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kpopisthereasonihavenolife · 4 years ago

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i.changkyun / reader

genre: yandere!changkyun, librarian!reader (sex worker!changkyun)

warning(s)!!!: clubbing, mentions of sex/sex work, obsessive behavior, stalking, ‘love at first sight’ but messed up, masturbation (male), implied violence/murder, manipulation, changkyun plays the nice guy role but isn’t, changkyun is also pretty messed up (oops), y/n is oblivious to an astounding degree, implied drugging, chains/collars, confinement, kidnapping

w.count: 12.3k

Series | One-shot | Two-shot | Drabble [Rated: M]

synopsis: im changkyun is a prime sex worker at a local club. nothing gets his pride swelling more than any poser off the street willing to come into his club and pin bills between the elastic of his fishnets and skin. what he finds more exhilarating than any show, pole climb or heated one-night stand, however; is the one sober woman sitting among her group of wasted friends in a velvet, vip booth. he’ll do anything to know everything about her; putting on a friendly smile was only the first step.

a/n: you can blame DAZED for this mess (hi, just in case you need a reminder, this is purely fiction and not at all who changkyun rly is as a person. nothing about this is okay in irl)

This was nothing new. This was just the way his life always played out. An exhilarating erotic number on a stage with a pole, fishnets and teasing personality followed by the highest bidder to continue his line of work in a more secluded section of the club.

Fantasia Dyed may have been a newer club against its competitors that have been around for years, but the workers and staff inside raised the bar previously set. While clubs can be shady to begin with, what with the use of alcohol at every turn, murmurs of drugs, and agreements to met up for a quick money job- Fantasia Dyed had a reputation of the best line of sex workers you could get your dirty hands on. If you had the money, that was.

Im Changkyun was the front man of that line up. Wanted by men, women and anyone in between- if you had the cash he demanded for his services, he was yours for the night. He had no qualm so long as you paid and used the protection he required to keep your own STIs to your damn self. He really wasn’t picky, and he never stopped to ask himself as to why.

So, this- crawling out of some random woman’s creaky, box spring bed and pulling on the clothes he had lost earlier- was nothing new. He looked over his shoulder as he ran his black painted fingers through his blond hair.

The woman was passed out, a fuzzy, brown blanket covering her body as Changkyun turned away from her. Throwing his shirt back on, flinging his jacket over his shoulders and thrusting his arms through the sleeves, he shimmied on his black skinnies and boots. Grabbing his abandoned black, clutch bag from the stranger's couch he unclasped it to look at the envelope of bills he had received just hours earlier from his ‘client’.

Throwing himself on the couch, he crossed his legs and counted the bills, smirking when he was adamant he was paid in full- with even a small service tip he assumed- to cover over his asking price for the night. Satisfied, he got up and left that small apartment he had stumbled into.

It was only when he entered his own home- the top floor penthouse of some wealthy building- did he wonder just for the briefest of moments if he was truly satisfied.

-x-x-x-

“Y/n, if you don't come with me to Fantasia like you promised you would 2 years ago when it opened now that I finally have the money and the chance for my birthday, you’re being grounded.”

You, who was busy replacing books that you had been wheeling around on your return cart back on the shelf, had the lovely company of your best friend sitting behind you at a library table as you worked. She’d been going on and on about her birthday plans and while you were happy she was excited about them, she was adamant on adding you to the attendee list.

Maybe it was cliche, but the oh-so-thrilling life you lived as a librarian of your local public library painted a rather ‘stay at home’ picture of you; and that is exactly how you wanted it. The whole reason you took this job opportunity was because the head librarian noticed you come in every other Wednesday for a new list of to-reads to rent and offered a position after she got to know you a bit better.

Had you had the choice, you’d stay cooped up in your house with a good book, a nice warm drink, a rainy day and peace and quiet for the rest of your life. But, of course, that was a fantasy. Your social life was barely breathing, with Halie-the insistent best friend behind you- being the center of your social solar system.

You were a prime recluse, you didn’t even keep in touch with your parents as often as you should since they were so utterly upset you were throwing so much ‘potential’ away when you decided to be a librarian instead of going into some out of this world career field.

You had Halie and Halie had connections with just about everyone ever. She was easy to adapt to personalities and was generally kind to anyone she meets unless they’re rude first. She was a prime example of a modern ‘dream girl’ that people had. Though, she was still your friend no matter who she is with anyone else.

Was that naive of you?

“Y/n, I’m telling you, you’ve gotta cooooome,” she whined. Sitting backward in her chair, leaning back and pulling on the back of the chair. You sighed, pushing a spine of a book into its rightful you had just mapped out. “Please,” she begged in a pathetically, high pitched voice.

“If I go, will you stop whining?” You asked with your back still towards her, but you could practically see the smile on her face with the small, over-dramatic gasp she let out. You almost immediately regretted your choice, and wished you could take it back. You knew Halie wouldn’t let it happen though. You’ve spoken and now her selective hearing will kick on and she wouldn’t hear you even if you changed your mind.

“So, you’re going?!” She screeched as you turned around and shushed her. She was in a library. With a few more accepting statements from you solidifying your attendance to her birthday, she left happily as you finished stocking your shelves in dread before sitting behind your check-out counter with the same dread- only 10x stronger.

You watched the time tick by on the computer screen at work, the watch around your wrist on the way home, the hanging clock on your living room wall and the alarm you set on your phone for 9 pm when you were set to get ready. Time passed far too fast for your liking- you couldn’t even squeeze in a nap to help the nerves.

Before you knew it, you were walking out of your home, locking the door behind you with the only acceptable club outfit you could think of as you made your way to Fantasia Dyed, texting Halie that you were dreadfully on the way.

-x-x-x-

“Hey, Kyun! Take ten, dude!” Changkyun, who had just stepped down off of the high perched stage covered in sweat ruffled his blond hair that clung to his forehead in strands. He nodded as he grabbed his bottle of water, slouching in a nearby domed-stool.

One of his ankle high, black platform boots propped up on the stool’s ring with the other on the ground. The white tank top he had personally cut off to end at his rib cage and expose his stomach drenched in spots of sweat. Black skinnies clinging to his toned legs and his fishnets showing loud and proud through the open knees of his jeans and wrapping around the perfection of his waist. Having left his faux fur coat in the employee lounge for the night.

His dark eyes scanned the floor level he was currently occupying the best he could from his seat at the juice bar- for the lameizoids who wanted something non-alcoholic at his club. He glanced at the wristwatch strapped onto the inside of his wrist and checked the time. It was only just past 10 as he smirked.

The night was still young.

From not too far off in a different area than he was, he heard a small commotion starting to murmur. From the looks of what he could see over his sips of water and his bangs hanging in his eyes as he flipped them annoyingly out of his way over and over, it may have been someone’s birthday. Guest after guest going into the same area with the same woman in stockings and a cocktail dress hugging and greeting them.

A VIP birthday reservation; that did ring a small bell somewhere in the overbooked mind of the club worker. Perhaps it would pay off if he did some of his work within their sights. Birthday crowds almost always paid off in terms of after work lip service and bonus pay.

Stepping his foot off the lower ring of the stool he had been comfortably sitting on, he stood as he set his bottle on the juice bar. The tender at the particular unpopular drink selection area took it and tucked it away under the bar where Changkyun always asked him to put it so no one tried to get creative with it.

Walking around the venue area, he strutted by the lower ground VIP booth surrounded by thick, velvet ropes. Whoever this birthday diva was, she sure went all out to keep her and her group uninterrupted. A lower level 10 person booth, a table full of booze and a secure perimeter to keep outsiders rightfully out of her hair. Just from the set up, she must’ve been some spoiled princess.

However, what really caught his gaze was one particular woman. A woman dressed in a tank top, a cheap looking fake leather jacket and dark jeans. Perhaps not ideal for Fantasia’s club etiquette and whatever she was sipping on in her clear glass certainly didn’t seem like any alcoholic beverage to his trained eye. His pierced brow ticked up as he walked fully by and the table of rambunctious party-goers left his sight around the wall.

“Must be a prude,” he murmured but somehow, he almost felt guilty when the words left his mouth. He couldn’t fathom at all why. It stalled him physically as he stopped in his tracks for just a moment before strutting further away from the booth to scope out a good area to work his magic.

The moment midnight hit Changkyun was being flagged over by the absolutely smashed table he had passed earlier that night. The VIP birthday booth had confidently called him over. As he moseyed his way over, with a few of his coworkers already there to entertain the group, he was greeted by some drunken man hanging off his shoulder.

Among the group of drunk or passed out party goers, there was the same woman from earlier who still seemed completely sober. Changkyun raised his eyebrow as he shook the man on his shoulder off as he stumbled around and clung to the next nearest bod. He walked over to your side and sat himself down beside you on the velvet booth.

Crossing his legs, he watched you flinch when he plopped himself down, his elbows rising to rest on the back of the booth, his hand hovering close to your face. He sure made himself comfortable. He had to admit though, as you sipped on yet another refill of something nonalcoholic, you were pretty easy going on the eyes.

“You sure don’t seem like you’re having any fun, lady,” he chided as he lifted one arm off the back of the booth to push his hair back out of his eyes for only the millionth time that evening. He heard you nervously chuckle beside him and something about the sound of it stirred pleasantly in his chest.

“Well, this isn’t exactly my scene,” you told him. Your voice was soft like Christmas bells, but it erupted in his ears, making the background of sounds and voices and bass all drown out. He was solely focused on your lips and the sound they produced when you spoke he couldn’t hear anything else.

“Not your scene, but here you sit in mine,” he teased as he smirked at you. You tapped the side of your glass that had become a slipping hazard from it’s condensation. Changkyun looked at the friends around you who seemed to be having the time of their young lives. “You’re friends seem to be enjoying themselves.”

“Well, they go out a lot. I really don’t like these kinds of places,” you told him before you looked at him with a slightly apologetic smile. “No offense.”

“Club scenes aren’t for everyone, I understand that. If you hate it so much, why did you come here?” He asked as you sighed, dipping your chin. He felt a small spark of panic rise in his throat as he saw you suddenly even more forlorn than you have been. Did he put that look on your face by asking your dumb questions?

He mentally halted himself, once again wondering why it affected him so much what you did and did not like or how you acted.

“It’s my best friend’s birthday so she pretty much begged me to come with her tonight,” you lifted your head and looked over to where she was, downing yet another shot. You’d have to remember to book a cab for her to go home- if she doesn’t go home with the staff member she keeps clinging to. “I probably won’t stay much longer since she pretty much forgot I’m even here,” you pouted.

Changkyun’s eyes swelled at the precious pout to your lips as you whined about being forgotten because you were sober and weren’t partying like an animal. What was wrong with him?

“Do you like coffee?” He suddenly blurted out. He couldn’t stop the words from forcing their way out of his mouth before his brain could functionally filter them or even stop them. He gulped when you turned to look at him in the eyes for the first time that night. Maybe it was the neon lights in the club or maybe it was the dim atmosphere that made them so enticing to gaze into, but he was locked in your gaze- unable to break away from you. His jaw nearly dropped open as he explored the color of them surrounded by the club's aura.

“Coffee?” You asked in clarification. He just clamped his teeth together before nodding once. “Well, I’m not the biggest coffee fan in the world, but I like teas’ and I can handle a frappe if I’m in the mood for it.”

“I get off at three,” he told you as he desperately tried to keep eye contact. “If you find the stomach to hang around another three hours, we can get some?” He pitched as his voice that was normally always confident- as it should be for his line of grade-a work- shook just slightly with the booming club bass.

Your eyes shifted when he put the offer out there, and he started to internally panic. Would you say no? Would you politely decline him and try and carry on like he never said a word? Or would you turn him down and leave? Then, it hit him. You were in a club; a club popular for sex work and Changkyun happened to lead that gaggle of workers. It’s pretty damn obvious you were assuming he had some ulterior motive. For once, he didn’t.

He dropped his elbow from the back of the booth as he turned towards you slightly, scooting forward to the edge of the booth seat.

“I don’t mean to hook up or anything,” he clarified, “I just want to get to you know, so I wanted to get coffee at an ungodly hour.” The hands he waved around to try and help convince you quickly settled onto his jean torn, and fishnet covered lap. “If you want to.”

