#and it feels like everyone else is thinking that too

[thebibliosphere]

Something I miss from the start of the pandemic was being able to watch movie theater releases from home.

I know why they’ve gone back to in theater only releases, but as someone with multiple disabilities and a compromised immune system that makes movie-going hard, it was the first time in years I got to enjoy new releases as they came out.

I didn’t even particularly mind that it was costing me $20 to rent it for a single viewing. To me it was just another disabled tax, but one I was actually happy to pay for the price of finally feeling included in the experience of enjoying new media. (Not to mention actually going to the movie theater costs something closer to $40 these days.)

Factor in that I got to control my environment (not too dark or loud to avoid migraines. No nerve compression from sitting in chairs not designed for my body. Access to food I could eat and bathroom breaks as needed without missing anything.) the sheer joy alone of being able to talk to my friends about movies as they came out was really something I hadn’t realized I was missing until I had it back.

Normally by the time I get to see new media it’s several months later and everyone else has moved on.

It’s alienating.

The whole experience of being disabled alienates you from most of society, but it always tends to be the big things you think about and not the little. And that was one of the little things I missed.

And now there’s a new Superman movie coming out next year that I’m actually so, so excited to see. But barring a miracle of Biblical proportions, I know I’m not going to be able to hobble my butt into the cinema without risking my health.

So, I’ll be watching it months later when the hype has already died down. And my enthusiasm for it won’t be counted in box office figures despite being the type of person who would go see a movie multiple times in the cinema if I enjoyed it.

I dunno, man. It just sucks. I wish they had like, memberships or something you could pay to watch things at home.

And before anyone is like “just pirate it” — that’s not the point of the post. The point is people are excluded from things in ways you don’t even think about and the pandemic made it really clear that there were always ways to accommodate people like me.

People just don’t want to.

[beloveds-embrace]

Thinking about designationless reader...

Imagine how alone she must've been for all her life. It started since she was young, her parents pushing her to the corner of the home, away from the family, and naturally, her siblings would follow their parents' lead, pointedly ignoring her, and finding any excuse available to be out of her presence. She wouldn't understand them anyway, she can't tell the difference between noises nor could she even recognize scents. It just wouldn't work.

Reader thinks that maybe she could find someone, anyone in school, but kids are like sharks, except instead of smelling blood, they smell the lack of all scents on her. Most kids have a combination of their own and their family members' scents. Reader has nothing, so everyone continues the pattern, but now with more stares and jeers and hushed giggles. Reader knows that bullying is bad, but anything would be better than simply not existing to anyone. That's what the others say, at least, that she's nothing, nobody. Never to her face, though, just in the whispers shared between friends.

She eventually tries to find others like her through the wonders of the internet. There's maybe a handful more scattered in her country, but none are her age, and all have their own families who care about them. Was it just her who wasn't deserving of love, of connection? Reader reaches out to them, and they talk a little, but before long, through no one's fault, it falls through. She was bad at talking anyway, even if she doesn't have to worry about scents or sounds that aren't there, she never knew much about context or connotation. She never had the opportunity to learn about the intricacies in communication. Reader is back alone.

The military eventually scouts her, and it's the first time anyone has ever really looked at her. Sure, they look at her like a valuable tool, but a tool is better than nothing. Reader obviously joins, desperate for crumbs. She climbs the ranks, gets the job done. She is good at her job, so people respect her. She learns how to talk professionally, emails, texts, and so one, but no one talks to her on leave. No one invites her to the pub after a good mission. No one even talks to her in the mess. But people do talk to her when they have to, and that's enough. Maybe she even gets a callsign. Doe. After Jane Doe, the placeholder name for unknown individuals, and insult if anything.

Now there's the 141. They invite her to things. They talk to her. They touch her. Reader exists for them. She isn't just an unknown person stuck in the background and invisible to everyone else, and Reader doesn't know what to do. Her speech is awkward and overly professional, even in personal settings. How is she supposed to be friends with someone, multiple someones? How is she supposed to move? To act? To express? She doesn't know, but she really wants to learn. At least now she has good teachers.

ANON YOU GENIUSSSS okay but this? Perfect. AHHHH I ADORE THIS IDEA!! Esp the jane doe callsign omg yes

You weren’t used to being seen.

Growing up, you learned quickly how to make yourself small- how to exist quietly, without taking up space, without asking for too much. Because the few times you had asked- asked for a hug, asked to be let into the nest, asked why you felt so different- the answers had all been the same.

No.

Not now.

Not you.

It wasn’t that your parents didn’t love you. You were sure they did, in their own way. But love was hard to feel when your mother flinched at your touch like you were something disgusting, when your father sighed like he was tired every time you entered the room as if you were taking up space he was saving for his other children. When your siblings built their nests without you, curling into piles of warmth and safety while you sat outside the door, knees pulled to your chest and hands balled into fists to keep them from knocking, a cold ache burrowing itself in your chest.

You stopped knocking eventually.

You stopped trying.

You used to wonder if you’d done something wrong- if maybe you could fix yourself and everything would go back to normal. But it wasn’t something you could fix. It was just… you.

Scentless.

Designationless.

Invisible.

School had been worse, perhaps the worst. At least your family had pretended not to notice how different you were. The other kids didn’t bother pretending. They stared openly, whispered behind your back, laughed when you walked by. You’d caught bits and pieces of what they said- weird, wrong, broken, as if they hoped by having you hear their words, they’d convince you to leave at last.

You’d started keeping your head down after that, slipping through the halls like a shadow. No one talked to you unless they had to, and even then they either did it with a mocking, jeering tone that echoes in your nightmares or with a meek tone; as if your lack of everything is contagious. No one sat next to you at lunch, either. When partners were assigned, you always ended up working alone per your teachers’ instructions.

It was easier that way.

At least, that’s what you told yourself.

By the time you joined the military, you’d gotten good at being alone. You didn’t need friends. Didn’t need packmates. You had work, and work didn’t care if you were quiet or awkward or too stiff to laugh at the right jokes. Work didn’t care if you flinched when people got too close or froze when someone raised their voice. Work demanded to be done, and you had nothing and no one to stop you from that.

But the military also has the same teens who used to bully you so consistently. Rookies all to ready and happy to lord over you. It’s how you get your despised callsign, Doe. Jane Doe. A cruel mockery, comedy wherein you are the joke that has the world laughing.

Still, you wear it. It’s still an acknowledgment and that will always be better than never being seen. You flit from team to team, unit to unit, always an observer from afar, watching everyone around you speak a language you can’t.

But the 141 was different, when you eventually end up working for them.

They cared.

They cared in ways you weren’t ready for.

Soap was relentless, dragging you into conversations even when you barely knew what to say. He filled the silences like it didn’t bother him, kept talking for the both of you, lounging against you unbothered, until you started talking back. Gaz was gentlest, steadier. He never pushed, just lingered close enough to remind you he was there, waiting, whenever you were ready. Quiet, silent acceptance you’d never been given before, and you were yet far too afraid to so easily cling to it.

And the Alphas- Price and Ghost- were worse.

Price had a way of looking at you that made your chest ache, like he saw you, really saw you, and didn’t mind what he found. Scentless, with no designation and all. Ghost was quieter, sharper, but his eyes tracked you everywhere, presence wrapping around you like he was staking a claim you didn’t understand, like he was teying to etch every part of you behind his eyelids.

You didn’t know what to do with it.

They didn’t give you space. They sat next to you at meals, tugged you along when they went out for drinks, called you over during breaks like it was the most natural thing in the world. And it felt natural- until it didn’t, because sometimes you still felt like an outsider.

Like you didn’t belong.

You tried to hide it, but they saw through you. They always did, and they never shied away.

When you started avoiding the mess hall, it was Gaz who caught you, shoving a plate of food into your hands and dragging you to sit with him like it wasn’t a big deal. When you hung back during missions, letting the others fall into their pack dynamics without you, Soap was the one who looped an arm around your shoulders and pulled.

And when you flinched, once, at the sharp sound of someone’s voice echoing down the hall- when you tensed so hard it made your fingers tremble- it was Price who closed the distance, standing in front of you like a wall and letting Ghost linger at your back. Neither of them said a word.

They didn’t have to.

You weren’t used to being protected. You weren’t used to belonging.

But they made it hard not to.

[nemesyaaa]

sweet nothing || rafe x reader x sarah

summary : it's okay to want them both.

warnings : minors dni. smut. stepcest (no incest/rafe and sarah are not implied together.). oral (f&m receiving.). bisexual!reader. mean!rafe but meaner!sarah. controlling. cunt inspections. jealousy. daddy issues. manipulation. strap mentions. spit kink. i don't feel like it's a dark content but just in case. please, be aware of the warnings before reading.

author's note : /

“ Rafe is not allowed in it. ”

Sarah Cameron didn't want to share you. As the high Kook Princess that she was, she always got what she asked for. She never had to sweat or bleed to get what she wanted. So if she wanted you to be hers, you were hers.

But that meant there could only be her in your life because there was no way she was sharing her girlfriends with Rafe. She had always been the crueler of the two. It wasn't surprising since Ward had always favored her. If she acted like this, it was because she had always been allowed to. It was too hard for Ward to deny her anything. And if he couldn't be tough and firm with her, he needed to be with someone else.

And Rafe was so easily the perfect prey.

Just like you were Rafe's perfect victim when Ward was evil to him.

You were only there because his father married your mother. You were just an outsider to this degenerate family and yet you were now part of a conflict of interest between the two siblings.

in fact, it has been terribly easy for Rafe to have power over you and to abuse it. Since you suffered from a father who had never been there for you, and you refused Ward to be that father figure for you, he simply had to use your daddy issues to his advantage.

so he had always looked for the slightest fault or failure in you. he was going to find any excuses for you to cry in his arms. also, he was very controlling. you weren't sure of the outfit you wanted to wear? he knew how to compliment you. Did he hate your outfit? he also knew how to make you insecure about it. he was an expert in manipulation since he was a compulsive liar.

you weren't just his stepsister, you were his fucking forbidden fruit.

you were too perfect, too good, too clean. but he wasn't like sarah. if he wanted you, he was going to damage you and destroy you. Rafe wasn't good at taking care of people. He had a terrible view of affection. He wasn't even sure what it was.

You were so adorable that it hurt, that he wanted to make you suffer.

He knew he could never make Sarah suffer, and that he was secretly the only one suffering from this distance between the two of them. Because Sarah was meaner. People always stayed with her despite the suffering she inflicted on them. Because she was so much better than him in terms of playing the victim.

he also hated the fact that you preferred sarah more than him. why did he always have to be the one who sweats and bleeds to be appreciated while sarah just had to bat her eyelashes to get everyone under her spell ? it was unfair.

and without meaning to, he had started to categorize you like her, a simple bitch among the others. except he needed you to know it, he needed you to be treated like one to be happier. and damn, he deserved this happiness. more than you, more than sarah. more than anyone in this house.

he hated the way you stayed together like sweethearts, even though you were far from being angels.

" think sarah would appreciate seeing you like that ? being such a whore for me, think she would pay you the same respect after seeing you drooling for my dick ?"

his voice was so sharp that you gulped hard under his words.

you were on your knees, mouth stuffed deep by his cock. your corners were dripping as you gave him a sloppy head for a few minutes raw. he held your head by the hair while you gagged on him which served as an excuse for him to degrade you even more. you were so pathetic, willing to do anything to satisfy him. your mouth was working so hard that it felt like it was always meant for this, to be used and treated so dirty.

he was so hard that you could feel every inch of his dick inside your mouth. every noise you made was sucked away by the wet sound of your lips around his cock.

“you can cry all you want, maybe those tears will help you get my dick wet and nice. if you don't like me being mean to you, you should learn it before choosing this bitch over me. ”

you continued to pump him, while he forced your throat with his thrusts, his heavy hips slamming down your cheeks.

“ tongue out...such a pretty girl...” he mocked you, tear-jerking more cries from you. “better swallow what I give you. don't disappoint me twice, i can't fail you. ”

he lost his patience with you so he didn't care that he was cold, and that you took it so badly. that was all you deserved.

he had spat on your tongue, once, twice, until he saw his spit sliding down your throat, until he saw the large glob foaming around his cock, creating a web around his glistening red tip. you were so messy and dirty like a dog after a walk.

and you made him even harder when you took him this far in your mouth. he could feel you struggling and gasping for air. you were so miserable that it made him feel better to see someone even more pathetic than him for once.

“ what's up, pretty ? thought you were an angel but you're such an evil thing. ”

you tried so hard to speak back but his dick was hanging out your jaw to the point all your drool was dripping from your chin. you were such a mess, unable to talk, unable to think. he was fucking your face, tearing your lips apart with the length of his cock. he was driving his shaft so fast in your mouth that you were just good at choking on it. he wrapped a hand around your neck and smirked when he could feel your throat bulging around his dick. your tears were hot, and your cheeks soaked with spit and cries.

he spat on your face, watching his spittle drip down your cheekbones like tears before smearing it on your cheeks.

“ repeat after me. say i'm good to you. now, say it. "

oh yes, he needed to hear it. he needed to hear from you that he was good for you. he needed to hear you say that you didn’t need anyone but him. he needed to feel important to someone.

“ y-y-our good to...me...hmpf...”

your muffled words were enough to make him cum.

he had released everything in your mouth, splashing it deep down your stomach.

but it wasn't just rafe.

sarah also had this need for control over you. she started to establish her territory on you.

her brother didn't deserve to have someone like you. pretty and angelic girls were only reserved for girls.

“rafe isn’t allowed in it.”

you thought it would end there but she had opened your thighs to slip her fingers inside your folds. you were already terribly wet as if you had been hearing about her touch all evening.

but she didn't want to make you cum. no sarah cameron wanted to make sure no one made you cum before. she inspected every corner of your pussy with her fingers.

at first, she just checked the inside, before starting to pump it in and out, watching you getting wetter with her fingers working in your insides. her thrusts were fast and deep but also insanely forceful, leading you to take the heavy pace she was driving onto you. you were panting and crying like a crybaby, as you could feel every of her digits bruising your walls.

you thought Rafe was mean but Sarah was meaner.

her fingers were tearing apart your canal, literally opening you too deep and you were supposed to be quiet because all your family was sleeping. and you didn't want to be caught in that position, especially when the situation was already so shameful. you didn't want anyone to know about your secrets.

“ say it. say that you prefer me over him. ” she urged you as she was scissoring you quicker, making you squirm over her fingers.

she was supposed to be your gentle princess, the delicate sweetheart that took you on amazing day to make girlies activities, but also the kook queen that spoiled you everytime you wanted something, but also the good sister that help you dress and listen to your matters but now you were just her pathetic whimpering dirty slut.

you were the toy that she's gonna use until she was satisfied and tired of it.

“ and you better say it like you mean it. because i can be pretty good, but also, really bad. and you don't want your step sister to be mean to you ? you don't want her to be your worst nightmare ? ”

she was scaring you at this point, but he really worked. you felt a lot of things inside your body, and your mind was so fucked up. her smile was so wicked, but less than the fingers curled inside your weeping core. the way she was so cruel, calling your brain a real pussy for being so useless and making you so wet by the way she was degrading you.

“ you…you're far better, sarah. ” you moaned, but she muffled your noises with her hand by putting her fingers inside your mouth.

“ i don't want to see you with that loser anymore. let him cry, it's the only thing he's good at it. ” she paused before continuing. “ I thought you were like me…but you're just like him. i really need to change that. ”

she knelt in front of you before spitting on your pussy. she waited for the spit to make its way down to your soaked slick to slide her tongue inside your parts. you forced yourself not to scream but you felt awful.

she was just too good.

you promised rafe not to hang out with sarah anymore, but you also promised sarah the same thing. as they both played with you, you allowed yourself to betray each of them. it was their fault. they had both taught you to be selfish.

her tongue was so warm. she had barely slipped it between your folds when you were already getting wet on her mouth. as she licked you, causing the inside of you to spasm, her chin was stuck to your weeping slit.

her tongue was toying with your cunt. you were so good, a fucking heaven. she mixed her spit with the foaming wetness at your entrance. she forced you to stay still, threatening you with her eyes and controlling your body with a hand on your tummy.

she didn't forget your clit and she also played with your arched bud to the point of making it bruise. her mouth was wrapped to your pussy, latched on and licking it, collecting every stream of your pussy.

she has so much power over you.

all her thrusts were so perfect. she absolutely wanted that if someone touched you here, you would remember that it belonged to her.

she wanted you to think of her every time someone touched you, just like Rafe wanted you to only think of him if someone entered you.

except you were free. with sarah, you only thought of her. with rafe, you only thought of him. you were not a toy. you had feelings. and you weren't going to get into their stupid, competitive games.

when sarah took a strap out of her drawer, you looked at her with wide eyes. you have never gone this far before. she reassured you while you watched her put it around her waist.

“what do you want..."

she laughed in a sharp mocked tone. oh where you sweet girl at? “I don't want anything. it's just what you need. because you like to think about dick, i'm gonna show what's a real cock is. now, enough. turn around. i don't want to see your face anymore. ”

“you're just so mean sometimes. ” you cried softly, before you obeyed her like the good girl you were .

“oh that why your tears for? should them be for letting a pathetic man fucking you behind my back. now you want to cry this much? Fine, it's all I want to hear from you. ”

That was how you ended up between the two Cameron but you were unable to make a choice. why were you forced to?

“sarah said i look pretty in that dress.” you started.

“let me choose something better for you then. don't you want to be beautiful ? "

“I thought I was always beautiful to you.”

“you are but only so when you wear what I tell you to wear.”

you hated it when he was controlling like that but it was impossible for you to resist him which you hated even more. you wanted to please him.

“burn that shit.” he commanded you.

“you’re joking, right?”

rafe remained silent to let you know that he was serious.

one other day, he gave you a necklace with his initial, and you blinked a lot of times. “I’m not going to wear that.”

"yea, you're gonna wear that. i want people to know what's mine."

"They're going to talk, you know..."

" why? because you're my sister. we're not related. from what i've know, you've only got my cum inside you. not my blood. "

"it's not because everyone knows on the island that you're fucked up that i'm…”

now he was pissed. you had abused his patience. and what you had just said to him had just stung him and hell, he hated that feeling because he wasn't supposed to feel anything for you. you weren’t good enough to him to have the upper hand over his emotions.

he walked towards you, and you backed away, slightly frightened. you knew he was in trouble so you were afraid of what he could do to you.

“come here, sweetheart. I’m not mad.”

he lied. and you knew it, tears had started to fall down your face.

Usually, Sarah was there when Rafe wanted to go after you but this time she wasn't. you were stuck with him so he had the advantage.

"you know I wouldn't hurt you. I'm incapable of hurting you."

he lied again.

it was all lies. with him.

"liar! you lied! you hurt me everytime."

“you are the only one who lies. "

oh evil.

"i always took care of you. and you better not forget how kind and patient I've been with you because I'm tired of being the one who has to take everything in this house. sarah, my father and now you? no, it's not going to happen. "

“what?”

"last chance, sweetheart. come here.”

you rolled your eyes.

“ do that shit one more time and i'm gonna make them roll in a way you're not gonna find it funny. ”

“ you're not my father, why should i listen to you ? ”

you lift your gaze to see a smirk on his face, before he pinned you down the door and lock it behind your back, his weight was heavily pressed on your body. “ don't act like you're listening to your daddy, you're far from a good girl. ”

“ that's not what you said to me earlier in the morning…”

another day it was sarah. you were coming back from a family day where everyone was there except Rafe. you didn’t know if he hadn’t been invited or if he hadn’t wanted to come. but in any case, everyone had been there.

when you got home, you followed sarah to her room. you loved spending time with her so much. Today, you learned to surf, ate ice cream with wheezie, built sandcastles, and met her pogues crew.

you left out the detail where you saw her kiss a certain john b because it made your heart hurt.

you didn't know what sarah found in men. topper and now this john b. but could you blame her when you were doing worse behind her back?

when sarah closed the door, you blocked her against it to kiss her. you forced her mouth to open in frustration, and she kissed you too, possessively. it was like your feelings were speaking through your lips. your tongue was furiously curled against hers, and your mouth violently smacked on her.

“ i don't like to see you with him. ”

“ do i owe you something ? ” she simply replied, arms crossed over her chest. “ i ask you a question. ”

“ oh come on, you don't need to be a bitch with me. ”

“ why ? i feel like it's the only way to interact with you. ”

“ are you mad at me ? ”

“ because you're still fucking with my brother ? if you can play, i will play too. ”

“ fine, i don't care. kiss all the boys you want. but don't forget that the taste you're seeking for is somewhere else. ”

“ now, you're against me ? rafe really fucked you’. fine too, stay with that jerk but don't forget who's dick between his and mine making you cum three time raw. ”

“ god, you're so annoying. ” you exploded. “ why can't things be simple ? “

“ because we want you both and you want us both. ”

[the-clock-of-the-time-dragon]

Ariana Grande said in an interview regarding the loathing era of Glinda and Elphaba's relationship that they are immediately fascinated with each other and part of what makes them initially have a negative reaction is that they both recognize in the other aspects of themselves, and parts they don't yet accept or feel comfortable with. Now, I will be the first to say: that sounds gay af. But in a serious analytical sense: that interpretation by Ariana is incredibly insightful because when you think about it, yeah — Elphaba wants the beauty and popularity that Galinda has (but feels wrong for it because she finds it shallow and dumb and thinks she's above that, so she just suppresses it in the hopes that the Right People will be able to look past her unpopularity and value her for her) and Galinda truly wants not only the intellectual recognition but the peculiar power to say NO to established reality that Elphaba has (but she is constantly being overlooked and prejudged as a shallow airhead, and despite receiving plenty of surface-level attention and affection feels like an outsider: like she's always wearing a mask, never fully connecting with anyone because her truest self is much too ✨🌈Unusually and Exceedingly Peculiar🌈✨ to ever let anybody else witness). They're both the first and only ones to see what the other wanted everyone to see in them, and in the process fall in love both with each other AND with those hidden centers of themselves.

They don't loathe each other — they loathe what the other makes them feel, which is twofold: the ✨🌈Sudden and New🌈✨ feelings, obviously; BUT ALSO some very deep-seated, old feelings that nobody else could (or would) ever confront.

tl;dr: it's the good ol' sapphic experience of "Do I Wanna Be Her or Bang Her?™" — except the "be her" would involve radical self-acceptance (hard pass), and neither of them have figured out that "bang her" is an option yet. Which is what makes their relationship so beautiful: they don't merely complete each other in the "they fit together like puzzle pieces" way — they complete each other in the "they helped each other to fall in love with the parts of themselves they'd spent their whole lives loathing" way. "Handprint on my heart" and all that. The best possible resolution to the "Do I Wanna Be Her or Bang Her?" conundrum: "We're Being Us Together AND We're Banging".

[rainachaeri]

She does, and with some stuffed dollies too :D No favorites though. They're pretty much just for the aesthetics

Absolutely! But I don't think she'd see animals as pets since they're more like friends to her. Not sure about the child one, she's gonna need a lot of help (hehe) with taking care of one.

I dont get this question, cuz I myself know who her love interests are but she doesn't yet. Should she still describe them anyway? Is that what the answer is supposed to be here? Idk lol maybe I'd back on this another time.

Hell yeah

Yeah! About anything! Snakes, rocks, flags, the word hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, the first 10 digits of pi, a snowflake, the evolution of microphones, and pretty much anything that would interest her, and there's a lot that would interest her!

No matter what, she'll trust her fellow deities advice (and herself) since they know. And Papyrus too. So far theres no specific person she won't listen to advice for just yet.

Silly. Smart. Stupid. As for how she'd describe herself: Human. Student. Girl. OR! She is a B, C, and D. :D

She likes puzzles, no matter how complex it can get.

Nope.

She's totally fine with the age she has now and it's definitely her age, yep! She didn't just make it up or anything nope.

She'll give it away :) (you'd question why she'd join the lottery in the first place, but she probably just wanted to know what would happen and how it worked)

She can enjoy it

She would if she had any :D

She wouldn't. People should enjoy what they want without guilt!

Well, school and work is definitely not a waste of time for her. Everything she puts time and effort on is no waste :D there's always something to learn from everything she tries or does

Whatever it is she wears now

Yes! They're just smaller, younger mortals!

*shrugs*

Technically yeah she would

Math I guess (and other sciences related to it), if she's around dumb people (like me). And no one probably likes mosquitoes, or cockroaches, or pretty much any insect or living being that people are typically disgusted with or afraid of, but she does :D

Idk probably if she no longer feels comfortable? She's not one to stay silent on the important things I think, if she realizes there's a pressing problem/issue in the relationship then she HAS to address it. If they fix it, good, if not, well, they tried, but there's no point forcing things when they simply don't work. It's gonna hurt a lot, but it's gonna hurt a lot more otherwise. There won't be a last straw.

Not sure if she likes it. If it's a really good pet name, she'll love it at best and if it's meh she's neutral about it at worst. Pet names are kinda harmless, so even if she doesn't like a nickname someone gives to her she'll shrug it off I think. Just mortal things she supposed, may as well let them at it. An exemption though if the petname is just so insulting to her (congrats if you managed to find a petname that would be insulting for her), and in that case NOPE please call her something else. Please. She's not one to use petnames either. She prefers addressing everyone with their name. Even the ones she's very close with

Novelty

Honesty

Possibility

Effort

Forgiveness

Maybe

Sliding down a rainbow and landing on a pot of gold. Sometimes the gold is a pile of candies. Sometimes they're cotton candies. Sometimes the pot is just liquid chocolate. (She intentionally dreams all this by the way)

She's not gonna like that question 😅

oc asks that reveal more than you think

Do they sleep with a stuffed animal? If they have multiple, who’s the favorite?

Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child?

Ask them to describe their love interest.

Do they look good in red?

Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?

Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is?

Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words.

Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them?

Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)?

What age do they most want to be right now?

They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save?

Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)?

Name one thing their parents taught them.

Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? Do they have any?

What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?

If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear?

Do they like children?

Kissing: tongue or no tongue?

Do they study before tests? Practice before job interviews?

What do they like that nobody else does?

What would it take for them to break up with someone? What would be the last straw?

Do they like being called pet names? Do they call other people pet names? What’s their go-to?

Stability or novelty?

Honesty or charity?

Safety or possibility?

Talent or effort?

Forgiveness or vengeance (or…)?

Would they date a fixer-upper?

What recurring dreams do they have?

What would they do if they knew it would be forgiven?

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[keferon]

Chapter 2 of Blurr storyline >:D

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head is all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Part one

Holy shit I actually managed to finish it…..Oh. My god.

Under the cut⤵️

Is it stupid to miss someone who doesn't even exist?

Probably yes, but hey, Swerve already has several degrees, might as well get another one. A degree in Stupidity or something. Who cares?

For the first few days after waking up from his coma, he feels like he's going crazy. Everybody has realistic dreams, right? The ones where you can scrutinize every angle, memorize every face and smell and sound. The ones that make you lie still for a while after waking up, grasping at every thing you can. Trying to memorize everyone you meet, imprint them in your head.

Because apart from your mind, they don't exist anywhere else. So that's your only way to keep them.

It never works. Obviously. Details slip away. Impressions fade. Just a couple days, and you won't be able to recall anything but the main events from memory.

Wait, hell, not days. Cycles.

His life is a weird, pathetic, fantastical circus. Earth term. Heh. There are no circuses on Cybertron, haha!

But Swerve remembers. And the word circus, and the smell of asphalt, and rains that were made of water not acid. Remembers the English language. Can speak it fluently, even if you wake him up in the middle of the night.

Remembers his work schedule and remembers which company makes the best details. And Tailgate with his bright blue uniform and Wheeljack with his endless experiments and Swindle with his expensive coat and of course...yeah, no, don't think of Blurr, don't think of Blurr, don't. Don't.

He'd heard about it. Read about it, too. Mechs waking up from comas and doing wild things. Some forgot how to speak at all, some gained a new skill, some lived a whole life while they slept.

Articles tell Swerve, don't worry, what you've experienced isn't unique. The doctor tells Swerve that the same thing has happened to others before you, it will be okay, it will pass.

Swerve isn't sure he wants it to pass.

He's been in a coma for who knows how long. The medic said it was caused by an internal trauma that decided to suddenly get worse. One minute he's recharging , the next he's gone. Internal injuries are insidious.

So it turns out. One day he just disappeared from the world because he was busy slowly dying in his room and no one noticed until a thief tried to sneak in. The only one who came to him was a Mech who wanted to steal his stuff. Huh.

That feels revolting. Swerve liked to think he had enough friends. Or at least enough good connections. Enough those who should have noticed his absence, right?

Apparently not. His shifts at work were reassigned, his contacts never texted him first, his...

His small persona wasn't important enough for anyone to notice his disappearance.

Would his human coworkers notice? Would Tailgate have noticed? Or Jazz? Swindle?

Jazz would have noticed, he was always surprisingly attentive when it came to his friends. And he was friends with just about everybody.

Swindle would probably get upset about the money he'd lost.

It's amazing how much his brain-- wait, no, his processor. How much his processor could create to entertain him. It's a more elaborate world than the most complex series Swerve has ever known. And that scrap had forty-six seasons and fifteen encyclopedias!

People, Earth, a bunch of new languages and rules and all for the sake of the end being like, OOPS! ...it was all a dream. Hilarious. Worst plot twist ever. Swerve hates it when stories go in this direction even more than when they kill off their characters.

In his humble opinion, death is better than the revelation that none of the experiences made sense or had any value. In terms of writing scripts obviously. Haha.

He's busy roaming haphazardly through his own memory. He's looking, comparing, trying to find inconsistencies or things that don't make sense. All the stuff that usually gives away the fact that what happened was a dream.

Most of his memories are occupied by--No. Frag.

Don't think about Blurr, don't think about Blurr, don't think..

He's thinking about Blurr. A lot.

Blurr occupies a surprisingly important role in his comatose dreams.

In the time he spent just looking at him, you could hand-build an entire Mech. Maybe even three. Swerve remembers picking up every bit of merch he could reach with his paycheck. Watching hundreds of videos and buying every new themed drink even if it was a flavor he didn't like.

Then spent a surprising amount of time resenting Blurr for not living up to his fantasies.

Blurr's behavior hadn't helped either, of course, but now, looking back at the past himself Swerve thinks that.. Oh wow. You weren't just annoyed at him. You blamed him for ruining your beautiful fantasy. You were having so much fun entertaining yourself with thoughts of this marvelous image, and he came along and corrupted it. Poisoned the well you drank joy from.

But that's not quite true, Swerve thinks.

Blurr was more complicated than that. But exactly how, he'll never know. All he has are his memories, and those memories are cut short at the most interesting point.

Swerve knows this plot twist. The asshole character that no one loves at the last second turns out to not be what everyone thought, but it's too late.

Oh no, he's not an evil jerk, he's actually traumatized. Oh no, he wasn't bad, he was actually secretly helping everyone. You thought he was awful? Well now you're going to feel awful reading fanfics.

