else.
Shortly before our 9am takeoff, I asked Sonntag what the plane should feel like when everything was going well what should I be looking for? He smiled sheepishly. To be honest, if you consider people sleeping, thats a good sign.
On the eight-hour flights, seeing engineers asleep at their stations entail international instruments below their feet were happily collecting data. For some stretches, there wasnt even data to collect: hours were expended flying between data target sites.( Over the intercom, a pilot would occasionally ask, Hey, we sciencing now or simply flying ?) Flight crew, who attend to the plane but are not directly connected to the data operation, occupied the cabin like cats, curled up proprietarily, high up on fluffy, folded-up engine covers.
This pervasive somnolence the hypnotic hum of the propellers, the occasional scene of crewmen horsing around in their flight suits, which devoted them the look of sons in pajamas coupled with the low-altitude sweeps through fantastic mountains of ice, dedicated the whole situation a dreamlike quality.
From the windows of the P-3, at 450 metres, you dont need to have read anything about glaciers to know what they are. At that low altitude, you can see the deep textures and the crevasses of the ice, and just how far the glacier widens across the land. The eye instantly grasps that the ice is a animal on the move, positively bursting ahead, while also not appearing to move at all, like a still photo of a rushing river.
A rift across Antarcticas Larsen C ice shelf, seen from an IceBridge flight. Photograph: UPI/ Barcroft Images
Seeing the polar ice from above, you get a very different view from that seen by novelists in past centuries, who saw this landscape, if at all, by boat or, more likely, from a depict. But the vision, to them, was clear enough: it was the Objective, the annihilating whiteness of demise and extinction. Herman Melville described this colour as the dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide scenery of snowfalls a colorless all-color of atheism from which we shrink. This is where so many of those old stories terminated. The Arctic is where the ogre in Frankenstein leaps off a ship on to the ice, never to be seen again. Polar defines spell doom for Poes sailors, and Captain Nemo, who are pulled into the icy maelstrom. And celebrated real-life travellers did, in fact, succumb gruesomely on the ice, in search of the Northwest Passage, or the north pole.
But, from the window of Nasas P-3, that old narrative seems inaccurate. Consider that whiteness, which so scared Melville and Poe, who objective his Antarctic saga The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym with a horrifying italicised refrain on the word white. But polar snowfall and ice, precisely because it is white, with a quality known as high albedo, deflects solar energy back into space and helps keep grounds climate cool; the loss of all this white material means more heat is absorb and the earth warms faster. In a variety of other ways, including moderating climate patterns, the ice helps constructs life on earth more livable. The extreme conditions of the poles, so useful for instilling anxiety in 19 th-century readers, actually induce the world more habitable.
Our bias against the poles can be detected even in that typical term of kudo for this icy scenery, otherworldly. This description is precisely incorrect: the Arctic is closely connected with every other part of the planet.
This, too, is something you can see. Flying over it, at a low altitude, I was struck by the familiarity of the thing, how much of Greenland was a visual echo of my northern homelands. In the muscular frozen ripplings of its glaciers, created by an intensely pressured flow, I saw the same strong hand that deeply etched those giant scratchings into the big boulders of Central Park in New York City. This isnt an analogy: those marks in Manhattan were make use of changing ice, the very same ice layers that still have a foothold in Greenland. I grew up, and have spent the majority of members of my life, in Ohio and New England, places that were carved out by that ice: ponds originally made of meltwater from the last great ice age, low mounds smoothed over by retreating glaciers. That old ice dedicated shape and signature to almost every important place in my life, and in the lives of so many others. And, in the future, this ice will continue to shape the places were from, right before our eyes. It is only our ignorance that stimulates us call it otherworldly.
But even as we passed through this scenery, even as the lasers and radars took their deep gulps of data from the ice, I could hear expressions of anxiety from the data hunters. At the same hour that were getting better at meeting this data, we seem to be losing the ability to communicate the great importance to the public, one engineer told me four hours into a flight, during a transit between glaciers.
You can hear this anxiety surface in the witticism floating around the crew. I heard one engineer gag that it might be easier to just rig up a data randomising machine, since many people out there seem to think thats what their data is anyway.
I mean, itd be much easier, and cheaper, to do upkeep on that, he pointed out.
In another conversation, about how to increase public awareness about climate change in the US, I asked one of the senior crew members whether they would greet a novelist from Breitbart aboard one of these flights.
Oh, perfectly, he said. Id love for them to see what were doing here. I suppose sitting on this plane, watching the ice, and watching the data come in would be incredibly eye-opening for them.
His optimism was inspiring and worrisome to me.
The mantra of the crew is no politics. I heard it told over and over again: just stick to the job, dont speak above your pay grade. But, of course, you dont need to have a no-politics policy unless your work is already steeped in politics.