You sat and considered his offer. It was Saturday, and the library was closed on Sundays so you could technically afford to be out later than you typically would. And a late night chat with someone other than your wasted party of friends did sound tempting. He seemed kind enough, even with his get up and the flashes of a performance you had glimpsed earlier with him on the lifted stage and poles. You should never judge a book by it’s cover, just because he seemed like someone who slept around all the time, didn’t mean he was a bad guy, right?

You smiled at him and his breath left him in one fell swoop. It was like your smile materialized into a pro-boxer and just gut punched him. And he loved it.

“A three am frappe sounds great,” you told him. He smiled back wider than he knew he could. He thanked you before he excused himself to go back to work. However, before he went back to the floor, he practically sprinted into the single employee bathroom and locked himself inside.

He slammed his back against the door as his knees wobbled and he grew weaker. His breath was staggered as his chest heaved in unsteady shudders. His fingertips shook and he had shivers running up his back from the memory of your eyes and that smile. He started chuckling to himself in the empty bathroom as he felt his cheeks flush.

God he felt so euphoric in the moment, it was practically erotic. Whatever was wrong with him, he started questioning if it was really wrong if it made him feel so good.

-x-x-x-

It was ten till three in the morning when Changkyun did one last check to make sure you hadn’t left yet. Almost your whole party was passed out, had gone home by cab or with someone else at this point. The club was nearly ready to shut down for the night as they started to chase people out. You saw him peek around into the VIP booth area as you smiled and waved to him reassuringly. That same tightness coiled in his chest as he rushed to the employee locker room.

A fellow pole dancer who was peeling off his skintight, laced finger-less gloves perked an eyebrow up at the rushing blond. He hadn’t seen the worker so eager to get out of there before.

“Some kind of big surprise waiting for you outside those doors or something, hot stuff?” He asked. Changkyun shook his head, too busy searching for his clutch behind his fur coat so he could meet up with you. Yanking on the furry sleeves that felt almost too warm all of a sudden, he snatched the no longer hidden clutch from his locker shelf and slammed it shut.

“Something better,” he breathed in promise to himself more than his coworker as he jogged out, his long coat bouncing off the back of his knees. He came out of the room, seeing you standing and in the company of a different worker who was still relatively new to Fantasia Dyed. A rookie at best and his eyes hardened as the man spoke to you.

Leaning far too close to you, breathing too close to you and smiling far too seductively at you. He was clearly looking for a bed to crash in, but Changkyun hated it. Loathed it even as he felt his lips pull back in a grimace mimicking a defensive mutt. He stomped towards you and inserted himself between the nuisance and yourself.

Pushing his palms against the worker’s chest, he harshly shoved him backwards and took a few steps back himself towards you. He felt like he was on fire, feeling you standing directly behind him. He thought he could feel your warmth radiating onto his back like sun rays and it almost made him sweat. He felt torn between feeling ecstatic that you were so close to him or completely pissed off at the man who stood shell shocked after being pushed away.

“She’s taken already,” Changkyun growled. He shocked even himself with his tone, something coiling further and beating in his chest so violently he swore he felt his chest jerk forward with each beat of his heart.

The coworker raised his hands. “Chill out, man. ‘Didn’t know she was yours.” Something ignited the coil in Changkyun’s chest and sent sparks in his mind at the man's words. His? Yes… that sounds exactly right.

It sounded blissfully perfect as the man walked off and the blond turned around to see you and properly escort you out of Fantasia Dyed. He watched your back as you left in front of him- ladies first- and he let a grin crawl across his face. Unaware of how his eyes looked as they burned into the silhouette of your body.

His.

Changkyun led you out of the club, but neither of you expected it to be raining at three o’clock in the morning. You gasped as you instinctively brought your hands up above your head. You were wearing makeup and if it got wet, it was all over. Changkyun was quick to rip the coat from his shoulders and sling it around you. It had no hood, but he placed the collar of it above your head as you grabbed the edges of it to pull it around your body.

He nearly gasped when his finger brushed your hand, handing off his coat before he was pulling his keys from his clutch and pushing buttons to unlock his car that was parked just around the corner on the side of the building. He reached around your shoulder and started directing you in the rain.

It was only when he sat you in his car, nice and dry, when he ran to get into the drivers sid, slam the door shut, start the car and crank the heat to get rid of the wet shivers you had due to the rain, did he realize he had just touched you again. Although his coat was under his arm, so were you as you ran through the rain. He had to contain yet another delightful shiver.

You shimmied the coat off your head to around your shoulders before you pulled it out from behind you and placed it on your lap as you pulled the seatbelt across your chest. You looked at Changkyun who was already looking at you, but flinched and started fidgeting with his wheel and knobs for the radio in his car to distract himself.

“I didn’t realize there was rain in the forecast this morning. I wouldn’ve have brought an umbrella.” You briefly blessed the idea that Changkyun asked you out because you had taken the bus and walked the rest of the trip to Fantasia, so getting home would have been a long walk considering the buses don’t run at three freakin’ am.

Changkyun cleared his throat, whipping his blond, wet bangs out of his face and onto the top of his head, clearing his forehead as he shifted out of park.

“So,” he started, “where do you want to go?” You tossed ideas around in your head and it was so early, hardly any place would be open except the occasional fast food place or gas station. Offering him the choice between an open, probably dead lobby for some fast food or grabbing a drink and hanging in the car in the rain, he was driving off to the closest food location.

As nice as it sounded being secluded in a car with coffee and the sound of rain, he wouldn't be able to look you in the eyes as you spoke as well.

Changkyun took you to the place he would often stop for some after work food before going home or meeting up with someone. Because he knew the manager so well (and because the manager was always in store by three to start preparing for the staff to come in at six) Changkyun was allowed an early entrance.

Even though you offered to get your own drink, Changkyun wasn’t allowing you to pay for anything since it was him who asked you out. Besides, it wasn’t exactly expensive to buy some caffeinated drinks- especially since he got a special discount too. The manager who always got him his food or drinks ready at this hour was shocked to see him with company this time around.

Time seemed to become truly nonexistent to Changkyun as soon as the both of you sat down at a back corner table- away from anyone's eyes from outside as to not cause the manager grief if someone should come demanding entrance because Changkyun was inside. You both talked about anything and everything he could think to ask you to get to know you better.

He learned that you were a librarian and that you didn’t go to school- forgetting about any further education after high school because you weren’t sure what you really wanted to do with your life. He found out bits and pieces about your family situations- gathering that you weren’t close and that you had no siblings to speak of. Your friends were small in number and that you weren’t really close to anyone aside from Halie- the proffered birthday girl at the club.

He mentally thanked Halie for begging you to come to the club, considering if you hadn’t Changkyun would have never laid eyes on you.

In turn, he shared what he could in return for your stories. He had been working in the sex world for a few years now, quickly and unfortunately getting roped into it after a nasty breakup when he had just turned 21. When he realized just how desirable he could be, he started working out and eating better to keep his physique so business kept rolling in for him. He was actually scouted by the assistant manager of Fantasia Dyed to work there- but it was the pay and benefits that really dragged him in. He didn’t dislike his career, so he had no reason to say no anyways.

At least with Fantasia Dyed, he had benefits to get himself into the doctor if one of his clients ever lied and gave him some gross sex disease- then of course he’d sue them into the ground for not following his work guidelines. He told you about why he pierced his eyebrow and even the stories behind the tattoos on his back.

Oddly enough, despite your absolute opposite backgrounds, you both spoke and got alone brilliantly. It was a balance of lifestyles and Changkyun basked in everything you had to say. You didn’t shun him or sneer at his life as a sex worker and maybe it was the lack of disgust and prejudiced that really flipped something in his head.

You did not judge him. You did not hate him. You laughed at whatever joke he pitched. You blushed at whatever lame pick up line he slid into conversation. You groaned playfully at his equally playful flirting. You were making him fall and he did- hook, line and heavy sinker.

He was absolutely, unbelievably head over heels for you and he felt like he was on fire.

You both talked and talked until you had noticed that the sky started to change color and the rain had stopped. The sun was rising and you were suddenly overly aware of how exhausted you really were. Changkyun saw you stifle a yawn and although it felt like his heartstrings were going to tear in his chest, he was quick to get up and offer you a ride home as the manager started to truly open the lobby for business as nearly all morning staff were present.

As you sat in the car with him, directing him on what roads to take to get to your home, he found himself memorizing every turn. When you told him to keep it slow and then pointed out your small little apartment duplex, he looked at every crevice his eyes could see from the car window. The neighborhood was somewhere small, but there was a small park just across the block so he expected it to be fairly busy during the day.

As he bid you farewell, and watched you get safely inside before driving away, he struggled to contain his breath. When he rolled into the apartment parking lot and up to his penthouse, he was quick to lock his door and lift his coat to his face.

It smelt different than usual. It had your shampoo’s scent embedded into its fake fur. It had the smell of your perfume and the smell of you inside of it. He fell asleep that morning until afternoon with his coat curled around him instead of a blanket. That feeling of euphoria chasing him until he finally fell asleep- only to have a set of specific dreams involving you in one of his reserved back rooms at Fantasia Dyed.

-x-x-x-

Over the course of the next week, Changkyun did his damnedest to keep his eyes on you at all times he possibly could. He’d wake up in the afternoon and find a way to enter the library you worked at and slip into a corner behind a bookshelf with a book to disguise his obvious staring of you. When you’d leave the desk to replace books, he’d move to avoid your eyes, when you’d help a guest with their books to check out, he’d growl when it was a man that you smiled at. When you got off work, he’d trial behind you just enough to stay unnoticed. He’d watch you get home every afternoon and one night he even put a small camera on one of the fake branches of your fake bush you hand sitting in a pot on your porch.

He’d sit in his car or in his penthouse and watch the feed on his phone if it buzzed with a notification of movement. If you were leaving, he’d jump into action to try and find out where you were going if it was an unusual time. He’d watch you go to the store to shop or into some food place for something to eat.

He’s even seen you meet up with Halie a few times and each time he did, he hated that wench more and more. That obviously spoiled princess wasn’t good enough to be around you, acting like a typical romance villain and obvious snake. You were smart, so he was curious as to why you trusted her so much. She was clearly brainwashing you and keeping you around as a tool.

Changkyun had a mental list of enemies and people he hated, and she was ranked number one among that list- along with all the men he saw speak or flirt with you. He wanted to get them away from you, throw them out of the picture and clean your mind of their filth.

During his work hours, and after even, he’d still get randoms to get into bed with him- but his mind would be filled with everything about you. The person underneath him would disappear and your face and body and voice would take hold in his brain like some sort of spell. He’d fuck into man or woman with such fervor he’d be getting calls from his manager that he was requested for service back to back.

He hit euphoria and erotic highs with you just in his mind, he nearly came undone when he thought how it would feel actually fucking you. He’d go home from work, from another sex session and he’d lay on his bed, on his couch, sit at his table or collapse in his doorway and wear himself thin with his hand at the thought of your touch instead of his or someone else.

He sat on the cold floor of his front door entrance, his leather, skintight pants unzipped and cock slipped through the hole in his boxers. His hand squeezed his length as his fingers rubbed and pinched and squeezed around the head and slit. It was so dry as his hand slid up and down painfully on his shaft. His hips bucked to meet his hands motions and his legs twitched in their perched, spread position. His stomach was tight as his opposite hand came to pinch and twist his nipples- his shirt discarded as he slid down the door upon his entry earlier.

It was so dry- it was hardly enjoyable- but it was painfully erotic. He couldn’t stop and the precum leaking from his cockhead wasn’t nearly enough for his hand to not pull on the delicate skin making him hiss. Taking his lip between his teeth and breathing so heavily he stuttered, he watched his hand abuse his cock.

The hand that played with his nipples shot down to hold his wrist as he finished himself off, cumming with the sound of your name spilling from his lips in lewd, breathless moans. He lay on the floor, slouched and exhausted as cum stuck, drying to his chest and pants.

He was so utterly, disgustingly, blissfully obsessed with you and he felt like he was losing his mind. His mind was filled to the brim with you, you, you. He spent every waking hour he could preparing. Yes, he had to make sure that everything would be perfect for when you’d finally come to him.

You deserved nothing short of perfection- and Changkyun would fuck anyone, get paid anything and obtain whatever it was you desired to make sure you got exactly that. However, it would take time- much to his dismay.

He knew he had to get ready before he could possibly have you. He started cleaning out a room he used as storage in his penthouse and got to work.