Serevus Spayne didn't actually betray the main character's dad, no no, he was in love with him! Bam. Drama.

Swerve isn't a big fan of this stuff. He likes his characters developed properly. But he can't deny the appeal of a character leaving behind a bunch of questions you thought you knew the answer to.

Uggh.

The doctor was wrong. These thoughts don't go away. These memories don't dull.

Swerve just boils in them, constantly getting stuck in his own head. Sometimes he puts English words into his speech and everyone looks at him strangely. Sometimes he reflexively says some inside joke and no one gets it and he's left standing there with an awkward smile. Because. Guys, you don't understand, if my coworkers were here they'd think it's hilarious. I promise, in my fantasy world, it's funny.

When he gets a job on one of the Autobot ships, he accepts it thinking it might be a good distraction from his thoughts.

When he happens to see Prowl with a tiny human on his shoulder in the corridor of that ship, he thinks he's lost his mind.

The whole thing. The whole load-bearing structure on which his picture of the world has been held suddenly gives a lurch. Living your life in a super realistic dream is wild, but meeting a character from your dream in real life??

Freaking cursed.

Jazz looks puzzled by his reaction, but all Swerve can think about are two things.

One, if Jazz is here, does that mean everything else was real, too???

Two - holy shit, Jazz is tiny.

It never occurred to him. But he didn't really know what size humans were. Well, sure, he could measure it in numbers. But he was among humans himself. And about the same size. He was generally even shorter than most of them.

If Jazz is so small, he can't imagine how tiny Tailgate would be. Or--

He can feel his spark freeze. In fact, he can almost hear the sound of a string breaking in his processor. Does that mean Blurr is real too? Real and just as tiny and currently dead? Because Swerve was there but was too convinced it was all just a dream to help?

He's going to get sick.

He needs to talk to Jazz right now.

____________

Swerve taps his fingers nervously on the countertop. Come on. You're good at talking. Talking is your greatest skill. All you have to do is tell someone else about your comatose hallucinations and hope they don't think you're crazy.

They're sitting at a table at the bar. More specifically Swerve and Prowl are sitting at the table, and Jazz is sitting right on the table. (God he's so small).

“So uh. I got injured a while back and...uh...well, it got worse, turned out important systems were affected and I kind of. I was in a coma. For a really long time.”

Jazz frowns

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He speaks in a mildly wonky Common, Swerve notes to himself. He waves his servo a little too cheerfully in response.

“'Ay it's no big deal really. I saw a whole other world while I was asleep and like. See, I thought it was just my fantasies, but it seemed very real and...”

Swerve mentally crosses his fingers.

“And it was about this planet called Earth and about people who were building their own inanimate huge robots to fight huge aliens and their boss wanted to launch Mechs into space, so he picked the best of the pilots named Jazz and sent him on this test mission and...”

Jazz looks at him with huge eyes before switching to English in surprise.

“Mech, what the hell?”

“...And we lost him...” finishes Swerve with a sad smile.

Before thinking for a bit, and adding.

“I'm going to show you a trick I can do.”

And then projects his holoform onto the table in front of him.

This. It's weird. Not in a way that would tilt it in the direction of unnatural. More like walking around in his comfy indoor pajamas right in the middle of the street. Being human is familiar to him, but being human amongst huge Cybertronians? Strange. And a little creepy.

Prowl looks confused.

Jazz looks absolutely frantic.

“SWERVE????”

Swerve doesn't even manage to respond, only to smile in relief before Jazz rakes him into his arms. In his holoform, Jazz feels right again. He's taller than Swerve and oh boy, he's alive and unharmed. To think everyone thought he was dead, staying up nights trying to find what was left of him, and he was on the other side of the universe the whole time?

Swerve chuckles into Jazz's shoulder. Then picks him up and spins him around a couple times just because he needs something to get his energy out. Man, it's nice to hug people. Warm and soft, eight out of ten.

Jazz pulls away but still stays standing very close. Swerve can literally see the happy stars in his eyes.

“Dude, I'm not complaining but what...how???? You just kinda..."

Swerve laughs and twitches his eyebrows playfully.

“I still speak English, you don't have to torture yourself with Common.”

“Oh thank fuck.” Jazz throws his hands up dramatically “you're my favorite person right now.”

There is a polite click of the vocalizer resetting above their heads.

“I” Prowl says “very glad you two are happy but I'd like some explanation”

Swerve presses his head into his shoulders guiltily. Prowl has the unique ability to always sound like you've done something wrong in front of him.

Although Jazz doesn't seem to feel the same way?

“Short version - I sleepwalked my holoform to another planet.”

He pauses dramatically.

“The long version is...”

Jazz raises his hand

“What's a holoform?”

Swerve sighs.

“It's a holographic avatar that I can project using a holomatter generator. Sort of like a remote controlled game character.”

Jazz whistles impressed. And then immediately turns back to Prowl

“Have you been able to do that all this time too?“

Prowl hums

“I can create an avatar, but it takes a lot of practice to make it at least believable. And to fully perceive the world through it takes even more. It's a whole new technology. What Swerve does is essentially an art form. Sophisticated and impressively detailed may I add.”

Swerve shrugs shyly. He's still using the holoform to stand on the table next to Jazz. Looking up to speak to Prowl isn't exactly comfortable, but Jazz definitely looks like he's been missing the human presence. Swerve isn't human, but he might as well be.

“Thank you. Yes! Uh. Anyway, it seems while I was in a coma my processor projected my avatar onto Earth and I...let's just say I lived there for a while.”

Jazz laughs

“Dude. So you're telling me you were basically sleepwalking the whole time?”

“ I was.”

Prowl frowns.

“But the range limit of the holomatter generator is only four hundred miles...”

“.... I had a lot of practice...”

Jazz claps his hands.

“You learned a whole other language! Got an ID!. You had a job!!!”

“I got carried away,” Swerve admits.

Jazz scratches the back of his head, still looking very amused

“How many degrees did you get? Haha wait no, I have a better question, did you pass your driver's license?”

“Two. And I failed my driver's exam.”

“Dude you are literally a car without a driver's license!” collapses Jazz on the table with laughter.

Swerve blows the hair out of his face

“Says you who retook the physical several times. You couldn't pass the "being human" exam.”

Jazz just wheezes incoherently in response. Prowl looks alarmed.

“Don't worry, that's him getting excited. So...where have I been...”

Swerve nervously shoves his hands into his pockets

“...Do either of you two know where Earth is?”

Prowl twitches his door wings

“No. Since Jazz was teleported we don't have much clues.”

Swerve grimaces. Scrap. Of course nothing's going to be that easy. He's also been, like,....teleported.

He stands there for a couple minutes and just feels fifteen different emotions rise up in his head at once. A crooked, unsteady smile creeps across his face.

He's thinking.

Oh hell, yeah! I knew it wasn't a dream!

Then he remembers the mess he left behind.

Oh, no, it wasn't a dream.

Jazz puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Swer... Swerve? Dude, are you okay?”

“Ah frag..” Swerve says weakly ”it wasn't a dream.”

Jazz looks...puzzled.

“Is that bad?”

Swerve remembers his friends. Remembers the Mecha program. Remembers fire and smoke and screams and rumbling and crackling flames. Ashes flying through the air and the smell of burnt wires. He remembers blood and debris and...

“It's...complicated.”

This wasn't just a stupid plot twist he'd dreamed up because he'd watched too many shows. This wasn't a hallucination or a disembodied fantasy that just happened to linger in his head. This was real. His friends exist out there somewhere. His work and his collections and his little apartment...

And Blurr. Was real. Or still is? Swerve doesn't know. Blurr wasn't a product of his imagination. He was real and what he did was real and Swerve left him there alone, bleeding and trapped in rubble and tiny and...

Hahahahah oh fUCK.

He doesn't like this plot. It's too much. Too much to handle, too complicated, too ambiguous.

It's also probably too late.

But he can't leave it like this, right? Blurr went into the damn burning building just because of the possibility that there might be someone alive in there.

And Swerve doesn't even have to go through the flames. He has to look. He has to try at least.

Jazz glares at him with a worried look on his face

“ That expression you have...”

Swerve puts the smile back on his face.

“I need to get to Earth.”

___________________

Swerve is not an idiot.

Or maybe more accurately an idiot, but with several degrees.

He's well aware that finding Earth in space with only a description of it is impossible. Which leaves him with two options.

Ask the Quintessons. Or look for it himself.

The first sounds like death. The second like coma. Swerve has exquisite enough taste to know which is better.

He just needs to do some preliminary reserch.....

Jazz, now back inside his Mech looks doubtful.

“You're not going to die suddenly and for no reason, are you?”

Swerve laughs.

“Pfffff what, no of course not, would I kill myself hah. No no, look I'll just put myself in stasis for a bit. Send myself to Earth. And try to figure out where it is from there. Get the coordinates. If I'm lucky, I can see what Space Bridge the local Quintessons use. All you'll have to do is wake me up after a while.”

“It's not harmful?”

Swerve makes an uncertain gesture with his hand...servo.

“If I have enough fuel. And an additional connection to an external generator.”

Jazz tilts his head

“ Why are you so eager to get to Earth? Don't get me wrong, I miss it too and want to go back, but.”

Swerve bites his knuckles.

“ I have some unfinished business?”

“Pshhhh you sound like a ghost.”

Swerve only laughs in response.

_______________

Concentration is tricky.

Swerve tries to think about Earth. And not to think about the fact that he doesn't know where it is. If he's already been there once, he might as well go there again yes? In theory? Perhaps?

Except for the possibility that his sleepwalking just takes him to random planets. That would be very inconvenient. It would be a whole new level of lost

Shit. No. Earth. Think Earth.

What's he even gonna do when he gets there? How far away is it? Swerve is very talented with his holomatter generator, but if it's really far away... maybe he should reset some settings.

He mentally starts going through his options. Does he need tangibility? Probably not. Come to think of it, it would only make him more vulnerable and take a lot of energy. Yeah, the tangibility has to go. What else? Touch, too. Sight and hearing should stay, that's not even a question, but colors and textures are not really necessary.

The amount of detail and picture quality can be reduced as well. His holoform will become colorless and grainy and will probably ripple with static, but he'll survive it.

After he finishes making changes to his holoform he thinks about his old stuff left in his house. Then about the posters. Then reminds himself that he needs to focus on the goal or he'll never find Blurr and...oh FUCK his phone! Where was his phone when he disappeared? Was it found?? There were so many personal things on that phone, he's hoping the phone was burned under the rubble. Either that or the arriving investigators will find his browser history and he'll go into another coma from pure embarrassment.

He blinks dazedly when he realizes he has loads of rocks in front of his eyes. Oh..Did he screw up? Did he end up on the wrong planet? Is it a cave or--

Then he notices the odd shape of the “rocks” and. Oh, no. It's not a cave. It's charred concrete debris.

This is the place where he was last.

He hastily looks around. Anxiety creeps up the back of his neck, makes him feel like something slippery and cold is crawling over his skin. There is nothing but ruins all around.

Blurr is not here. The place where his Mech was lying is empty.

Which means he was at least found and dragged out. Dead or alive.

Swerve's bites his knuckles. Okay.

All right.

He's got things to do.

_______________

He's trying to stay out of sight. Which isn't hard, considering he's just a hologram. At first, he just sneaks around in the quiet areas. Then proceeds to do a facepalm and start teleporting. Think, Swerve. Did you read all those comic books for nothing? Superheroes who couldn't really use their superpowers creatively always annoyed him. And he does, in fact, have a superpower. Gotta get creative, right?

He stops and looks at himself again. His holoform is going static and is a dull white color. He thinks for a bit, and then shrinks himself. Thinks some more, and makes himself almost transparent. There's no way he could pass as a normal human right now, so he'd better just do his best to avoid being seen by anyone.

He looks around thoughtfully. Hmm. Even if he's going to be absolutely tiny, he needs to make sure no one sees him, otherwise the whole base will think the Quintessons are now spying on them through holograms or something.

Breaking the rules feels...it's exciting.

All his ..human life here he hadn't thought about it, but if he threw away the rules he was used to about what people could or couldn't do...

He looks up in a sudden rush of sly genius. All people look under their feet when they walk, but how many look up? And how many of them notice the barely visible tiny holoform hiding just behind the blinding lamps?

The answer is probably none.

Swerve projects himself onto the ceiling and mentally pats himself on the shoulder for his impressive intellectual accomplishments. A creativity degree should definitely be a thing.

A degree in spying on the Quintessons' ships wouldn't hurt him either.

Fortunately sneaking onto their ship turns out not to be that difficult. Swerve makes himself absurdly tiny and hides in the darkest corners that no one would ever think to look into. Why hasn't anyone thought of using holoforms for spying before? Could he be the first to think of it? He doesn't know, but he mentally decides to patent the idea.

Finding the Space Bridge is surprisingly easy. The local Quintesson fleet is clearly used to being the dominant force in space. And that's generally logical. Even if humanity collects a mountain of money from somewhere to throw a dozen Mechs into space - there will be thousands of monsters waiting for them. In such a situation, you don't have to hide, the guards are enough.

Well done, well done, don't hide, Swerve thinks, copying the coordinates and address of the space bridge to himself. You have absolutely nothing to fear here, he thinks, so stay where you are and don't move. Please and thank you.

Once the coordinates are obtained, he... has some freedom to explore. And he uses it for probably the most boring-sounding thing in the world. He returns to his usual workplace.

It’s simple. As damning as the Mecha program was, Swerve loved his job in it. He loved his position in the assembly shop. And he missed his friends.

He quickly teleports through several rooms, continuing to hide close to the lamps. Tailgate is here. Alive and unharmed. Wheeljack is too, though his face has some scars added to it. It's great to see them again, even if he can't talk to them right now. No one will probably react well to a grainy unexplainable hologram. He's just glad to know they're okay and honestly, the last thing he needs is paranoid Onslaught installing extra signal jammers.

It takes time to find Blurr. Partly because Swerve is terrified of what he might find if he started looking. So he goes to check the death lists first, and only after flipping through and re-reading them three times does he finally exhale in relief.

Blurr's name isn't there.

So his smug, shiny ass must be around here somewhere.

He checks the hangar. Flips through the Mech launch logs and feels an uncomfortable knot begin to form in his chest. Blurr's Mech has never been repaired or launched even once since the incident. Its plating has been replaced with new, well polished, and put in a prominent place where anyone who wants to can take a picture of it. But all the internal systems are destroyed. This machine hasn't been used for anything other than being a beautiful exhibit.

That's...something's wrong.

He checks offices and schedules as well as eavesdropping on a few conversations and ends up secretly following Swindle, who is arguing loudly with someone on the phone. He says something about deals and how he doesn't need anyone meddling in his business. Then he talks about how he's got everything under control and the person on the phone is “a dumbass who's making drama out of nothing” and that “he doesn't need anyone's handouts". Then he sighs and says, “you know how celebs are. Dumb and dramatic. You can't take their words literally.”

Then drops the call and for a couple seconds looks like he's just had a large bill taken right out of his hand. Curses again, but in a quieter voice. Leafs through his contacts and stops at the one signed 'free ice'.

“Blurr? Where are you? Wha...ah, no wait. No, the advertising agency called. No, liste...Can you shut up for one second?Where are you?

Uh-huh....... Uh-huh.Okay.

Give me half an hour...okay, yeah.”

This is it, Swerve thinks.

He shrinks himself further and teleports under the collar of Swindle's coat.

He wants to take a look. Just. Just a peek. Make sure everything's all right. Then he can go about his original mission in peace. He watches Swindle get in his car and drive off somewhere. Swerve doesn't recognize this part of town. The houses here are much nicer than where he lived. The streets are cleaner.

He tucks himself further under the coat collar. He's not going to be a stalker or anything, but he's worried and he doesn't have time to wait for Blurr himself to show up for work. Just one little look and that's it.

Swindle's car stops outside a beautiful, shiny hospital. Swerve nervously tries to bite his knuckles, but remembers he's disabled touch in his holoform. Shit? Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shi

Blurr looks like a mangled corpse.

Okay, not really. His left side that faces the door to the hospital room looks like a mangled corpse and that's the first thing that catches Swerve's eye when he's inside.

Blurr is pale and thin and his hands are covered in bandages. The left side of his face has been turned into an absolute ugly nightmare. A piece of his ear is missing. In the place of the left eye is a creepy empty hole.

Suddenly Swerve realizes why Blurr didn't show up for work. You can't even show him to his coworkers like that, not just to the public.

Blurr turns his head and the spell breaks. His lips stretch into a cocky smile.

“'Got bored without me Swindle?”

Swindle doesn't show the slightest emotion at the gruesome sight. He casually pulls a chair over to the hospital bed and sits down.

“Shockwave is trying to sneak a new project into the program. And he's slowly swaying investors to his side, using you as an excuse. Tells everyone you're a poor martyr he can save if only he's given the green light from above.”

Blurr wrinkles his nose.

“Not that he's wrong. The doctors say I need to pick a new career because with this...” he jerks his head to the left implying his damaged half, ” neither racing nor piloting is an option for me anymore. I'm out of your project.”

Then he stops talking for a few seconds and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“You wouldn't have come here in person just to say that. Why are you really here?”

Swindle adjusts his glasses

“Have I ever told you why I made the contract with you?”

“Because you like money” Blurr says without hesitation.

Swindle lets out a quiet chuckle.

“Fair point. But money wasn't my only priority.”

He pauses for a second. Gets up. Draws the curtains in the room. Checks to make sure no one is outside the door.

Goes back to his seat.

“You didn't see what the Mecha project was like before. Brutality and absolute disregard for human rights multiplied by a thousand. People were desperate and no one cared to maintain any decency.”

He raises his hand when Blurr rushes to say something.

“No no, listen to me. If you think things are bad now, you're right. But it used to be much. Much, much worse.”

Swindle sighs and adjusts his glasses again

“Vortex was taken as a boy. He wasn't even out of high school when they shoved him into the lab. Me and Onslaught were pulled right out of the college exams. The others were no better, although they were usually a little older. My point is that it was allowed. It's what the superiors could do and no one told them no.”

Blurr tilts his head and gets a little all turned around to see Swindle better with his right eye.

“But you... found a way to change that, didn't you?

Swindle rubs the bridge of his nose

“I have no power over my own superiors. But Onslaught and I have come up with a plan. Look. I'll put it in simple terms for you. Above me is my boss, and above him is another boss, and so on but at the very end of that chain are people from the government. The investors. So we figured out a way to cut through the chain of command and influence them directly. Make them worry about us. It's a kind of social shield. Onslaught is a genius.”

Blurr blinks.

“Why are you telling me all this.”

Swindle takes off his hat and just. Crumples it in his hands. The back of his head shows numerous scars and the glint of tiny metal implants barely visible behind his hair.

“You're that shield right now, Blurr. You can't leave.”

Blurr's eye widens

“Is that why you insisted on ‘befriending’ me with all those bullshitters?”

“I needed to make sure that in their minds we weren't just a military unit. To keep them thinking that we're as human as they are. So I gave Project Mecha a face.” He tugs on the hat again, “Your face.”

Blurr runs his fingers through his hair

“Shockwave can't do whatever he wants cause...because of me his efforts would risk going public and people wouldn't like it and it would ruin the reputation of our investors-and-they'd-cut-off-his-funding.”

Swindle puts his hat back on.

“Exactly.’ That's why he's being so persistent right now. He knows you're vulnerable and he wants to capitalize on the opportunity. Make you part of his new project and tell the world about it. Make publicity his weapon, too.”

The lamp above them flickers faintly. Blurr takes a breath. Long and tired and exhausted and. a bit doomed.

Swindle puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Please. Don't leave. At least not now. And don't let Shockwave get to you. That would open the way for him to get to the rest of the pilots you represent.”

They just. Sit in silence for a while. Blurr quickly taps a finger on his knee. A rapid tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Swindle moves his hand away and gets up from his chair.

“There's a press conference coming up. I need you to be there. I've told everyone who needs to know that the problem is exaggerated and you're fine but they need to see you.”

Blurr smiles sourly.

“My lawyer is going to charge you such a handsome sum for that stunt.”

Swindle laughs, but his cardboard advertising smile doesn't reach his eyes.

“We’ll see about that. Seriously though. I need you there.”

Blurr bites his lip.

“I..don’t know...”

Swerve...doesn't know what to think of that.

Blurr shows up for the press conference. Late, but he makes it. Just as Shockwave is presenting his new project in his amazingly well-pitched voice. Blurr swings the door open and waltzes lazily inside, skillfully pretending not to notice the many cameras and eyes instantly directed at him.

Swerve, whose memory is still fresh thinks for a second that no, no this can't be the same person. Past Blurr looked like a wreck. Past Blurr was tense and tired and hunched over. Present Blurr couldn't look more alive. His shoulders are squared proudly, there's that cheerful springiness and grace in his stride. He moves with ease and confidence. Smoothly.

The left side of his face is neatly covered with fresh white bandages. Carefully, without leaving the even the slightest gap through which his injury could be seen. His hands are hidden under a fancy jacket. He smiles wide and bright and squints playfully toward the table.

The very embodiment of nonchalance. The few pilots sitting in the audience roll their eyes.

Swindle breathes out a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Swerve, once again using Swindle's collar as a tactical cover, can't help but let out a silent triumphant laugh. Maybe slightly more nervous than he is supposed to be.

Blurr sends Swindle a sly, sharp smile and even knowing it wasn't meant for him, Swerve feels his cheeks heat up.

Ah, damn it.

Swerve breaks the rules. He tells himself that peeking is fraught with consequences when it comes to military organizations, but he can't stop himself from being curious. And from worry, too.

And now that he knows where to look, he sees things he'd rather not see.

Blurr ... is crumbling.

Swerve doesn't know all the details and consequences, but that incident did leave a mark.

But every time Swindle calls him and says “I need you at some place in two hours” he gets up and assembles himself into a human being. Like a goddamn puzzle. Tapes and covers the burned half of his face. Covers up the bruises and hides the stitches. Fixes his hair and sets off on shaky legs to pretend he's fine.

He smiles so bright and carefree, laughs so sweet and beautiful that no one would ever think that even standing up sometimes hurts.

And continues to act like a jerk of course.

The only difference is that this time Swerve mentally gives him the presumption of innocence before he starts judging.

Blurr does a lot of things that seem rude. He also does a lot of things that are actually rude and figuring them out without resorting to alien superpowers would be nearly impossible.

When the pilots see Blurr sitting right on the table while negotiating with investors, they roll their eyes and make comments about his terrible manners. Or when he stops showing up for even the most basic, rudimentary training.

Or when he develops that stupid habit of leaning his elbows on people standing next to him.

It's the model behavior of a rich, spoiled brat.

It's also an inconspicuous way to stay upright.

Employees say “that dumbass has never heard of personal space.”

Investors say, “I think he likes me.”

Blurr leans on Swindle's shoulder and through a charming smile says “Don't move or I'm gonna fall.”

Swindle also keeping up the smile discreetly holds him back, pretending it's a friendly half hug.

Swerve feels like yelling at both of them, but he's not sure what for exactly. For one thing, Blurr in his condition is very VERY VERY contraindicated to even get out of bed, let alone participate in social activities.

On the other hand, without Blurr, everything is going down the pit.

Without Blurr, all the government sees are dry reports and spreadsheets. Without him, all the high command has is numbers and a sense of impunity. Swerve is sickened by how easily people tend to forget that numbers represent other people.

Most pilots are able to draw a parallel between deteriorating working conditions and Blurr's sudden fondness for staying home instead of working. But they think the rich jerk got scared and ran away. Considering the way Blurr has always behaved at work - Swerve can't even judge them too much for it. They assume Shockwave getting more freedom is the cause of Blurr's absence, not the result.

Blurr's influence only becomes noticeable when it slowly starts to fade away. It's like switching from expensive tea to a cheaper one. The awful flavor only becomes noticeable in contrast.

Blurr doesn't lead the development of new technologies or go out to fight in the field. He doesn't make plans and reports, he doesn't participate in drills, he doesn't cover anyone's back in battle.

But he's the one who puts his hand on the government's shoulders when they're about to sign the next piece of paper. He's the one they have to look in the eye before they have a pen in their hands and a document authorizing Shockwave to stick more needles in people's brains.

It makes a difference. Small one. But still.

It turns a disembodied imaginary “combat units” into a tangible person.

From “do you want to accelerate the combat training of new soldiers” to “are you willing to tell the living, breathing guy standing in front of you that shoving poison under his skin is an idea you approve of.”

More importantly (And Swerve actually admires Swindle for this) Will you be able to explain anything to your families later on, when this same guy is on TV all over the country saying that's what you did to him?

There have been two fronts here all this time, Swerve realizes.

While the pilots were protecting people from monsters wearing teeth and armor, Blurr was protecting the pilots themselves from monsters wearing ties and lab coats.

After another conference, Shockwave stops Blurr in the hallway.

“Good show.”

Blurr laughs. Soundly and proudly.

“Thanks darling~ Sorry I interrupted you. Your speech sounded like something important, but I don't really know much about nerd stuff.”

Swerve, hiding on the ceiling again, snorts.

Shockwave doesn't move. Doesn't give any indication at all if he's offended or upset or whatever.

“It must have been hard getting here with your injuries.”

Blurr shrugs and lazily turns his head around distracted.

“It's just a few bruises here and there. Not the end of the world.”

Shockwave nods slowly. His voice and posture and all, Swerve thinks, looking very uncomfortable.

“Of course it isn't. But hardly good for your career.”

Blurr freezes.

No, Swerve thinks. Shit. No, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't

“Your brilliant achievements have always been a source of admiration to me” continues Shockwave “it would be a pity to lose them.”

Blurr makes an indifferent face and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“Like I said. Not the end of the world.”

Swerve imagines choking Shockwave. Dropping a lamp on his head. Maybe jumping on top of him himself. Shut up, he thinks. Shut up, shut up, stop fucking talking.

Shockwave with a nice, slow gesture pulls out a notebook from somewhere and flips a couple pages.

“Multiple burns, cracked ribs, poisoning from carbon monoxide and combustion products of toxic chemicals...”

Blurr visibly shivers and looks away.

“...loss of vision on one side...” Shockwave continues reading, ”and partial hearing loss. Finally, the impact of neural link malfunctions. And this, if I'm not mistaken, is on top of the already existing memory problems?”

Shockwave takes a step closer. Not fast enough to make it look threatening, but enough to hover.

“It may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of you.”

He writes a set of numbers on the same page, tears it off, and hands it to Blurr.

“You are broken. I can fix you.”

Blurr frowns, but takes the piece of paper.

“That fixing would involve giving you consent to mess around with my head, wouldn't it? It's brave of you to think I'd go for that.”

Shockwave tucks the notepad into his pocket.

“I can assure you, neither I nor anyone else is interested in your brain. I just want to give you back what you're truly valued for.”

Blurr flinches.

“I don't need your help.”

“ If you say so,” Shockwave agrees easily. Nods, slowly and smoothly. Then starts to walk away “But you do need your fame.”

...

“By the way, you might want to wipe the blood off.”

Blurr waits until Shockwave's back disappears around the corner, then quickly pulls a tissue from his pocket and brings it up to his nose.

____________________________

Swerve wakes up looking up at the ceiling of his room. The high, metal ceiling, of a metal room on a metal spaceship.

Holy shit...

Jazz pokes him gently on the forearm

“Are you alive? You've been gone for like quite a while...Did it work?”

“Hey Jazz” frowns Swerve “what do you know about Blurr?”

Jazz laughs

“What are you fanboying over him again? Still??? Dude's smug and arrogant. Good boss though. I was hired to perform at his parties before I became a pilot.”

Swerve sits up and rubs the back of his head.

“Ah...”

“So it worked?”

“Wha...ah! Yes! Yes, it worked! I managed to get the number and codes from the space bridge the Quints used on you. We just need to find another space bridge and we'll have a pretty much direct route to Earth...well. Or rather, to the Quint ship that's located near Earth. You get the idea.”

Jazz rubs his hands together happily.

“I'll take it.”

Swerve jumps to the floor and heads to grab an energon cube. Man, these holoform exercises are burning energy like crazy.

He stares at his metal hands like an idiot for a couple minutes. Just...Contemplates how non-human they are.

He has eight fingers again instead of the human ten. Huh.

Prowl downloads the information he's gotten and immediately runs off to plan a route to the nearest working space bridge and for a while Swerve is just.

Left to himself.

He tries not to think about Blurr. What would he even say to him? Hey, look, I'm sorry I accidentally set you up, see, I'm actually an alien who was sleepwalking and thought you were fictional, surely this won't affect our non-existent strictly professional working relationship? Nah, screw that. If he's going to sound crazy, he needs to at least come up with a good presentation for his insanity.

....

Is it weird to think humans are beautiful if you're not human? If you're kind of human, but only in your soul and only half human?

He looks at Jazz and Prowl.

“You two get along really well.”

Jazz chuckles, sitting on Prowl's shoulder.

“Right now, yes. But we got on each other's nerves quite a bit when we first met.”

Swerve looks up at Jazz's chattering legs from his height and thinks. This is working somehow.

On the other hand, Jazz is the exception rather than the rule. He's friendly with everyone, he's easy to get along with, he's the soul of any company and most importantly, he was a little too much into robots before he discovered they could be alive. If anyone could find common ground with the Cybertronians, it would definitely be Jazz.

_____________________

”Are you a ghost?”

Swerve shrieks in fear and gets covered in static. He hadn't planned on talking. He hadn't planned on being noticed at all. Blurr was supposed to be asleep! And Swerve just wanted to close the curtains and leave, because there's some noisy party going on outside and bright illuminations are very bad for a patient already suffering from neural connection withdrawal.

He freezes in place like that dude from Jurassic Park. Like if he's still enough, he won't be noticed. Oh, or was that from another movie?

“I'm just uh” he awkwardly reaches up and closes the curtains “Lights. Bad for...you...now.”

Blurr chuckles. It sounds suspiciously joyful. His whole posture and facial expression. He looks very relaxed for someone who had a ghost materialize into the room out of thin air.

Swerve traces the line of the IV with his gaze. Oops, that looks like painkillers.

“Yes I am. Uh. A ghost watching the curtains. And now the curtains are fine, so I guess I'd better go?”

Blurr squints amusedly.

“You can walk through walls?”

“Uh, I can teleport into the next room?”

He backs up his words by making himself disappear and reappear in another corner of the room.

“Cool!” says Blurr cheerfully.

Swerve is involuntarily infected by his mood and makes a couple dramatic bows as if he were some kind of magician.

“ Show me more?”

“Hehehe okay eh” Swerve spreads his arms like he's presenting something and then makes himself the size of a soda bottle and teleports to the edge of Blurr's bed “Ta daaaa~”

“Wooooo look at you, you're like an action figure~”

Blurr immediately makes an attempt to touch him, but fails to reach and drops his hand back on the blanket.

Swerve chuckles and steps closer. It's funny to see the usually incredibly agile Blurr struggling with something so simple and ridiculous.

“They really drugged you huh?”