Glaciers on the Greenland ice sheet, observed by the IceBridge crew. Photograph: Jeremy Harbeck/ Icebridge/ NASA
Speaking with one of the scientific researchers mid-flight, I got a very revealing answer. When I asked this researcher about the anthropogenesis of climate change, the tone changed. What had been a comfortable chat became stilted and deliberate. There was a little eye-roll toward my audio recorder. Abruptly my interlocutor, a specialist in ice, get pedantic, telling me that there were others more qualified to speak about rising sea levels. I offered to turn off my recorder. As soon as it was off, the researcher spoke freely and with the trust of a leading expert in the field. The off-the-record position expressed wasnt simply one of sober agreement with the scientific consensus, but of passionate outrage. Of course climate change is related to human activity! Weve all insured the graphs !
The tonal discrepancies between this off-the-record answer and the videotapeed answer that I should consult someone else told me all I needed to know. Or so I supposed the researcher then asked me to turn my recorder back on: there was one addendum, for the record.
Richard Nixon, the researcher said, seeming down at the red recording illumination. Nixon established some good climate policy. Theres a tradition in both parties of doing this work. And, I mean, if Nixon
The researcher giggled a bit, realising how this was sounding. Well, thats what Im hanging my hopes on, anyway.
Over the planes open intercom, there was abruptly, and uncharacteristically, talk of the working day headlines. While we were in flight, people around the world were marking Earth Day by demonstrating in support of climate rationality and against the current US regime. On Twitter, #MarchForScience was trending at the exact moment Nasas P-3 was out flying for science. There was even a local protest: American and European scientists took to the street of Kangerlussuaq for a small but high-profile demo. While it was happening, one of the engineers piped up on the P-3s intercom.
Anyone else sorry to be missing the march?
But the earnest question was merely met with stillnes and a few gags. Among the Nasa crew, there had been some talk about trying to do a flyover of the Kangerlussuaq march, to take an aerial photo of it, but the scheme was nixed for logistical reasons. The timing was off. The senior crew seemed alleviated that it was out of the question.
Later that week, after my second and final flight making a total of 16 hours in the air with Nasa the crew retreated to the barracks for a quick science meeting, brews in hand, followed by a family-style dinner. We dont seem to get enough of each other here, one of the engineers told me, as he poured a glass of wine over ice that the crew had harvested from the front of a glacier the previous day. One of the engineers asked a glaciologist about the age of this block of ice, and frowned at the disappointing respond: it probably wasnt more than a few hundred years old.
Well, thats still older than America, right? he said.
Outside, the sky wasnt dark, though it was past 10 pm. In a couple of months, there would be sunlight all night. After dinner, one of the crews laser technicians lounged on a couch, playing an acoustic version of the song Angie over and over again, creating a agreeably mesmerising effect. Two crew members talked of murderer methane gas. But most sat around, drinking and telling tales. One of the pilots tried to convince someone he had find a polar bear from the cockpit that day. These deployments are tiring, someone told me. Bullshitting is critical.
One of the crew expended his off-days on outings with a camera-equipped droning, and had attained spectacular videos of his explorations, which he edited and set to moody Bush tunes. I joined the crew as they gathered around his laptop to watch his latest. There was something moving in insuring these people who had expended the working day, and indeed many months and years, flying over ice and obsessing over ice-related data now expending their free time relaxing by watching videos of yet more ice.
As usual, politics soon snuck into the picture. The next video that popped up was footage lately shot at the Thule base. The video showed some of this same Nasa crew hiking through an deserted cement bunker, a former storage site for US Nike anti-aircraft missiles. Today its merely an eerie, rusted, shadow-filled underground space, its floor covered in thick ice. When these images came on the screen, the crew fell quiet, watching themselves, only a week ago, putting on ice skates and doing figure-eights over the wreckings of their countrys cold war weapons systems.
An engineer chipped a shard off the frozen block harvested the previous day. Perhaps sensing my mood, he dropped it into a glass and poured me some whiskey over ice older than America and told: Well anyway, perhaps thisll cheer you up.
Early the next morning, before the crew boarded the P-3 for another eight-hour flight over polar ice, a rare political debate broke out. Four of the crew were discussing the imminent Congressional visit, which prompted one of the veteran pilots to recite, once again, the mission mantra: Stick to science: no politics. But because that approach felt increasingly less plausible in 2017, one of the ice specialists, feeling frustrated, launched into a small speech about how Americans dont take data seriously, and how its going to kill us all. Nobody disagreed. Someone jokingly said: Maybe its best if you dont fly today. To which another added, Yeah, you should stay on the ground and just do push-ups all day.
Finally, John Sonntag who had been too busy reviewing flight plans to hear the chattering stood up and tapped his watch. OK guys, he said. Lets run. Its time to fly.
Main image: Nasa/ Joe MacGregor
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Read more: www.theguardian.com
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