It was ten days after your three am date that Changkyun decided to play innocent and ‘bump’ into you at work one day. He was impatient and couldn’t wait any longer to speak to you again, to hear your voice directed at him again and not at someone else.

He entered the library confidently that day, dressed in blue jeans, low heeled boots and a tee that was stretched just a bit at the collar. His hair unstyled and glasses on his nose with his clutch under his arm. He didn’t want to go over the top in style, so he tried to match your neutral style of dress.

He took a moment to look at you before he took a breath and walked up to the desk, placing a fake smile of shock on his face when you looked up to see him. He nearly fell to his knees when he saw your eyes shine and your mouth split into a smile and wave at him. If he could, he would’ve ran the rest of the way to the desk instead of walked.

When he walked at the desk, he leaned and laid his arms in front of one another on the desktop, bending and crossing his ankles together and grinned at you.

“Well, fancy meeting you here, madam librarian,” he greeted, acting as if he hadn’t been here daily for the past week just to see you work.

“It’s been a little bit, it’s good to see you Changkyun,” you said and he felt himself shift sinfully. “I’d ask you why you’re here, but it’s a library, so,” you chuckled at yourself. Oh, how he missed the sound of that laugh. “Did you come looking for something specific?” You asked as he jut his lip out in thought.

“Not necessarily. I just felt like cracking open a book, and what better place to start looking? It's a pleasant surprise you work at this library. It’s close to where I live.” That was true, there were two other libraries in town and this one was the closest to him. You hummed at him. “Could you recommend something to me?” He grew giddy when you smiled widely and stood from your desk chair and started to walk around the desk, motioning for him to follow you.

As you asked him what he liked and disliked, leading him down the isles and scanning book after book, keeping small conversation he wished he could push you against a bookshelf and have his wicked way with you. He knew better, however; you needed to be taken care of in a specific set of ways and against a bookshelf wasn’t it- tempting as it may be.

“Here,” you told him as you spun around and placed a book in his hands. As he took it, he quirked a small, teasing smile as he looked at you as if you were playing a joke on him.

“Twilight? Really, Y/n?” In his hand sat the book that sprung up the cheesy, cliche and overall, not so great movies he watched with one of his old friends for gags one night in his teens- completely drunk he may add.

“Hey, don’t judge a book by it’s cover- or it’s movies. It’s better than you think.” You shoved the book closer to his chest. “Just give it a chance, please?” When you ask so adorably with your lip jutted out just enough for him to fantasize leaning down to bite into it with his teeth, he had no choice but to comply. He’d read this book cover to cover, backwards even had you asked. He’d do whatever you wished.

He spent the afternoon halfway reading at a table near the desk and halfway watching you work until your shift concluded. When you were packing up, he scrambled to get his clutch and mark the page he had to reread over and over again because he couldn’t concentrate and rushed up and over to your side.

“Are you finished for the day?” He asked although he already knew the answer. You nodded as he touched your arm, grabbing gently around your elbow. “Do you want to go on a date with me?” He asked as he saw your cheeks grew in the most vibrant color of rose.

“I, uh,” you cleared your throat and rubbed the back of your neck with your free arm. “I’m not dressed for a date though,” you pouted. Changkyun licked his lips, desperate not to let you get away from him just yet.

“Then, tomorrow,” he pitched, “when you’re free tomorrow we can go out.” Tomorrow was Wednesday, and he knew that you always left work early on Wednesdays. He watched you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear as you licked your lips before rolling them over your teeth and then opening your mouth.

“I can do tomorrow,” you muttered, face fully flushed with redness flooding into the tips of your ears. He released your arm with a giant smile. He flicked his bangs out of his face as he felt his glasses slip just a bit further down his nose. He reached into his clutch as he dug out his phone and handed it to you with the new contact screen up.

“Let’s swap numbers then, and we can work out everything through the phone.” You didn’t hesitate to place your number into his phone before sending yourself a text with ‘it’s changkyun’ attached to the message. You promptly added him in your contacts as well. Offering you a ride home, which you took, he dropped you off and when he walked into his penthouse that afternoon he pumped his fist into the air. As well as stared at the palm in which held your arm earlier, gazing at it as if he had just touched the blessed body of a holy messiah.

As he sat in his living room on the couch, he felt himself harden in his sweats he wore before changing into his work attire. He had actually called in to take the night off since he had to be well rested for his date tomorrow. This hand had touched you, touched your skin. He was sure it would feel magnificent on his cock too.

-x-x-x-

Tomorrow didn’t come fast enough and Changkyun was bounding out of bed at the ass crack of dawn to figure out what he was going to wear. How would he style his hair? Would he fill all his ear piercings or change the stud in his eyebrow to a spike? Which shoes would he wear: sneakers, heeled boots, sandals? He couldn’t waste another second in bed, he had far too much to plan for the day to worry about sleeping any more.

He dove for his phone the moment he heard the specific notification he set for you. He talked to you a bit and you both decided on a time to meet up. Meeting up at noon for lunch and then he’d take you to a movie and then he’d walk around with you window shopping, talking about the movie you both saw and then he’d take you for dinner. That’s what he wanted to happen.

He showed up at the meeting place half an hour early. Wearing a black, white spotted button up tucked into a pair of black jeans with a thin, white belt around his waist, he adjusted the buttons at the cuffs of his sleeves. A simple, thin silver chain to show off his neck as his shirt was unbuttoned just enough to show off his collar bones. The heels of his shoes clacked just enough on pavement or tile to let people know he was coming.

“Changkyun!” He heard from behind him. He raised himself off the bench had had been sitting cross-legged on, staring at his phone and debating on texting you. He quickly spotted you waving to him from among the crowd of people on the hunt for lunch before their work break ends.

His mouth nearly dropped when he saw you. Running up to him with the cutest, apparel on.

A summer dress of pale pink with small white dots that wrapped around your chest and fell loosely at the skirt to hit your thighs. The sleeves off shoulder and sheer all the way down your arm until it wrapped around your wrist in sheere frills. Black, thin straps to keep it all up. A pair of white sandals that wrapped around your foot and ankle with the smallest heel to keep you from twisting your ankle. Hair done in two little buns on either side of your head, but still kept some down with a black, stretchy choker around your neck.

The pink, circular satchel at your waist that hooked over your shoulder probably contained your phone, wallet and the pink gloss that covered your lips as you came to stop in front of him. You were like a flower as he gazed at you. You quickly lifted your wrist to check the thin watch you wore, making sure you weren’t late. You weren’t.

“I hope you weren’t waiting here too long for me,” you giggled and he felt his heart try to burst from his chest. He shook off his stupor the best he could in front of you before he smiled and quickly denied it.

“I haven’t been here long,” he assured. You made a small jest about the both of you wearing something with small polka dots on it and he felt like he was going to fall to his knees at your noticing his attire and complimenting it. You were far too precious.

Throughout the day, he found out that you weren’t only exceptionally kind, but you were probably the biggest pushover he’s ever met. You’d follow after him like a little lost duckling and whatever he recommended doing, wherever he wanted to go, you were quick to agree and comply. With your ease of compliance, he was able to mentally go through the check list of plans he had set with little to no difficulty.

It was miraculous how easily you obeyed him.

Changkyun made note of everything your eyes lingered on, everything your fingers brushed, everything you expressed just the slightest interest in- he would remember. Changkyun wanted to spoil you, wanted to give you everything you desired- everything you deserved. You were an angel walking, cursed upon the earth and nothing anyone could say would change his mind about it.

The entire time you were out with Changkyun that day, you were smiling at him as he hung onto every one of your words. Every interest, every detail, every idea or opinion you had- he grabbed it and held it deep inside his chest.

It was coming close to around ten that night when he was finally getting around to dropping you back home, as he could see the exhaustion in your eyes and the slowness in your steps. He had half a mind to just drive you back to his home, but he couldn’t- not yet.

He walked you to your door as he bid you a final goodnight and as you unlocked your door and pushed it open just a crack, you turned back to him and smiled. He froze when he felt your fingers on his cheek before you stood to your toes and kissed his cheek. You rushed inside before he could say anything and before you could regret it.

The blond sat dazed and only managed to drive a block away before he pulled into a parking lot of a closed, daytime store. His cheeks were flushed, his skin burned and his breath was staggered. He could still feel the feeling of your lips on his cheek and that shiver of delight attacked his spine and spread until he was finishing himself off in the front seat of his car- the sound of your name on his lips over and over again as his fingers brushed his cheek trying to feel the essence of you in his skin.

-x-x-x-

Changkyun had the privilege of taking you out on two more dates over the course of the last two weeks (along with his library trips to visit you) and it was today, when he once again frequented the library- where he noticed you weren’t in your usual high spirits. He pulled you aside on your break and into a back corner library table as he made you spill your guts on what could be plaguing your mind.

It took all of his will power to not scream when you told him you had been being harassed by some library guest who always comes in. He always wants the same book renewed over and over and he always tried to pry your number out of you. Even after clearly telling him no and explaining to you that you were traveling among the silver lining of a relationship with Changkyun- he was persistent. It came to the point you were looking over your shoulder and even jogging to and from work.

“So, he’s stalking you?” Changkyun clarified, as you nodded weakly. He grit his teeth, his jaw tightening. Didn’t other people know that his woman was off limits, especially when it came to following you around? He kept you under his watchful eye, but these men were after something far worse and in his sick, demented mind- they were the offender and they were a disease.

Changkyun reached across the table and gently held your hand, trying to convey that he knew that you were scared and that he’d do anything to keep you safe. He could see the tears glisten around your eyes and a taboo sense of arousal shot in his stomach at seeing your so utterly weak and vulnerable.

He spent the remainder of the time with you on your break as he consoled and shushed you as he promised that he’d stay until you got off and when you did, he’d take you home. You were quick to agree.

That afternoon you rushed to Changkyun’s side and were discreet to point out the man who was hanging outside the library entrance with his nose in his phone. According to you, that was the perpetrator and source of your fear. You clung to Changkyun as he gently wrapped his arm around your shoulders and held you to his chest, walking out with you.

When he dropped you off and kissed the top of your head as he sent you inside, the gentle eyes he had been gazing at you with disappeared as you shut the door and he heard it harshly lock.

Turning around and stuffing his hands inside the pockets of his jeans, he waltzed back towards his car, but never got into it. His dark shirt allowed him to dip below the hood of his car as he started walking around in the shadows the street lights created. He stood behind a post as he watched the figure move from the side of the building to the front porch where he crouched below the windows.

You had pulled the curtains and shut the blinds just as he had reminded you to as he was quick to walk up behind the stalker and hook his arm under the man’s chin. The gasp that was pulled from the man was cut off as Changkyun’s arm tightened around his neck and he started to quickly drag the man backward and away from your doorstep.

The blond shoved the man into the backseat of his car, slamming the door as he quickly rushed to get into the driver's seat. Not bothering with his seatbelt, he started the car with tangible rage and started off.

“What the fuck, man!” The man from his backseat scowled as Changkyun only reached into his center console and pulled out a small, black handheld device, pressing the button on the side of it as it zapped. A stungun. The man in the back hissed as he instinctively shut up.

Changkyun’s aggressive driving made the man in the backseat fall back and forth along the seats before he finally gripped the passenger chair to steady himself. Changkyun drove and drove until he was well outside of city limits before he stopped and parked his car. He peered up into the rear-view mirror, seeing the man behind him look around anxiously.

“Get out,” the blond ordered as he stepped out of his car. The man didn’t move, too shocked to process his words and was then yanked out by his shirt clad shoulder when he didn’t listen quick enough for Changkyun’s liking. The club worker threw the man on the ground as he rolled to his back just quick enough for Changkyun to stand over him. His feet on either side of his hips, a glimmer in his eyes that was menacing to witness- even in the darkness of night.

The man on the ground shuddered as he weakly tried to crawl backward on his elbows. His heels kicked and dug into the ground, threatening to pull his shoe off, as he tried to get away from the look in the blond’s eyes.

Changkyun’s foot came to the center of the man’s chest as he stomped, pushing him flat onto the ground. He knelt, coming closer to him as he gripped the collar of his shirt. Changkyun eyed him around- he certainly wasn’t a looker that's for damn sure.

“You really thought you had a chance?” He asked lowly, almost in a growl. “I’ll offer you a bit of last moment advice for perhaps your next life,” he got closer to the man’s ear, before telling him something. “Stay away from things that don’t belong to you,” he seethed.