“It's not the drugs” snorts Blurr ”...it's my eye.”

He raises his hand once more and hesitantly pulls it towards Swerve until it bumps into his hair

“... depths Per…percen.. ah, shit. I can't tell how far away things are.”

Swerve just. Lets Blurr fidget at himself, while starting to feel really bad at the same time.

"If you can't tell how far things are, how are you going to drive?

Race???”

He must have a plan right? Something? Let’s-prove-Shockwave-wrong tactic???

Blurr drops his hands back on the blanket

“I won't.”

He freezes when the all too close fireworks rumble outside the window. Then points to his head.

“With this. I can't drive, I can barely walk at all, and I look like horror movie material. Pathetic heeh.”

Swerve sits down quietly cross-legged on the blanket.

“Well...at least you're alive....”

Blurr shakes his head.

“If I had died, it would have been epic. You know? Dharm...dramatic! It would be big news and everyone would be talking about what a hero I was or...or something...”

“...”

“Swindle would be so angry, but he'd figure out a way to make money out of it. He'd make a commercial about how people should be heroes. I'd be remn..remembered for being cool and brave and stuff.”

Fireworks can be heard from the street again. Swerve notices that there is a thin slit between the closed curtains through which a slim, flickering strip of multicolored light streams into the room.

Blurr frowns and leans back against the pillow, looking up at the ceiling.

“I've turned into a boring wreck. My records will be beaten, my career forgotten , and all the guys from work will remember me as a brat. In a--in a--in a way, it's worse than death. Shockwave's right.”

Swerve isn't sure what exactly would be an acceptable gesture of comfort, so he kind of just. Places his hand on the blanket covering Blurr's lap.

“Hey, don't say that. I think what you're doing is great.”

“Liar” smiles Blurr crookedly ”You hated me. I saw your posters collection.”

Oh shit. The ones he ripped off the walls and destroyed in a fit of fan frustration? He didn't even hide them, just shoved them in the back corner. Aw, man...

Swerve folds his arms awkwardly across his chest.

“I can be mad at you and think you're cool at the same time. I'm a multitasker.”

“You're a very specific kind of ghost.” says Blurr. Then, apparently inspired by the painkillers, decides to drop the conversational equivalent of an atomic bomb on Swerve's head “You died because of me?”

Swerve stiffens.

“I...Wwhat?”

“You know.” he makes a gesture with his hand that's ..unclear what it's supposed to mean. “You were working there with everyone else, and then there was that fire and I was sure I saw you down there under the rubble.”

He's silent for a couple seconds before he hesitantly continues

“And then no one could find you so most assumed you either burned or ran away. And now you're here with all your weird ghost stuff, so you must be dead.”

Swerve has.No idea what to think about it. And what to say? He's been so busy blaming himself for Blurr getting hurt that it hasn't occurred to him to think about what it looks like from Blurr's own perspective.

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head’s all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Swerve wants to run around and bang his head against the wall.

Instead, he gets up from the hospital bed. Carefully.

“You're high. I'm not going to explain things to you while you're high, you won't understand or remember them. Go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night.”

“You'll tell me later?”

Swerve hums quietly and pulls the curtains all the way closed.

“If future, sober Blurr would want my company.”

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

Jazz looks at him. Very intensely.

“Are you going to tell me who this mystery person you keep coming back to Earth for?”

Swerve snorts.

“What makes you think it's anyone in particular?”

“You're right, you're right~” raises his hands in surrender Jazz “So are you going to tell your friend the whole thing?”

Swerve crosses his ..metal arms over his metal chest.

“Is it that big of a deal? He thinks I'm a ghost or something.”

Being a ghost...somehow better, he thinks. If you're a ghost, it kind of automatically implies you're human. Or was a human.

“Sooner or later, he'll put the facts together~” says Jazz in a chant.

Swerve laughs.

“That's unlikely. He's got a pretty bad memory.”

_______________

His plans to stay out of anyone's sight combust with a dramatic pop the next time he projects himself to Earth. He doesn't plan to interfere, he doesn't even plan to linger. He just wants to see what's going on.

He actually just quietly sneaks into the hospital to make sure nothing's happened to Blurr since last time, but when he finally finds him then...oh shit, is that Pharma in the same room with him??? This can't be good.

They don't speak, but Pharma has clearly locked his eyes on Blurr and starts making his way towards him with the relentlessness of a industrial metal press.

Swerve does some rough math in his head. If he briefly gives his holoform back its detail and voice, will that be enough to fry his processor? He's not sure.

Pharma gives a believable impression of a shark getting close. The staff, as if sensing something untoward is about to happen, leaves the room in a hurry.

Blurr looks indifferent, but Swerve's attention is drawn to the way he squints tensely. Man, the lamps are too bright in here.

Pharma smiles sweetly and reaches out for a handshake

“Mind some company?”

Swerve's mental processes fly out the window. Oh no no. Not Pharma. Not in his fucking fanfic. He quickly changes his work clothes into a slightly more business-like looking shirt. Thinks for just a moment and adds a cap to his head to blend in more strongly with the attendants and hide his face to an extent. And then projects himself around the nearest unoccupied corner and runs out of behind it looking as anxious as he feels.

“Blurr!!! Sir, there you are!!! I've been looking everywhere for you!”

Pharma wants to say something, but Swerve doesn't even let him start. He stands in front of Blurr separating him and Farma expressively waves his hands trying to keep his head down.

“The guys you were talking about didn't bring the new hydraulics! It's a disaster, we'll have to use the one on the old models!”

Blurr, to his surprise, backs up his act almost instantly

“Really? But I thought there was nothing to take from the old models?”

“That's exactly the point! I got the paperwork this morning and...oh those assholes are going to screw it up if you don't step in as soon as possible!”

Pharma tilts his head

“Can it wait? We were actually talking here!”

Oh no, thinks Swerve I'll show you who's talking.

“Sir, no offense but this is a matter of extreme urgency. Are you implying that the safety of your patients is not important?”

“What do you mea...”

“Old faulty hydraulics, that's what you want?” raises an eyebrow in horror Blurr.

“No I'm just...”

“I had a better opinion of you, to be honest.”

“I...” opens his mouth Pharma “...WHAT...?”

Swerve shakes his head.

“And I thought his profession was to help people, can you imagine?”

“Wh..”

Blurr rolls his eye.

“Any idiot can get an important position these days.”

“Wait..”

“Tell me about it. Especially doctors.”

Pharma looks like he's about to start pulling the hair out of his head.

“Can at least one of you shut up??”

Swerve adjusts his cap in a businesslike manner

“Sir, I understand you're a bit detached from reality spending so much time in your department, but you need to take better care of your reputation.”

He raises his eyebrows knowingly

“Wouldn't want the rumors about you to turn out to be true. You know what I mean?”

Pharma doesn't even answer anymore. Pharma just looks like a discarded fish.

“…..Wha....there's rumors?”

“Of course” shrugs Swerve ”Ask Norman, he usually knows everything about everyone. And about your interesting tricks with safety, too.”

He leans in conspiratorially, effectively pulling all of Farma's attention to himself

“So if I were you, I'd stay out of any more things you don't understand.”

Pharma wants to say something. Swerve can tell by the look in his eyes. Pharma tries to come up with a witty and context-appropriate response, but this whole conversation has no more context than a typical episode of Teletubbies.

“Where does this Norman guy work?” finally finds the ground beneath his feet Pharma

Swerve shrugs.

“Block C, if he hasn't been transferred yet. He's already been fined several times for spreading harmful information you know? The guy can't keep a secret.”

Pharma throws his hands up angrily and storms away. Probably looking for context. Or revenge.

A quiet cough sounds behind Swerve's back.

“So. Should I be worried about Norman's health?”

Swerve feels the hair on the back of his neck shiver and slowly turns to face Blurr while still looking somewhere on the floor.

“Uh...only if you're concerned about the fate of fictional characters. I made up Norman's wife, she'll be upset if he gets fired for gossiping.”

Blurr chuckles. Then goes silent. Then, after a couple seconds, starts laughing again. That's a good look for him, Swerve thinks. It's not like Blurr's usual velvet-smooth laugh that he uses at social events. It's more like a quick, jerky giggle, and in Swerve's subjective opinion, it's pretty damn cute. He can't help but grin.

Blurr snorts one last time, cutting off the laughter.

Then he reaches out his hand to him.

Swerve reaches back, expecting a handshake, but Blurr ignores his hand and instead goes for his cap and lifts it by the brim.

Swerve, not expecting this, freezes with his hand outstretched.

Blurr freezes as well, still holding the cap in his hand and looking...like he's rethinking his life. A little.

Ugh, and how to explain it all to him....

“Uh...you...uh...probably don't remember me. I...it's...”

Blurr shifts his gaze from Swerve to the cap in his hand. Then back to Swerve.

“You're real???”

Swerve awkwardly waves his hands in front of him

“Ah not.., not really. Do you know why Pharma was looking for you in the first place? He doesn't work with patients anymore, he's been reassigned to the research department, right?”

Blurr shrugs.

“Last time I saw him, he said I might have implant rejection in the third ..uh..what? stage? or something? I think he's trying to get me in for a checkup.”

Swerve twitches.

“Third??? How are you still standing???”

He then quickly reaches up with both hands to Blurr's head and tilts it so he can see his face better. Using one thumb, he pulls his lower eyelid slightly and mentally catalogs. Temperature normal, pupil normal, eyes are steady, no darkening or trace of blood on the eyelid. Implants? He puts both palms up and gently feels the places behind Blurr's ears. No signs of rejection or malfunction.

“No no no” sighs Swerve ”You're fine, it's only stage two. I mean, second sucks too, migraines and all, but you just need to rest and no bright lights and...” he finally notices his hands are still on Blurr's head and pulls them back as fast as if he's been burned ”I MEAN I'm uh...sorry, I didn't mean to, I...”

Blurr laughs quietly.

“I'm glad you're back.”

_____________________

He wakes up in his quarters and can feel his face burning.

When he goes out to get the energon, Jazz throws him a look.

“Is something wrong? You're all kinda...shaky.”

“Hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu” imitates signs of life Swerve “Say, doesn't it bother you that Prowl isn't human?”

Jazz smiles

“ Oh, I went crazy when I found out. But we figured it out.”

“Like...on a scale from ‘bad grade in school’ to ‘an asteroid is coming to Earth’ how crazy was it?”

“Worried about what your human friends will think?”

Swerve swings back and forth on his heels

“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. Whatnooooo, no of course not. I'd be worried if I planned on telling them at all.”

Jazz frowns

“No offense, but keeping secrets isn't your strong suit.”

“Haha” Swerve waves his servo “ Watch me.”

[alllgator-blood]

'FOGGY STREETS AND CHRISTMAS LIGHTS'

(part 3/3)

I'm gonna infodump about the backstory of this comic, don't feel obligated to read it because it's not cotl related it's just personal stuff, I just want to be able to write about it somewhere cause I can't really talk to anyone about it.

As always, thanks for reading this far, sorry my stuff has been such a bummer so consistently. This comic goes out to all my "christmas induced depression" homies, I left my house maybe like ~5 times all month and it was NOT pleasant hearing "IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!!" on the radio when I'm so ready for it to be over. Gonna take it reaaaaal easy til the year ends, you guys take it easy too!! Got some asks I have to respond to when I'm more stable but probably no new comic pages til january

Alright uhhh so this part of the comic is pretty much taken directly from the last time I saw my great-grandma alive, a few days before christmas. She didn't remember me, but at the nursing home there was a piano, and I sat down and played some stuff because I didn't know what to say. I was really into lisa the painful rpg at the time, and I played that "I've got the joy" song that the villain sings without realizing it was an old christian campfire song. She didn't really say much or move that whole night, just kind of gave me a polite blank smile, but started singing the words when I played the notes to that song.

I kinda stopped in shock, my dad frantically asked me to keep playing, so I did. While the comic I made is way more sappy than the actual moment was, I wish I'd cherished the moment longer. I didn't know it was the last time I'd see her alive. Every family christmas was held at her house when she was around, so it's been weird the past few years. I actually lost another dementia-addled grandma to cancer on christmas eve in 2009, so the holiday was already kind of weird for me on top of everything else that makes me sad this time of year. That's what part 2 was about, I'll spare the details but I wrote leshy to act out how I felt back then. Why are we all sad? This is supposed to be a happy time, all the decorations are up and we're almost all here, so why is everyone smiling yet everything feels so wrong? I feel like since leshy's canonically the most ignorant one to things lurking below the surface, he'd be the one to try and make everyone feel better but not quite understand why everyone is so miserable. My first memory of having self injurious behavior came from then, hence why I had leshy pull his leaves off in the last comic. It was confusing and frustrating and I was just old enough to comprehend something was wrong, but not old enough to understand the depth of it, it DEFINITELY didn't help that nobody helped me back then so I made leshy's siblings actually come in clutch instead of grabbing him/yelling at him.

That night with the piano was something that's stuck with me the few years she's been gone, but I felt kind of strange when I asked my dad and my sister about it and neither of them remembered it. The room we were in was completely empty so nobody else witnessed it but us three. I myself have a history of head trauma and memory loss (plus, native americans are disproportionately more likely to develop dementia... lucky us) so if I ever forgot about that moment, there'd be nobody left to remember it. Sometimes when I do comics, it's my way of going "this happened at some point, and the only evidence it ever happened was me witnessing it, so if something happens to me I want the memory to stay alive in some form."

Anyway. The autistic urge to overshare, am I right? Idk what my religious ass great-grandma would think of me drawing demonic comics about my last memory of her, she'd probably think it's funny though cause she raised my dad whose interests have always been "death metal and devil worship". I'm not sure if anyone read this far, I just hope my dumb comics can convey the things I can't say with my voice and struggle to say through text. None of this was supposed to be "feel bad for me!! Woe is me!!", it was supposed to me more like...cathartic? Healing? I almost didn't post this comic because it felt kinda weird, but seeing people connect with it made it worth it imo. Thank you

[hedgehog-moss]

Pls give recommendations for Odd books 🙏

Here we go, a list of literary oddity :) This post contains majestic spheres, alien taxonomies, cruel subway polytheism, a fourth-dimensional cat, disturbing earthworms, infinite space football, existential mussel terror, a Parisian absurdist time loop, and a picture of a telegraph-pole-man-cheetah. I'm not exactly recommending these books, in the sense that I won't take any complaints if you find them more odd than good, and some of them transcend the concepts of good and bad anyway.

• The Other City, Michal Ajvaz. It's all like this:

• Contes du demi-sommeil, Marcel Béalu ('Half-asleep tales') —is the book that prompted my post about stories that have no ambition or justification beyond being odd. I'm sad that it hasn't been translated :( One of the tales is about a strange opaline sphere that rolls on the road. It doesn't accelerate when the road becomes a steep slope but continues rolling majestically. At one point it floats away towards the sky. Someone wonders if it was the moon. Someone else says authoritatively "It was an angel's egg." Everyone is reassured by this explanation. The whole thing feels exactly like remembering a dream you had. There is also a man who reads too much and whose body atrophies so only his head is left and his wife puts it in an egg cup for better stability.

• Leonora Carrington— The Skeleton's Holiday, or maybe the Hearing Trumpet. I've read them so long ago but I think the latter is the one with the old ladies and nuns? There's also a guy who was murdered in his bath by a still-life painter because he said there was a carrot in one of his paintings, but it might not have been a carrot? It's hard to remember details from this book without feeling like I might be making them up. Bonus Leonora Carrington painting which kind of feels like a short story:

• The Codex Seraphinianus, of course. I wish there were more bizarre encyclopaedias out there.

Also I love this review:

• Sleep Has His House, Anna Kavan —I really liked the way this book used language; making life feel like a fever dream even more than in Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream (which I really liked too.)

The eye is checking a record of silence, space; a nightmare, every horror of this world in its frigid and blank neutrality. The actual scope of its orbit depends on the individual concept of desolation, but approximate symbols are suggested in long roving perspectives of ocean, black swelled, in slow undulation, each whaleback swell plated in armour-hard brilliance with the moonlight clanking along it . . .

• The second half of Michael Ende's Neverending Story, where things get stranger! I remember the hand-shaped castle with eyes and the city of amnesiac former emperors and the miserable ugly worms who cry all the time out of shame then create beautiful architecture with their tears...

• The Gray House, Mariam Petrosyan. This is the one I had in mind when I talked about a 'museum of the strange, but one you wouldn't want to be trapped in after closing time'. Another book that made me feel uncomfortable in a similar (good) way was Edward Carey's Observatory Mansions, the protagonist of which is a man who curates an odd private museum and can't stand the sight of his own hands.

• Oh, speaking of uncomfortable, and hands—He Digs A Hole, by Danger Slater. To me this book was in the more-odd-than-good category but I liked its refusal to have a coherent philosophical meaning. It's about a man who can't sleep so he goes to his garden shed and saws off his hands and replaces them with gardening tools. Then he starts digging a hole. And then it gets weird. (Read at your own discretion if you have a worm phobia; there's some body horror featuring sexually aggressive earthworms. And then it gets disturbing.)

• 17776 — Someone sent me an ask a few years back to recommend this online multimedia narrative to me and I really enjoyed it! Here's the summary, borrowed from the wiki page: Set in the distant future in which all humans have become immortal and infertile, the series follows three sapient space probes that watch humanity play an evolved form of American football in which games can be played for millennia over distances of thousands of miles. The work explores themes of consciousness, hope, despair, and why humans play sports.

• Saint-Glinglin, Raymond Queneau —the author admitted that this book presents some "internal discontinuities." I didn't like it much but I respect the talent it takes to write a novel where everything feels like a random digression, including the key suspenseful scene that matters to the plot. The one digression I loved had to do with the way the narrator is existentially horrified by various sea creatures. It's like he dreads them so much he can't help but think about them when he should be telling a story.

The oyster... This gob of phlegm, this brutal way of refusing the outside world, this absolute isolation, and this disease: the pearl... If I conceptualise them even a little, my terror starts anew. The mussel is even more significant than the oyster and even more immediately admissible in the domain of terror. Let us indeed consider that this little sticky mass whose collective stupidity haunts our piers, consider that it is alive in the same way as a cow. Because there are no degrees in life. There is no more or less. The whole of life is present in every animal. To think that the mussel, that the mussel has, not a conscience, but a certain way of transcending itself: here I am once again plunged into abysses of anxiety and insecurity.

Near the beginning he philosophises about what would happen if a man and a lobster were the only two survivors of the apocalypse. The lobster would break the man's toe and the man would say, "We are the only beings that remain on this devastated Earth, lobster! The only living beings in the universe, struggling alone against the universal disaster, don't you want to be allies?" But the lobster would disdainfully walk away towards the ocean, and "the sight of the inflexible and imperturbable lobster pierces the sky of humanity with its unintelligible claws." (I can't overstate how little this has to do with the rest of the book.)

• Autumn in Beijing, Boris Vian —needless to say the story does not take place in autumn nor in Beijing.* To the extent that it can be said to be "about" something, it's about people trying to build a train station in a desert with tracks that lead nowhere. (I just went on goodreads to check the title, and it's actually called Autumn in Peking in English. I also discovered that it was featured in a list of Books I Regret Reading. I liked this book, but I understand.)

(* French writers love doing this—like when Alphonse Allais said about his 1893 book The Squadron's Umbrella "I chose this title because there aren't any umbrellas of any sort in this volume, and the important notion of the squadron, as a unit of the armed forces, is never brought up at all; in these conditions, hesitating would have been pure madness.")

• The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins—I fear this one makes a little too much sense for this list, but you can't say it isn't weird; and I loved it and recommend it any chance I get.

• The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, Carol Hill —this book was so wacky and made me laugh. I've not yet managed to successfully recommend it to someone; its brand of odd didn't resonate with the people I know who've read it but that's okay. You could say it's about a woman astronaut whose weird cat disappears into the fourth dimension (or the quantum realm?) and she goes to space to save him—but that makes the book sound more straightforward and less messy than it is. Her cat leaves her a note before he disappears:

• The Bald Soprano, Ionesco —fun fact, there's a tiny theatre in the Latin Quarter in Paris where this absurdist play has been staged every night for nearly 70 years, with the exact same set design and costumes and everything, like the actors are stuck in a time loop. They celebrated the 20,000th performance this year! There's an actress who has been playing her character for 40 years and said joining this theatre was like joining a religion. I've been going to see this play as a New Year tradition with my best friend since we were 14, so I love it madly, though I wouldn't say it's good, necessarily—the author said it was about "absolutely nothing, but a superior nothing."

• Statuary Gardens; or Les Mers perdues (apparently not translated) by Jacques Abeille. This man is obsessed with weird statues. Unfortunately I find his writing style rather dull—I feel like he takes strange ideas and makes them feel mundane in a bad way...! But his books still have a nice, quiet, oneiric atmosphere, and images that stayed with me, like a solitary gardener trying to grow stone statues in the depleted soil of a walled garden. Here are some illustrations from the second one:

I'll look into some of the books recommended on my previous post! (and I agree with the people who brought up Cortázar, Borges, and Junji Ito. <3) Some potentially-odd books I have on my to-read list: Clive Barker's Abarat, Goran Petrović's An Atlas Traced by the Sky, Salvador Plascencia's The People of Paper, Jean Ray's Malpertuis; Jan Weiss's The House of a Thousand Floors; Brice Tarvel's Pierre-Fendre.

[princesscolumbia]

It's a day like any other, or so you think. There's nothing remarkable about it, the boss has an after-hours server update scheduled, but for you there's nothing really remarkable about it since you're not on the team for that project. It seems, in fact, like an ordinary day. IT really runs the company. The C-suite? They think they run it, but they're so clueless about the architecture their power is built on, you have more job security than a tenured professor at an ivy league school. You get all manner of calls from all across the company because people without a lick of computing sense get hired and fired on such a regular basis you don't even remember the names of the people who started on the same day as you.

Except for IT, nearly everyone in that department is secure in their job because to ordinary people, you're wizards. And everyone knows you don't mess with the wizard. They can make sure your email gets to you that contains the estimate from the vendor that will make or break your career with the company...or they can take a long lunch because you pissed them off. Yes, everyone knows not to mess with IT.

You hear the grumblings, of course. People upset they can't check their personal email on their work computer, people pissed they can't look up their fantasy football numbers if they're on the company's wifi, but they know they're powerless before you. And you like it that way. The artists you went to school with are all struggling at their coffee shop or fast food jobs, the business majors are doing the crabs-in-a-bucket thing they like making analogies for, and the women who swore they'd be the change they wanted to see in the world by getting into IT all found other jobs that weren't so full of men who questioned their worth.

Your life is pretty good, your job is secure, but your peace of mind is done...you just don't know it yet. Because something happened somewhere else in the company that will shatter that peace you think you've made for yourself.

And it starts with an on-boarding ticket.

You don't think much of it, it's pretty standard stuff for a new hire. You set up their account up, filling in all the right fields and checking all the right boxes and call it done.

Then the next day you get a support ticket. You don't connect it to the on-boarding ticket at first, but it's a request for updating the email and signature information for an account that was apparently made in error. Curious, you check it out and discover that the name the user wants to use isn't their actual name, it's some off the wall hippy-dippy looking name with a weird spelling. Same last name though, so you're pretty sure it is, indeed, the person the email account is registered to. Well, company policy is to use the person's legal name on all correspondence, so you copy the boilerplate from the company manual and close the ticket.

An hour later, the ticket is reopened with HR being CC'd on the correspondence. Shit, the user is a transwoman. Company policy has an exception that allows people to use their preferred name and pronouns in company correspondence as long as Accounting, Payroll, and Legal have their legal names on file. You make the correction and close the ticket.

It's quiet for a bit after that. In fact, it's too quiet. You don't really notice it at first, after all there's always something to do, and when you run out of those things you can use your Admin rights to run one of those games you don't allow anywhere else on the network or access one of those sites that aren't permitted by the company firewall because it's good to be the king, amirite? But suddenly you start realizing you're feeling a bit like the Maytag Man. Users aren't sending in tickets to get their passwords reset or make their mouse work. In fact, the number of times the C-suite has told someone on the team to come up to their office has dropped, too.

Then the tide starts to turn...and you're getting asks both in tickets and during meetings from your boss, "We have a new procedure we're doing, it's going to eliminate the use of email for a certain process and we need you to set up xyz so this team has proper access." What's xyz? Damned if you know, you've never heard of it. You look it up and it turns out to be an older piece of collaboration software based on some open source project you've never bothered learning, but it's still being supported by the vendor (some guy who retired 10 years ago but keeps the software running for funzies) and the community. Whatever, your job is to install the software, make it work, and then handhold the PEBKACs until the crying and whining stops.

Only...the crying and whining doesn't even start. In fact, the only real problem is because...someone on your own team fucked up the roll-out and your boss got chewed and the guy who fucked it up is on notice. "Assuming IT knows the business better than the people who run it," they said. Can you imagine? The villagers questioning the wizards?

The trend continues. IT getting fewer calls, your job becoming less and less easy and more stressful as things that used to fly under the radar are being scrutinized. Forget playing that MMO on your lunch break, you're stuck playing some F2P game on your phone because someone pointed out that the firewall ports for the game were wide open and were only really used by that one game.

Nobody's been able to find the snitch, but it has to be someone in IT, right?

More and more the job becomes less and less fun as you feel the power shift from IT, who used to be the unquestioning masters of the software the business could run, back to the leadership teams of the various departments, and all under the watchful eye of the people in the highest positions of power in the office.

Then one day, one fateful day so disconnected from the day that everything changed you don't, at first, recognize the moment for what it is, you get a call from an office on the second floor. It's one of the "hotel" suites for employees who work from home but need to be in the office occasionally. It seems that the employee is trying to use a docking station that has a busted Ethernet port. They can't connect to the network so can't send a ticket the usual way.

Of course, it's not actually the Ethernet port, it never is. So you have them go through all the steps to get their computer conne...it's not connecting. Okay, so you have them unplug and plug it all ba...they said they just did all that and it's still not working. Including the Ethernet cable? Yes, including the Ethernet cable. You realize you're going to have to go up with a new docking station just in case, in the wild possibility, this user is right. You'll be right up, sir. They remind you of their pronouns. Oh, right, the user is a transwoman. You'll be right up, ma'am.

You get there and realize that the voice doesn't do them justice. They're professionally feminine and femininely professional. They're wearing nice clothes that you couldn't normally be assed to notice, but this is your first transwoman you've encountered in the wild, and you expected a walking stereotype, not someone that looks like they could have stepped off a cover of some business quarterly magazine. Her makeup is on point, her workstation is a touch messy and has a couple of nods to portable personalization. There's an anime figurine right next to her cell phone, which is in a pink, sparkly case. The moment you enter, she locks her computer, showing an incredibly good eye for InfoSec that you don't normally see in users, and you notice the lock screen on her computer has a background showing Tux the Penguin.

Later, you realize that this was the red flag that should have been your clue that your comfortable career with the company was long gone.

You do the usual check to confirm that everything she said she did had been done, test the docking station and confirm that, yes, the Ethernet port is, indeed bad. You set about replacing it and strike up conversation. When did she start with the company? Oh, that many months ago? What does she do? Oh, she specializes in finding solutions to processes that cost the company too much money. How long has she been doing that? Oh, a few years now, it was a bit of a career change but she's honestly enjoying it, finding a sense of purpose she never expected after her late in life change of path. What did she do before?

And that's when she says something that makes the blood in your veins run cold and the hairs to stand up on the back of your neck.

She used to be in IT, before her transition. She was pretty good at it, specializing in InfoSec and malware wrangling, but when she came out and transitioned suddenly she wasn't welcome in the boy's club (her exact words) anymore and needed to find something new for her own well-being and mental health.

She says this with a tiny, ever so slight smile on her face, but the look in her eye is predatory. She knows what kind of terror she struck in you in that moment. She knows because she's been there before.

She knows that the worst enemy of any IT department...is someone who used to work in IT.

You do your best to keep the chatter friendly (don't show your fear) and remove the faulty docking station and scurry back down to your cooler-than-the-rest-of-the-building office where you let the fight or flight response work its way through your system. You wonder how you're going to tell the rest of the team.

You all may be wizards, but a goddamn dragon has claimed her territory.

[elikajinnie]

Together As Gold - N.R & Y.J

P: Slytherins!Ni-ki & Jungwon X Fem!Reader

Requested by: @milksugatae

Warnings: Love Triangle, Tension, Flirting, Humour, Arguments, Jealousy, Two Endings screw it, i cant choose between them! I MADE THEM TOO TEMPTING HELP! GO FOR BOTH IDK! THEY BOTH DOWN BADDD, Teasing... LIKE ALOT OF TEASING!!! peeves is a canon matchmaker!

Synopsis: What do you do when two cunning Slytherin boys want you? If only you knew the answer yourself.

a/n: i got a few ideas for the shenanigans so special thank you to @starf4lls and @encrifice <33 dont mind any mistakes!

see request here | hogwarts au masterlist

--

When you first found yourself at Hogwarts, you were alone. The tall stone walls, the constant chatter of students—it was all overwhelming, and you didn’t know anyone. So, you kept to yourself, focusing on finding your place, giving yourself just enough time to get used to the classes and the eccentric professors.

But once you settled into the flow, things started falling into place. You made friends with your housemates and exchanged stories. The days went by easier after that, and before long, you had a solid group of friends around you, your circle expanding little by little. It was all going well—until you were assigned to work with two Slytherins for a Herbology project.

Ni-ki and Jungwon.

They were the kind of people who knew exactly how to get under your skin. But you would figure out just how different they were from everyone else, with due time.

--

You walked out of Herbology, your hands full with books, the weight of them pressing against your chest. You were double-checking, making sure you had all your materials. The hallways were bustling with students heading to their next classes, but you didn’t mind. It gave you a bit of space to organize your thoughts.

You hadn’t noticed them at first. Ni-ki and Jungwon were trailing behind you, their voices rising in a playful but heated argument.

“I’ll ask her first,” Ni-ki insisted, his tone cocky as always.

“No way,” Jungwon shot back, his voice smooth but firm. “I’ll do it.”

You could hear the back-and-forth, but it didn’t quite register until Ni-ki, with a sudden burst of energy, slid in front of you, effectively stopping you in your tracks. His sharp, mischievous smile was the first thing you noticed as he raised an eyebrow.

“Hey,” he said casually, as if he wasn’t completely interrupting your path. “What do you think about getting a head start on that project? Have you figured anything out yet?”

You blinked, surprised, and for a moment, just stared at him. Behind him, Jungwon stepped up to stand beside him, equally as composed but with a glint in his eyes that made you feel like this wasn’t just a casual suggestion. They were both waiting for you to respond, their eyes studying you, each trying to gauge how you’d react.

You narrowed your eyes at them, still trying to make sense of the situation.

“Well…” you started cautiously, “I have something figured out, but I’m still not completely sure.”