Over the course of the next few days, Changkyun was delighted to see you smiling again when you told him that the man who had been stalking you seemed to finally leave you alone.

He made sure that a week later when he saw missing person posters out in the streets, your eyes stayed off of them.

-x-x-x-

After a month of dates, library visits, phone calls and good morning and good night texts, Changkyun was finally- finally- able to call you his girlfriend. He was currently out with you at some cafe where you wanted to stop and get something to drink and he decided to walk in and sit down with you for a while.

You were on your phone, tapping away before placing it down and repeating. You were obviously talking with someone on the other end of your text thread, which already ground his gears, but the twisted brow on your face made him more curious than not. Someone was upsetting you and he already knew how to deal with someone who upset you.

“Hey,” he called, gaining your attention. You looked at him, placing your phone back down. “Who’re you talking to, Sweetness?”

“Oh, just to Halie,” you told him. The name of your ‘best friend’ making his skin itch. That fake fraud of a friend couldn’t even leave you alone while you were out with him? The audacity of the woman made him jittery. His knee began to bounce as he pressed further.

“Are you two fighting? You look annoyed.”

You sighed, solidifying that she was indeed bothering you. “She’s mad that I’m out on a date,” you grumbled. Changkyun cocked his head.

“Excuse me?” His resentment slipped out just a small fraction as he wanted to know immediately what this witch was putting into your precious little head. “She’s mad at you for what?”

You groaned again, placing your elbow on the table and your chin in your palm, you huffed. “I think she’s just upset that I have a boyfriend before she does since she knows more people.” The tone in your voice made your annoyance apparent to Changkyun who had spent the last month of his life learning every little quirk in your day to day life- including your vocal tone. “She’s got a whole list of friends and while I have just enough to count on one hand, she's mad about my relationship.”

Changkyun watched you toil the situation around in your head, trying to justify her words and actions, but he couldn’t let you do that. This was a prime opportunity. The perfect time to finally get that wench out of the picture and away from you.

He reached across the table where he sat in front of you, careful not to knock into your drink.

“Darling,” he cooed, gaining your teary, stress filled eyes, “maybe you shouldn’t be talking to her.” He watched your brow quirk and turn inwards at his suggestion. He readjusted his grip on your hand, holding it tightly. “If she’s so angry about something like us, then maybe you should go on a little break at least.”

“But-”

“I know she’s your friend,” he fought back before you could try and save Halie’s snake skin, “but every time you talk about her with me, it’s all things that stress you out or things she’s done that make you uncomfortable.” He vividly remembers the club night of her birthday. “Pressuring you into clubbing, then not paying attention to you at all even though you weren’t enjoying yourself. Never talking to you unless she needs something or someone to bother. Now, she’s angry because you’re happy with me? She’s just using you, Sweetheart.”

“I know she seems bad, but-”

“Y/n,” he breathed in a small, soft scolding tone. “You can’t keep defending her and giving her what she wants. She has to learn, one way or the other.” He watched your lips turn into a pout as he ran his thumb over your knuckles and brought your hand up to kiss the back of it. “I just want the best for you, you know that.”

He bit back a victorious smirk when you told him that you’d take his suggestion and advice to heart and think about it. A little more nudging and you’d drop Halie like a hat. He just had to wait until she brought something else up again that put a target on her back.

It didn’t take but three days for that to occur.

You were home, off on a Sunday, just sitting in your home, on the phone with Changkyun while he just woke up from resting since he had work at Fantasia Dyed that evening. He had some private show booked up so he couldn’t afford to flake out either. He needed the cash for his personal project he always teased, and this coming party was sure to deliver.

You both were chatting happily until you were cut shut but someone pounding on your door. You told Changkyun to hold on a moment as you set your phone down on the arm of your couch and went to the door. Changkyun on the other hand went and immediately opened the camera footage of your front door he had from that camera in your bush.

He growled and jumped out of bed when he saw the back of Halie in the frame. Her arms were crossed and her leg was bouncing as she slouched. When you opened the door, her crossed arms flared out and she was clearly shouting at you from the hiking of her shoulders and the fact that he could hear her obnoxious voice through the call line.

He jumped out of bed. Nothing but sweats on as he threw on a jacket, leaving his chest naked before he was out of his penthouse, racing down the stairs and in his car on the way to your home. He kept the call live- as much as he didn’t want to hear her voice- so he could hear the venom she spat at you as he worked her way inside. Stomping around and screaming like the bitch she was.

When he showed up to your home and jumped out of the car, he finally hung the call up as he stormed inside, knowing the door was unlocked from Halie’s tempertatrum. When he came in, he saw you against the wall with your ‘best friend’ not a foot away from you still screaming at you like you were deaf.

He worked his way over before he was grabbing Halie’s shoulder, shoving her away and placing himself in front of you, walking back into your space until he felt your hands push on his shoulders. He glared at the party animal blonde in front of him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He seethed as she seemed taken aback by his language towards her- a lady.

“Excuse me?” She spat.

“I suggest you leave, or else I’ll make you leave.”

“You can’t make me do anything. This isn’t your home either. I’m just talking to, Y/n.” Changkyun stepped away from you, turning the woman around by her shoulders and started pushing her.

“Yeah? And you’re done now. Get out.” He told her, shoving her out the doorway once he worked her through the front room. Before she could fight back, he got close to her ear and told her one more thing before shutting the door in her face and locking. “Stay away, or I’ll make you.” The look in his eyes, the crazed dangerous gleam, made his threat very, very real.

When he turned back around, he saw you on the ground, curled up as you cried. He rushed to your side, rubbing your back and trying to get you to lift your head to look at him. He cooed when he saw your swollen eyes and fat tears rolling down your cheeks.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here,” he shushed as you just wordlessly nodded with choked hiccups and sputters. You were seriously an ugly crier, but what could you do? Your best friend broke your heart.

Changkyun shifted to hold you to his bare, jacket clad chest as you cried and he shushed you.

“Don’t worry. You don’t need anyone else. I’ll always be here.” He promised.

-x-x-x-

All it took was one more month, and everything was finally falling into place for Changkyun. Halie had officially left your side, with one or two more scraps between him and her before she finally called it quits. And with the queen bee of your circle gone, the rest quickly fell apart and you were left with no one but Changkyun- as you should be.

He was in his extra bedroom, setting up his project more when his phone rang. He jumped to it, knowing it was you calling after you got done with your shift at the library. He had told you to call him when you had the chance, since he wanted you to come somewhere tonight.

“Hello, darling,” he purred into the phone, hearing you slightly chuckle on the other line. “Did work go well? No annoyances?” He asked and he knew that you’d tell him about the computers or the receipt machine or the squeaky wheel on the return cart; but you never knew that he really meant to know if you were being bothered by any other man again. “Well, if your evening is cleared up, why not swing on by Fantasia tonight?”

He heard you pause on the other side of the phone call as he was walking out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him. It was almost perfect.

“I’m not sure,” you drawled.

“I’m working the floor tonight, bar-tending for staff out sick. You can sit at the bar with me.” Your hesitation was loud and clear for him as he continued. “I’d really appreciate the company, but if you’d rather not-” he quickly heard you try and reconcile and save the conversation but agreeing to his proposal. You were a sucker for guilt trips. “Really?” He asked in faux concern as he grinned, throwing himself back across the length of his couch.

“Yeah. I’ll come, just promise that you’ll stay at the bar.”

“I’ll do my best. If I have to leave, just hide in the bathroom until I’m back,” ‘so that you won’t be in contact with anyone other than me’, he added silently in his head. You agreed and he said a quick goodbye before he hung up the call. He sat up and peered down his hall, picturing the door of his extra room. Soon, you’d be with him always.

It was an hour after his shift started and he had just served yet another waiting patron when he felt his phone buzz in the back pocket of his pants. He wore a mesh shirt at the bar that showed off his torso. His tattoo in the middle of his back was on display when he turned around. His eyebrow piercing was a black ring this evening and he wore silver hoops in his earlobes. His knee high, buckle punk boots lifting him three inches higher into the air.

‘I’m here, where do I go?’ Your text read with a nervous emoji beside it. He told you the location of the mini side stage bar and soon your head popped out from among the mass of alcohol driver party goers. As you got to the bar and slid into a stool in front of him, he leaned on the counter and whistled at you.

“Well, look who dressed up for me tonight?” He asked, a purr in his voice as your cheeks flushed. He recognized this get up, it was a piece he picked out for you one night. It wasn’t something he thought you’d ever wear out, since you were rather reserved, but he thought you deserved it anyway.

It wasn’t anything fancy, but even a simple, black cocktail dress with lace running up the sides of it and looping around your neck and back looked good when placed on someone as breathtaking as yourself to Changkyun’s eyes. He could faintly hear you clicking your heels together underneath you as they were hooked on the metal foot ring of the stool. The bracelet and earrings were a nice touch.

“I thought it was appropriate since you bought it for me,” you muttered, unable to look at him in the eyes. He chuckled since it wasn’t hard to guess why. His entire chest was on display to see with only lines of fabric separating his entire torso from being nude. He halfway wished he had gotten his nipples pierced when he was on the fence about it months ago just to see how you’d react to that.

He stood back up and turned his back and he could feel your eyes scan the tattoo that rested between his shoulders. Large and taking up a good portion of real estate on his skin. He smirked as he felt you stare, a shiver wracking up his spine just as it always did with you. When he turned around, he offered you a glass of water he had so neatly prepared for you.

“I know you don’t drink, sweetheart,” he told you as you graciously thanked him for the drink. Throughout the course of his shift, he was tending to people left and right. His charisma between patrons and ways of addressing person to person just by acknowledging how they seemed to looked amazed you.

You could never hope to be the people person he is. He was bold enough to get on stage, strip and get behind closed doors for his way of life. He was fearless in your eyes and you admired him for it. He had told you that he would stop sleeping around for money since he was in a relationship with you now, but you just told him it was alright.

You trusted him, and although the idea of him sleeping around did grind under your skin like ice and salt, you knew that was his job. He worked in this industry- the sex industry- so that was the end of it. He had started to dwindle down in client numbers though, never wanting to have the sex he was getting paid for last too long.

The clock struck midnight and Changkyun turned back to you the moment he had an opening to. He leaned over the counter and towards you again, just so he could talk to you clearly over the loud bass and whistling from the stage work.

“What do you say I make a drink for you?” He offered. You looked at your half empty glass of water he had refilled at least three times now. “Just one, I promise. It’ll be on me too. I just want my girlfriend to taste some of my work since I don’t get to work the bar often.”

“Well, when you say it like that,” you whined as he just chuckled and stood up, turning his back and started mixing. It was three minutes later when he was sliding a cocktail glass gently towards you. Inside sat a liquid of pink that resembled the color of pink lemonade, but you knew whatever was inside that wasn’t lemonade. “Voilà,” he told you. “That’s something new I’m trying out. You get to be the first to try it.”

His smile looked innocent enough to your eyes and as you started taking sips of it with a smile and a nod; however, you missed a sinister glint in his eyes. You complimented him on it and found yourself sipping on the drink, making it last until well after one since you didn’t want to have him make another. It was half after when Changkyun noticed you starting to sway in your stool seat.

He placed the towel he had in his hands on the bar before he rounded the bar to your side.

“Darling, come with me. You look like you’re about to pass out,” he chuckled. You couldn’t get your mouth to move or your voice to work as your mind was just as fuzzy as your eyesight. Were you really that much of a light weight? He took you back into one of his private rooms before he placed you on the bed. He sat beside you, brushing your hair from your face and running his fingers around your face, skin and shoulders down your arm. “Sleep. I'll come get you later,” he told you softly- the totally opposite tone of the smirk on his face.

You were in and out of it for the duration of Changkyun picking you up from the bed you vaguely remember placing you on. He picked you up and took you out of the room. The bass of the club had stopped and you only heard him speaking briefly with coworkers before he loaded you into his car.

It felt like he was taking you home as he removed you from the car again and heard the jingles of keys before a door was opened. You only remembered being placed in a bed before you felt him kiss your forehead and you were out for good.

You groaned as you were finally waking up. Your head hurt and you felt like your throat had sandpaper in it. You coughed lightly as you reached your hand up to rub your throat, but something was around your neck.

Feeling around, it felt like a collar or something. It was thick and leather, a small loop in the front of it. You also thought you felt tags near the loop that jangled. Groaning and moving among the mattress you realized that it was pitch black in the room. You were sure your eyes were open, but you couldn’t see a thing.

Sitting up, you felt around your body. Your cocktail dress wasn’t on you instead it felt like a nightgown was. Did you own nightgowns? IT feel off your shoulders to wrap around your chest and biceps with frills as it bunched around your thighs on the mattress.

Your head pounded as you rubbed your eyes. You moved to try and crawl from the bed when you felt something tug on your ankle. Feeling around, whatever was on your ankle was thick, cold and hard. At first you thought it was some anklet, but then you felt something protrude from the cold metal.

Pulling and tracing your fingers around it, you started to panic. It felt like a chain.

You got off the bed you were convinced wasn’t yours as you walked around like some cheap, budget-movie zombie in the dark room. You found a dresser first. Feeling around, you felt the knobs of the four drawers and on top it had what felt like boxes. Reaching further, you found the dresser had a mirror attached to the back of it.

Moving around in the opposite direction, you reached a closet door. Pull it open, you feel all sorts of soft fabric. Silks, satin, fur, cotton, linen- you felt all sorts of clothing.

You looked around the dark room in panic before you trusted your voice.

“Changkyun,” you called softly. You were going to call him again, but stopped short as you stepped on the cold chain that was around your foot. You screamed as you fell backward and before long, you heard someone padding up to the room and the door swung open.

You scrambled back, covering your face with your arms as you soon felt the foot of the bed push against your back, keeping you from going back any further.

“Sweetness, are you awake already?” Your arms that were up slowly lowered as you looked to the open doorway. It was so bright outside of the dark room, you had to squint from the stark contrast. Whoever was in the doorway sounded just like Changkyun, but- it couldn’t be. He walked closer to you. “Darling, can you talk?” His hand came to your throat, touching it with the pad of his fingers above the collar around your neck. “Are you thirsty? It has been half a day.”

You were speechless as Changkyun stood up from in front of you before he walked out of the room. You moved to your knees and looked around. The dresser and closet you found were indeed what you thought.

The bed was a canopy bed. A white frame with pink fabric hanging from it. The covers were red and white with a plethora of pillows at the head of the mattress. There was a rack of four wood dowels by the bedroom door, and three of them a different kind of leash, and the fourth had a pair of handcuffs.

The one window in the room was covered with black out curtains- you couldn’t tell if it was daytime or not outside right now.

Looking down now that you had the light from outside the room, you indeed did have a shackled ankle. You began to pull at it, the cold metal yanking around your skin- pinching and shafting it painfully. You hissed as your yanking was stopped by Changkyun shouting.

“Don’t pull on that!” He cried, dropping to your side to pull your hands from your shackle. “I need to put felt and fur on it before you can move around in it safely. It’ll ruin your skin, but bear with it for now.”

“Changkyun, what?” You squeaked. He smiled, but it was twisted in some sort of menacing light. Maybe it was the light from behind him into the dark room that made him look sinister. You felt yourself begin to tremble.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” he told you, patting your head and tucking your hair behind your ear. “Changkyun will take care of everything. I told you to remember?” He caressed your hair, tracing his finger down your face and under your chin. He then moved to hook his finger through the hoop in your collar. “I told you, you don’t need anyone else. I’m all that you need. You are the princess, and this is your tower.” He flicked at the tags on your collar, one labeled ‘Princess’ and the other engraved with his initials.

He then reached to his side to the discarded glass of water he went to get for you earlier for your throat. He gently gripped around your neck and used the back of his hand to tilt your chin up.

The mixing of emotions in your eyes made him shiver and when you blinked out a small tear he gently moved to place his lips over it. The salty taste made him groan as he leaned back and kissed your nose to see your eyes glossy. He smiled at you as he brought the glass to your lips.

“Drink up, Princess.”

a/n: i’ve never ever written a yandere fic before in my life, and as my first try- i rly dont think i did all that bad LOL. Let me know what you think bc it’s very rare I post Monsta X fic content and I need to know if you guys are still into it ;n; (especially with Wonho’s debut days away and a fic for him in progress LOL)

#im changkyun #changkyun #monsta x #mx #changkyun x reader #i.m.#i.m. x reader #yandere!changkyun #yandere #yandere!changkyun x reader #changkyun x reader au #yandere au #changkyun fic #changkyun fanfic #changkyun fanfiction #tw

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hitsuackerman · 4 years ago

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Unpredictable (Overhaul x Reader) pt.29

warnings: this cannot be read solo

Links: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17, part 18, part 19, part 20, part 21, part 22, part 22, part 23, part 23.5, part 24, part 25, part 26, part 27, part 28, part 30

Masterlist to my other fics: here :) (that has not been updated for how many months now... proceed with caution~)

“And that's about it.” You clicked the send button and stretched your limbs.

You weren’t too sure how many hours had passed but after venting it all out to Tsukauchi, you felt much better. The weight you carried still lingered but your mind was much clearer now. Looking at the office window, the skies were now a shade of pink. Not in the mood for cheap coffee, you stood up and took a peak at Tsukauchi’s desk.

Papers scrawled and pens scattered, Tsukauchi’s head was resting on his arms as he too snoozed off. Finding his sticky notes, you left him a small message telling him where you would be going.

You could always head home and freshen up but with the small window of time, the chief might call you out for being tardy. He’d been leaving you alone for the past few weeks and you hoped it would last a bit longer.

Making your way towards the cafe, you marveled at the emptiness the streets had. Quite some time had passed since the last time you took an all nighter. Now that you think about it, ever since that injury, you have been able to get an adequate amount of rest. Every now and then, food would be delivered followed by a text complaining how you were annoying.

Entering the cafe, you walked towards the counter. Greeted by a rather huge smile, all you could give was a forced one.

“Do you h-”

“Someone already ordered for you.” The cashier said. Telling you to wait, you went to a vacant table and took your phone out. It barely took 3 minutes before she came back holding a paper bag. “Shinoda-san has already paid the bill so you’re good to go~”

“How kind of him…” You took the bag and exited the building. The streets slowly getting congested as the seconds ticked by. Dialling his number, he picked up after the 4th ring. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“I put it on a tab.” Overhaul replied. His voice was muffled by his mask. “Everything I bought for you has been recorded and will be sent to you monthly.”

“That’s just mean…”

“That’s what you get for working overtime and not going home as we had agreed.”

“It was last minute, you dumbass.” You huffed but knew he was teasing. “Are you waiting for me to say ‘I’ll make it up to you. What can I do for you, Chisaki?’ or something like that?”

“Perhaps. It is still quite early but I did come bearing news.” He paused and you could hear papers shuffling. “I feel as though you already know that the Fukuo Kai case will start in about a week or two. I was thinking perhaps we should have a private meeting.”

“With Tsukauchi?” You stopped walking.

“Are you that dense?”

“I’m kidding. What do you wanna do?” Finding a nearby bench, you took a seat and took the sandwich out.

“I recall someone saying that their definition of a good date was something along the lines of ‘You and Me against the world?’”

“Go on…” The smile building on your face couldn’t be kept hidden anymore.

“I’ve booked us tickets. If things go as planned then perhaps the day after the Fukuo Kai case would be a good end to all this.”

“A parting gift I presume?” The smile slowly faded when you remembered what came after. The sandwich now tasted horrible. You waited for him to speak up but there was nothing but silence. “Alright. The day after the case sounds good.”

“I’ll pick you up at 6. Wear something nice.”

Ending the call, you stared at your sandwich. A week or two then once that’s passed, it wouldn’t be long before Overhaul’s case would be pushed to your priority list. Looking back towards the direction of the precinct, you decided to save the sandwich for later.

Now that you were seated and facing your computer once more, you decided to recheck your schedule.

Sure enough, there really was less than 3 weeks left of the Fukuo Kai case before things would finally be handed over. A meeting with the chief was also in store a few days from now to go over the plans for the raid. Upon further scrolling, you noted how Tsukauchi had set up a date for a stake out. Clicking on the attached comment, you wondered as to why it had taken this amount of time for them to make their move.

“You awake yet, Nao?” You knocked on your cubicle.

“Barely.” He grumbled. “What’s up?”

“Regarding this stake out, do you think we can push it to 4 days from now?”

“I’m not really sure. It’ll depend on Overhaul since he will be your partner for that one.” He leaned to take a peek at your station.

“Overhaul? Why?”

“Dunno. I just thought that it’s been a while since you two teamed up.” He shrugged as he dragged his chair closer to yours. “But it’s mostly because my schedule doesn’t fit. I have to meet up with All Might for the whole week. I did ask a few others but you can guess they turned it all down out of fear.”

“Hmm. No surprise.” You tapped your index finger on the mouse. Reminding yourself to call him later regarding the sudden change of plans, you leaned on your chair. “Who’s going to be in this meeting with chief?”

“The two of you and Shinezu.”

“Poor guy.”

“It’ll do him good. Speaking of which, we have to go over the initial plan for the raid. Do you wanna do it today or save it for some other time?” Choosing the first option, Tsukauchi nodded and went back to his desk. Grabbing the necessary documents, he waited for you to prepare and led you towards a private meeting room.

“Now that we're at it,” You took the adjacent seat. “What are the updates? I haven’t really heard anything about them for quite some time now.”

“Heh. Things got a little more complicated during your sick leave.” Sliding one folder, he waited for your reaction. Seeing how your eyes widened, he let out an exhausted sigh. “As if one organization is enough, having to deal with an alliance means more trouble for us.”

“Tsk. Damn it. When did you gather this information? What source did you get this from?”

“Believe it or not, the chief actually did some work and gave us this as some sort of peace offering.”

Peace offering? What was the man planning?

“When did you receive this?” You carefully read the details.

“If I recall, it was the day before you came back to work.” He shyly scratched his nape. “It’s kinda my fault, though. I honestly forgot to inform you regarding this information.”

“It’s fine.” You assured him. “I’m thankful you didn’t relay the information right then and there. So, it says here that we infiltrate them at their headquarters. The information was true? Their headquarters are downtown?”

“That’s right. The intel we gathered showed us that movement around that certain street has picked up. Akuji was spotted as well. He’s been involved from the very start, I presume?”

“Well, he was at that gala and the head of the Fukuo Kai gave him a business card. It’s only logical he is. But to go there in person only means bad things. Any ideas?”

“If it were a higher ups meeting, Overhaul should’ve been there. Unless they know he’s involved with us?”

“He’s not.” Overhaul was shady but you trusted him enough that he would have told you if he were called to attend a gathering. For once, he was in the clear. Or so you hoped. You’d have to inquire about that once you call him later. “My guess is that they too are finalizing whatever plan they have in store. With that being said, have you any clue as to what their main agenda is now?”

“We suspect that their main agenda now is to take over at least 50 percent of the yakuza network. Overhaul’s connections are rather large so they must be feeling pretty confident to make a move now.” Tsukauchi rested his chin on his index finger. “Akuji was one person we saw. The other one was Tamisura.”

“Hmm. Any sighting of Nokusu?” It had been a while since you last mentioned their names. The last time you spoke of them was days before the gala. Tamisura, with the momentum like quirk, and Nokusu with his shadow manipulation quirk.

“None. I am not confident whether or not it is safe to assume that they have declined the invitation to take part with the Fukuo Kai.” He shrugged. “I just kinda wished it was Nokusu we were dealing with and not Tamisura. We barely know anything about her quirk.”

“I’ll ask chief about his encounter.” You answered. “Perhaps the other precincts can provide us with some information. Whether it be big or small, we’ll take it. I do agree with you, though. It just had to be her.”

“Try asking Overhaul too. Perhaps they know something about her.” He watched as you nodded. “As for the plan, there aren’t too many changes from before. Overhaul will have to carry our asses for the last part but I feel as though he can do his part well.”

“I hope so.”

With the minor details now explained, you found yourself walking towards the chief’s office. Closing your eyes and sending off as silent prayer, you only hoped things would be fine. Knocking on the door, he gave you the permission to enter.

“Chief.” You greeted him.

“Oh~ (Y/N).” He closed the folder and motioned for you to sit down. “How can I help my favorite star, hmm?”

“I just wanted to ask you about Tamisura. What exactly did you see regarding her quirk?”