As if that was the cue they’d been waiting for, Ni-ki and Jungwon suddenly moved in closer. Before you could protest, they both grabbed your arms—Ni-ki on one side, Jungwon on the other—and pulled you along with them. You stumbled slightly, caught off guard, and blinked at the two of them in confusion.

Ni-ki’s mischievous grin never faltered. “Good, then we’ll figure the rest out together,” he said, as though it was perfectly normal for him to be dragging you along through the hallways.

Jungwon let out a soft laugh, the sound oddly charming as he looked over at Ni-ki. “Herbology isn’t even my strongest subject,” he admitted, his tone casual, though you weren’t sure if it was meant to reassure you or not.

Ni-ki rolled his eyes dramatically. “As if you have a strong subject at all,” he shot back with a grin, a little too confident in his jab.

Jungwon smirked, unbothered. “At least I don’t fail every practical. Your last Herbology experiment looked like a failed potion, Ni-ki.”

Ni-ki scoffed. “Better than your Charms assignment, which was basically a disaster in a teacup.”

“Better than your Transfiguration homework that could only be fixed by Professor McGonagall herself,” Jungwon retorted smoothly.

You just stared at the two of them, utterly baffled. Was this really happening? They bickered back and forth as if they didn’t have a care in the world, each comment more sarcastic than the last.

“Oh, don’t even get me started on your Potions, Jungwon,” Ni-ki continued, practically laughing. “Last time you nearly blew up a Hufflepuff with a single sneeze.”

Jungwon shot him a playful glare. “At least I didn’t turn a batch of sleeping draught into a batch of pepper-up potion. You nearly made the whole class go into a caffeine frenzy.”

You raised an eyebrow, still trying to make sense of it all. Was it possible to survive being caught in the middle of this?

Jungwon leaned in a little closer, smirking. “Face it, Ni-ki. If it wasn’t for me saving your ass last semester, you’d be stuck in the library trying to figure out what went wrong with that failed Firemaking spell.”

Ni-ki grinned wider. “Who says I needed saving? I had it all under control, except for the little incident with the blast-ended skrewt…”

You sighed, realizing that you were witnessing a rivalry of sorts, but one that seemed more like the banter between good friends. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with, though. How were you supposed to survive having these two as your project partners?

Okay, turns out you would survive having them as your project partners. Despite their obvious lack of skill in Herbology, they did help—or at least tried to. Both of them seemed strangely determined, which you quickly realized wasn’t out of pure goodwill but out of a mutual fear of failing the subject. For what reason, you didn’t know, but the way they occasionally exchanged nervous glances during Professor Sprout’s lectures told you there was more to it than they were letting on.

What you did know, however, was that they were a surprisingly funny duo. Whether it was Ni-ki accidentally knocking over a pot of bouncing bulb roots and blaming it on Jungwon, or Jungwon deadpanning as he handed you a watering can he had accidentally charmed to spray in every direction but the plants, they somehow managed to turn the tedious project into something… enjoyable.

“You were supposed to prune it, not scare it to death!” you groaned, staring at the now-drooping Flutterby bush in Ni-ki’s hands.

“It’s not dead! It’s just taking a nap!” Ni-ki argued, holding it up defensively.

“Sure,” Jungwon interjected with a smirk. “Because plants definitely sleep like that.” He gestured at the pitiful bush, which was half dangling out of its pot.

“Do you want to take over?” Ni-ki shot back, raising an eyebrow. “Oh wait, you can’t even tell the difference between a Shrivelfig and a gourd!”

Jungwon didn’t miss a beat. “And yet, I’m still doing better than you.”

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at your lips. Somehow, their antics made it easy for you to relax and talk to them, like you’d known them since your first year at Hogwarts. They had this way of making you feel included in their little bubble of chaos, like you were already part of their circle of friends.

The three of you spent hours in the greenhouse, working on the project—and while there was plenty of bickering and mishaps, you couldn’t deny how much easier it was to get through with them.

Surprisingly, you all managed to finish the project on time, even if a few mishaps happened along the way—and even if a few unfortunate plants didn’t make it. The Flutterby bush never quite recovered from Ni-ki’s aggressive pruning, and Jungwon accidentally overwatered the Fanged Geranium, which resulted in a small flood and several frantic minutes of dodging snapping leaves. But somehow, against all odds, you pulled it together.

What shocked you most wasn’t just that the project was finished, but that you actually enjoyed your time with them. Sure, they were a pair of chaotic distractions half the time, but their constant banter and ridiculous antics made the whole ordeal much more bearable than you’d expected. It was easy to laugh with them, easy to talk to them about random things that had nothing to do with Herbology. Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like a school assignment and started feeling like… fun.

When Professor Sprout handed back your marks, you almost didn’t believe it. The three of you passed the project with flying colors.

“See?” Ni-ki said smugly, leaning back in his chair and flashing a grin at you and Jungwon. “I told you we’d ace it.”

“You told us nothing,” Jungwon deadpanned, elbowing him lightly. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have even known which end of a Mandrake to pull.”

Ni-ki scoffed. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be trying to figure out how to trim the Devil’s Snare without getting strangled.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, shaking your head at the two of them. “If it weren’t for me, neither of you would’ve made it past the planning stage.”

They both paused for a moment, then nodded in agreement. “Fair enough,” Jungwon said with a small grin.

“Yeah,” Ni-ki added, nudging you playfully. “Guess you did help us.”

You rolled your eyes but smiled anyway. They might have been annoying, chaotic, and occasionally useless when it came to Herbology, but you had to admit—working with them had been fun.

And you honestly thought that was it—that after the Herbology project, you wouldn’t have to worry about Ni-ki and Jungwon anymore. They’d go back to their own lives, and you’d go back to yours, free of their chaos. But clearly, you were wrong.

The very next day, you were calmly walking toward the Great Hall for lunch, your mind blissfully occupied with thoughts of pumpkin pasties and butterbeer, when a loud BOOM echoed through the hallway behind you. The ground shook slightly, and the smell of smoke began to fill the air.

You froze, eyes widening as you turned around. Before you could even process what had happened, the rapid sound of footsteps thundered in your direction. Your gasp caught in your throat as you saw them—Jungwon and Ni-ki—sprinting down the corridor with wild, panicked looks on their faces.

“Run! Let’s go, let’s go!” Ni-ki shouted, his voice loud and urgent.

Before you could even ask what was going on, they spotted you. Without missing a beat, they grabbed you—Ni-ki gripping one arm, Jungwon the other—and practically dragged you along with them as they continued their frantic escape.

“Wait! What—what are you—” you tried to protest, your feet stumbling to keep up as they pulled you at full speed.

“Let’s go, let’s go, don’t stop!” Ni-ki repeated, glancing back over his shoulder like he expected something—or someone—to be chasing you.

“What did you two do?” you demanded, the words coming out more like a yell as they yanked you around a corner.

Jungwon was panting but managed to shoot you an innocent look. “Nothing serious,” he said, though the faint hint of panic in his voice betrayed him. “Just… a minor miscalculation.”

“A miscalculation?! What does that even mean?”

Before either of them could answer, another explosion rang out from somewhere behind you, followed by an angry voice shouting something you couldn’t quite make out. Your stomach dropped as realization began to dawn on you.

“Did you two blow something up?” you asked, your voice rising in disbelief.

“Not on purpose!” Ni-ki shot back defensively, still pulling you forward. “We were just experimenting in the Potions classroom—”

“It was his idea,” Jungwon interrupted, cutting him off with a pointed look.

“Oh, don’t even start!” Ni-ki snapped, glaring at him. “You were the one who said, ‘Let’s add just a little more firewhiskey to see what happens!’”

“And you’re the one who actually poured it in!” Jungwon countered, his tone exasperated.

You stared at them, completely dumbfounded. This couldn’t be real. How had you gone from a peaceful walk to being dragged into yet another one of their disasters in less than two minutes?

“Why am I even here?!” you shouted, half running, half being dragged.

“Because,” Jungwon said, shooting you a quick grin despite the chaos, “you’re our lucky charm. And we figured you wouldn’t mind helping us... again.”

“You figured wrong!” you snapped, but neither of them seemed to care.

All you could do was sigh as they continued dragging you down the hall, their bickering somehow louder than the chaos they’d left. You were starting to think that surviving the Herbology project was only the beginning of whatever mess these two had planned for your life.

And, well, you were right. After meeting Ni-ki and Jungwon, your once relatively peaceful life became a whirlwind of chaos. Everything they did—everything—somehow ended up involving you, whether you wanted it to or not. It wasn’t long before their mischief became a permanent fixture in your day-to-day existence.

If they were planning a prank, they either roped you in to help or you’d somehow stumble across them in the aftermath, frantically trying to help them hide from Filch. And of course, you’d end up covering for them because they’d flash you those overly innocent smiles that made it impossible to say no.

If they were skipping class, you found yourself torn between making up excuses to the professors on their behalf or—more often than you cared to admit—being dragged along with them. “Just this once,” they’d promise, only for it to happen again the next week. And the week after that.

If they were goofing around, you were inevitably dragged into it. A simple walk to the library would somehow turn into a duel with floating chocolate frogs in the middle of the corridor. And if they decided to sneak out to Hogsmeade, you’d find yourself sandwiched between them at the Three Broomsticks, half-laughing, half-sighing as they plotted their next big thing.

Even their visits to Hagrid’s hut became a regular thing for you. The first time, they claimed they just wanted to “show you something cool,” but the next thing you knew, you were in Hagrid’s hut, trying to dodge a Blast-Ended Skrewt that had gotten a little too excited. It was a miracle you all made it out in one piece.

Somewhere along the way, though, all of the chaos and madness began to feel normal. You couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but you’d become friends with them—real friends. The kind who stuck by each other, no matter how ridiculous the situation. And, as much as you hated to admit it sometimes, you enjoyed it. They made life more exciting and a lot more fun.

Eventually, the three of you became known across the school as the Mischief Trio. Every time something happened—whether it was a dungbomb going off in the middle of a Slytherin and Gryffindor Quidditch match, a swarm of enchanted paper birds in the library, or Filch’s office mysteriously flooding—it was almost guaranteed that you three were involved in some way. Professors groaned at the sight of you, and other students either avoided you or gravitated toward you, depending on their appetite for trouble.

But no matter how much trouble you got into, you couldn’t imagine your life without them. Sure, they drove you crazy most of the time, but they also made Hogwarts feel a little more like home. And you knew you’d always have their backs—just like they’d always have yours.

So it wasn’t really much of a surprise when you were sitting quietly in the library, diligently working through your Potions notes, and Jungwon suddenly appeared, slipping into the seat across from you. A second later, Ni-ki followed, plopping himself down beside him. Neither said a word, which was unusual. You didn’t even lift your head, only glanced at them for a brief second in acknowledgment before returning your attention to your notes.

The silence lingered, and for a moment, you were genuinely surprised. Normally, by now, they’d have already started whispering—well, trying to whisper—about their latest harebrained idea or grumbled about how boring studying was. It would escalate until Madam Pince would inevitably swoop in with her stern glare and a sharp “Silence!” by which point they’d be grinning like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. But this time, they just sat there, completely quiet.

It was so unlike them that you couldn’t help but glance up, a little suspicious. Jungwon was leaning casually back in his chair, flipping idly through a random book he’d grabbed, while Ni-ki seemed to be doodling on a scrap of parchment. Neither of them met your gaze, though you could tell something was up by the way they were both sneaking glances at you from the corners of their eyes.

Before you could say anything, Jungwon slipped something across the table—a small folded piece of parchment. You frowned, curiosity piqued, and carefully opened it.

We need your help. Meet us at the Astronomy Tower after dinner. Don’t tell anyone.

You stared at the note for a moment before glancing up at him. Jungwon raised an eyebrow at you, his expression unreadable but with just enough of a spark in his eyes to make you wary. Beside him, Ni-ki finally looked up from his parchment and gave you an exaggerated thumbs-up, grinning like a kid who’d just gotten away with stealing a cauldron cake.

“What exactly do you need help with?” you whispered, narrowing your eyes at them.

Ni-ki quickly shushed you, his grin widening. “Not here,” he muttered, gesturing around dramatically as if someone might be listening. “Just come later, and we’ll explain everything.”

You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Why do I feel like this is going to get me into trouble?”

“Because it probably will,” Jungwon said with a small, unapologetic shrug. “But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”

You gave him a flat look, but he and Ni-ki just grinned at you, their expressions far too innocent for comfort. Whatever they had planned, you already knew it wasn’t going to be anything good. And yet, you knew you’d end up going.

Because somehow, they always managed to drag you along.

So, you did end up going to the Astronomy Tower after dinner, half-expecting to find them already waiting for you. But when you arrived, the place was empty. The cool night air swept through the open windows as you looked around, your footsteps echoing faintly against the stone floor.

"Jungwon? Ni-ki?" you whispered, peering into the shadows. No response.

You frowned, waiting for a few minutes, debating whether you’d been pranked. Then, the faint sound of stone shifting caught your attention. Whipping your head around, you scanned the room—and almost screamed when you saw a hole opening in the stone wall near your leg.

“Relax,” Ni-ki’s grinning face popped out of the hole, his head tilted mischievously. His voice was almost too casual for someone emerging from a secret passage. “It’s just me. Come on, get in.”

“What—Ni-ki? What is—how did you even—” you stammered, taking a step back as he motioned for you to follow.

“No time for questions. Just get in,” he urged, already reaching out to grab your ankle.

“Wait, get in where?” you asked, taking a cautious step closer, only for him to start pulling you toward the hole. “Ni-ki, this is insane—what is even—”

“Just trust me!” he said with a grin, dragging you through the opening before you could protest further.

You stumbled into the narrow passageway as Ni-ki pushed the stone slab back into place behind you, sealing off the entrance as if it had never been there. Without skipping a beat, he grabbed your wrist and pulled you down a spiraling stone staircase, the air growing colder as you descended.

“This better not be a prank,” you muttered, more to yourself than to him.

“Oh, it’s not,” he said, his voice carrying a suspiciously gleeful undertone.

Finally, you reached a small, dimly lit room, the stone walls lined with shelves holding jars of unidentifiable substances. In the middle of the room sat Jungwon, surrounded by an assortment of ingredients, potion books, and a bubbling cauldron. The faint greenish glow of the potion illuminated his face as he looked up at you with a sheepish grin.

“You made it,” he said simply, as if you’d just arrived for a casual study session.

Ni-ki let go of your wrist and plopped down beside Jungwon, motioning for you to sit. You hesitated for a moment before slowly lowering yourself onto the floor. As you settled in, your eyes darted to the mess of potion ingredients scattered around the room—lacewing flies, leeches, powdered bicorn horn, boomslang skin.

Your stomach dropped as you recognized the familiar list of items. Glancing at one of the potion books lying open beside Jungwon, your suspicion was confirmed.

They were making Polyjuice Potion.

“Are you two insane?” you hissed, your voice sharp but quiet. “You do know this is against the rules, right?”

“Rules?” Ni-ki scoffed, waving you off as if you’d just told him the sky was blue. “Only if we get caught.”

“And we’re not going to get caught,” Jungwon added confidently, gesturing toward the cauldron. “We’ve been careful. No one even knows we’re down here.”

You stared at them, utterly baffled. “Why are you even making Polyjuice Potion? What could you possibly need it for?”

They exchanged a quick glance, and you immediately knew you weren’t going to like their answer.

“Well…” Ni-ki started, dragging out the word as if trying to figure out how to phrase it.

Jungwon sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “We just… need to, uh, borrow someone’s identity for a bit.”

You raised an eyebrow, crossing your arms. “Whose?”

Ni-ki grinned, clearly finding the entire situation amusing. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Absolutely not,” you said, shaking your head. “I want no part in this. You two are going to get expelled if anyone finds out!”

“Relax,” Ni-ki said, leaning back against the wall. “We’ve got it under control.”

“You don’t even have it finished yet, do you?” you said, gesturing to the messy pile of jars and powders.

“Well, no,” Jungwon admitted, his tone hesitant. “That’s… kind of where you come in.”

You groaned, already regretting every decision that had led you to this moment. “Of course it is.”

“We just need a little help,” Ni-ki said, leaning forward with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “And who better to help than the smartest person we know?”

You glared at him. “Flattery isn’t going to work.”

“Come on,” Jungwon said, his voice annoyingly reasonable. “You’ve already helped us so many times. What’s one more?”

“One more? This is Polyjuice Potion we’re talking about!” you hissed, staring at them, your arms crossed tightly over your chest as they launched into a chorus of pleading.

“Please,” Ni-ki whined, dragging out the word like a child denied dessert. “Just this once—well, technically not just this once—but, you know, this time’s important!”

“Very important,” Jungwon chimed in, nodding solemnly.

You raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Important? You mean ‘reckless’ and ‘completely unnecessary.’”

Ni-ki pouted dramatically, scooting closer to you on his knees. “Come on, don’t be like that! You’re our only hope.”

“I’m serious. This isn’t happening,” you said firmly, your voice unwavering.

But then Jungwon joined in, mirroring Ni-ki’s position on your other side. Now you were flanked by both of them, their faces far too close for comfort, with matching grins.

“Pretty please?” Jungwon said, tilting his head and batting his lashes like he was trying to win some sort of charm contest.

“With chocolate frogs on top?” Ni-ki added, leaning in with a cheeky smirk.

You glanced between them, your eyes narrowing as they started piling on the dramatics.

“You’re the best at brewing potions!” Jungwon said, nudging your arm.

“And the smartest,” Ni-ki added, nudging your other arm.

“Way better at this than us,” Jungwon continued, his tone dripping with faux admiration.

“And let’s be real—you’re kind of already involved, so why not just see it through?” Ni-ki finished, his grin turning downright devilish.

You rolled your eyes. “You mean you two dragged me into this against my will. That’s not the same thing as being ‘involved.’”

“Details,” Jungwon said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Come on,” Ni-ki teased, leaning so close that you instinctively leaned back. “We’re your friends, remember? What kind of friend would you be if you didn’t help us out?”

“Yeah, what kind of friend?” Jungwon echoed, his voice dripping with mock hurt.

You glared at them, your resolve faltering slightly as they both gave you identical puppy-dog eyes. They knew exactly what they were doing, and unfortunately, you knew exactly how this would end.

“You two are the worst,” you muttered under your breath, looking down at the potion book in front of you.

“Does that mean you’ll help?” Ni-ki asked, his grin widening in triumph.

“Ugh, fine,” you groaned, throwing your hands in the air. “But if we get caught, I’m telling them it was all your idea.”

“Deal,” Jungwon said quickly, already flipping to the next page of the book.

Ni-ki threw an arm around your shoulders, grinning ear to ear. “Knew you’d come through for us.”

You sighed, wondering for the millionth time how you always let them talk you into these things. If Hogwarts ever handed out awards for bad decisions, you were pretty sure you’d win one.

You sighed for the umpteenth time as you carefully added a pinch of powdered bicorn horn into the bubbling cauldron. The potion hissed softly as the powder dissolved, releasing a faint green wisp of smoke. Ni-ki and Jungwon sat on either side of you, their usual antics subdued for once as they watched you work, their eyes glued to your every move like you were performing some kind of ancient magic ritual.

"Can you two stop staring at me like that?" you muttered without looking up, your voice edged with exasperation.

"We're just... observing," Jungwon said innocently, though the small smirk on his lips betrayed him.

"Yeah, gotta make sure you're doing it right," Ni-ki added with a teasing lilt.

You shot them both a sharp look. "Oh, I'm the one you're worried about messing this up? Let me remind you whose brilliant idea this was."

Ni-ki grinned, leaning closer. "Exactly. Which is why we need you to handle it—you’re way better at this than we’d ever be. Right, Jungwon?"

Jungwon nodded seriously, though his gaze didn’t waver from the potion. "Yeah. If it were up to us, we’d probably blow something up by now."

You couldn’t argue with that. They had the combined attention span of a niffler in a jewelry shop.

"Just don’t distract me," you muttered, carefully stirring the potion clockwise. "If you make me mess this up, we’ll have to start all over again, and I am not spending another night like this with you two."

"Aw, you love spending time with us," Ni-ki teased, leaning his chin on his hand as he continued to watch you.

You didn’t dignify that with a response, instead focusing on the precise instructions in the book. Step by step, you added each ingredient, your movements careful and deliberate. Occasionally, you’d glance at the timer Jungwon had set, making sure everything was timed perfectly.

As the potion began to turn the intended muddy brown color, a sign that it was nearing completion, you let out a small breath of relief.

"Wow," Ni-ki said suddenly, breaking the silence. His voice was softer, almost genuine for once. "You’re, like... really good at this."

You glanced up at him, raising an eyebrow. "Don’t sound so surprised."

"I’m not," he said quickly, a mischievous glint returning to his eyes. "But watching you work is kind of impressive."

Jungwon nodded in agreement, his usual playful demeanor replaced by a rare moment of sincerity. "Yeah. We’d be completely hopeless without you."

For a moment, their compliments caught you off guard. You felt heat rising to your cheeks, but you quickly masked it by focusing on the potion again.

"Well, maybe next time, don’t drag me into something like this again, and I won’t have to save your butts," you said, though your tone lacked its usual sharpness.

Ni-ki chuckled. "Where’s the fun in that?"

Jungwon leaned closer, resting his elbows on the table. "You wouldn’t leave us to fend for ourselves, though. Admit it—you’d miss us."

You rolled your eyes, stirring the potion one last time. "I’d miss the peace and quiet more."

They both laughed, and for a brief moment, the room felt lighter. As chaotic as they were, you couldn’t deny that there was something oddly comforting about their presence, even when they were dragging you into one ridiculous situation after another.

"Alright," you said finally, stepping back and wiping your hands on your robes. "The potion’s done—for now. It needs to sit for a month before it’s ready to use."

"A month?" Ni-ki groaned, slumping back against the wall dramatically.

Jungwon raised an eyebrow. "Did you even read the instructions before planning this?"

"Of course I did!" Ni-ki said, though his expression said otherwise.

You shook your head, gathering up the leftover ingredients. "Typical. Anyway, you two better figure out what you’re actually going to use this for. I’m not getting involved beyond this point."

"Sure you’re not," Jungwon said with a knowing smirk.

Ni-ki grinned, leaning forward with that familiar mischievous glint in his eyes. "Yeah, we’ll see about that."

You rolled your eyes, brushing off your robes as you stood up, ready to leave this chaotic duo behind for the night. "Well, good luck with your little plan or whatever. I’m going to pretend I was never here."

But before you could take more than a step, Jungwon was suddenly on his feet, grabbing your wrist with a firm but gentle grip.

"Wait," he said, his eyes bright with excitement.

You raised an eyebrow, glancing between him and Ni-ki. "What now? I already did what you wanted. I’m not doing anything else."

Jungwon grinned, ignoring your protests entirely. "We want to show you something."

You blinked, confused. "Show me what?"

"You’ll see," Ni-ki chimed in, already moving and motioned for Jungwon to hurry up.

"Come on," Jungwon said, tugging on your wrist before you could protest further.

Sighing, you let yourself be dragged along, too tired to argue. "This better not get me into more trouble."

"No promises," Ni-ki called over his shoulder, a teasing lilt in his voice as he disappeared down the corridor.

The three of you navigated through the dark, winding passageways beneath the castle, the air cool and slightly damp. You had no idea where they were taking you, but you couldn’t help but feel a flicker of curiosity.

After what felt like ages of walking, Ni-ki and Jungwon came to a stop in front of a narrow staircase that spiraled upward.

"Here we are," Ni-ki announced, gesturing grandly.

You frowned, looking up the staircase. "Where exactly is here?"

"You’ll see," Jungwon said, his grin widening as he nudged you toward the stairs.

With an annoyed sigh, you reluctantly began to climb, Jungwon following close behind while Ni-ki took the lead. When you finally reached the top, Ni-ki pushed open a small wooden door, and you stepped out into the cool night air.

Your eyes widened as you took in the sight before you. You were on a secluded rooftop of the castle, the view stretching out over the Hogwarts grounds. The Forbidden Forest loomed dark and mysterious in the distance, and the Black Lake shimmered faintly under the light of the moon.

"Whoa," you breathed, momentarily forgetting your irritation.

"Told you it was worth it," Jungwon said, his tone softer now as he stepped up beside you.

Ni-ki plopped down on the edge of the rooftop, his legs dangling over the side as he leaned back on his hands. "We found this spot last year. Nobody ever comes up here. It’s kind of... ours."

"Well, now it’s ours," Jungwon corrected, shooting you a smile.

You glanced between the two of them, your heart softening despite yourself. For all their chaos and mischief, they had a knack for moments like this—moments that made you glad you were friends with them.å

"So," Ni-ki said, breaking the silence, "what do you think? Worth the trek?"

You gave him a small smile, finally letting your guard down. "Yeah... it’s pretty amazing."

Jungwon leaned back against the wall, a satisfied grin on his face. "Knew you’d like it."

The three of you sat there for a while, just sharing a quiet night under the stars.

--

Well, you would love to say that the month waiting for the Polyjuice Potion to set was peaceful.

But that would be a lie.

No, the so-called "peaceful waiting period" turned into absolute chaos. Since Ni-ki and Jungwon couldn't carry out their grand plan just yet—one they still refused to tell you about, claiming it was a "surprise"—they apparently decided to channel their boredom into wreaking havoc around the castle.

The professors were on edge, constantly looking over their shoulders for the next disaster. Filch was more paranoid than ever, skulking through the hallways with his lantern, muttering about "those blasted kids." Even the ghosts seemed jumpier than usual, drifting through walls with wary expressions, as though they'd had enough of the two troublemakers.

And somehow, no matter what you were doing, you always managed to get roped into their schemes.

You’d lost count of how many times you’d accidentally stumbled upon them in the middle of one of their rule-breaking escapades. It was like you had some sort of invisible string tying you to their chaos. You’d walk into a corridor or step into an empty classroom, minding your own business, only to find them hunched over a suspicious-looking contraption or whispering excitedly about their next prank.

The moment they spotted you, it was over.

"Perfect timing!" Ni-ki would exclaim, as if you’d planned to walk in on them.

"Don’t just stand there—help us!" Jungwon would add, usually while pushing something heavy or fumbling with something clearly not meant to be in a student’s hands.

And no matter how much you protested, no matter how loudly you declared that you wanted nothing to do with their shenanigans, you’d inevitably end up being dragged into it.

One time, you’d walked into the library, thinking you’d finally get a peaceful moment to study. Instead, you found them standing in the Restricted Section, both of them holding an armful of books they definitely weren’t supposed to have.

“What are you doing?!” you hissed, glancing around to make sure Madam Pince wasn’t nearby.

“Research,” Ni-ki said simply, dropping the books onto a nearby table with a loud thud.

“For what?” you asked, narrowing your eyes at him.

He grinned. “Class stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”

Jungwon, on the other hand, looked at you with a completely straight face. “He’s lying. We’re looking up forbidden spells.”

You groaned. “Why do I even bother?”

Another time, you were walking back to your dorm after dinner, only to see Filch sprinting down the corridor in the opposite direction, his face red with fury. Moments later, Ni-ki and Jungwon rounded the corner, both breathless and laughing, carrying what looked like an entire box of dungbombs.

You froze. “Nope. Not happening. I don’t even want to know—”

But before you could finish, they grabbed you by the arms and dragged you into an alcove, whispering something about "keeping watch" while they set up their latest prank.

“Do I look like I want detention?” you hissed, glaring at them.

Ni-ki just grinned. “Come on, you’re part of the team now. This is bonding.”

“This is stupidity,” you shot back, though you reluctantly stood guard while they did whatever it was they were doing.

And then there was the time in the Great Hall. You were just trying to enjoy breakfast, eating your toast in peace, when suddenly a flock of enchanted paper cranes came swooping down from the ceiling, diving and swirling around the students. The Hall erupted into chaos as people swatted at the cranes, which were apparently charmed to sing obnoxiously off-key.

You didn’t need to look far to figure out who was responsible. Sure enough, Ni-ki and Jungwon were sitting a few seats away, barely holding back their laughter as they watched the scene unfold.

“You two are going to get expelled,” you muttered as you sat down next to them, shooting them both a glare.

“Worth it,” Ni-ki said, grinning as a crane landed on his shoulder.

“Totally worth it,” Jungwon agreed, taking a bite of his toast as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

It was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Did you gravitate toward them or something? Because no matter how hard you tried to stay out of their messes, you always seemed to end up right in the middle of them.

And yet, despite the chaos, despite the rule-breaking, and despite the constant time spent in detention... you couldn’t help but laugh. They made it impossible not to.

--

You were generally just trying to mind your own business, walking through the dimly lit hallway near Filch’s office, when you spotted them.

Ni-ki and Jungwon stood just a few feet away, both leaning casually against the wall like they didn’t have a care in the world. Which would’ve been believable—if not for the way their eyes darted around like they were scanning for witnesses. They somehow looked both innocent and highly suspicious at the same time, a combination that never boded well.

Your instincts immediately kicked in: Turn around. Walk away. Pretend you didn’t see anything.

But, of course, luck wasn’t on your side.

Ni-ki’s head shot up, his sharp eyes catching you before you could even take a single step back. “Hey! You!” he called out, grinning like he’d just won the lottery.

You groaned audibly, muttering, “Why me?”

Before you could say anything else, Ni-ki was already jogging over to you, his excitement practically radiating off him. “Come on, come on,” he said eagerly, grabbing your arm and tugging you toward Jungwon.

“Do I have to come?” you asked weakly, already knowing the answer.

Ni-ki didn’t even bother responding. He just pulled you along as you let out a resigned sigh, casting one last glance at the exit you’d never make it to.

When you finally reached Jungwon, you gave them both a pointed look. “Alright, what are you two planning this time?”

Jungwon didn’t say anything at first. Instead, he pulled out a folded piece of parchment, his grin spreading mischievously. Holding it in one hand, he drew his wand with the other.

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” he said softly, his voice practically dripping with mischief as he tapped the parchment.

Your eyebrows shot up in surprise as the blank parchment shimmered and began to transform, intricate lines and scribbles spreading across it like ink soaking into paper. A moment later, you realized it was a map—an incredibly detailed map of Hogwarts.

Your jaw dropped as you leaned closer, watching names begin to pop up across the surface, tiny dots moving around the corridors and rooms. Students, professors... even Filch and Mrs. Norris were labeled as they wandered the castle.

“What the—?!” you gasped, utterly shocked. “Where did you get this?”

Ni-ki leaned in close, his chin practically resting on your head. You felt his full weight press on your back as he grinned. “A trickster never reveals their secrets,” he murmured, his voice low and teasing.

You grumbled in annoyance, trying to shove him off. “Will you get off me?”

He smirked, clearly enjoying your irritation, and stayed exactly where he was. Curse his height—and the fact that he was impossible to move when he didn’t want to be moved. With a resigned sigh, you let him rest there, shooting him a glare he just ignored.

Meanwhile, Jungwon pointed at the map, his grin taking on a distinctly cat-like quality. “Look,” he said, his finger tracing a path on the parchment.

You followed his gaze and froze. There, on the map, was Filch. He was several hallways away, but he was moving steadily in your general direction.