“Ah.” He leaned on this squeaky chair’s back. “Fine woman, I might say. Her quirk made her move at insane speeds. Because of the momentum, it was rather hard to stop her. When she moves, a trail of yellow light follows her. If my memory serves me right, then, I believe it would take her awhile to fully use her quirk?”

“Like charging herself?”

“Don’t take my word for it.” He raised both his hands up. “During that particular instance, one of my men noticed how she kept distance before attacking. Perhaps that’s the downside to her quirk. As for the duration, I cannot give any information.”

“This is more than enough.” You stood up and bowed. “Thank you for the cooperation and I apologize for disturbing you.”

“Anything for you, my star~” He winked.

Suppressing a groan, you awkwardly smiled and hurriedly left the room. Your prayers had been heard and the interaction was clean. The given information wasn’t much but it was something. Taking your phone out, you dialed Overhaul.

Strangely enough, he didn’t answer. Then again, you were sure he was doing whatever he did at 9am in the morning. The mental image you had as to what his activities were were rather vague but you could only hope he wouldn’t indulge in them too much. Who were you kidding? He was messed up. You were too for harboring feelings.

Not wanting to stay any longer, you informed Tsukauchi that you would be heading home.

When you locked your car doors, your phone rang. Checking who it was, you immediately answered it.

“You called?”

“I know it’s sudden but you think you can clear your schedule for me?”

“What exactly do you need, Problem Child?”

“I just wanna ask you a few questions about the Fukuo Kai case.”

“Does it have to be in person?” His voice was rather teasing. Admittedly, you always loved it when he spoke with that tone. “Alright. I shall see you where?”

“My apartment is fine. I’ll arrive there in about 30 minutes, so just take your time.”

“See you then.” He paused at your silence of a few seconds. “What?”

“Bring food! Bye~!” You ended the call immediately. Giggling at the moment, you tossed your phone to the seat and began your drive back home.

- - - - -

Hello everyone! It's me!

I know I haven't updated the story in 3 months? And I apologize :( My family has well recovered from the COVID scare of last year. What took its place was my declining mental health due to my shitty work environment. I could barely write any of my fics and even when I did write a new one, I could only hold on to very little chapters before feeling down and useless T.T

As to the next upload, I am not sure when but I can promise you that the next chapter is currently being written as we speak :) I hope you guys liked the 2 new chapters! and if you enjoyed the whole story, feel free to buy me a ko-fi.. it'll greatly help me :')

See you all in the next update!

PS. I didn't mention the tag list cause maybe ya'll don't want to be tagged anymore hehehe if you do want to be tagged then please feel free to message me or comment :)

#mha overhaul #bnha overhaul #overhaul #kai chisaki #chisaki kai #overhaul x reader #overhaul x y/n

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hopevalley · 4 years ago

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Season 8, Episode 11: Changing Times

Well, as it turns out, my second Covid vaccine kicked me down hard. After sleeping for quite a long time, though, I’m tired of sleeping and ready to try and get this write-up done.

Surprisingly, or...perhaps not so surprisingly, I don’t think I have that much to say about last night’s episode. I think we’re just too close to the finale for me to feel “safe” in guessing/hoping for anything in particular.

Let’s hit up the plot points like before:

The Triangle

Carson & Faith

Rosemary’s Purpose

School District Problems

Jesse’s Disappearance

The Triangle

I’m probably one of the few people who liked Nathan who felt like the whole beginning scene was super weird and uncomfortable. Homegirl held his hand for one second in the last episode and now she’s going to warm his serge by the fire (while he just stands there awkwardly??? He could have done that himself while she got him some tea or something idk) and then dress him???

I think we’re meant to see that as her going back to...I don’t know...old habits die hard or something? But she was barely married for any time at all and it’s been three years since Jack died. No way would she be so far into those old habits that she’d fall back into them with Nathan lmao.

Like, it’d be a REALLY GOOD PLOT for a character who had been married for years and lost a spouse (cough Abigail cough) but considering the circumstances it felt like a cheesy fanfiction! I wanted to like it, but I just felt weird about it. Tonal whiplash out the wazoo.

Especially when we had to watch Lucas drive by and see Nathan’s horse at Elizabeth’s house.

Lucas sadly watching Elizabeth talk to Nathan was also awkward, but at least it gave him the courage he needed to break things off with her.

You’d think I’d have a lot to say about the triangle, but I’m saving all of that for some kind of...post-season discussion. Who is she going to pick? Nathan seems like the most logical writing choice, but it could yet be Lucas. I genuinely don’t care who she chooses so long as she picks someone.

Carson & Faith

I like to hate on these two a lot, so you might be surprised to know that I’m enjoying their storyline. I’ve criticized this series over and over for never bothering to portray realistic relationships and one thing I can say about Faith and Carson this season is that things actually feel...plausible.

I also appreciate how they try to tie Carson into the town a bit more: he talks to Henry and Minnie and even Lucas trying to figure things out! It makes perfect sense to me; how do you choose between someone you care about/the potential life you could make with them, and a career that you’re really and truly passionate about?

This is the most interesting Carson has been since Season 5.

Anyway, the pudding scene was genuinely funny, and a great way to break up the stress that I’m sure we were all feeling about his impending proposal. Faith’s reaction to thinking he might propose was...pretty telling. I really wish they hadn’t saved so many dangling plotlines to solve in the final episode, though. I was hoping Faith and Carson’s storyline would be fully figured out in the penultimate episode so that we could let him go (or whatever) in the season finale. It just seems to me like it would be a good, smooth ending for them.

Also, for what it’s worth, they tried doing this kind of plot with Frank in Season 5, but it was rushed and pulled out of thin air; he’d never shown an inclination toward pastoring toward dying children in the past and it was clear that they just needed to write him off the show. With Carson, this sort of plotline works VERY well; he was a surgeon, and he was passionate about it, but that passion took a hit when his wife needed surgery and she died on the table under his hands. He’s had some time to move on from that and process his feelings, so it makes sense that he’d find that passion again. I just wanted to point this out because it’s interesting how well it works for Carson and how...well, not-well it worked with Frank. I really felt like with Frank, it was just a storyline that could have been given to anyone with the same success rate, whereas with Carson they took a look at the character and what we already know of him, and built the storyline specifically for him. That’s good writing, babes!

Anyway, Carson trying to propose in the vague hope that Faith will come with him, even knowing she doesn’t want to leave Hope Valley, is pretty manipulative and awful, but it really goes a long way toward making his character feel like an actual person. Like yeah, he does actually want the best of both worlds. Do you blame him?

Rosemary’s Purpose

I know a lot of people are really into this storyline but I found it boring. The only good part was when Lee called the other desk in his office “hers.” Everything else just felt like a bit too much to come to the conclusion that she should run a paper. We already had her “advice” column in the paper and it was...amusing while it lasted, but eh. I just don’t see good storylines coming for her from this angle, especially when they went the route of her finding out she wants to start the paper back up to share information with the town. Are we really going to trust Rosemary’s integrity when it comes to writing news stories, especially when MOST of the time the things she’ll be allowed to write about are, you know, who grew the biggest cabbage? It makes me dread the potential for Round Two of Nosy Rosie.

I dunno. I used to really like Rosemary but this season’s been pretty rough on her character. Good for you for wanting to find your passion career, but most of us work so that we can eat, not for a fun way to pass the time and stay busy. :/

School District Problems

Mr. Landis is right and Elizabeth is an idiot. Sure the school board is being assholes for no reason (as if they’d care if one blind child was sitting in a classroom in one western town lol), but Elizabeth’s really going to dismiss his concerns about how she can juggle the added work necessary to teach Angela while also keeping up with everyone else?

It sucks that Angela will get left out, but Elizabeth should be working with Mr. Landis to come up with a plan to teach Angela without sacrificing the education of her other students. Better yet, she could rely on her friends for advice. Like Rosemary.

Still no apology there...

Anyway, a projected 100 new kids? That’s outlandish. The only way that will happen is if they open a factory in Hope Valley, and even then it could take years. I MEAN, WHERE IS THE HOUSING GOING TO BE FOR ALL THE ADULTS THAT WOULD GIVE YOU A HUNDRED NEW STUDENTS LOL. I think we have to assume the plotlines are connected.

I also find it hard to believe the board would care about Elizabeth being certified to teach Angela. Where else is she going to get an education? It’s 1918 in the middle of almost nowhere???

This show drives me nuts with its attempt to be a “Frontier Show” while also shying away from the characters actually being stranded/cut off from society at large. You still had unlicensed teachers teaching in western towns in this time period because nobody cared!!!

ANYWAY, if Union City was like 3 miles away I could see them trying to combine schools. But it isn’t. So.

I dunno. I hate this plotline. I feel like they stole it from a better show (Road to Avonlea, where the bigger school was just a few miles away and it made sense to consider combining the schools for a better education system for the students as one-room schoolhouse teaching was proven to be less effective) but didn’t bother to consider any of the logistics of the storyline.

Maybe it’s my passion for education and history that makes me hate it, though. I know too much to find this storyline believable. I should also mention that I haven’t enjoyed Elizabeth’s role as teacher for a very long time. (I think they suck at writing Elizabeth as a teacher.)

I’m just not interested in wherever this is going to go because I can’t imagine it’ll have a lasting impact.

The only good thing I can say about the whole plotline is that I REALLY LIKED HOW BILL CAME OUT OF IT. I think he’s the only person who knows how to speak to Elizabeth. She struggles with blunt honesty at first, but ultimately tends to appreciate it, and that’s pretty much what she always gets with Bill. Also, the scene where he shuts her down didn’t make her look stupid, either (just worried/anxious), so I could appreciate it.

Jesse’s Disappearance

I couldn’t care less about this plotline if I tried. Jesse’s gone missing in the mountains before (was it last season? I don’t even remember because I didn’t give a damn about it then either) so this felt like a multi-reused plotline...for the same character, no less.

It’s also poorly implemented. Why doesn’t anyone else care about Jesse? Why is Clara pouring her heart out to Lee while her friends are failing to support her in the slightest? Why should any of us care when we know he’ll be fine?

It just feels so forced for the sake of drama, and it’s made 10x worse because there’s too much else going on at the same time.

Also, how convenient that they have to tell us how hard-working and dedicated Jesse is to his work to force this plot to even make sense... C’mon, he has never been a particularly dedicated to work. They just needed to explain why he would have left the car so that he could be “missing.”

Boring. I also don’t care that much about their “stolen” money.

The only good thing in all of this is seeing how soothing of a voice Lee actually has.

The best parts of the episode:

Henry calling Florence “Flo” GOT ME. It was so surprisingly cute???

I love Bill, and he really came out of this episode looking great! Finally, it seems they’re done writing him as a grouchy old man who hates everyone! In this season (and particularly in this episode), he is allowed to be capable, smart, helpful, loyal, and in possession of a great deal of integrity. I couldn’t believe that guy tried to bribe the judge in town right off the bat lmao...but the way Bill handled it felt very in character—very reminiscent of him from S3 or 4. He never shuts things down immediately, preferring instead to get more information to use against his, erm...opponent. Should he need it, of course. I was really happy to see him written well in this episode.

HENRY’S LETTER FROM HIS SON. STARTS OFF WITH “DAD,” AND SAYS PS. I LOVE YOU AT THE BOTTOM. Good for Henry.

Fiona’s backstory! Finally, we get some FIONA LORE. Neat.

PUDDING HANDS CARSON.

#when calls the heart

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aloysiavirgata · 4 years ago

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The Way That Light Attaches To A Girl

Title: The Way That Light Attaches To A Girl

Author: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: PG (language)

Timeline: Season 1

Summary: Maybe she’s not so bad, this gingery little doctor.

Author’s Notes: Mulder reads Cicero and finds the method of loci tool useful in honing an eidetic memory. Also, the timeline of this show is absurd. Per canon, the Pilot is in March of 1992. But here it’s March of 1993 because...I just can’t, honestly. Thank you to @perplexistan for reminding me that I wrote this in 2013, and talking me through the timeline.

*** It's been a long December and there's reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself To hold on to these moments as they pass - Counting Crows *** It’s gritty outside, gritty and gray with a rime of salt on everything. There are pockets of rotten snow for him to kick, slushy and satisfying against his heavy shoes. He pulls his coat tighter, feeling like a hard-boiled detective in a pulp paperback, thinking this would be a good time for a cigarette if he still smoked. His divorce papers were filed this time last year, just like his parents’ had been a couple decades back. The ink had scarcely been dry on the marriage certificate when they realized they didn’t know each other and changed their minds. It was the same time Diana left him and his - their - files for whatever the fuck had summoned her across the sea. Paperwork, as ever in his life, was all that remained of these experiences. If this were really a detective story, he thinks, stepping over a soggy Washington Post, a tall cool blonde would have walked in through the frozen mist and into his arms. Someone lithe, with red lipstick and half-lidded violet eyes. She would look like Veronica Lake and speak in a low, compelling voice, urging him to do brave and outlandish things to thwart the Nazis. He’d wear a fedora, buy a mink stole for the blonde. They’d drink martinis and make love in dark hotels smelling of leather and intrigue. But he’s not living in a dime-store novel, he’s living in Alexandria on Christmas Eve 1993 (“The New Age of Angels,” claimed Time magazine, somewhat cryptically) and is eager to turn the last page in his calendar. Mulder knows it’s symbolic only, that his Eurocentrism is showing, but he still watches the ball drop on TV. Last year he’d kissed a woman in a bar and gone home with her too, but doesn’t think he’d remember her face if he saw it. He hasn’t got the energy to entice a stranger this year, and Scully’s hardly his type. He shouldn’t be sleeping with coworkers anyway, it’s never worth the trouble and the FBI is full of people who are paid to do nothing but sniff out secrets. Besides, he is now 32 years old which is really about time to start getting your shit together even if your baby sister was abducted by aliens at Thanksgiving. Mulder generally holds the holidays in low regard. He pauses to watch a small flock of cats at an upended trash can, feasting upon pungent things like battlefield ravens. One of the cats glances at him sidelong, narrowing round yellow eyes as though Mulder has designs on the gray thing it’s gnawing at. He holds his hands up to show the cats he wishes them no harm, keeps walking. Scully had offered to drive him home but he thanked her and caught the blue line, the clank and rattle of the train making him feel like some variety of normal businessman. Maybe people thought he was a banker or a Congressional staffer, going home to a twinkling Douglas fir and a mantle hung with stockings. Nine months and a broken condom can, in many circumstances, result in a whole new person. But it’s been nine months with Scully and she’s still her own woman, though Christ knows Mulder’s tried to remake her in his own image. She’s trudged alongside him through graveyards, military bases, bad diners, and one memorable night in Pennsylvania where she had captured a frantic bat in the hotel lobby. (“Do you want to wait for it to take human form before I release it?” she’d asked drily.) Through all of it she remained disbelieving and supercilious, leaving him vexed. She’d chirped “Merry Christmas, Mulder” at him, assuming that he celebrated Christmas and was capable of merriment. He was afraid Scully’d bring in a little Charlie Brown tree for the office, ornaments smooth and shining as her earnest face. She is skeptical in all the wrong ways and probably has the Michael Bolton Christmas album on her stereo at this very moment. She probably has eggnog in the fridge and will drink it without rum. She probably likes fruitcake and ham with pineapple rings on it. Mulder, going home to the shadows of his apartment where he might listen to Pink Floyd and nurse his resentment with three fingers of whiskey, feels justified in his scorn. A couple loaded with gifts pushes past him and he nearly loses his balance on a patch of black ice, clutches at a lamp post. He gazes up at the endless sky as snow begins to fall again. (Scully’s probably delighted by the prospect of a white Christmas, probably whistling a few bars of the song as she puts on a green sweater.) But he’s being unfair, isn’t he? For all her tattling back to the higher ups, she’s never tried to present herself as an angel. Her primary fault is in not being Diana, not being a tall dark moon goddess. Being pretty rather than beautiful, being frank rather than alluring. He’s seen her smoking a couple of times, discovered that she says “Jesus!” a lot so that she doesn’t say “fuck” or “shit.” This amuses him; he thought the blasphemy would be worse. He knows Scully watches what she eats but turns to carbohydrates and wine in times of stress. He found out she was sleeping with that asshole Jack Willis, which really threw him for a loop because Scully has a schoolteacherish quality that led him to presume premarital abstinence. He thinks of her in that first motel room, her smooth back beneath his hands, her panic turning on some masculine caveman switch. It’s been a long year, perhaps she could be his type after all despite her sensible underwear. She’s attractive enough if you like that sort of Hibernian look. He can tell she’s a bit awed by him and he could manipulate that to his advantage. Mulder walks the last slushy block thinking impious thoughts about Catholic school uniforms and playing doctor. The honeycomb tile of his building is muddied, layered with fragments of leaves and footprints. A radio blares something about Barbra Streisand doing her first live concert in twenty years. Mulder shakes his head and imagines his mother on the Vineyard, frothing with excitement. “Merry Christmas Agent Mulder,” says Leo, the maintenance guy. Leo’s got some kind of intellectual disability that Mulder hasn’t bothered to diagnose, but he’s always quick to replace a kicked-in lock or a shot-out window, and Mulder therefore regards him as a master craftsman. He gives Leo money every year at Christmas. At present he’s attacking the hallway sludge with an ancient mop. “Merry Christmas, Leo.” He gets his mail, sorting through it as he ambles to the elevator. Bill; bill; Playboy; Christmas cards from his doctor, dentist, and insurance agent; coupons; a thick manila envelope from the divorce attorney. Mulder rolls it all into a bundle and shoves it under his arm. He’s fumbling with his keys when the elevator deposits him on the fourth floor. There are wreaths on most of the doors in his building, a handful of mezuzas. Number 42, as usual, conforms to no given standard. He stops when he sees Scully leaning against his door. “Um,” he says. “Hey.” She waves her fingertips, looking uncomfortable. She’s holding a cardboard FedEx envelope. “I forgot to give you this before you left.” “Okay,” he says, uncertain about the idea of Scully on his turf. “Hang on a sec.” He makes sure the packet from the lawyer is hidden, though she’s probably heard the whole story. He knows what the talk is. They all act like he’s John fucking Douglas, like he can guess what number they’re thinking of based on how they part their hair. He’s a sideshow act, the guy who can think like John Roche and Monty Props. A freak. Scully turns to slouch against the wall while he jiggles the latest lock open, wishing there were a convenient place to stash a can of WD-40. “So, uh, come on in, I guess.” She turns, walks under his arm as he hold the door open, and stands in the entryway. The door clicks shut behind him, a final sound. Mulder puts his mail on the kitchen counter, tossing his coat over it. “You want anything to drink?” he calls to her, unsure if he can make good on the offer. What the hell does Scully drink? Tea? Zima? He’s got a few beers in the fridge, his wife’s wine is long finished. “No, I’m good.” Her coat’s draped over her arm when he comes back out, and he hangs it up for her. He notices that she’s wearing jeans with a navy cable-knit sweater, no tartan in sight. Her boots are dark and practical. Mulder shrugs off his jacket, loosens his tie out of its regulation noose. “Here, sit down. There’s, uh, the couch is right over there.” His couch is the atramentous green of algae, appearing black in the close room. “So what’s up?” She holds out the folder to him. “I realized I had this when I got home and since it’s a three day weekend, I wanted to make sure you had it. I thought it might be important.” Scully sits down close to the edge of the couch, much of her weight on her knees. She presses her hands together between them after Mulder takes the envelope, bouncing a little bit. He looks at the return address and groans. Arlinsky, that idiot from the Smithsonian. Mulder’s got enough credibility issues without this nutcase on his tail. He tosses the envelope on his cluttered desk for later perusal. Scully, as the messenger, looks apologetic. “Bad news?” He sits next to her, why not? “Nah, just…you know. The usual.” “Ah.” He watches her do a quick scan of his apartment. He has nothing to be ashamed of, she can look around. Mulder removes his tie completely now, untucks his shirt and leans into the corner of his couch. “So I’m surprised you’re here, Scully. I got the impression Christmas was a…thing. For your family.” He waves his hand vaguely, as though families are something he read about in a Margaret Mead article but never fully understood. Something closes in Scully’s face, which intrigues him. Discomfort usually comes with a good story, but he’ll tease it out of her later. She scratches her elbow, stalling. “I’m going to go by my parents’ house tomorrow.” “Not tonight? No big Scully celebration with stockings hung by the fire and cookies for Santa?” He has picked these ideas up from Oxford and Christmas music. Santa would probably prefer a cold longneck and some nachos. “My sister’s coming in tomorrow, she’s staying with my parents so they’re getting everything ready tonight. My younger brother and his family too, they’re getting in late.” Scully looks faintly guilty for this wealth of relatives. Which one of them are you avoiding, Dana? “Fun,” he says in a tone that he hopes is not sarcastic. Scully shrugs, picks at the cuff of her sweater. “Yeah, it’ll be good. I’ll get to see my niece and nephew. What about you? What are you doing?” “Oh, just…you know. Laying low.” He’s meeting up with the Gunmen for Chinese food and bootleg video games from some Japanese guy they know, but he’s not ready to tell Scully about them. In part because she might want to meet them and would end up charging Frohike with a sex crime. “Sounds good,” she says in a non-judgmental tone. “I could use some down time myself.” “Job wearing on you?” Going to wimp out and request a transfer? She puffs a breath of air out, pushes the tip of her tongue to her top lip. “No. Well, I mean, it’s hard. We travel so much, I didn’t do that before and it’s taking some adjustment.” Mulder drapes an arm over the back of the couch, wishing he could take his pants off and order a pizza. But he wants to know more about what drives her; Diana left him wary of unknown quantities, and this is his first opportunity to peer into Scully’s head. “Yeah, I guess they mostly shipped the cadavers to you before, huh? When you were doing doctor things?” He sees a slight narrowing of her eyes at this, the implication that she’s not a doctor now. The fact that she took it as an insult means it’s a vulnerability. “Mostly.” He decides to push it, being as he has home field advantage. “How come you decided to stop practicing medicine?” Scully sits up straight, her palms on the tops of her thighs. “I didn’t realize I had.” Prickly. “Oh, sorry, no offense. I just….you left your residency to join the FBI, right?” Faker, he knows her career trajectory down to the day. “My work as a Special Agent has always revolved around my background in forensic pathology. I just felt…called to the FBI as the place to best put those skills to use.” Called, religious imagery. Interesting. Her reply had a rehearsed sound, it’s something she’s repeated numerous times. Who gives her grief about being an FBI agent? A younger brother wouldn’t, would probably look up to that. Mom or Dad, most likely, though it could be one of the older siblings. He’d put his money on Dad or big brother based on the cold formality of her words. Both men are in the military, she’d speak to that. And big brother wasn’t mentioned as being in town, so Dad it is. He throws her a bone for revealing so much. “I’ve heard nothing but commendations.” “Thanks.” The appreciation seems genuine. “So what about you, Mulder? Why….this?” Scully holds her arms out like an orchestra conductor. The gesture encompasses his desk, the groaning bookshelves and fading newspaper clippings. Area 51, Reticulans, ectoplasm, and jackalopes. “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible,” he quotes. “Feynman.” Scully knows her physicists. “It’s the perfect con, really. I figured out a way to get the federal government to pay for my hobbies.” He hopes that will satisfy her, but knows better. “Why is it your hobby?” Ah, Scully. You little investigator, you. “I’m a lousy knitter.” She smiles. “Because of your sister?” He steeples his fingertips, taps them against his chin. It’s tempting to blow her off, but he considers the implications of her presence. There was no reason to bring that letter by; she could have called and he could have told her to round-file it. She’s trying to build something between them, she’s looking past his annoyance with her assignment and he’s not going to slap her hand away on Christmas Eve. “Hold that thought,” he says. Mulder goes to the kitchen for the beers and the churchkey magnet stuck to the freezer. He checks for food, but a cursory examination reveals that Scully is going to have to make do with some brews. She’s peering into the fish tank when he returns, scrutinizing the inhabitants. “I think one of your mollies is pregnant,” she says. “That spotted one.” “Yeah, they’re prolific little cannibals. Here, Scully. Have a drink.” He holds the bottle out to her when she turns, watches her hesitate for an instant before accepting. “Thanks,” she says. “Though I probably shouldn’t.” She pops the lid off when he’s done with the opener. Takes a long drink. “So,” he says, returning to his seat on the couch. “Why do I spend my time looking for ET and yetis, right?” Scully rolls the bottle between her palms. “It’s hard for me to understand why someone with your abilities chooses to use those gifts this way.” Once she rides out this dogleg, Mulder thinks, she’ll go far in the Bureau with her careful diplomacy. “When my sister was…taken, it was the first time that none of the authority figures in my life had an answer. Not my parents, my teachers, the police…no one could tell me what had happened. Years went by and there was still no solution. People stopped thinking about it, you know? They just acted like she was gone and that’s all there was to it.” “But not you.” Her voice is gentle. “I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that this was a question with an answer, even if no one wanted to delve deeper into what that answer was. I became, well, obsessed with the idea that there were all of these mysteries out there with answers that people were uncomfortable finding. So when I found the X-Files…” He glances sidelong at his partner, her nutmeg freckles and her cinnamon hair. “Isn’t that what you were doing already, though? Solving impossible cases?” He shrugs. “They weren’t impossible. They followed a pattern if you knew what to look for. But what I do now, no one wants the answer, Scully. That’s the real challenge.” “You caught Monty Props. Props, Jesus, that case is legendary! I want to understand, I do. I see what you’re saying about the challenge, it does make a kind of sense. But when I think about the people you stopped…” She shakes her head. She doesn’t get it. But she’s trying instead of dismissing him. That’s something. “That’s just it. Your reaction, it’s…look. Serial killers, they’re sexy. The public loves them. Everyone wants to be Bill Patterson or, or… Jack Crawford, right? People still read about Jack the Ripper, they practically turn these psychopaths into folk heroes. There will never be a shortage of people wanting to do what I did.” Half the beer is gone in his next swallow. Scully looks thoughtful, her thumbnail at the damp corner of the label on her bottle. “So this is like, what? Like a martyr thing? If you walk away from the limelight for this then it makes up for never knowing what happened to your sister?” She turns her head to give him a level gaze, her eyes so blue and clear they seem artificial at times. He’s been called worse than a martyr, but somehow it stings. “Martyr? That’s condescending.” “I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sorry. I just, I guess it’s hard for me to understand what you hope to gain. What all this means to you in the end.” Mulder’s had enough of her analysis. “I’m not like you, I don’t crave approval.” It’s her turn to look stung. “I didn’t mean to pry.” He sighs. “Your questions aren’t unfair. It’s been a hard year.” “I heard.” There’s sympathy in her tone and he tries not to resent it. “Listen, Scully, I know you didn’t ask for this assignment and you’re doing your best with a bad hand. It’s just hard to share a career I’m passionate about with someone who pretty clearly thinks it’s a waste of time.” Scully sets her beer on the coffee table, resting her elbows on her knees, her hands cupped around her chin. Mulder props his feet up next to her bottle, patient in the silence. There are deep shadows in the room, illuminated by the ambient streetlight through the curtains, the cool blue aquarium lamp. Puddles of light leak from the kitchen, but they barely stain the rug. Scully looks like a Hitchcock girl, white and pure, untouched by the surrounding gloom. She reminds him of Ingrid Bergman or Greta Garbo, her good bones and heavy-lidded eyes. “You know,” Scully says, muffled, “Pathology’s hardly the hottest specialty in med school. It’s not really seen as a place to make a career.” “The malpractice can’t be bad though, right?” She rolls her eyes. “You spend years of your life learning to care for the living and use it to examine the dead. People have…opinions about that.” This had not occurred to him, and he says as much. Scully sits up and settles back into the couch. “And to then take that to the FBI, well…” Full circle to the truth. “Lots of grief for that?” She shrugs. “From some more than others. My dad, he – look, Mulder. I’m not saying we’re in the same place or have the same ideas or that we’re both noble misunderstood renegades. I am not trying to oversimplify anything. I’m just telling you that I know what it’s like to care deeply about something that other people don’t necessarily understand.” She looks defensive after this, takes a fierce swig of her beer. Mulder eyes her up with a new appreciation. “I guess I just figured all doctors sit on pedestals.” “If so, some of the pedestals are much higher than others. I know you don’t like me, Mulder. Or at least you don’t like our partnership. We may never be friends, I realize that. But it’s been three quarters of a year, you have to let your guard down if we’re going to work together. I want what you want, answers to these questions.” He smiles at her. A real smile, and thinks that it’s been a long time since he’s done it. “But you still think I’m spooky.” Scully smiles back. “Absolutely. And I still don’t believe in aliens. Or yetis. Or missing time or vampires or Nessie. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe there are answers.” He scratches his chin, five o’clock shadow rough on his fingertips. Maybe she’s not so bad, this gingery little doctor. “I did say I wanted a challenge.” “You did at that.” She returns her bottle to the table, then turns to face him. The aquarium provides a ghostly backlight, her hair gleaming like rubbed copper. He holds this image of Scully in his mind until it is indelible, then tucks it away to remember her by. The Rhetorica ad Herennium advises sensory encoding to aid in recall, and so he places her in the sunlit portrait gallery of his memory palace. Scully stands, crosses the room to take her coat from the rack. “I’m sorry the letter wasn’t good news.” Mulder gets up to join her. “It’s okay.” He squints when she opens the door, the hallway so bright it hurts his eyes. “Thanks for bringing it by.” “Okay, well, I’ll see you on Monday, I guess.” She seems hesitant to go. She probably feels sorry for him. “Thanks for the drink. And the company.” “Go,” he says. “You don’t want coal in your stocking for oversleeping tomorrow.” She laughs a little, then takes his hands in her small white ones. She gives them a squeeze. “This is going to be okay, Mulder.” He thinks she might be right, squeezes back. She lets go of him, walks out and turns right. He locks up behind her, her perfume still lingering on his side of the door. Diana’s not coming home. It’s time that he moved on.