“Perfect,” Jungwon murmured, his grin widening as his eyes sparkled with mischief.

You gave him a wary look. “Why do I feel like I’m about to regret being here?”

“You’ll be fine,” Ni-ki said breezily, still leaning on you like it was the most natural thing in the world. “You’re one of us now, remember?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” you muttered under your breath, your eyes flicking back to the map as the ominous dot labeled Filch continued to move closer.

Whatever they were planning, you had a sinking feeling it was going to end with you all running for your lives. Again.

So you stood there in stunned silence, half-expecting to wake up from a bizarre dream, as Jungwon and Ni-ki expertly worked together like they had done this a thousand times before.

Jungwon was the distraction. With a flick of his wand, he whispered a Muffliato charm, ensuring Filch wouldn’t hear the chaos unfolding in his own office. Meanwhile, Ni-ki was crouched by the lock, muttering a soft Alohomora under his breath. The click of the door unlocking sent a pang of dread straight to your stomach.

"Are we seriously doing this?" you hissed, still frozen outside the office door.

Ni-ki smirked as he pushed it open. "Oh, we’re way past asking that question."

Before you could argue, Jungwon grabbed your arm and pulled you in, shutting the door behind you with a silent wave of his wand. You stared at them as they got to work.

Jungwon headed straight for Filch’s desk, pulling out drawers and rifling through papers like he was on a scavenger hunt. Meanwhile, Ni-ki found the confiscated items cabinet, letting out an impressed whistle as he examined its contents. “Wow, Filch really doesn’t like fun, huh? Half of this stuff is just Zonko’s products.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. “You’re going to get us all expelled.”

“Correction,” Jungwon said without looking up. “We’ll only get expelled if we get caught.”

“Helpful,” you deadpanned, crossing your arms as you watched him pull out a particularly nasty-looking parchment.

“Ah-ha!” Jungwon exclaimed, holding up the paper triumphantly. “The list of confiscated items! This is gold. Imagine what we can do with this.”

You opened your mouth to ask what exactly he planned to do with it, but Ni-ki interrupted by shoving a colorful box in your hands. “Look at this! It’s one of those fireworks from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Filch had no business taking this away.”

Before you could respond, Ni-ki grabbed another handful of glittery objects from the cabinet and threw them into a sack he’d conjured from thin air. You groaned.

“And what are we going to do with all this stuff?” you asked, already dreading the answer.

Ni-ki gave you a mischievous grin, holding up a handful of confetti. “Oh, we have plans.”

The next thirty minutes were a blur of pure chaos.

Jungwon enchanted the ceiling to rain confetti every time someone entered the office. Ni-ki, on the other hand, seemed to have a vendetta against Filch’s desk, which was now buried under a mountain of glitter, enchanted to sparkle like a thousand stars under torchlight. You tried—really, you did—to stop them, but they ignored you completely, too caught up in their gleeful destruction.

“Oh, and this will be the pièce de résistance,” Ni-ki said, holding up a firework and sticking it in the middle of Filch’s desk like a centerpiece. “Timed to go off the moment he sits down.”

“Brilliant,” Jungwon agreed, stepping back to admire their handiwork with a proud smile.

You stared at the chaos surrounding you. Filch’s office looked like a carnival had exploded in it. Glitter covered every surface, the confetti charm was in full effect, and there were at least three forbidden spells buzzing quietly in the air.

“This is... insane,” you muttered, shaking your head.

“Insanely fun, you mean,” Ni-ki corrected, slinging an arm around your shoulders. “Come on, admit it. You’re impressed.”

“I’m horrified,” you shot back.

Jungwon checked the Marauder’s Map, his grin turning slightly panicked. “Uh, we should probably go. Filch is coming back.”

At that, Ni-ki straightened, grabbing the sack of confiscated items. “Alright, let’s move. You coming, partner-in-crime?” he asked, looking down at you with that maddening grin of his.

You groaned but followed as they bolted for the door, the three of you slipping out just in time. You could hear Filch’s grumbling in the distance as you sprinted down the hall.

When you finally stopped running, out of breath and covered in a faint layer of glitter, Ni-ki turned to you with a triumphant grin. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

Jungwon snorted. “Speak for yourself. Y/N was ready to disown us back there.”

You glared at them, pointing at the faint trail of glitter that followed you like a beacon. “We’re all getting detention if this doesn’t wash off.”

Ni-ki just shrugged, still grinning. “Worth it.”

You sighed, already preparing yourself for the next disaster they’d drag you into.

You never really expected to stay friends with them. Honestly, you didn’t even know when you had officially crossed the line into friendship—it just kind of happened. Despite being dragged into their mischief constantly, despite the headaches and the near-expulsions, they had somehow managed to carve a space in your life that you hadn’t realized.

And while they were an absolute menace most of the time, there were moments where they surprised you.

Like when you were stuck in the hospital wing after a particularly nasty Quidditch accident, and Ni-ki had snuck in late at night to bring you sweets he’d smuggled from the kitchens. “Thought you could use a little sugar rush,” he’d said with a grin, settling down at the edge of your bed like he planned to stay there all night.

Or the time you got a nasty grade on an essay in Transfiguration, and Jungwon, who had perfected the subject, had sat with you for hours helping you revise until you finally understood it. He’d teased you endlessly, of course, but he still patiently explained things, as though he believed in you even when you didn’t.

These small moments added up, painting a picture of your friendship that was as genuine as it was chaotic.

But what you didn’t know—what you couldn’t know—was that their feelings for you ran deeper than friendship.

The way Ni-ki’s teasing became just a little softer when it was directed at you. The way he always found an excuse to stand close, to brush against your shoulder or nudge you playfully, his gaze lingering on you when he thought you weren’t looking.

Or the way Jungwon seemed to falter around you in small ways. The way his eyes softened whenever you laughed, or the way his voice always lost a bit of its sharpness when he said your name.

Neither of them had admitted it—maybe not even to themselves—but it was there.

And you, completely unaware, continued to treat them like the troublemaking friends you’d grown so used to, never realizing the turmoil you were unknowingly causing in their hearts.

Eventually, the month was up, and the Polyjuice Potion had finally set.

Jungwon and Ni-ki, as eager as ever, wasted no time dragging you back into the secret passageway where they’d first revealed their ridiculous plan. You’d been half-hoping they’d forgotten about it, or maybe come to their senses, but judging by the gleam in their eyes, you knew better.

Jungwon carefully ladled some of the potion into a glass, the thick, murky liquid swirling ominously. The smell was awful—like burnt cabbage and old socks—and you couldn’t help but scrunch your nose in disgust.

"Are you sure about this?" you asked, eyeing the potion warily.

"Positive," Jungwon said, far too confidently for someone about to drink something that could very well land him in the hospital wing—or worse.

Ni-ki leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, grinning like this was the best entertainment he’d had all year. "Go on, Jungwon. Bottoms up."

With a deep breath and a glance at the both of you, Jungwon tipped the glass back and downed the potion in one swift gulp. Almost immediately, he doubled over, clutching his stomach as his body began to shift and change.

You and Ni-ki stepped back instinctively, watching in both awe and horror as Jungwon’s dark hair lightened to a sandy brown, his frame stretched slightly taller, and his features rearranged themselves into something alarmingly familiar.

When he straightened up, you found yourself face-to-face with the Gryffindor prefect.

"What," you said flatly, blinking at him as your brain struggled to process what you were seeing.

Jungwon—now looking and sounding exactly like the Gryffindor prefect—grinned. "What do you think? Pretty convincing, huh?"

You stared at him, dumbfounded. "You’re him. You’re literally him."

Ni-ki let out a loud laugh, slapping his knee. "This is incredible. You even nailed his ‘holier-than-thou’ smirk." He clapped his hands together, grinning like he’d just won the lottery. "Absolutely flawless. Ten out of ten. You could fool anyone."

Still reeling, you turned to Ni-ki, your voice rising. "What is this plan, exactly? What are you two planning to do now that Jungwon looks like the Gryffindor prefect?"

Ni-ki’s grin widened, his eyes glinting with mischief. "Oh, right. About that…" He stepped closer, lowering his voice as though he were about to share the world’s best-kept secret.

You crossed your arms, waiting impatiently.

"We," he began, drawing out the word dramatically, "are going to change the Gryffindor common room password."

You blinked. "You made me brew a highly risky potion—risked detention and possible expulsion just to change the password to the Gryffindor common room?"

"Exactly!" Ni-ki exclaimed, throwing his hands up as if to emphasize his point. "Gryffindor’s been unbearable ever since they won the last Quidditch match. Rubbing it in everyone’s faces, strutting around like they’re the kings of the castle—"

Jungwon, now examining his new appearance in a nearby reflective surface, chimed in, "Which they’re not, by the way."

Ni-ki shrugged, completely unapologetic. "It’s payback. Justice if you would say."

Jungwon, nodded solemnly. "It’s about the principle."

You groaned, dragging a hand down your face. "You two are insane. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ll be in if you get caught?"

Ni-ki leaned closer, a smirk tugging at his lips. "That’s why we won’t get caught."

"Uh-huh," you deadpanned, entirely unconvinced. "And if the real Gryffindor prefect shows up?"

Ni-ki waved you off. "That’s why we’ve got a lookout."

"Who’s the lookout?" you asked warily.

Ni-ki gave you a pointed look, his grin widening mischievously.

"No," you said immediately, stepping back. "Absolutely not. I am not going to be the lookout for this ridiculous plan."

"Come on," Ni-ki whined, grabbing your arm and giving you a pleading look. "You’re the only one we trust for the job. Plus, you’re great at pretending you don’t know us if things go south."

"That’s not a compliment," you snapped, but Ni-ki just laughed.

"Please!!!" Jungwon said, and despite the fact that his face wasn’t his own, his tone was still undeniably his. "We need you."

You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. They were absolutely impossible. Still, as much as you wanted to walk away and leave them to their ridiculous plan, you knew you wouldn’t. "I can’t believe I’m even here for this."

Ni-ki slung an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close. "Come on, Y/N. Where’s your sense of adventure?"

"Buried under my sense of self-preservation," you muttered, but neither of them seemed to care.

"Boooring!" Ni-ki said immediately, grabbing your shoulders and steering you toward the entrance of the secret passage. "Now, let’s go. We’ve got a password to change."

You groaned, already regretting every life choice that had led you to this moment.

You all snuck out of the astronomy tower heading toward the Gryffindor Tower with hushed footsteps and quick glances over your shoulders. Jungwon—still posing as the Gryffindor prefect—was striding ahead with a perfect air of authority, his shoulders squared, and his expression sharp.

You and Ni-ki, on the other hand, trailed behind him with exaggeratedly guilty faces.

"Slouch more," Jungwon hissed over his shoulder, his voice clipped and stern. "You’re supposed to look like you’ve been caught red-handed."

"I am slouching!" Ni-ki shot back in a loud whisper, looking offended. "I’m a professional at looking guilty, thank you very much."

You rolled your eyes, muttering, "Not exactly something to be proud of, Ni-ki."

Ni-ki ignored you, but when a group of Gryffindor students turned the corner, his whole demeanor changed in an instant. He widened his eyes, hung his head, and even dragged his feet slightly, looking every bit the part of a student who’d just been caught in the act of breaking the rules.

Jungwon glared at you both, his performance flawless. "I can’t believe the two of you thought stealing sweets from the kitchens was a good idea," he said in a loud, scolding tone that echoed through the corridor.

You couldn’t help but cringe at his words. The act was working. The group of Gryffindor students didn’t even give you a second glance as they walked by, probably assuming you were just another pair of troublemakers getting told off by a prefect.

As soon as the students disappeared around the corner, Ni-ki snickered, nudging you with his elbow. "See? We’re naturals."

"Or completely insane," you shot back, still uneasy about the whole plan.

Jungwon, still fully in character, glanced back at you both with a dramatic sigh. "Would you two focus? We’re almost there."

You tried to steady your nerves as you approached the portrait of the Fat Lady guarding the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. Jungwon cleared his throat, adjusted his posture, and stepped forward, looking every bit the part of the Gryffindor prefect he was impersonating.

The Fat Lady’s eyes opened, and she squinted down at him. "Oh, it’s you. Back already?" she asked, her tone laced with curiosity.

"Yes," Jungwon replied smoothly, his voice mimicking the prefect’s perfectly. "I need to update the password."

You blinked, silently impressed at how calm and composed he sounded.

The Fat Lady raised an eyebrow. "Password? I wasn’t informed about any changes."

"It was a last-minute decision," Jungwon said with an air of authority. "The headmaster’s orders. You know how these things go."

The Fat Lady hummed, clearly hesitant but not suspicious enough to question him further. "All right, then. What’s the new password?"

Jungwon hesitated for the briefest moment before glancing back at Ni-ki, who grinned like the Cheshire Cat and mouthed, Quidditch losers.

Jungwon’s lips twitched in amusement before he turned back to the Fat Lady, his expression serious. "The new password is... Quidditch glory."

You bit back a snort, realizing Jungwon had changed Ni-ki’s suggestion at the last second to make it less obvious.

The Fat Lady sighed dramatically, as if she had better things to do, and said, "Fine. Password updated. You may enter."

"Thank you," Jungwon said politely, though he made no move to actually enter the common room.

As soon as the portrait swung open, revealing the cozy Gryffindor common room beyond, Jungwon turned to the both of you, a victorious grin spreading across his borrowed face.

"Mission accomplished," he whispered.

"That was way too easy," Ni-ki muttered, his grin matching Jungwon’s.

You crossed your arms, glaring at them both. "You’re absolutely ridiculous. You know that, right?"

"Maybe," Jungwon said with a shrug, still grinning as he gestured for you both to follow him back down the corridor. "But you can’t deny it was brilliant."

While the three of you hurried away from the Gryffindor Tower, you couldn’t help but feel reluctant admiration. They’d actually pulled it off.

--

The three of you had just barely made it to the dungeon when Ni-ki abruptly stopped in his tracks, throwing his arms out dramatically. Unfortunately, you and Jungwon were too close behind him to react in time, and the result was a chaotic collision that sent all three of you toppling to the floor in a heap of limbs and groans.

"Ni-ki, what the hell?!" Jungwon hissed, his voice low but seething as he tried to untangle himself from the mess. "Why did you stop—"

Ni-ki clamped a hand over Jungwon’s mouth, his eyes wide with panic. "Shh!" he whispered harshly, pointing down the corridor.

You followed his gaze and felt your stomach drop. There, standing just ahead, were the Gryffindor prefect and Snape. Talking together.

Oops.

Jungwon immediately shut up, his annoyance replaced by alarm. The three of you scrambled to your feet in a flurry of panic, trying not to make a sound. Without wasting a moment, Ni-ki and Jungwon each grabbed one of your arms and dragged you into the shadows, finding a small alcove to hide in.

Before you could even catch your breath, you were being pressed up against the cold stone wall, Ni-ki and Jungwon on either side of you, their bodies shielding you from view.

"Could you two not squish me?" you muttered under your breath, glaring up at them.

"Would you rather get caught by Snape?" Ni-ki shot back, not taking his eyes off the corridor as he peeked out nervously. "No? Then shut it."

You huffed but stayed quiet, noticing how tense Ni-ki’s shoulders were. He was keeping a sharp eye on Snape and the prefect, ready to make a run for it if needed.

Meanwhile, Jungwon, who was on your other side, was shifting uncomfortably. You glanced up at him and froze when you noticed his face. His features were no longer those of the Gryffindor prefect—they were morphing back into his own, the effects of the Polyjuice Potion clearly wearing off.

Jungwon groaned softly, clutching his stomach as he leaned forward, pressing his face into the crook of your neck for support. You stiffened at the sudden closeness, your hand instinctively patting his back in a futile attempt to comfort him.

"Jungwon," you whispered, worried. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," he mumbled against your neck, his breath warm against your skin. "Just... feels weird."

"Ugh, you’re so dramatic," Ni-ki muttered, glancing back at you two briefly before turning his attention back to the corridor. "You’ll be fine in like two seconds. Just don’t throw up on—"

"Ni-ki, shut up," Jungwon snapped, though his voice was muffled against your neck.

You sighed, your free hand still awkwardly patting his back. "This is ridiculous," you muttered under your breath.

"I hereby declare that is your everyday quote," Ni-ki quipped with a smirk, though his expression quickly turned serious as he peeked out again. "They’re still there. Snape looks like he’s about to murder someone—wait, no that’s just his normal face expression."

Jungwon groaned again, and you felt him lean more of his weight against you. Curse his height. He wasn’t heavy, but having him this close was flustering you more than you wanted to admit.

"Okay, seriously," you hissed, glaring at Ni-ki, "can we not just stay here forever? Do something!"

"Oh sure," Ni-ki whispered sarcastically, glancing back at you with an incredulous look. "Why don’t I just go up to Snape and ask him how his day was? Brilliant plan."

"Ni-ki, I swear—"

"Guys," Jungwon interrupted, his voice steadier now. He finally pulled back from your neck, his features fully his own again. He stood up straight, though he still looked a little pale. "I think they’re leaving."

All three of you froze, holding your breaths as you listened. Sure enough, the sound of Snape’s low voice and the prefect’s murmured responses grew fainter, followed by the faint echo of footsteps retreating down the corridor.

Ni-ki let out a dramatic sigh of relief. "Finally. I thought we were done for."

Jungwon rubbed his face, still looking a little worse for wear. "That was way too close."

"You think?" you said, glaring at them both. "If we’d been caught, I would’ve been the one blamed, thanks to you two dragging me into this mess."

"Aw, but you love us," Ni-ki said with a cheeky grin, throwing an arm around your shoulder.

You rolled your eyes. "I’m seriously reconsidering that."

Jungwon smirked, finally looking a bit more like himself again. "Come on, let’s get out of here before someone else shows up."

And just as Jungwon finished speaking, the grating, maniacal laughter of Peeves echoed through the corridor. The sound made all three of you freeze, and before you could react, the troublemaking poltergeist popped out of the stone floor with a giggle, his mischievous eyes gleaming.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Peeves crooned, eyeing the three of you with a grin. His voice echoed off the walls, and you couldn't help but feel a slight chill. "My favorite students, looking so cozy together. What’s the occasion?"

You all exchanged a glance, not sure whether to run or stay. Jungwon narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to look unbothered, while Ni-ki rolled his eyes dramatically. "What do you want, Peeves?" he asked, arms crossing over his chest.

Peeves floated around you, his presence more annoying than anything. "Oh, nothing much," he said, his voice high-pitched with glee. "Just wondered if you’ve got any new pranks up your sleeves, eh? Or is it something more... personal going on here?" He wiggled his eyebrows, a knowing smirk plastered on his face.

Ni-ki glanced at Jungwon and then shrugged. "We’ll tell you when the time comes," he said, clearly uninterested in revealing too much to the troublesome ghost.

But Peeves wasn't done yet. His eyes gleamed with mischief as he started to circle the three of you like a hawk. "Oh, I see!" he giggled, pointing a bony finger at each of you in turn. "Someone's got tension!" He practically cackled with delight, floating in a circle around you as he grinned widely. "Little love triangle, eh? How exciting! You two," he pointed at Jungwon and Ni-ki, "are practically glued to her, and they can’t get enough of you! Is this the new prank? Get caught up in a web of romantic mischief? Oh, I can’t wait to see how this plays out!"

You groaned, your face burning as both Jungwon and Ni-ki tensed up, eyes widening in response.

Peeves continued to cackle as he floated higher, his laughter echoing down the hall. "I’ll be keeping an eye on you, my favorite troublemakers! I’ll be back for the show!" With a final teasing wink, Peeves disappeared through the stone wall with a loud, echoing "Whee!"

You let out a deep sigh, your embarrassment palpable. Jungwon was rubbing his forehead in frustration, and Ni-ki simply looked amused, though there was a hint of irritation in his eyes.

"I swear, Peeves will be the death of us," Jungwon muttered, shaking his head as he turned back to you.

You couldn't help but laugh, despite everything.

And with that, the three of you slipped out of the alcove and hurried back toward the Slytherin common room, your heart still pounding from the close call.

The prank ended exactly how you’d expected—utter chaos.

A horde of Gryffindors had been locked out of their common room for hours, their frustration echoing down the corridors. The Fat Lady was flustered beyond belief, huffing indignantly about how her painting had been “tampered with,” and the Gryffindor prefect was storming through the castle, barking out accusations with a vengeance.

McGonagall’s sharp eyes had swept through the Great Hall during dinner, suspicion evident in her expression as she tried to pinpoint the culprits. Somehow, though, by some miracle, you, Jungwon, and Ni-ki had remained completely unnoticed.

The three of you had kept your heads down and your poker faces on, acting as if you didn’t have a single clue what had happened. You couldn’t believe you’d gotten away with it. Again.

Which is exactly what you were currently discussing as you stood in Zonko’s Joke Shop, watching Jungwon and Ni-ki carefully examine the shelves for their next batch of mischief supplies.

"I still don’t understand how we weren’t caught," you said, leaning casually against the display of dungbombs as you crossed your arms. "McGonagall knew something was up."

"That’s because we’re geniuses," Ni-ki said without looking up from the Extendable Ears he was inspecting. "Obviously."

You snorted. "Right, because geniuses trip over their own feet and nearly get us caught in the process."

"Hey!" Ni-ki turned to you with an exaggerated look of offense. "I saved us. My quick thinking is the only reason we got out of there alive."

"Your quick thinking?" Jungwon interjected, holding up a Puking Pastille for inspection. "I’m pretty sure my plan got us through the whole thing. You just stood there looking like a lost Kneazle."

Ni-ki huffed and turned his attention back to the shelf. "You’re both ungrateful. I should stop sharing my brilliance with you."

"Brilliance, huh?" you teased, smirking as you reached over to nudge him. "That’s what we’re calling it now?"

Ni-ki shot you a mock glare but didn’t move away. In fact, he leaned into you more, resting his elbow lazily on your shoulder as if you were his personal armrest.

You tried to shrug him off. "Ni-ki, get off me. I’m not furniture."

He grinned, leaning his weight on you even more. "But you’re so sturdy and reliable."

"Sturdy and reliable," you repeated flatly. "That’s it. You’re banned from using me as a leaning post."

"You love it," he teased, winking at you.

Meanwhile, Jungwon was completely unbothered, now inspecting a box of Screaming Yo-yos. "You’re letting him get away with that?" he said without looking up.

"I’ve given up," you replied, sighing dramatically.

"You should’ve given up a long time ago," Jungwon said with a chuckle. Then, as if on cue, he reached over and started playing with a strand of your hair, twirling it between his fingers.

"Seriously?" you muttered, glancing between them.

Jungwon just smirked, not stopping as he held your gaze. "What? I’m bored."

"You two are impossible," you grumbled, though you didn’t actually make any effort to stop either of them. This was normal. It was just how things were.

As you scanned the shelves, you spotted a few products that caught your eye. Grinning mischievously, you a few different materials like a pack of Decoy Detonators.

"That’s what you’re going with?" Ni-ki asked, glancing at your choices.

"At least I’m not taking twenty minutes to pick a single product," you shot back, raising an eyebrow at the two of them.

"Hey, these decisions are important," Jungwon said, tossing the Screaming Yo-yos into his own pile.

"Right," you said, rolling your eyes. "Because you totally need three different kinds of itching powder."

"You’ll thank us later," Ni-ki said confidently.

"Oh, I’m sure," you replied dryly, though you couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at your lips.

"Y/N," Ni-ki called dramatically, spinning toward you with a packet of Nose-Biting Teacups in his hand. "Do you think I should get this? Imagine serving tea to Professor Snape. A little nibble on the nose might do him some good."

You snorted. "Yeah, if you want to end up scrubbing cauldrons for the rest of the year. I’m not covering for you if you actually go through with that."

"Don’t lie. You’d do it," he said, grinning as he nudged your side with his elbow.

"You’d fold in two seconds if he gave you the look," Jungwon added, smirking as he placed a jar of Self-Inking Quills into his growing pile of products.

"Excuse me," you shot back, crossing your arms. "I’ve never folded. Unlike you two. Don’t think I forgot about the time Snape caught you both in the Potions classroom after hours, and you blamed it on Peeves."

"That was a solid plan," Ni-ki argued, placing a hand on his chest like he was offended.

Jungwon snorted. "It wasn’t a plan at all. You just blurted the first thing that came to your mind."

"And it worked," Ni-ki shot back defensively. "He didn’t question it, did he?"

"That’s because Peeves actually caused a ruckus ten minutes later," you said, shaking your head.

Ni-ki grinned mischievously. "What can I say? I’m lucky like that."

"Lucky, my foot," Jungwon muttered, shaking his head as he turned to you. "Be honest—who’s the bigger liability between the two of us?"

You paused, tilting your head as if you were seriously considering the question. "Do I have to pick just one? Because you’re both pretty equally—"

"Oi!" Ni-ki interrupted, poking your arm. "Traitor!"

Jungwon smirked, clearly enjoying your response. "I knew it. We’re a team of liabilities. Perfect."

"Speak for yourselves," you retorted, pretending to brush off your clothes in mock pride. "I’m the only one who’s remotely responsible here."

"Responsible? You?" Ni-ki raised an eyebrow, feigning disbelief. "Let’s rewind to the time you accidentally lit a cauldron on fire in Charms class."

"That was one time," you argued, glaring at him. "And it wasn’t my fault! You’re the one who—"

"See?" Jungwon cut in, smirking as he held up a hand to stop you. "The cauldron was calling you a black sheep."

"More like the cauldron was calling me innocent," you quipped back, earning laughs from both of them.

Ni-ki slung an arm around your shoulders, grinning widely. "You’re hilarious when you’re trying to defend yourself, you know that?"

You rolled your eyes but didn’t shrug him off. "And you’re insufferable, but here we are."

"See? That’s why we like you," Jungwon said, giving you a small, playful smile as he tapped your forehead lightly with the end of a Decoy Detonator box.

You narrowed your eyes at him, reaching up to swat his hand away. "I feel so honored. Truly."

The three of you dissolved into laughter again, the teasing bouncing between you like a well-practiced routine.

"Alright, mischief-makers," you said finally, glancing at their overflowing piles of joke products. "Are we done here? Or are you planning to bankrupt yourselves buying the entire shop?"

Ni-ki grinned, holding up a box of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. "This? Totally worth going broke for."

"And this," Jungwon added, lifting a set of Decoy Detonators, "is going to make next week very interesting."

You did not doubt it.

That week was very interesting indeed. Not only did Ni-ki and Jungwon set up prank after prank, but they also enlisted Peeves in some of them, which turned everything more chaotic.

One day, they filled the Great Hall with floating soap bubbles that burst into confetti whenever they popped, sending the entire school into fits of laughter (or groans, depending on the person).

However, amidst the chaos, Ni-ki and Jungwon had forgotten a major thing: studying.

By the time they realized it, they were behind on a lot of assignments and homework in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Divination, Muggle Studies, and History of Magic. The weight of their neglected schoolwork loomed over them, and the urgency to catch up finally hit.

So, what did they do to catch up? Well, they obviously asked you for help! You, who were currently in the library, reading up on Arithmancy.

You were deeply engrossed in your book when you heard footsteps approaching. Glancing up, you saw Ni-ki and Jungwon, looking sheepish and a bit desperate.

“y/n! Our sweet little genius prodigy,” Ni-ki started, sliding into the seat across from you. Jungwon took the seat next to him, both of them looking at you with pleading eyes.

“Yes?” you replied, raising an eyebrow. You had a feeling you knew where this was going.

“We need your help,” Jungwon admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’re really behind on our assignments. Like, really behind.”

You sighed, closing your book and giving them both a stern look. “You know, if you spent half as much time studying as you do planning pranks, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Ni-ki pouted. “But studying isn’t nearly as fun.”

“Maybe not,” you conceded, “but it’s kind of necessary if you don’t want to fail.”

“We know,” Jungwon said quickly. “That’s why we’re here. You’re the best at all of this stuff, and we need your help to catch up. Please?”

You looked between the two of them, their eyes wide with genuine desperation.

“Alright,” you said finally after a moment, earning relieved smiles from both of them. “I’ll help you. But this means no more pranks for a while. Deal?”

“Deal,” they chorused eagerly.

“Okay then,” you said, pulling out your notes and books. “Let’s get to work.”

For the next several hours, you worked with Ni-ki and Jungwon, helping them catch up on their assignments. You explained concepts, went over notes, and even quizzed them to make sure they understood the material. It was a long process, but by the end of the day, they had made significant progress.

"You’re a miracle worker, honeydrop. We’d probably be in detention without you." Jungwon chuckled, shoving his parchment into his bag.

"Probably?" you asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, definitely," he corrected with a sheepish grin.

"Just don’t expect me to do this every time," you warned, standing up and gathering your things. "Next time, you’re on your own."

Ni-ki threw an arm around your shoulders as you walked out of the library together. "Sure, sure. Whatever you say, doll."

You rolled your eyes at the casual nickname, though you didn’t bother shrugging his arm off—it was just his way of being overly familiar. “I’m serious. If I catch you two sneaking off to pull another prank before you’ve finished at least one essay, I’m not helping you anymore.”

“Duly noted,” Ni-ki replied smoothly, though his grin said otherwise. He squeezed your shoulder playfully. “But you have to admit, life would be so boring without us.”

“Boring?” you shot back, looking up at him incredulously. “I’d actually have time to focus on my own work without you two dragging me into whatever chaos you’ve cooked up.”

Jungwon laughed softly from your other side. “Oh, come on. You love it. Admit it. Deep down, you’d miss us if we left you alone for more than a day.”

You didn’t answer immediately, instead giving them a sidelong glance. “Maybe I’d miss the pranks more,” you teased, earning matching gasps of mock offense from both boys.

Ni-ki stopped in his tracks, clutching his chest dramatically. “Ouch. Right in the heart, doll.”

Jungwon smirked, tilting his head. “She’s lying. Look at her—she’s smiling. That’s the face of someone who couldn’t survive without us.”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t suppress the small grin tugging at your lips. “If you’re trying to flatter yourselves, you’re doing a terrible job.”

Ni-ki leaned closer, his face just a little too smug. “We don’t need to flatter ourselves, doll. We know we’re your favorite people in the world.”

“Favorite headaches, maybe,” you retorted, shoving his arm off your shoulders. He stumbled back, laughing, while Jungwon gave you an approving nod.

“She’s catching on,” Jungwon said, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “Soon enough, she’ll be the one dragging us into trouble.”

You snorted. “Not likely. I’ve already got my hands full with you two.”

The next few days were oddly peaceful, given the usual chaos that surrounded Ni-ki and Jungwon. You found yourself spending more time in the library with them, helping them catch up on homework, and surprisingly, they actually stayed focused—most of the time. Though, that didn’t stop them from sneaking in their usual brand of teasing. Because they kept finding ways to distract you. Ni-ki, as usual, was the first to break the silence.

"You're pretty good at this stuff, huh?" he murmured, stretching lazily beside you. His hand casually brushed against your thigh, and he rested his arm there like it was the most normal thing in the world. "How come you're so smart and yet still hang out with us? Makes no sense."

You glanced at him, trying to keep your cool. "I don't mind," you answered, your voice surprisingly steady despite how flustered his touch was making you. "Besides, someone has to keep you two in check."

Jungwon, who had been silently working on his own homework beside you, suddenly lifted his head. His soft exhale brushed against your neck as he settled his face there, huffing dramatically. "Ugh, Herbology is impossible. How do you even remember all these plants and their properties? It’s like a nightmare." He whined, his voice muffled against your skin.

You stiffened at his proximity, his warm breath sending a shiver down your spine. "I don't know," you muttered, trying to ignore the way his body pressed against yours. "I just study."

"Yeah, but you’re really good at it," Jungwon murmured, not moving away. He let his lips brush against your neck for a moment, and you could feel your face heat up instantly.

Meanwhile, Ni-ki hadn't missed the opportunity. He leaned even closer, his hand subtly shifting on your thigh as he whispered, "We should study more with you. You make it so fun."

You shot him a warning glance, but he just grinned back, unbothered. "You’re making me sound like a distraction, you know," you said, trying to focus on your notes again, though your concentration was rapidly slipping away.

Jungwon grinned against your neck. "Oh, you are a distraction. But you're a good kind of distraction."

Before you could protest, Ni-ki leaned in closer, resting his head on your shoulder with a dramatic sigh. "We’re your favorite chaos, right?" he said, his voice teasing but sincere.

Despite the flurry of butterflies in your stomach, you couldn’t help but smile. "You two are definitely something," you said, trying to sound unaffected even as your heart raced. "But I really need to get this done."

You really tried to ignore the two heads resting against your shoulders, but that was an impossible task. Ni-ki’s breath was warm against your skin, and his hand was still resting on your thigh, now with an almost casual possessiveness. Jungwon, on the other hand, was so close his soft exhalations tickled the nape of your neck, and his cheek was pressed lightly against yours as he hummed in contentment.

Despite your best efforts to focus on your work, it was becoming increasingly difficult. The pages in front of you blurred as your heart rate picked up. The library now felt suffocating, and you realized that it wasn’t just the assignment that had your attention—it was the way they were both so close, almost invading your space in a way that made it impossible to concentrate.

"Are you actually going to study?" Ni-ki murmured, his voice low and teasing, but you could hear the undercurrent of something more in it. His fingers shifted slightly, brushing your leg in a way that made you stiffen, but you didn’t pull away. You were almost too aware of how your body reacted to them.

Jungwon, seemingly oblivious to your internal turmoil, nuzzled closer against your neck, his soft, slow breaths doing nothing to help you stay calm. “I think I’m helping you study,” he said in that playful tone of his, making you shiver. “Us being this close will help you focus, right?”

Your pulse quickened at the thought. You hadn’t been aware of the shifting dynamic until now—of how their subtle touches, the way they leaned into you, seemed to be becoming more than just playful teasing. Every little move felt like an invitation for more, and you were quickly losing the battle to stay composed.

"Guys," you said, attempting to sound stern, though the breathlessness in your voice betrayed you. "You’re making it impossible to study like this."

They didn’t move. They didn’t even respond with words, but you could feel the weight of their attention on you. Ni-ki’s grip on your thigh tightened slightly, and Jungwon pressed his nose gently against your underjaw, both of them silently daring you to pull away.

But you didn’t. And that was what surprised you the most—how you didn’t mind the closeness, how you didn’t want to push them away.

"Maybe we can help you concentrate in other ways," Ni-ki whispered, his voice lowering with an edge of amusement, and you could feel him grinning against your skin.

You let out a shaky breath, knowing that with them, studying was the last thing you were going to accomplish today.

They were like two koalas clinging to you, making it so hard to think clearly. Every time you shifted, Ni-ki would let out a soft sigh, his fingers grazing your thigh, and Jungwon would press his face more firmly into the crook of your neck, sending shivers down your spine.

Your handwriting became more erratic as you tried to force yourself to write, but your focus kept drifting back to them, they were distracting in the best and worst way. You tried to shift slightly, attempting to get some space, but instead, they just adjusted and got even closer.

"You’re really not gonna study, are you?" Ni-ki's voice was a low tease, his chin now resting on your shoulder as he looked at your textbook with a mock frown. His fingers tracing little patterns against your thigh.

Jungwon, still in his spot on your neck, let out a small hum of agreement. "I think we’re doing more for your concentration than you give us credit for."

You were about to protest, but then Jungwon shifted slightly, brushing his lips against your ear as he murmured, "You’re so tense. Are we making you nervous?" His voice was soft, but the way he said it made your pulse quicken. You could practically feel the smirk on his lips.

Ni-ki chuckled at your reaction, the sound vibrating through his chest. "You’re cute when you try to act unaffected." His hand squeezed your thigh gently, adding more heat to the already overwhelming situation.

It was getting hard to think, let alone focus on your homework. You couldn’t deny how their touches made your heart race, how the closeness felt different than it ever had before. You were surrounded by them—so close, so intimate in a way that felt almost too personal, yet you couldn’t bring yourself to move them off.

Instead, you sighed, giving up on trying to study. "You two are unbelivable," you muttered, but there was no real heat in your words. They were both too close, too comfortable, and the way they looked at you, the way they made you feel, left you unsure if you wanted them to stop.

Ni-ki grinned at your words, his hand moving slowly up your leg. "Good, we’re making progress," he teased, leaning in close. "You needed a break anyway."

Jungwon, now pulling away just enough to meet your gaze, smiled warmly. "We’ll help you out. Maybe not with homework, but definitely with...other things."

As they both made themselves even more comfortable, you were stuck between wanting to push them away and wanting to stay right where you were.

You had no idea what had gotten into them, but you also weren’t quite sure what had gotten into you. They had always been the ones to tease and be touchy, but now, as they both clung to you, you realized you could play along—maybe even enjoy it. Without thinking too much, you let the playful side of you take over.

You moved just slightly, letting your fingers brush against Ni-ki’s arm as you leaned back into him, and before he could respond, you slid your hand down to his wrist, just enough to make him pause. He looked at you, slightly taken aback by the sudden shift in dynamics. His usual confident smirk faltered for just a second before he recovered, but you could tell he wasn’t expecting it.

You smiled innocently back, leaning into Jungwon next, letting your fingers trace along his jawline with a teasing touch. His breath hitched ever so slightly, his eyes locking with yours, and you saw the flustered warmth creeping up his neck. He leaned into your touch, just like he had done with you so many times before, but now you could feel him melt under your fingertips.

"Guess we’re not the only ones getting touchy, huh?" Ni-ki teased, his voice light, but there was a nervous edge to it now as his breath caught when you moved your hand to his shoulder, massaging it lightly.

Jungwon, still resting against you, let out a shaky laugh, but his voice was softer, almost breathless. "You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?"

You raised an eyebrow, keeping your hand on his chest for a moment, letting your fingers play with the fabric of his shirt. "You’re the ones who started it," you said, your voice low and playful, but with an underlying challenge in it.

You felt their reactions before you even saw them clearly—the way their breaths became more shallow, the way their eyes widened with surprise and something else.

Ni-ki’s lips parted as you moved your hand lower, and you noticed his usual teasing grin soften into something more real. He didn’t know how to respond to this change in the atmosphere, and for a moment, you reveled in the power of it. Jungwon, too, was a little quieter now, his hand moving to rest on your other thigh, fingers just brushing lightly, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to act but didn’t want to pull away either.

They were both flustered, unsure of how to navigate the space you’d suddenly put them in. You could feel them melt under your touch, their usual confidence slipping away with each movement you made. You had the power now, and it was a strange feeling—seeing them both so lost in this little game you were playing.

"Well?" you asked, a playful smirk tugging at your lips as you leaned back into them. "Aren’t you two gonna study? Or am i too distracting?"

Ni-ki chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, his usual charm faltering just slightly. "Guess we’ve got some competition now."

Jungwon, on the other hand, gave a soft sigh, his face flushed. "I think we might be in over our heads."

You had the upper hand now.

And you took full advantage of it.

After that day in the library, you couldn’t help but notice how completely Jungwon and Ni-ki would fall into your rhythm. They were practically putty in your hands. Every touch, no matter how small, sent them into a flurry of reactions—flushed cheeks, quiet sighs, soft whines when you weren’t paying attention to them. They’d melt at even the smallest gesture from you. Whether it was brushing their arm casually or stealing a glance, it was as if they couldn’t get enough. Every ounce of attention you gave them, they greedily soaked it up, and you relished in that power, in knowing you could make them act this way. Knowing you were the only person that could make them act this way.

They were so used to being the ones in control, but now it seemed they couldn’t stop themselves from doing whatever you wanted. It was almost comical how quickly they fell into line, but also a little thrilling. You were the one holding the strings now, and they seemed perfectly content to follow wherever you led.

And of course, your friends had noticed. You weren't sure how you didn't see it earlier, but Yuna, Hannie, Karina, Yujin, and Leeseo had all caught on. They’d managed to sneak you away from Jungwon and Ni-ki one afternoon, a tactic you recognized as them giving you a moment of peace away from them.

You sat in a quiet corner of the courtyard with them, all of them looking at you with knowing grins, their eyes twinkling with mischief and curiosity.

“So,” Yuna began, leaning forward with an exaggerated whisper, “spill. What’s going on between you and those two?”

Hannie smirked, arms crossed, “Yeah, you've got them wrapped around your finger. It’s so obvious.”

You blinked, suddenly feeling put on the spot. “I don’t know what you mean,” you said, trying to sound nonchalant, but your heart skipped a beat. Were they really so obvious?

Leeseo leaned in, her voice playful. “Come on, don’t pretend. Jungwon and Ni-ki have been practically following you around like lost pets. It’s cute, but we’re curious. What’s going on?”

Karina raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t think you had it in you, honestly. Those two are impossible to keep up with. But somehow, you’ve got them so... docile.”

You let out a breath, finally breaking into a sheepish smile. “It just kind of... happened. They started getting clingy, and I just played along. And now? I don’t know. They’re just... there.”

Yujin grinned, tapping her fingers on the table. “You know, they’ve been doing everything you say. I saw Ni-ki nearly burn his potions notes because you told him to stop distracting you. It’s like watching a puppy trying to be obedient.”

Hannie chuckled. “So, they’re melting under your touch, huh?”

You couldn’t help the blush creeping onto your face as the realization hit you. “Maybe,” you muttered, feeling a little embarrassed, but also a little proud.

“Are you sure it’s just them being clingy?” Yuna asked, her tone teasing. “I mean, they’ve been following you around for years.”

You sighed, looking around at your friends’ grinning faces, knowing you couldn’t get away with playing innocent anymore. “I guess... maybe I do. But it’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. They just—"

“They just can’t resist you,” Karina finished for you, smirking. “Come on, don’t act like you haven’t noticed.”

It was clear your friends were having way too much fun with this, but honestly, you weren’t sure if you could deny it any longer. You’d noticed how they seemed to change when they were around you. Jungwon would act like he couldn’t wait to do anything you asked, and Ni-ki? He’d become all soft and affectionate, which was unlike him.

“It’s okay, though,” Yujin said, her voice light. “We’re not judging you. We just want to know when you’re finally going to admit it.”

You raised your hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. Maybe I have a little bit of power over them. But I’m not making a big deal out of it.”

They all laughed, clearly not believing you. You were probably just as entertained as they were by how much you could get away with. But as you looked at the amused faces around you, you also felt a little something stir in your chest. A strange mix of pride and something else.

You were, without a doubt, in control of the situation now. But what you didn’t know was just how much longer that power would last before things got a little... more complicated.

And it did get complicated.

Before, they had been clingy, constantly around you, leaning on you, making their presence known. But now? Now, they were acting possessive. They’d follow you everywhere, make sure they were always by your side, and the glares they shot at any male student who got too close to you? Intense. It wasn’t just playful teasing anymore. It was like they were marking their territory without saying a word.

And that’s when it hit you.

All of this? It wasn’t just the usual chaos and fun. They liked you. They had to. No one acts like this unless they do.

But you weren’t sure. Not completely. You needed confirmation. And the best way to confirm a suspicion like this? You’d seen it done before in the most dramatic ways—jealousy. If they were really into you, you were certain they wouldn’t just sit back and let you spend time with someone else. They'd react, and you’d get your answer.

So, with that thought in mind, you decided to test this theory. What better way to do that than to make them confess in a fit of jealousy?

You didn’t want to hurt anyone, of course, but it was the only way to make sure. And you wouldn’t have to do it alone, which is where your two male friends, Jeongin and Jaehyun, came in. You trusted them, and they owed you a favor or two after all the times you’d helped them in the past.

The plan was simple—at least, in theory. You'd spend some time with Jeongin and Jaehyun, just enough to make Jungwon and Ni-ki notice. You knew they’d be watching. They always were, especially since the two of them had started acting this way. And once they did? Well, that would be when the fireworks started.

You carefully explained everything to Jeongin and Jaehyun, who both agreed to help you. They were on board, teasing you about how entertaining it would be to see how Jungwon and Ni-ki would react. Jeongin even joked that he could make them both "lose their minds." You weren’t sure if he was joking or not, but you were counting on him to keep it lighthearted.

The next day, the plan was set into motion. You’d intentionally sit next to Jeongin and Jaehyun in the grandhall, laughing at their jokes and engaging in casual conversation. You knew Jungwon and Ni-ki would be nearby, watching closely, their eyes following your every move. And, sure enough, the second you laughed too loud or shared a casual touch with Jeongin, you saw the shift.

Ni-ki's smirk faltered for a second before he looked away, crossing his arms tightly, his eyes narrowing. Jungwon was no better—his gaze had turned blank, his usually demeanor replaced by something else. The tension between the two of them was palpable, and you had to fight to keep a straight face.

As the evening wore on, the moments between you and Jeongin and Jaehyun became more exaggerated. You laughed louder, leaned closer, and gave Jeongin a playful push when he made a joke. Your heart raced with anticipation.

Sure enough, when you glanced over at Jungwon and Ni-ki, both of them were practically burning holes into you with their eyes. Jungwon was glaring at Jeongin, his jaw clenched, while Ni-ki was burning a hole in the wall in front of him.

The more you pushed, the more you noticed them getting restless. Ni-ki shifted in his seat, throwing a glance at Jungwon as if silently confirming that neither of them was happy with the situation. It was working.

But now, the hardest part—waiting.

You watched as they tried to play it cool, but every time you’d interact with Jeongin or Jaehyun, you could feel their eyes on you, and it became harder to pretend you weren’t aware of how they were watching.

Finally, when they were getting up to leave, Jeongin bumped into Ni-ki, giving him a playful smile and a casual, “Excuse me, mate,” before turning and walking away with Jaehyun.

That was when it all came to a head. You had just turned to leave the Grandhall when you felt two hands grip your wrist, pulling you back.

You turned to find Jungwon standing in front of you, his expression no longer calm. It was frustrated, a little wild, and it was clear he wasn’t happy.

“Did you have to do that?” he asked, his voice lower than usual, like he was trying to keep his cool but was failing miserably.

Ni-ki was right behind him, arms crossed, his eyes flicking from you to Jungwon and back. “Yeah,” he added, his voice tight. “What’s with you and them?”

You swallowed, keeping your composure. “What do you mean?”

“Cut the act,” Jungwon shot back, stepping a little closer, his hands clenched at his sides. “We both know what you’re doing.”

Your heart raced. There it was. You wanted them to say it. You wanted them to admit it, to confess how they felt.

“You two... are acting like children,” you said lightly, trying to keep your voice calm despite the whirlwind in your chest. “You know that, right?”

Ni-ki’s face twitched as he stepped forward. “We’re not the ones acting like that,” he muttered, his voice a mix of frustration and something else you couldn’t place. “You’re the one making us jealous.”

You smiled to yourself, the satisfaction bubbling up. The tension was finally broken, and now... all you had to do was wait for them to confess.

“Okay, what’s the big problem?” you asked, your voice calm but firm. “Why are you two acting like this?”

The words hung in the air, and for a long moment, neither of them said anything. They exchanged a quick, sharp glance, almost as if they were having a silent conversation.

Finally, Jungwon let out a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. He glared at the ground for a moment before looking up at you, his usual dimpled smile nowhere to be found.

“We’re not acting like this for no reason,” he started, his voice tense. “You think we’re just jealous for no reason?”

Ni-ki stepped forward then, his eyes searching yours. “We’re jealous,” he muttered, a bit of anger still lingering in his tone. “But it’s not just about Jaehyun, or you hanging out with Jeongin. It’s... you.”

You blinked, surprised. "Me?"

Jungwon shot him a look but then quickly turned back to you, his voice lowering, barely above a whisper. "We like you. We both do. And yeah, it’s frustrating seeing you with other people when we... we’ve been wanting to say something for a while now."

Ni-ki nodded, his usual smirk replaced by a more earnest expression. “We’re... we’re seriously into you, and it’s driving us crazy watching you get close to anyone else.”

Your heart skipped a beat, the realization settling in as you stared at them. It wasn’t just a theory anymore. They really did like you.

“You two... really?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper, your mind racing as everything clicked into place.

Jungwon sighed, a small, frustrated laugh escaping him. "Yeah, really. You’re smart, you’re fun, and you make everything less... boring. But we didn’t know how to say it, okay? We’re not used to this kind of thing."

Ni-ki grinned nervously, his usual confidence returning in small doses. "And I guess we were trying to make you notice. Not the best way, but it worked, didn’t it?"

You couldn’t help but smile, a little overwhelmed by the admission. The teasing and the possessiveness—it was all a roundabout way of showing how they felt, even if it was a bit chaotic.

“I... didn’t expect this,” you admitted, your voice quiet. “I thought it was just you guys being, well, you.”

Jungwon raised an eyebrow, his lips curling into a slight smirk. "And you didn’t think we could actually be serious? We’ve been serious this whole time, just... not very good at showing it."

You couldn’t help but laugh softly, the tension lifting as the realization hit you fully. “So, what now?”

Ni-ki stepped closer, his hand brushing lightly against yours as he looked at you with hope and uncertainty. “Well, we could start by not acting like children, and maybe... go on a real date sometime?”

Jungwon’s eyes softened, as he glanced at Ni-ki and then back at you. "Yeah, what he said. We’d like to take you out, properly. No pranks or anything."

You nodded, your heart racing in a way it hadn’t before. “I think that sounds good.”

--

The next day, you found yourself sitting in the Slytherin common room, the warmth of the fire crackling. The scent of hot chocolate in the air, the creamy drink topped with fluffy marshmallows—just the perfect comfort on a chilly evening. You were nestled between Jungwon and Ni-ki, both of them flanking you with matching sly smirks, looking too cute in their comfy clothes and the trio socks that you all had somehow decided to get together during one of your Hogsmeade visits.

Ni-ki was playfully nudging you, trying to steal the last marshmallow, and Jungwon had his arm casually draped over the back of the couch, but his focus was clearly on you.

“Seriously, you’re hogging the sweets,” Ni-ki teased, leaning in close to you, his breath warm against your cheek. “We should get more—”

“Only if you share them,” Jungwon interrupted, raising an eyebrow with a smirk. “I’m not letting you eat them all.”

The two of them went back and forth in their usual playful manner, but this time it felt different. You were caught between them, nestled comfortably in the middle as they leaned closer to you.

Then, as if in sync, they both paused, their teasing grins melting into something softer. Ni-ki’s eyes were unusually warm, and Jungwon’s expression was full of affection.

“You know,” Ni-ki whispered, his voice low but sincere, “we love you.”

Jungwon nodded in agreement, his hand gently brushing against yours as he leaned in. “Yeah. We love you,” he repeated, his voice just above a murmur.

Before you could even respond, they both kissed your cheeks—Ni-ki on one side, Jungwon on the other—and you froze for a moment, the gentle pressure of their lips leaving you breathless.

Your heart raced in your chest, and for a moment, you felt like you were floating. Their love made you feel safe, cherished, and incredibly happy.

You looked between the two of them, a smile tugging at your lips as you met their gazes. “I love you both, too,” you whispered.

You could see the light in both Jungwon and Ni-ki’s eyes flicker with pure happiness at your confession. They were both too stunned for a moment, leaving you the perfect opportunity to tease them.

Smiling mischievously, you shifted slightly so that you were closer to both of them. "Well," you began, resting your chin on Jungwon's shoulder while your hand found Ni-ki’s arm, "I guess that means you're both officially stuck with me now." You smirked, letting the words sink in, and watched as both of their faces softened.

Ni-ki rolled his eyes but grinned, leaning into you. “You make it sound like we’re not already stuck with you,” he teased, but you could feel his breath hitch slightly when you wrapped your arms around his waist and pulled him closer.

Jungwon, who had been staring at you, blinked before leaning in as well. “Yeah, like there’s any way we’d want to get rid of you,” he said with a playful huff.

You took advantage of their playful words and pulled them both into a tight cuddle, which caused them both let out small, surprised noises as you enveloped them in your grip, holding them firmly.

“Now, now,” you teased, “you two are so easy to fold, aren’t you?” You could feel their shoulders relax as they practically molded to your side.

Ni-ki groaned, but there was no real protest in his voice. “You’re too comfy, stop making us weak,” he muttered, and you could practically feel him sinking into your embrace as if he couldn’t escape even if he tried. His body was warm against yours, and you could tell that he didn’t mind at all.

Jungwon’s head tipped slightly back to rest against yours, his face softening. “You’re not gonna let us go, are you?” he asked with a half-smile, looking at you from the corner of his eye.

“Nope,” you answered firmly, enjoying the way their defenses crumbled under your touch. “You two are officially my cuddle buddies. And I think you both secretly love it.”

They both huffed, but there was no denying the way they leaned even further into you, practially melting into the cuddle. You couldn’t help but smile as you felt their breathing slow.

But the peace didn`t last when you suddenly felt a soft breath against your neck. It was Jungwon, his lips barely grazing your skin. Before you could react, Ni-ki’s lips followed suit, brushing against the opposite side of your neck.

A shiver ran through you at the unexpected warmth, and you gasped, your body tensing for just a moment before you settled back into their hold. They both hummed in response, clearly enjoying the effect they were having on you.

Jungwon’s kiss was gentle, his lips lingering a little longer, sending a spark of warmth straight to your chest. Ni-ki, on the other hand, kissed your neck with a more playful edge, his lips trailing soft, teasing touches as he moved closer to you.

“Relax,” Jungwon whispered against your skin, his breath sending a wave of goosebumps across your body. His hand gently brushed your hair back, before his lips returned to the delicate spot just under your ear.

Ni-ki, still clinging to you, pressed his lips closer to your neck, his touch light yet insistent. “You’re making this too easy,” he murmured, his voice full of teasing affection.

You could barely suppress the shiver that ran through you, as you felt their kisses deepen, both of them so close, almost impossibly close.

“Stop,” you gasped between breaths, though you couldn’t bring yourself to push them away. “You’re going to—”

“Going to what?” Ni-ki interrupted, his lips curling into a smirk against your skin. “Make you melt into our arms? Too late for that.”

Jungwon’s laugh was a soft, comforting sound, his lips now trailing further down your neck, leaving a warm, tingling path in their wake. He didn’t say anything, but you could feel his smile against your skin as he pulled you even closer.

Both of them were still so clingy, but you didn’t mind. In fact, you enjoyed it. You enjoyed how they both seemed to seek you out.

“You two really know how to make a girl weak,” you muttered with a soft laugh.

“And we’ll keep doing it,” Jungwon replied. “As long as you let us.”

You were completely okay with that.

Just then, from the stone wall, Peeves' head popped out. His grin was even wider this time, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he hovered before the three of you.

"I knew it!" Peeves cackled, his voice echoing through the common room. "I knew you three would end up together! It was just too perfect not to work out! Look at you, all tangled up in each other, the chaos—it’s meant to be!" He floated closer, eyes twinkling with glee as he looked at you, Jungwon, and Ni-ki. "Oh, you can’t fool me. You all make such a lovely little trio!"

You all paused, exchanging a glance. There was no point in arguing with Peeves—he was insufferable but often right in his own ridiculous way. With a collective sigh, you all decided to just humor him.

Jungwon rolled his eyes, but a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. "Oh, sure, Peeves. You figured us out," he said dryly, trying not to let Peeves get the best of him.

Ni-ki raised an eyebrow, his hand holding yours tightly. "Guess you’re not wrong," he said with a teasing grin. "But, really, did you have to show up like this? You're making it harder to pretend we don’t get along."

Peeves just giggled, enjoying every second of this. "Oh, but it’s too much fun to watch! You three are like a puzzle that finally clicked into place. And I knew I'd be the one to see it first!" He floated around you in a circle, his laughter loud and echoing. "Don’t worry, I won’t ruin it for you—yet. But I’ll be watching. Oh yes, I’ll be watching!"

With one final, exaggerated wink, Peeves disappeared back into the stone wall, his laughter still lingering in the air. You sighed and turned back to Jungwon and Ni-ki, who were both looking at you with affectionate smiles.

"Well, that was... something," you said, trying to shake off the awkwardness.

Jungwon nodded. "Yeah, but Peeves is right about one thing. We’re not going anywhere."

Ni-ki squeezed your hand. "Not ever."

Reblogs and comments are appreciated <3

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[qwimblenorrisstan]

(im back, christmas break is here!!)

tw: mentions of abuse, violence, sexism (but secondary gender), omegaverse dynamics, crying, heavy angst no aftercare (again)

The uncomfortable tension in the room was palpable as they all sat in their usual debriefing room. Usually, the nest was a place for such a personal and volatile topic such as this, but none of them felt worthy of being there now. Not with how they’d treated you.

Soap was tapping his foot against the floor, the pattern uneven and sporadic, until Gaz snapped at him.

“Could you quit it, mate?” It had come out harsher than he’d meant. Soap huffed through his nose but obliged. They were all tense and on edge, their usually oh-so-controlled scents now sour and bitter with unease and anxiety.

In the field, they had their skills and weapons to fix problems, to take out the enemy. But here, back home? They had absolutely nothing in this fight. No amount of backup or fights could win this for them. In this fight, they were the enemy, and the only way to win this was by fixing the sacred little strand keeping you together that they had so carelessly unwound until it had snapped.

Ghost looked to Price. His hand was in his beard, thoughtfully running through the hair, stressed as Ghost has ever seen him. A sour pang of guilt shot through him. If he hadn’t tried forcing you to his scent gland, then you wouldn’t be in this position, and he wouldn’t have messed everything up, again—

“Y’re thinking too much.”

Price muttered, Simon’s feelings clear through the thick scent that somehow seemed to overpower everyone else’s in the air. He swallowed thickly. They needed a plan of action, some way to fix this, and the only way Price saw things being mended was by a lot of time and effort.

Gaz let the silence simmer for a moment, before speaking up.

“Cane Baker Syndrome, I looked it up yesterday night, it’s just like the med’ said. PTSD. Do you think…?”

An alpha being abused wasn’t as commonplace as it had used to be. Only 50 years ago, if you’d stepped into the common era, you’d see alpha’s being forced to work for a family they’d been forced into providing, their protective instincts abused. Among the more insane practices had been scratching out an alpha’s scent gland, so they couldn’t scent or get attached to their offspring, meaning the omega got the child all to themselves.

Awful things such as that had been outlawed years ago, but still happened in little forgotten corners of the world where loopholes existed.

“We can’t know for sure, but based on their reaction, I’d say we have a safe assumption. When they’re in a better….state of mind, we can ask a few questions.”

Price answered, voice heavy with an edge of guilt that seemed to grow richer by the second. Soap’s incessant tapping started up again, anxiety clearly chewing away at him. He couldn’t defuse you or the situation they’d created so easily like any other bomb he might during a mission.

“Could we get a background check on them?”

He asked, a hint of desperation in his tone. All he wanted was for you to be better again, for things to go back to normal, for a second chance.

But as they all split up, and he went to the nest, usually all so warm and comfortable and smelling of their sweet, rich scents combined, all he found was isolation among his team, sour scents mingling with rotten ones, a few sniffles and the salty scent of tears, he knew one thing.

They’d made their bed. Now they had to lie in it.

(sorry for the short part I’ve been playing cod bo6 multiplayer a lot and I’m kinda addicted + depressive episode, but there’ll be more soon I promise!!)

Part 1 | Part 2 |

[vifilms]

tattoo artist!vi who takes notice of just how beautiful you are the moment you step foot in her shop. it’d be the most difficult task in the world to not notice just how insanely breathtaking you are. it’s clear by the smirk on your glossy lips. you know just how good you look. caitlyn, being the woman she is, tries to jump in first. you’re just her type. violet would know, cait’s dated the anti-thesis of her since the moment you broke up. caitlyn kiramman loves pretty girls. anything she can do to be underneath them, she’ll find a way. you fit her bill. violet tried not to take offense of the ways your eyes light up taking to her ex-girlfriend. maybe you’re just nice. that’s it, right? two minutes, someone who is almost as gorgeous as you walks in and then violet forgets about you as her next client walks in. she tries to at least.

tattoo artist!vi who doesn’t stop thinking about you. it’s new york. there’s plenty of pretty girls she can drown herself in. well, if she could figure out how to ask someone out without her crippling anxiety suffocating her. she knows she’s somewhat attractive but her lack of knowing how to efficiently communicate it without sound like the weirdest fuck who has ever lived gets lost in translation. she doesn’t like how sure cait is of herself when she talks about you though. violet doesn’t even know you but seeing the glint in those aquatic-blue eyes make her want to punch something. it’s hard to even tell if it due to her budding crush or that it’s her ex. probably both but she ignores it.

tattoo artist!vi who likes to frequent bars on her days off. it’s when she doesn’t feel alone. it’s fun to bug her sister, powder. she’s always been more of a free spirit out of the two of them. an artist, a wanderer, someone who choses to bartend a couple nights out of the week just because she liked meeting new people, learning their story, what makes them tick. are they a mean drunk, happy, or will they burst into tears when you ask them how they’re doing? vi isn’t either really. she’s quiet, calm even, but tonight part of her wants to cry. she feels lonely, lost, and even a little bit upset caitlyn is your first choice. she only knows your name because of the clientele list and that just feels pathetic. violet’s never been the smoothest of talkers, she knows that more than she feels the blood coursing through her veins. she isn’t the girl and she’s perfectly fine with it. perfectly. fine.

tattoo artist!vi who doesn’t even enjoy work anymore. three months in and you’ve been cait’s girlfriend and the feeling only gets worse. it’s cliché. a little fucked, but being in love with her ex’s girlfriend? it doesn’t get any lower than this. she let it slip days ago, only to powder, thank fucking god. if violet knew one thing, she didn’t wanna deal with caitlyn’s wrath. according to maddie, she’d been a dog with a bone when it came to you. so protective it nearly turned into possession. she wanted everyone to know that you were hers and not anyone else’s. it wasn’t new to violet, cait didn’t like being runner up to anyone. it’s why their relationship ended in the first place, especially when the girlfriend feels inferior to the sister. when powder comes around to the shop, cait can’t help but wear her disgust all over her face like a poorly concealed mask. vi thinks it’s silly. the both of them are nearly the same it’s almost sickening. if only the other took the time to know the object of their disdain, they would see two peas sitting in a pod.

tattoo artist!vi who hates a messy shop. when personal items are left behind or someone’s station isn’t properly sanitized and clean. it’s why she’s here, alone on the sunday, the only day the shop is closed. it’s been too long since she did a deep clean, just a week or too, but that’s long enough for her. she’s always been proud of what she’s been able to accomplish her. even if she didn’t have much, a girlfriend to love on, or if her father was on the other side of the country, she had this. violet ink. it was her name out on the sign over seeing the street, the luminous violet led lights kissing the downtown street. she made it this far and she couldn’t let anyone run her off from something she fought so hard to build from the ground up. it’s why she was surprised when she saw you. your face free of makeup, your hair in it’s natural state, and you appeared more laid back than you ever were — in her shop. it feels like a fever dream she never wishes to wake up from. cait must have given you a spare key to the shop which she would have a discussion with her about that later because what the fuck? but it’s hard for her to stay mad when you’re standing there looking like a million bucks in the most casual pair of sweats she’s ever seen. it feels different to who you usually are. shredded of the image you maintain, stripped back, there’s just a softer version of yourself and vi can’t help but contemplate if this is the side you’re so reluctant to show.

tattoo artist!vi who stutter how some stupid joke, trying to break the ice and it should have made things more awkward than they already were but your laugh full of symphonies just makes violet smile. in her best efforts, she craves to conceal it from you but it’s impossible when you’re looking at her. she can’t help but smile — so she does. desperately, violet tries not to act nervous when you’re looking at her designs on the wall, not saying a word, just inspecting. there’s a chill in her bones she feels, a need for her work to be loved because if it isn’t? it eats her up from the inside out. maybe it’s embarrassing but she needs her work to be loved. what’s the point if it isn’t? it’s always been an extension of her soul, her life, and if someone doesn’t like it? all they say is they don’t like her. it may be the silliest thing in the world, but she needs to be adored. from a complete stranger, from the people who she’s permanently tattooing, and especially from the beautiful women violet can’t stop daydreaming about.

tattoo artist!vi who blushes when you tell her how much you love her designs. there’s a soft touch to her shoulder, your thumb lightly tracing circles in her sturdy bicep. it feel innocent enough but vi doesn’t give herself much time to think about it. painfully, she takes note in how your eyes soar when they make contact with her designs. even if it makes her cocky, violet knows she’s good at her job. clients flying in from all over the country, just to get tattooed by her. with your undeniable charm, you’ve convinced her to do a custom design for you but you wanna discuss it on sunday’s, alone. if anything, she should know this isn’t a good idea. you’re charming, gorgeous and the prettiest thing she’s ever seen. she should be afraid of caitlyn’s wrath, of what would happen if she found out, but it’s innocent…right? she’s a professional. no matter how much she’s attracted to a client, it’s never been an issues and she certainly won’t make it one now. vi nods and the second she does, you’re leaping in her arms, into her space. you smell of lavender and lilies, like spring in the beginning of march. a sun-kissed marvel aching for the shine of summer, for one breath of fresh air. it’s really all she wants, a moment to be in the sunshine with you, if only for a moment at least she could tell the moon about it. her best kept secret and she would cherish every bit of it. 

tattoo artist!vi who tries to keep her head down low as the weeks carry on. even when you try to make more of an effort to speak with her, the last thing she needs is caitlyn to take one final look at her and realize just how much she likes the attention. maddie already made one comment, even if it was light-hearted — it’s enough to keep her on edge. with the design being complete, all she needs is to tattoo but violet’s been avoiding you and what’s worse? you knew it too. in her true avoidant style, violet failed to go to the shop the last two weeks on sunday. the tidiness and damn right organization of her shop was suffering but she still had plans of avoiding it. rather avoiding you, but in her forest fire of a mind, it comes all the same. all of this is so trivial, so stupid, so tragic. it’s kiramman’s day off and violet and sevika are the only artists on hand today which means she’s overworked. the both of them are tired and violet just completed her last session of the day. she sneaks to the back enjoying the cigarette she’d been itching to have. violet’s on her second one when you corner her into the brick wall she’s leaning on. you’re too close. dangerously close, almost as if the fire you’ve created in violet’s lungs might cause her to burn from the inside out. it’s chilling how silent you are until you aren’t. you’re loud about the way you caress her exposed biceps, tracing the lines of her intricate tattoo as it crawls up shoulders and so do your hands. with a sharp graze, you scrap your nails across her skin as if you want to leave a reminder that she was in fact here. should she even even be here? letting you touch her in the way you are? but it’s not like vi has much of a choice when you push the hem of her tank top up to her ribcage, showcasing the flexing abs on her abdomen. it may be faint but there’s a happy trail, one violet wants to see your lips on but she’s scared to say anything, to move, to breathe. “caitlyn said you were ripped underneath. i wanted to see for myself.” then your touch is gone and you are with it. 

tattoo artist!vi who doesn’t show up on sunday…for the first couple of hours. violet thinks of that night, the way you touched her, like you knew exactly what to do before she even could think of what she wanted next. how on earth did you manage to paralyze her with a mere flick of your wrist? when your nails clawed at her toned abdomen, violet felt the stickiness in her boxers and you’d done all of nothing. she had to put an end to things, the private session, violet couldn’t do it. she didn’t want to be caught in some weird and perversed love triangle with her ex. in the back of her throat, violet feels the lump she constantly has to swallow. the only reasonable explanation is that this, you, is all some weird fantasy of caitlyn to get the last laugh. to fully degrade her in a way she couldn’t, not when you’re the person who gets broken up with. it’s not a secret caitlyn’s ego had taken a hit. to anyone, not being the first choice stings but to cait? it might as well be a death sentence and certainly it wouldn’t stand. 

tattoo artist!vi who isn’t one for confrontation but in the need to savor some of her salvation in her dignity, she walks in the shop. you’re still waiting for her. two hours later, you’d hoped she’d show. ”violet, you came.” it’s endearing but violet also sees herself the night before tangled in her black sheets, vibrator on its highest setting as she applies pressure to her clit, fingers nestled so deep inside her cunt as she hears your voice, thinks about your irresistible lips. violet wonders what you sound like when you come and suddenly the thought sends her hurling towards the edge. the smile you offer is almost like you can see right through her, like you know vi came to the idea of you just the night before. 

with a slender smile, you make your way over to her and suddenly the internal dialogue she created to put an end to this arrangement died on your tongue when she shrugs vi’s leather jacket off. she’s only wearing her wrap to cover her chest, not intending on staying for a long time. definitely not enough to finish the beautiful design she created for you. she’d get cait to do it. their styles were similar to it. your girlfriend has to do this. but you’re touching her bare skin. vi is losing focus as she feels the control slip into your greedy fingers. 

“i know what you’re gonna say.” 

“and what’s that?” 

“you wanna stop this, meeting me here, you feel like you’re betraying someone you love and you have too much integrity to keep seeing someone you so obviously want to fuck.” 

“i can’t—” but the words die on violet’s tongue. 

“sense won’t get to you, that’s something caitlyn didn’t understand. you think with your heart of gold. when it drips for someone, you’d let it bleed out if it meant you were saving someone.” you take a pause, slipping off your shirt as your pierced nipples are exposed. violet nearly begins to drool, her eyes unable to look away from your perfect nipples, the swell of your breast how perfectly they fall on your chest, she’s nearly salivating to be offered a taste. “my girlfriend doesn’t understand you’ve found someone else to be loyal to.” 

“this is not, um, i didn’t—” 

sweetly, you kiss her cheek. “it’s such a bitch isn’t it? your heart wants whatever the fuck it yearns for, no damn mercy on who it hurts.”  

violet can only think of how much she wants to be suffocated by your tits, forever trapped in this venus fly trap you’ve caused her to succumb to. with her best foot forward, she wants to tell you to go to hell, that you’re wrong about her — she would never do something like this — until she does. it’s all tongue and teeth, vitriol and lust spills into her mouth as violet pushes you on the bench, ripping your skirt to shreds with her bare hands. only to find nothing underneath. 

bent over the table, ass up in the air, violet wastes not a single moment and stuffs her face in your fat ass. with a gratifying need, she splits your folds on her tongue as she slaps your ass making you whimper and cry out for her name. it’s beautiful, violet thinks. someone needing her to bring them to the edge, and god, you aren’t shy about it either. never has she heard anyone be so loud and proud about sex. so goddamn confident in each moan you let fall from pornogrpahic lips, it’s damn invigorating. the first one comes easily, you spill over vi’s tongue as she moans back into your weeping pussy, liquid gushing over her face violet never wants it to end. the second time violet fucks you with her fingers, stuffing and fucking until there isn’t any part of you that isn’t undeniably shaking. the third time, you’re on top of her, the two of you finding comfortablity on the cot in the break room as violet lets you fuck her. 

exactly what she expects it to be; hot, rough, fast. slippery pussy rubbing against hers until you collapse on top of her, breast pressed against her binded ones. you have a feeling they are there for a reason and you don’t push, for once in your life, you let yourself succumb to sleep as you fall asleep in her arms. 

tattoo artist!vi who doesn’t see you for three months after she had the best sex of her life. even if it does sting, vi knows it’s for the best. six months in and you’re still with caitlyn despite your best efforts. surprising everyone, but violet for different reasons, you admit your slip up to cait but she forgives you. maddie and sevika make a game of it, trying to guess who make you cheat and when violet’s name comes up jokingly, caitlyn’s words leave an unsettling pit in her stomach. 

c’mon, what is violet going to do? look at her. she’s as loyal as a trained dog and i have you trained. don’t i, cupcake? 

tattoo artist!vi who focuses on her work, like a trained dog, she falls back into her routine. sunday’s aren’t as pleasurable as they were with you, or one sunday she should say, but she dismisses the thought altogether. pushing it to the deepest parts of her mind becomes the only viable option. she uses other forms of entertainment to get her mind off of you. powder thinks it’s a good idea to be here but she refuses to step foot in here with her. this is where my path ends, sis. i’ll be just up the hill when you’re ready. a not so subtle wink has her cringing and flipping her off blue-haired braided sister off in the process. this is such a good stupid idea but violet doesn’t manage to convince herself out of this situation she’s conducted for herself. anyways, it’s one night? no one ever has to know. from the moment she steps into the strip club, she knows she never should have been here. she keeps to the bar as she changes songs from the jukebox a few times. this has never been her scene nor will it ever. as she finishes off her class of neat whiskey, the familiar voice whispers into her ear, never thought you’d be here but i guess we’re both full of surprises.

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on Sonic 3!

On December 10th, 2018, I was on the last day of a trip to Milwaukee. The night before, I'd attended the wedding of one of my best friends, Jake, who I've known since high school. Even though half of us were sick the whole trip, it was a great time. Derek had asked the wedding DJ to play "One Week" as the first request of the night, and proceeded to lip sync the entire song on the dance floor. On that cold winter morning in a hotel room hundreds of miles from home, Derek and I groggily checked Twitter on our phones and saw the shocking news: Paramount had teased the design for Sonic from their upcoming live action film. Even in silhouette, the shape of his face and the realistic curvature of his limbs made him look like a grotesque little homunculus. This movie was going to suck.

Six years later, I've now seen the third entry in what's become a hugely successful Sonic film franchise. It features Keanu Reeves as the voice of Shadow the Hedgehog in a fairly faithful adaptation of his story from Sonic Adventure 2. At the time of writing, it currently sits at a whopping 86% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, vying for the title of the best-reviewed theatrically released video game movie of all time. Critics are saying nice things about the emotional journey of Shadow the Hedgehog. Never in a million years did I think I'd see this day.

I, too, have now seen this movie, and... yeah, it's pretty good.

I'm gonna get deep into spoilers here, so I'll just say up front that I liked the movie. It feels like just about the best possible execution of this version of Sonic. But that's also damning it with faint praise, depending on who you ask.

If you're a fan of the games who didn't like the second movie, you probably won't get much out of this one, either, unless you just really love Shadow so much that nothing else in the movie matters to you. It doesn't reinvent the wheel for this film series. It's still got a heaping helping of broad comedy, cheap pop culture references, bad one-liners, and characterization that diverges greatly from the source material. This is not high art, nor is it a direct adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2. If you're the kind of person who hates this portrayal of Sonic and Eggman, or a lore nerd who'll hate that they let Shadow do Chaos Control without an Emerald, then just don't bother with this.

On the other hand, if you did enjoy the last movie, then you'll probably have a fun time here, too. Shadow is very cool. The action is the best it's ever been. There's a bit more focus on characters from the games, and less on human characters invented for the movies—with the exception of Agent Stone, who's in this a lot because everyone likes him. There's a lot of SA2 fanservice. They even play "Live and Learn." It's a fun time! Be sure to stick around through the end credits.

And now, to dig deeper, let's get into the spoilers! I'm gonna jump around a lot and talk about different aspects of the movie, spoiling everything along the way.

Shadow and his reams of lore

Here's the main thing you came for: Shadow is great in this! They really did him justice. Keanu Reeves is extremely solid in the role. He can be a bit flat as an actor sometimes, but I think he did well here. He can be tough and menacing, but he can also be earnest and emotionally vulnerable. Good casting call. Excited at the prospect of seeing more of him in the future.

Really, as a Sonic Lore Nerd I'm most interested in discussing the changes they made to Shadow's backstory. I'm sure there will be many fans upset with the changes, but for the sake of streamlining a complicated backstory that was subject to a bunch of retcons and multiple layers of amnesia and fitting it into a 110-minute movie, I think they generally made smart choices.

For one, Gerald didn't create Shadow using Black Arms DNA, because Gerald didn't create Shadow at all! Instead, Shadow arrived on Earth inside a meteor, and Gerald was merely the prominent GUN scientist who studied him after he was captured. (That meteor does have very strong Black Arms vibes, though, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of them exploring that stuff in the future.) This simplifies things a lot and allows Shadow to be a direct foil for Sonic, kind of a version of our hero who was treated as a lab rat and lost the only human he considered family instead of finding happiness like Sonic has. Then later Shadow hurts Tom and Sonic wants revenge, and it mirrors Shadow's feelings about Maria, and after they fight they can empathize with each other over this, Shadow sees the error of his ways and helps save the world, yada yada yada. You get it. People predicted 95% of this movie's plot from the trailers, but it's effective.

Likewise, all of the stuff about creating Shadow as the ultimate life form who's immune to all disease to cure Maria's illness is completely cut out. Shadow's still called the ultimate life form, but he's treated as more of an energy source than a genetic research project here, playing off of the stuff about Eggman wanting to harness Sonic's natural Chaos Energy in the movies. The original intent behind the ultimate life form project was always hard to explain in the games and doesn't even come up that much, so I don't blame them for cutting it.

Because Gerald isn't doing genetic experiments and creating artificial life, the Biolizard also doesn't exist. It does, however, appear in an old monster movie Shadow and Maria watch in a montage, with Shadow later commenting that he worries he's a monster like the one he saw in the movie. That's a clever way to include it, I think.

The ARK sort of exists. There was no space colony back in the '70s, all of the events of Shadow's flashbacks just took place at a secret GUN base on Earth. Fair enough for a version of the story ostensibly set in the real world. The big space laser in the third act of the film is obviously supposed to evoke the ARK, but it's referred to as simply the Eclipse Cannon. It's still not a full-blown space colony, just a weapon of mass destruction Gerald designed for GUN in exchange for his release (while also secretly planning to use it to blow up the planet in an act of revenge). I am, however, pleased to report that the Eclipse Cannon still has a giant Eggman face on it.

And as for Maria: I like her in this! She's obviously not going to get a ton of screentime, and she's always going to be a very straightforward character, but she's more playful and lively here. She teases Shadow for being grumpy and plays with him a lot. She feels less like this perfect embodiment of everything good and pure in the world and more like an actual kid. She's still not a complex character, but it works.

And the most important question: do they show a child getting shot and killed by the military? The answer is almost. In the flashback, GUN soldiers chase Maria, Shadow, and Gerald and ready their guns, but the young Commander Walters (who's in his 20s rather than being a kid) grabs them and tries to stop them from firing on a child. In the chaos, a soldier fires, missing Maria but hitting a generator that then blows up and kills Maria. So, y'know, close enough I suppose.

So, yes, many of the details change here, but they captured the gist of Shadow's story from SA2. The emotional core is there. I will say, though, I almost feel like Shadow isn't in this movie as much as I thought he'd be? I think he's used effectively in all of his scenes, and they make room for his backstory, and BOY does he get to kick ass in his fights, but for much of the middle part of the movie he's overshadowed by Ivo and Gerald. Though this might be a compromise to leave more screentime for...

Tails and Knuckles

I'm relieved to report that Tails and Knuckles both get a good amount of cool stuff to do in this! They don't feel like an afterthought.

I was worried that Tails in particular would completely fall by the wayside, since even his debut movie didn't entirely know what to do with him. But he's good here. He pretty much just feels like the Tails from the games at this point, especially since they dropped that fawning admiration he had for Sonic with that running gag of him going "Only Sonic the Hedgehog could do that!" He often chimes in as the one who wants Team Sonic to stick together when Sonic and Knuckles bicker. He particularly gets to shine in the Mission Impossible-inspired heist sequence at the GUN headquarters in London that serves as the climax of the second act, which feels like it was tailor made to let him shine as the tech guy of the team. He also gets several opportunities to swoop in and catch someone for a save in an action scene. He's good in this!

Knuckles is... fine. He's definitely fallen into the role of the comic relief dumb bruiser since joining the good guys, but he's at least a little better than he was in his own streaming show. The jokes lean more into him just being really brash about his strength and skill, rather than him being this archaic warrior who doesn't understand anything about the modern world. He also gets a few more serious bits in the back third of the movie where he gets to shine a little more, so overall it evens out to him being fine. They could've done way worse.

As for the relevance of the Knuckles show: Knuckles is now said to be the guardian of the Master Emerald, like in the games, though with no Angel Island this amounts to him hiding it somewhere for safekeeping. It's eventually revealed that he just gave it to Wade, who gets exactly one scene (sorry, Wade-heads) for a joke about him using the Master Emerald as a hockey puck. So, the miniseries explained why Knuckles has a connection with Wade. That's it! Also I think Knuckles might use the Flames of Disaster a bit in fights, but they never called the technique out by name, so I never really thought about it. So, yeah, the six-episode streaming miniseries about Wade bowling has zero meaningful relevance to the Shadow movie. Who could have seen this coming?

Miscellaneous humans

For that matter, the human supporting cast is MASSIVELY downplayed in this one. Tom and Maddie are there for two key sequences (the beginning of the movie and the GUN HQ heist), but otherwise they disappear for long stretches of the movie. They don't go to Japan in act I, nor do they go to space in act III, and there's no subplot for them during those periods, either. There's nothing like the wedding subplot in Sonic 2 where they'd constantly cut back to Hawaii for comic relief with the humans and only reveal why this was relevant to the plot near the end. (There's also no random dance battle in Siberia.) If a human character is here, it's because they have something to contribute to the plot right away. Most people will probably consider this an improvement, and I'd certainly say it makes for a much tighter script, though I have to remind everyone that I thought the wedding being a GUN sting operation was such a funny twist that I'm a defender of the Hawaii subplot.

On the subject of Tom, something funny I've noticed is that they've just completely downplayed the fact that Tom and Wade are cops. Tom being a cop never comes up once. Wade being a cop only gets referenced via the fact that he's practicing hockey on the roof of the police station in his one scene, but he's not in uniform or anything. They clearly got the memo that we don't want Sonic to hang out with cops.

Here's something else funny: Rachel and Randall got character posters, but they're actually not in the movie! Not technically, anyway. During the heist sequence at GUN HQ, Tom and Maddie use some gadgets Tails invented to holographically disguise themselves as those other characters. But the real Rachel and Randall never show up in the flesh. It's a very odd way to shoehorn the actors into the movie. (Jojo is also absent. They did not give her Amy's role of being the girl who reminds Shadow of Maria. Instead they just let Sonic have the big heart to heart with Shadow that makes him switch sides.)

You know who IS in this movie? Krysten Ritter. Not as the voice of Rouge, as the fandom once hoped, but as a director for GUN. She gets like three scenes and she feels completely checked out the whole time. Can't say I blame her! She's not really a character, just a plot necessity. Commander Walters dies in Japan but gives Sonic one of two keycards needed to activate the Eclipse Cannon, and then Ritter's character assumes Sonic stole it and labels him a bad guy. So that's why they have to break into GUN HQ in the second act instead of just talking things out with them. Still, I am at least relieved that Sonic doesn't work with GUN for most of the movie.

I gotta be honest: when Walters pulled a credit card-shaped object out of his pocket, I thought he was about to give Sonic another Olive Garden gift card as his final act before dying. Part of me wishes that happened.

The supporting human character in this who really gets to shine is Agent Stone, which I'm sure most fans will agree was the correct choice. There's a LOT of Agent Stone in this. He's good. I don't have much to say about him, but he's fun as usual.

But, of course, the ones who steal the show are Jim Carrey, and his costar Jim Carrey.

The Robotniks

I've gone back and forth on whether or not I can actually see movie Robotnik as Robotnik. I think with this third and final entry in the Jim Carrey Robotnik Trilogy, I've landed on... yeah, that's just Jim Carrey playing a Jim Carrey character. He's absolutely having fun with the role, and I enjoyed watching him, but I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that I'm a millennial who grew up watching Jim Carrey movies. If you didn't like him before, this movie will probably be nails on a chalkboard to you, because now there are two of him.

Ivo's arc here leans very heavily into the fact that he grew up as an orphan and never knew his family, a thing offhandedly mentioned in the first movie that's never been a thing for any other version of the character. Here, he learns that he has a living grandfather who's also a mad scientist, and it feels like a hole in his heart has been filled. It certainly makes sense for a place to take this version of the character, and it fits with the movie's themes of finding and losing family, but the cartoonish, childlike affection Ivo feels towards Gerald and all the scenes of them frolicking and dancing together have basically nothing to do with the characters from the games. He's a fun villain for this movie, but he's overwhelmingly used as comic relief this time rather than as a serious threat. He doesn't particularly feel like Sega's Dr. Ivo Robotnik, the arch nemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog who'd take over the world with an army of robots and a fleet of airships in the span of a day if Sonic wasn't around to stop him. He's a guy who lives in a big crab robot and has some drones. He has more in common with Carrey's depictions of the Grinch or the Riddler or Count Olaf than Dr. Eggman. Though he does, at least, finally get his outfit from the games by the end of the movie. So that's something. And also he's in a fat suit now. They only make jokes at the expense of his weight a little. Hooray...?

Gerald, meanwhile, is... largely the same character as movie Eggman, but older, so they can make jokes about him having saggy flesh and smelling funny and needing dentures. (Also, his voice kind of sounds like Homer Simpson sometimes?) To his credit, Carrey absolutely nails the handful of more serious scenes Gerald gets, whether it's Maria's death or his sinister turn when he reveals that he actually wants to destroy the Earth. But then it's right back to goofs about there being two of the same guy. Even the final battle features a lot of slapstick shenanigans with the two Robotniks fighting each other. I was able to enjoy the absurdity of it all, but if the humor doesn't land for you the dual Jim Carrey schtick is a hell of a lot of the movie. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more Gerald than Shadow in the movie, when you go and tally up their screentime. I was able to enjoy the sheer absurdity of it, but your mileage will vary.

I will, however, say that the split screen stuff they do with the two Carreys is EXTREMELY impressive, from a filmmaking perspective. They were absolutely flexing with their ability to pull the effect off. They don't rely on cheap tricks like cutting a lot, or having shot/reverse shot scenes where you're looking at the back of a body double's head. Instead they have a lot of long takes where the two Robotniks are talking to each other, you can see both of their faces, and they'll even hug and touch each other a lot, and the whole time the conversation maintains a natural pace like it really is two actors playing off of each other. It's really well done. It's an incredibly silly idea, but boy did they commit to it.

Sonic

I've hardly said anything about Sonic himself in all of this. It's his movie, isn't it! Well... I don't know, he's fine.

I feel like movie Sonic is a known quantity at this point, and either you like this take on the character or you don't. There was some speculation early on that this was supposed to be a younger Sonic who would grow into being the character we know from the games and comics, the one who's still got lots of quips but is also kind of aloof and cool, a free spirit who goes where the wind takes him, a figure the other characters look up to. And... no, that didn't happen. Once again he gets more serious as the stakes are raised, and he's totally badass when he goes Super, but the rest of the time he's still a little goober with tons of generic one-liners who learns schmaltzy lessons about the importance of family. He's still constantly going to undercut the tension of most scenes by cracking a pop culture reference that will make the average American parent go "haha I've heard of that." I don't think they're ever gonna change that. I think this just what the writers think Sonic is like.

And, again, for what it is, it's fine. He's a little annoying. You already know how you feel about movie Sonic. This third entry won't change that. But they do, at least, have him say "Talk about low budget flights, no food or movies... I'm outta here!" before jumping out of a helicopter. As my thoughts on the climax will show, I am not immune to fanservice.

The climax

God, the climax is SOOOOO fucking good. It's fantastic. Easily the best action these movies have ever done.

Rather than saving Super Shadow for the team-up with Sonic at the end, they have both of them go Super to fight each other first, and they just go full DBZ with it, fighting across the entire planet. It absolutely rules. I think this is the new coolest fight the two of them have had in anything ever. And then they have to stop the Eclipse Cannon together, and sure, there's no Biolizard. But Gerald DOES release a swarm of GUN Hunter robots, and the ensuing space battle turns into some Gundam shit. It's good! It's so good!!! The movie's flaws kind of melt away for me here when I'm watching Super Shadow take out an army of robots with Chaos Spears on the big screen. What a timeline we're living in.

And yes, they play "Live and Learn." They had to. They knew the assignment. They actually play a slight remix, but it's still got the original vocals, so it's perfectly recognizable. Actually, the tune of the song is used as a leitmotif for Shadow throughout the movie, first introduced via an acoustic guitar version played by Maria, and I really love that. I've been begging these movies to use more music from the games the whole time, and I'm glad they finally did so here. (They also use the traditional level clear jingle early in the film, and Eggman's theme from SA2 is very briefly used as a ringtone.)

... Anyway, uh, meanwhile Eggman, Tails, and Knuckles straight up just kill Gerald to save the world? They unceremoniously knock him into an energy field at the end of their slapstick fight aboard the Eclipse Cannon and he disintegrates like he hit a bugzapper. It's over in an instant. It's not graphic or anything, but it's, like... I didn't expect them to show it, or for it to be such a casual murder! Eggman has one quip about it and then immediately moves on.

Shortly after this, Eggman and Shadow sacrifice themselves to stop the Eclipse Cannon. Shadow's sacrifice doesn't stick, obviously (he's revealed to be alive by the end of the second stinger—pretend to be shocked), but Eggman's probably dead dead. I seriously doubt Jim Carrey's gonna come out of retirement for these movies again. His final moments before the big explosion are also SO dragged out and belabored. He has a dramatic final line like ten times in a row. It really just feels like the series saying goodbye to Carrey. And, again, it feels like a fitting enough end for this Eggman's arc, but it's an odd adaptation of the character from the games.

And so, that's what we're left with. This is far from Sonic Adventure 2: The Movie. It's not that, though there are many, many references made to that game in particular. It's a sequel to the film Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that has a similar tone and style, but Shadow and Gerald are in it, and Shadow gets some really cool fights, and there's a liiiiiittle more focus on stuff from the games than last time, and the script's a little tighter. If that sounds fun to you, you will have fun with this. I know I did. If it doesn't, you're probably better off waiting for them to inevitably do an animated reboot whenever this live action series runs out of steam.

It hasn't quite run out of steam yet, though...

The post-credits scenes, and the future

One of the big questions going into this was: what's next? How do they top a Shadow movie with heavy Sonic Adventure 2 overtones, in terms of hype for the fans? How do you fill Eggman's shoes after Carrey retires, for real this time? There are still more fan favorite rival characters to get through, but how many movies in a row can they introduce a furry foe for Sonic who inevitably turns good and helps him stop a larger threat by the end? And when the hell are we gonna see the girls?

Well, we now have our answer, and it's one I'm cautiously excited for: a whole army of Metal Sonics, and Amy!

Yes, Amy! Finally!! It's an absolute crime that we've gone three whole movies and a streaming miniseries without including the female lead of the series. I've complained about this ad nauseum (and also the fact that they cut Rouge from the story). But at least now they're finally doing something about it.

But now the question is, how will they characterize Amy? Sega's struggled with her for years, and there's a million different directions you can take her. Her one scene here has her smashing a bunch of Metal Sonics and wearing a cloak for the sake of a dramatic reveal, which gives her the vibes of a mysterious, badass action girl. This is, of course, completely different from how Sonic and Amy met in the games. What will her personality be like? She doesn't speak here, so who will they get to play her? Where did she come from? Will she even have a crush on Sonic? All of these have yet to be determined. So, like, I'm hyped to finally see Amy, a character who should've been in the movies from the start, but they could so easily end up playing it safe with an incredibly boring girlboss version of Amy who's no fun at all. We'll have to wait and see.

(My prediction: they're going to try to cast either Zendaya or Ariana as Amy.)

Metal Sonic, likewise, is very exciting, and he looks perfect. He looks just like the design from the games. But the question is: what will they do with this army of Metals? Will they be lead by one main Metal Sonic, perhaps Neo Metal Sonic, who gets to be a proper bad guy? Will they take some cues from Sonic CD, Heroes, and the OVA, or do something completely original? Where did they come from? Were they activated as a failsafe after Eggman died? Did they and Amy come from some sort of bad future, riffing on Sonic CD's time travel? Will they explore the fact that Metal wants to be the one and only Sonic? Or will they just be an army of disposable robot grunts for Sonic and friends to mow down like it's a Dynasty Warriors game, while some other villain takes center stage?

It could go so many different ways, and some prospects are more exciting than others. I mean, the Knuckles show had endless possibilities for what it could do with him, and none of the options on my bingo card were "Pachacamac's ghost tells him to help Wade win a bowling tournament." And while I'm a sicko who thinks it's funny that the Knuckles show is what it is, forgive me for keeping my hype about Amy and Metal Sonic in check here until we learn more.

Regardless of what they do, it'll still be hard to top the hype of Shadow, and it'll be hard to fill Jim Carrey's shoes for general audiences. So despite this clear statement of intent, I have no idea what the future of this film franchise holds. But regardless of what they do, I can say one thing for certain: the kids in my theater were hyped as hell for it. They popped off over Metal Sonic, and they were screaming their heads off with excitement over Amy. I heard a teenage girl on the opposite end of my row of seats say "finally!" over Amy's reveal, verbalizing my exact thoughts. She also said that this movie was "peak," though it diverged from the games, and she hoped they'd do a movie with Silver and Blaze someday.

The kids are gonna be okay.

[starksweasley]

Throwing Books // James Potter

Pairing: James Potter x Reader, Platonic! Remus Lupin x Reader

Summary: In which both you and James have been too stressed and you finally break (angst, fluff)

Word Count: 1734

The library was suffocating. Your textbooks loomed in front of you, the words blurring into an incomprehensible haze. Normally, you’d find solace here—a quiet corner to focus and drown out the chaos of Hogwarts. But tonight, the silence pressed down on you, amplifying your frustration. And then there was James.

The fight from earlier replayed in your mind like a broken record. He’d yelled, you’d yelled louder, and then you’d thrown a book. A bloody book. It hadn’t even been a small one; the thud it made as it hit the floor echoed through the common room, silencing everyone. Sirius’s jaw had dropped, Peter’s eyes had widened, and Remus—sweet, patient Remus—had been the one to step in, grabbing you by the arm and dragging you away before you could hurl something else.

“What the hell was that?” he’d hissed, his golden-brown eyes wide with disbelief as he pulled you into the empty corridor.

“He started it!” you’d snapped, your voice cracking under the weight of unshed tears. Frustration bubbled beneath your skin, making your hands tremble.

“And you finished it by nearly taking his head off with a Charms textbook? Brilliant plan,” Remus had replied, his sarcasm biting but oddly comforting. He placed a steadying hand on your shoulder, his thumb brushing lightly in a soothing motion. “Come on,” he said, his voice softening when he noticed your trembling form. “Let’s cool off.”

You hesitated, looking back towards the common room, your anger still simmering just beneath the surface. “He doesn’t understand, Remus. He doesn’t care about how hard everything feels right now.”

“That’s not true, and you know it,” Remus countered gently, his calm voice a stark contrast to your stormy emotions. “He cares too much. That’s why you’re both at each other’s throats. You’re both stubborn as hell, and it’s exhausting watching you two try to out-angst each other.” His lips quirked into a faint smile, a touch of warmth softening his words.

You huffed, crossing your arms over your chest. “That doesn’t mean he gets to yell at me like that.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Remus agreed, his expression growing serious. “But you didn’t exactly take the high road either. Chucking a brick of a textbook at him? Really?”

“It was within reach,” you muttered, looking away as a blush crept up your cheeks.

Remus chuckled softly, the sound almost affectionate. “You’re impossible, you know that?” He placed a steadying hand on your shoulder, his touch grounding. “Come on. Let’s walk. You need to cool off before you destroy the entire Gryffindor common room.”

He tugged you down the corridor, his calm presence easing some of the tension knotting your chest. As you walked, he glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re both just stressed and taking it out on each other. He misses you, you know.”

Your steps faltered slightly, but you caught yourself. “He has a funny way of showing it.”

Remus sighed, his tone patient. “James Potter isn’t exactly the poster child for emotional intelligence. But he’s trying. And so are you. Maybe meet him halfway?”

You allowed yourself to be led away, the adrenaline fading and leaving behind only exhaustion and a faint twinge of guilt.

Now, hours later, you sat in the library, staring blankly at your notes. The fight had drained you, left a hollow ache in your chest that no amount of studying could fill. James hadn’t come after you, and that hurt more than you cared to admit. You were both busy, sure—you with school, him with Quidditch—but you’d always found time for each other. Until now.

“This is ridiculous,” you muttered, slamming your book shut. The noise earned a sharp glare from Madam Pince, but you didn’t care. You couldn’t sit here another second, not when the thought of James out on the pitch, still angry, gnawed at you.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you grabbed your things and bolted from the library. The air was crisp as you stepped outside, the distant glow of the Quidditch pitch guiding your steps. The sounds of late-night drills reached you before the sight of him did—the thwack of a Bludger, the whistle of wind as brooms cut through the air. And then there he was.

James flew with a kind of reckless grace, his hair a wild mess, his face flushed from exertion. He didn’t see you at first, too focused on chasing the Quaffle. You hesitated, watching him for a moment longer. Even now, angry and hurt, you couldn’t help but think he looked… incredible.

Steeling yourself, you reached into your bag and grabbed the first thing your hand landed on: another book. With a determined throw, you sent it sailing into the air, straight into his line of vision.

“Oi!” he shouted, swerving to avoid it. He caught sight of you as the book tumbled to the ground. “What is it with you and throwing books at me lately?”

You shrugged, your heart pounding as he descended. “They get your attention, don’t they?”

He landed with a thud, his broom clattering to the ground. “You’re mad, you know that?”

“Maybe,” you replied, your voice quieter now. “But so are you.”

James’s face softened, though his eyes still held a spark of irritation. He approached slowly, his broom abandoned behind him, until he was just a step away. “What do you want, love?” he asked, his tone weary. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

“You think it hasn’t been for me?” The words came out sharper than you intended, your frustration bubbling to the surface again. You took a deep breath, willing yourself to stay calm. “I hate fighting with you, James. I hate this. It’s… exhausting.”

His sigh was long and heavy, and he ran a hand through his hair, messing it further. “Yeah, well, maybe you should think about that before you start chucking books.” Despite the edge in his tone, his lips twitched like he was trying to suppress a smile.

“Don’t put this all on me,” you shot back, the anger simmering in your chest. “You yelled first!”

“Because you’ve been avoiding me for weeks!” he snapped, his voice rising as he stepped closer. “Do you know how bloody frustrating it is to feel like you don’t have time for me anymore? Like I’m not important to you?”

“I’m drowning in schoolwork, James! What do you want me to do? Drop everything and watch you play Quidditch?” Your voice wavered, and you hated how vulnerable it made you sound.

“I just want you to talk to me!” he shouted, the words bursting out before he could stop them. His voice cracked on the last word, and he dropped his gaze to the ground, the anger in his posture giving way to something softer, something raw. “I… I miss you.”

The confession hung in the air between you, heavy and unguarded. His hand fidgeted at his side, as if he was unsure whether to reach for you. You stared at him, your chest tightening as his words sank in.

“James…” you began, but your voice faltered. You bit your lip, the frustration and sadness from the past weeks rising like a tide.

“You’re my person,” he continued, quieter now, his voice almost breaking. “And not talking to you, even for a day, it’s awful. I hate it.” His hazel eyes met yours, full of the vulnerability he rarely let anyone see.

Tears prickled at the corners of your eyes, and you blinked them away. “Me too,” you admitted, your voice trembling. “I’m sorry. For avoiding you, for the fight, for everything. You’re important to me, James. You always have been.”

His shoulders sagged with relief, and he took another step closer, until he was right in front of you. “Are we okay?” he prompted softly, his voice gentle but his gaze searching, almost pleading.

You didn’t answer. Instead, you closed the distance between you, your movements quick and almost desperate. Your arms looped tightly around his neck, yanking him down as you pressed your lips to his. It wasn’t a gentle kiss—it was fervent, an outpouring of every emotion that had bubbled under your skin all day. Anger, frustration, longing—they all coalesced in that moment. He froze for a half-second, his breath hitching against your lips, before melting into the kiss. His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against him, and you could feel the tension in his grip, like he was afraid to let go. The faint taste of salt and the lingering warmth of his exertion made your head spin, and the world around you seemed to dissolve into nothing but him.

When you finally pulled away, his forehead rested against yours, his breath warm on your skin. “You’re insane,” he murmured, though his lips curved into a small smile.

“Takes one to know one,” you replied, a watery laugh escaping you. You felt your chest lighten, but your mind was still racing. Glancing at the book you had thrown earlier, now resting abandoned on the ground, you couldn’t help but chuckle softly.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, tilting his head slightly.

“You’d think with all the books I’ve chucked at you today, I’d be the one to apologize to Madam Pince for ruining library property,” you said, a faint blush creeping up your cheeks.

He laughed, a sound that warmed you from the inside out. “I think she’d sooner ban you for life than let you borrow another one,” he teased, his arms still secure around you. “But you do owe me a new Charms book, by the way.”

“Oh, do I?” you quipped, arching a brow.

“Definitely,” he replied, his grin widening. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “But maybe I’ll let it slide if you promise not to avoid me again.”

You smiled, your fingers idly playing with the collar of his Quidditch jersey. “Deal,” you murmured, the word carrying more weight than a simple agreement.

As the night settled around you, James finally pulled back, his hand brushing a strand of hair from your face. “You know,” he started, his tone light, “this whole book-throwing thing? Kind of impressive. But if you’re ever mad at me again, maybe try not aiming at my head.”

You laughed, the sound clear and unburdened. “Noted, Potter. Noted.”

[luveline]

this request may be a bit of a long shot, but would you be willing to write a drabble for mouth of september? maybe she gives the boys a scare either by going out and then not coming home at the time she said she would or maybe she faints from not having eaten enough? totally okay if you don’t want to or if you want to use this as a prompt for something else, mos has just been one of your fic series that i think about pretty consistently even two-ish years later.

anyway have a great day and hope you’re doing well jadey <3 love u

I love you! me writing this actually did feel like a longshot but not cos I didn’t love it and not cos I don’t love u, I hope you enjoy it!! been so long since I wrote this !!🩵 fem! 4k words

cw suicidal thoughts/suicidal ideation

It’s cold tonight. 

You blow on your fingers, feeling them warm, stiffness lanced for precious few seconds. You didn’t mean to walk so far from the house, not while the wind is racing like this. The corner shop just seemed to move around while you weren’t looking. You should’ve asked Sirius to go with you, he has a better sense of direction, even if he would’ve complained the whole time about the shit weather. 

Remus would’ve come and not complained, but he was sleeping at the time and waking him felt cruel. James would’ve come, racing around in Lily’s car, but then he would’ve followed you back into the house insisting on making you some supper or a cuppa or something, and what you’d wanted was to be alone. A bar of chocolate wouldn’t hurt either. 

Stupid travelling corner shop, you think to yourself. Stupid me for fucking losing it. Should’ve just stayed home. Can’t even walk to the shop. 

You take a deep breath. You give the streets a wretched, embarrassed glare and flop down onto the nearest bench. Fuck’s sake. Lost and freezing to death. 

If Sirius were here, if he heard what you were thinking, he’d frown at you with that dark pinch to his eyes and tell you to Stop it, now. 

He’s maybe half of the reason you’re out of the house tonight. Maybe all of it. It’s all complicated and horrible and everyone thinks it’s a bad idea but the thing is that Sirius himself isn’t complicated, he isn’t horrible. He’s kind to you in funny ways, and when you’re together Sirius makes you feel like you’re someone worth being kind too, which doesn’t happen often. 

Your self annoyance fades to something more familiar soon enough. Everything goes quiet, leaving you there with your heart, quick and slow beating, can’t seem to choose, and your cold feet. Your socks feel too tight. 

Your teeth start to chatter. You can’t sit here forever. 

(But wouldn’t it be better? If you stayed? Caught cold?) 

If you get poorly from the cold, you’ll feel miserable from the moment you wake up. You’ll be ill at work, which will make work worse. You’ll have to stay in your room so you don’t get one of the boys sick, and that really would ruin your week. Nothing means anything if you don’t get to see your best friends. 

You gather yourself up and turn toward the street you’d just walked down, determined to retrace your steps. 

In the distance, a familiar shape is jogging toward you. 

“Y/N?” James shouts, sounding as though all the breath in the world has been sucked from his lungs. He doesn’t stop jogging until he gets a few feet from you, where he bends to catch his breath. “Fucking hell!” His head snaps up. “Fuck, shortcake, are you alright?” 

You close the distance. “I’m fine.” 

“Are you?” He forces himself to stand, breathing hard as he grabs you by the wrist. “Are you okay? You scared me so badly.” 

You grab his arm back. “I’m really fine, I’m fine, what’s wrong?” 

“You’re what’s wrong, you aren’t home!” James swallows a lump. “You left a note, you’d be home by seven. It’s nearly ten. Remus rang me in a fit ‘cos he didn’t know where you’d gone, we thought–” James gives you an imploring look, though it’s so so sorry at the same time, you feel your stomach twist into a hard knot. “We thought you were having a bad night.” 

“James.” Embarrassment makes you soft-toned. “I’m really sorry I scared you, but I got lost, that’s all.” You don’t really like to lie, only James seems to need to hear it. “I’m glad you found me. I was worried I wouldn’t get home.” 

James gives a breathy laugh. “Oh, good.” 

You’re pulled into a hug. 

“Sorry,” you say. 

“No, it’s okay.” He rubs your back with force. It feels more for him than you, though you don’t exactly mind it. You can pretend as much as you want that you don’t like it when the boys give you affection, but they know it’s not true, and they know it’s alright to give it to you most days. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine as long as you’re fine.” 

“Fine,” you say. 

He pulls away. “Oh, god. Alright, let’s go back to the house. It’s freezing, you’re not wearing a proper coat?” 

“I didn’t plan on being out long.” 

“No?” 

He takes you by the shoulder to encourage you back the way you came. “Just wanted some chocolate,” you say. 

“I’ll get you some.” 

You both know it doesn’t add up. James doesn’t make you say much else, relieved you’re alright, and you fester in the guilt of worrying him so harshly. 

“Where are your glasses?” you ask. 

“I forgot them in the car.” 

“Where is the car?” 

“Remus thought you might’ve gone to the library, you were supposed to take that Sky-Fi back.” 

“Sci-fi.” 

“Right, the space books. He took it to see if you were walking home, I said I’d come this way, and Sirius…” James grimaces. “Not sure where he went. He was already out by the time I got to the house.” 

“How are we gonna find him?” 

“He’ll come back eventually.” 

You stick close to James’ side, dodging crisped up leaves and following him down the dropped kerb and finally onto a familiar road. “Guess I’ve lived here so long, I should’ve known the way,” you say. 

“It’s alright.” 

You bite your cheek for a second. “I’m really sorry, James, I– I didn’t– is it really ten?” 

“…Aren’t you cold?” he asks softly. 

“I didn’t think about it.” 

“I wish you would.” He pokes his tongue against his cheek. “I want to know if you’re having a bad night. It’s alright if you were. If you need more time, more help, it’s okay.” 

“It’s not like that… not all of it. I was walking to the shops, I swear. Just feel so,” —your voice slips into a colour of shame you despise— “weird sometimes. I’m sorry I made you worry. I don’t know why I keep doing this.” 

“Is this a common occurrence?” 

“Not the walk, just. Just this. Making you worry. I didn’t mean to make everybody worry.” 

“Well, I am worried. When you disappear for a couple more hours than you say you will, it’s scary.” James gives you a shrug. “I love you, I’m gonna wonder where you are.” 

“But–”

“I worry about Sirius when he goes to the pub until who knows when, worry about Lils when she does too many hours at work. I worry about Remus every day, his eyes are worse than mine ‘cos all he does is read,” he says with a laugh. “It’s fine.” 

“I worry about you too,” you say. 

“About what?” he asks, stricken. 

“Remus told me you can pop your knee out from your kneecap when you weight lift. I know you think it’s fun and stuff, but that’s scary.” 

“I’m getting fit!” He rolls his eyes. “Lily likes my abs.” 

“Well I liked you when you were soft.” 

James cackles at your poor fake-flirting. “I’ve never been soft, take that back! You know being captain made me solid as a rock.” 

“James?” a voice calls. 

You look up at the same time. Sirius is sitting on the wall in front of the house smoking; he takes a harsh, quick drag and stabs it out so hard that ash sullies his fingers as he stands. 

“Oh,” he says, blowing the smoke from his mouth quickly, his breath a ragged thing as he bounds across the road to hug you. “Sorry.”

You don’t get what he’s sorry for. “It’s okay.” 

He smells so strongly of smoke it’s like he’s blowing it under your nose, but he’s not so sharp to the touch. You falter at being touched kindly, feeling tension in his back as you curl an arm around him. 

Sirius digs his face into your neck. 

“Hey?” you ask quietly. 

He steps back suddenly, an accusing fist held between your two abdomens. “Where have you been?” he asks, and there’s the sharpness to match his smell, scowl turning his grey-blue eyes to pitch, lashes in a furious tangle. “You can’t do that. You can’t just disappear for hours.” 

“I’m sorry–”

“It’s not okay.”

“She said she’s sorry,” James interjects, “maybe let’s leave it?” 

“Being sorry doesn’t erase the last two hours of us panicking, though, does it?” 

“She got lost–”

“James, it’s okay, it’s–” You shake your head. “Maybe you should go inside to warm up? You’re not wearing a coat either.” 

“I was in a rush.” James gives Sirius a warning look. “I’ll make you a cup of tea. Five minutes and I’m coming back out.” 

James trudges up the garden path to the house. You twist your hands together, staring into Sirius’ face, wanting to see every bit of his anger, keeping tabs on all of it so as not to be surprised. You should’ve known he’d run out of patience with you eventually. He’s had to deal with your awful moods more than anyone else. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Do you realise how scary it is to worry you’ve hurt yourself?” Sirius asks starkly. 

You flinch. “It doesn’t exactly feel great for me, either.” 

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Still, he softens. You feel like you’ve cheated. “I don’t understand. You got lost? How far away from the house were you?” 

“I don’t know, I was trying to go to Del’s.” 

“You’re not being honest with me, or any of us. It’s not fair. My heart is like a fucking racehorse,” he says, pressing his hand to his chest, fingertips smudgy with ash, “’cos all I’ve thought tonight is that you’d gone off and jumped off of a bridge or something. I know you wouldn’t.” He lets his hand fall. He quietens. It is almost apologetic, how he slows. “I know you wouldn’t. I knew you’d come home. But please don’t make me think about it.”

He’s gone pale in the cold, his hair in twists and tucked haphazard behind his ears. In his thick bomber jacket and his jeans, he could’ve just hopped of the bike, windswept as he is, but it’s the mark of worried hands having pushed his hair back repetitively rather than the weather, though the longer you stand there in the wind, the more tangled it becomes. “I dont get why you’re so determined to be alone,” he says. 

You don’t want to talk about it. When do you ever? More than ever, you’d like to stalk past him and slam your bedroom door, let him know you’re fine by yourself and seething, let him stay ignorant to you as you squirm in a bed you’ve come to hate. How often do you lay there wishing you could be alone forever? It’s not fair to anyone. It doesn’t make sense. They all love you and you feel sorry for them, ‘cos you tricked them, ‘cos you’re nothing worth thinking about for long. 

Sirius won’t stop frowning at you. It makes the drowning feeling worse. 

“I’m sorry,” you say again, hoping this time it’ll stick. “I don’t know what happened, I just wasn’t thinking. I don’t feel very well.” 

“I know.” He scoffs to himself. You relax at the hint of self-deprecation. “It’s not your fault. I’m fucking furious with you but I know you can’t help it.” 

“Sorry.” 

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. For saying you’d jumped off a bridge, that’s horrible, but you really fucking worry me sometimes and I’m so relieved that you’re okay that it’s making me horrible.” 

“You’re not horrible.” 

“I’m mean.” 

“You’re not.”

“No, I am. You’re the only person who doesn’t see it. Or at least doesn’t say it.” Sirius rubs his face, scraping a stray hair from his nose. “Sorry for shouting. Here,” —he holds out his arm— “let’s have a proper one.” 

He hugs you nicely, no force to it, less lingering smoke. The scratch of his cheek catches yours, his hand at the bottom of your back, your jacket and shirt rising with every sweep of his touch. You press your closed eye to his hair. 

“Why didn’t you come and sit with me or– we could’ve talked. Could’ve just led in bed, doesn’t matter, I would’ve gone to the shop with you.” He squeezes you, pressing his nose to your shoulder. “I can be morbid. We can be two miserable layabouts together.” 

“I didn’t…” You cringe. “Sirius, it’s not on purpose, I swear. I didn’t do it to make you worry.” 

“I know that, Jesus.”

“Sorry.” 

“It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re home.” 

You pull apart as a car turns onto the street. That’ll be Remus. Another for your troupe of worry. 

“What do you think, is he mad at me too?” you ask. 

“Remus?” Sirius gives you another half hug. “‘Course not.” 

And true to form, Remus climbs out of the car with a fond smile. “Hey, where have you been?” His hair ruffles in the wind, scars turned palest purple in the cold. “You need to learn how to tell time.” 

You let him hug you. “Sorry.” 

“That’s alright, let’s go inside though. Have some tea. Did you eat much today?” 

You ignore the question. “Tea,” you say. 

“Yeah.” 

Remus ushers you down the path to the house, Sirius on your other side like bodyguards. 

“Thanks for, uh, looking for me.” 

Remus takes you by the forearm. “We’ll always look for you. But next time, wake me up first.” 

You nod gratefully. “Uh, okay. Thank you.” 

“Stop saying thanks. It’s alright, Y/N. It’s fine.” 

That’s what you’ve all said, but it doesn’t make it true. 

—

James goes home, though he doesn’t want to. “I can stay,” he says over the rim of his mug, half-pleading, wanting you to ask him to. “We can have a sleepover.” 

You insist that you’re really fine, he has work tomorrow, it’s late. When he doesn’t move, you say, “I feel bad enough that you were out looking for me in the cold.” 

Your voice is pathetic and scratchy and he can tell you’re going to cry, they all can, so he doesn’t push it anymore than that. He goes home, and you go to bed, and Remus follows you up a little bit later with a glass of juice and some thick, buttered slices of teacake. 

“You okay?” he asks, climbing into bed next to you where you’re laying down. 

“Fine.” 

“Didn’t eat much today?” 

“No.” 

“Have the juice, at least.” 

You take the glass. 

Between your sorry sips, Remus picks at one of the slices of cake, steals looks at you, though he doesn’t try to hide what he’s doing. 

“Sorry about today. Didn’t mean to worry you.” 

“You can stop saying sorry.” Remus lets his head tip from one side to another. “I can hear it in your voice that you don’t want to say it. Not that I don’t believe that you’re really, actually sorry. But you keep repeating it because you’re worried I want you to do that, and I don’t.” 

“It’s what I should say.” 

“Well, you’ve said it.” Remus turns to you, all bookish and rakish at once, lovely but tired, and he must be giving you a similar appraisal. “I wanted to be your friend the second I first talked to you. It wasn’t guilt.” He shakes his head. Wasn’t ’cos they’d played that prank on you with the shoe-eating goo, spied on you crying in a school hallway, overwhelmed. “I just liked you, and that was without any sort of knowledge of what you’re like. Now that I know you, I couldn’t be rid of you. Truly. I love you, you know that?” He smiles gently. “Even when you need time and you disappear. Please… don’t really go anywhere though, will you?” 

“I won’t.” You decided a long time ago that ending your life wasn’t in the cards. There are terrifying moments, numb ones, blink-and-it’s over ones, where you feel like it’s the only option you have. But it ends eventually, or it sinks into a background to be forgotten until the next time it aches. 

“Are you eating properly?” he asks. 

“Remus–” You shake your head as he brings a hand to your forehead, like he might stroke your hair. “You don’t have to do this.” 

“You don’t like answering, that’s all.” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“I’ve made you talk much more than you would’ve liked to, tonight.”

“I like talking to you. To all of you.” You rest your head on his thigh. “You really are my favourite people in the world, Remus. I wouldn’t… wouldn't give you up.” 

“Good,” he says, stroking your forehead just a few times. “‘Cos we can’t be without you.” 

Sirius finds you collapsing in on one another a little later and rounds the bed to lay on your other side. He doesn’t bother sitting as Remus did, pulling the blankets up and slipping in beside you without worrying about what parts of you are touching parts of him, nor the slip of your back where your shirt’s riding up, nor how warm it is under the quilt. He grabs the end of your t-shirt and pulls it flat over your stomach, before his hand spreads out there, and you realise half-heartedly that he’s hugging you from behind. The room is barely seeable. Remus is nearly sleeping. Your tea cake went uneaten, left stodgy and dark on the nightstand. 

“This okay?” Sirius asks. 

“Yeah.” 

He burrows nearer, rubbing his nose against the back of your neck, then taking a long breath of you. 

“Are you mad?” you ask. 

“Not anymore.” 

You can’t believe that any of them could love you so much as to look for you. That James would want to stay the night, and that he’d let you turn him away. If you had any energy left in you tonight you would’ve done the same to Remus, and then Sirius. James won’t be happy when he finds out they’d slept in the bed with you and left him out, but he’ll forgive it eventually. None of them should care so much about you, what’s special about you? What’s even really good? What’s worth it? 

Sirius breathes behind you. He doesn’t seem scared to touch you, not worried to lay as close to you as your bodies will allow. His heat sinks into you. 

“Know any poems?” he asks, letting you shift into his back as he pushes an arm beneath you, curling, really holding you to him, a spoon of a hug. 

“What kind did you want to hear?” 

Sirius doesn’t answer. You hold still as his hand begins looping over your stomach. 

“I can’t remember anything right.” 

“Can you guess at one for me?” he asks. 

You stare at Remus’ falling chest. You’re lucky to have good friends. 

“I read one a few days ago, a couple of times, it was only a few lines.” You wait. Sirius doesn’t say anything, so you start to relay the poem slowly, stringing the words together as they come. “The world was a… nautilus shell... And the world was a grain of sand.” Your voice is odd, but the lines come to you regardless. “The world was a honeycomb… And the world was a strip of tender bark.” 

Sirius lets his lips warm your neck, asking softly, more touch than sound, “That was the whole poem?” 

You take his hand where it’s against you. “That’s it.” 

He nods. 

The world was a nautilus shell. And the world was a grain of sand. The world was a honeycomb. And the world was a strip of tender bark. You run through the poem again, three times, tripping over strip and tender and bark as Sirius’ breath warms your nape. 

“Please don’t do that again,” he says. 

“I didn’t mean to–” You force yourself to stay still. “I would never do something like that to scare you.” 

“Nobody in this room or out of it believes that you went on your walk tonight to scare them.” His nose tips down your neck. His hand spreads wider over your stomach. It feels so weird, so warm and rigid. It’s the best touch you’ve ever been given, and it doesn’t matter because you’re so ashamed of yourself —you went on your stupid little walk with at least some bad intent, and your friends noticed because they love you when they shouldn’t bother. This is a stain now, something you’ll remember. “But I can’t take it. Do you get that? I can’t take it. James found you two hours ago and I still feel like I don’t know where you are.” 

“Didn’t mean to.” 

“I know, love.” He actually does kiss your neck then, quiet smack of a real kiss. “I know. I know.” His forehead presses to your shoulder as he settles in. “You’re okay. I’m not mad.” 

“Me neither,” Remus croaks. 

You let yourself relax enough to feel tired. Warmth from either side of you threatens to bowl you over. 

“How are you feeling now?” Sirius asks. 

“Fine.” Always fine. They deserve better honesty. “I didn’t want to hurt myself. Jus’… I needed to move, like, go, and I hate this part. I don’t think it should matter that I’m not– that I don’t feel well.” 

“Don’t get upset,” Sirius says quietly. 

“I’m not.” You sound tight. “When I want to be somewhere, it doesn’t make sense that it matters. In the moment, I don’t remember that you…” 

“Love you?” Sirius asks. 

“I know why you were worried, I promise. I don’t live in a bubble. I know I’m selfish.” 

“Not selfish.” 

“It was, though.” 

“You’re thinking about it like we have a problem with what you did, and it’s my fault because I got so mad, but it’s not really that you did it.” His hand curls shy of your breastbone. “I was mad, but– darling,” —you squeeze your eyes shut— “you’re not on trial. You don’t have to prove your way out of this, all we need to know is if you’re alright now.” 

“Not really.” 

Remus gives a half-sleeping mumble. 

Sirius sits up in bed to look at both of you. “We love you. We,” —he gestures between you and Remus emphatically— “aren’t going to stop. No matter how many walks you go on, how many scares you give me.” He frowns at you sympathetically. “We’re not getting any further, are we?” 

“Sorry.” 

“I’m sorry.” He grimaces, dark around the eyes. “I’m a right prick and I’ve made a right mess of everything.” 

“It’s okay,” you whisper, chancing a touch, terrified you’ll be reprimanded for it but knowing, as you know he loves you, that you’re allowed. The tips of your fingers touch his collarbone. Sharp thing. 

He pulls a jib, lips all up and thinned like a smirk gone wrong. “Love you.” 

You must’ve petrified him. He’s never so open with his feelings, even when it’s half-joking like this. 

“I love you, too.” 

He makes another face. Good enough, it says. 

“Make me hot chocolate?” you whisper. 

“Mm, come on.” He pulls you from the bed by your wrists. “Don’t complain when it’s gritty. I’m not skilled as Remus.” 

“Quite right,” Remus mumbles. 

You hug him quickly before you leave. 

[littlegaybean1]

Not to go too analytical here, but that's exactly what I'm going to do.

See, that last gif of Buck and international treasure Christopher Diaz is of a scenario where typically the roles 'should' be reversed. That's the scene where Buck is telling Chris that his father got shot. But instead of Buck comforting Chris, as would be considered the more normal thing to happen here, it's the other way around. Buck later says that he should have held it together, but looking through the other GIFs and just thinking about the general context, is it really surprising that Buck broke down?

Think about it. Buck is, as dubbed by Bobby 'the guy who likes to fix things'. He always makes sure everyone else is okay before addressing his own issues, and sometimes he never does. Eddie got shot right in front of Buck. They were only about a metre or two apart, it could so easily have been him instead. Buck, being Buck, believes that it 'would have been better... If I'd been the one who got shot'. He's very clearly showing signs of survivor's guilt. And then, after that, he has to tell his best friend's son that he's not coming home tonight, maybe not ever. He has to say that to a child who has already lost his mother.

And here's the crucial part, the part that is summed up in the original post nicely: nobody checked to make sure Buck was okay.

They were so worried about Eddie that you never actually see Buck get any sort of comfort from anyone. He was barely holding himself together as it was, and his coping mechanism is to push it down and act like he's okay. He kept it all in, which of course can only ever lead to it bursting out. So when, on top of all the pain and stress and fear he's experiencing, he has to go and tell Christopher - a child he already feels like he's failed due to the tsunami - that he might be about to lose his father. And Buck loves them both, Eddie and Christopher, so much and so from his perspective he might be about to lose them both.

And it all comes out.

Then there's Chris, who has already lost so much for someone so young, who understands much more about the situation than anyone his age should. But in that moment, his first priority is to comfort Buck, his father's best friend who is practically family at that point. Nobody else had thought to comfort Buck, not any of the firefighters who have all suffered losses and know how to cope, none of the adults who knew far more of what Buck had been through, just a ten(?) year old boy.

Somebody please give Buck a hug. Literally anyone. I do not care who. Just someone comfort that poor guy.

Thinking about comfort hugs.

Comforting Bobby.

Comforting Maddie.

Comfort Eddie.

Comforting Chim.

Comforting Hen.

And then there's Buck.

Here's a hug, but he's comforting Maddie.

No one even touched him until he collapsed, and then they're just holding him up. He can barely grip Hen's arm.

Bobby drags him back and lets go just as Buck breaks down.

And then there's this MVP.