#my fic #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #season 1 #new years eve

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soliverse · 4 years ago

Text

SAY YOU LOVE ME - PART 4

rockstar!taeyongxjournalist!reader

genre: angst, suggestive, romance

warnings: mentions of emotional abuse and manipulation, panic attacks, stalker behavior, and cussing

1 ⭒ 2 ⭒ 3 ⭒ 4 ⭒ 5 ⭒ finale pt 1

Length: 3k

ps: if you are not comfortable with that sort of stuff, I will insert a warning within the story so you can skip it.

Also: the story is fictional and is no way related to NCT and its brand, especially Yuta. These are all a part of my imagination and I felt like it was needed to push the story further. Again, happy reading! - Ellie

The boys of 1:27 made a detour on a small BBQ shop on their way home to celebrate their successful performance for that night. Charlie promised them that she’ll pay for dinner and so they are stopped at the BBQ shack that they passed by on their way home. Everyone excitedly stepped out from the minivan with their arms around each other.

At this time of the night, they were the only ones inside the place. They took it as a go signal to be loud and did as they please. On a respectable manner, of course.

On one side, Johnny was filming a vlog with Mark and Doyoung. They talked about how they had fun at the performance and they wished that they can do more stuff like that in the future. Meanwhile, Taeyong helped Charlie decide what and how much to order.

The pair came out alongside the staff to help them in carrying their massive order. They brought out about five trays of barbeque and side dishes which almost didn’t fit the small rectangular table that they have. They thank the staff for their troubles and started gobbling marinated meat right away.

The staff then came out with another tray. This time, it was filled by glasses containing amber-tinted liquid.

The boys cheered as Charlie went around the table and gave each one a glass. Mark was the first one that was handed the drink and so he took a sip right away. He then started laughing uncontrollably as he takes a sip once again from the glass.

“Dude, it’s apple juice.”

Charlie went back to her seat smiling smugly.

“Of course, it’s apple juice. I’m not going to baby your drunk asses off when we get home.”

The table went quiet, filling the room with sounds of chewing and utensils clanking over plates. Doyoung tried to lighten the mood up and started sharing stories about the miniconcert that they were invited in. They also got along well with the other performers and started taking pictures with them as well.

Charlie whipped out her phone and showed everybody pictures and videos that she captured while they are performing. They can all hear the cheers and screams coming from the videos. The loudest was definitely Charlie. Everyone was excitedly jumping up and down and singing their song with them. They got all hot and sweaty from the humid weather and moving around the stage. That didn’t stop them from interacting and hyping up the audience. She even argued that it made them even more appealing, especially to the young ladies watching. Some of them even tried to get the boys’ number but they all politely declined and just settled for selfies instead.

They also played games that night which resorted to Mark paying almost half the bill as they left. The guys thanked the owners for not kicking them out for being so noisy and promised that they’ll be back to eat there again. They hopped inside one by one and passed out as soon as their bodies touched the seats.

Taeyong stayed up for a bit and waited until everyone was asleep. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and leaned on the glass window, making a tired peace sign. He sent you the pic and typed a message right after.

Taeyong: We did well today. I’m almost home. Missed u.

His thumb hovered over the send button for a while. He cringed at the last sentence and erased it before sending it to you and popped in his eyemask and headphones to sleep.

///

“Any more questions about your assignments for this month?”

Everyone remained quiet and just shook their heads in response. The team meeting took longer than expected and it is already past lunch time. You were impatiently scribbling on the notes that you took earlier. A little trick that you do so you will look like you’re busy doing something productive. Your thoughts are now clouded by hunger and boredom and and you kept looking at the clock ticking. You are silently praying that no one will ask a question and extend the meeting any further.

“Okay then.”

The supervisor, an old guy in his early fifties, finally closes the presentation and started closing the tabs in his windows. He shut the laptop down and slammed it close.

“We’ll see each other again same time next month. Remember to stick to your deadlines.”

Finally.

The room rattled as everyone tries to pack up their stuff and get out as fast as they can. You stood up from your chair. You did a bunch of weird poses to stretch your aching body from sitting down too long as you waited for the crown to dissipate before walking away from the room.

You grabbed your handbag from beside you and dug through tons of your unorganized stuff before you were finally to fish your phone out to do a time check. Instead, you were met by tons of photos and videos sent by Charlie that morning. They were mostly pictures of them rehearsing and goofing around the area. A slight curved on your lips as saved all of them in your phone and made your way into the breakroom.

Things are going well for the past couple of weeks. You and Taeyong barely talked before the event because he was busy practicing but at least you can finally look him in the eyes. Greetings are also once again exchanged, you even sent him off on their way to the event. With that out of the way, you’re finally able to catch up on to your prior commitments and saved yourself from being fired that week.

You bolted to the breakroom because you can now hear your stomach complaining. You politely bowed at everyone inside and snaked your way through a bunch of your coworkers. Today’s hot topic was them complaining about how long the meeting was and that Mr. Supervisor purposely stretched the meeting out because he wanted to spite all of you. None of that mattered to you though. The croquette that you made last night for lunch was the only thing on your mind. Upon reaching the fridge of the tiny breakroom, you microwaved your lunch for a few seconds before to your cubicle to eat in peace.

You greeted the one sitting beside you before you took a seat. The stacks of folders and papers were set aside to make way for your lunch bag. You carefully took the contents and dived right in to calm down your growling stomach. At the same time, you decided to pop in an earphone and listened to some of 1:27 recordings while eating. A ding! interrupted the music so you absent-mindedly opened the messages without seeing who it’s from.

Abby: Hey boo.

The text intrigued you. She wasn’t the type to text someone unless it’s an emergency.

You: Oh hey. What’s up?”

Abby: Don’t freak out, okay?

Abby: I think I saw Yuta in the mall today.

You felt a lump on your throat, and it wasn’t your lunch. You felt as if someone threw a bucket of iced water at you. You’ve set your lunch down and immediately pressed reply.

You: You sure it’s him?

You: Guy might be visiting his sis. I’m sure it’s nothing.

Abby: You sure?

Abby: Would you like to stay at our place for a while? I’m sure big bro wouldn’t mind.

As much as you wanted to stay over at anyone’s house for tonight, the Li household wasn’t the best option either. The last time you slept over, he glared at you whenever you tried moving anything in the house by a small fraction.

This might be an overstatement but the only thing scarier than Yuta is judgmental Li Yongqin.

You: Yeah, it’s probably nothing. Don’t worry about me.

Abby: Just in case something happens, you have my number okay? Be safe.

You dropped your phone at your desk and you felt your body getting colder and your breaths getting shorter once again. Eating lunch didn’t feel right anymore so you placed the lid back on and slipped it back, exchanging it with the water bottle. You drank half of its content and took deep, long breathes to slow down your racing heart for a bit. You dizzily bobbed your head down and rested your head on your folded arms. People asked if you were okay but you just smiled weakly and insisted that you’ll just sit the day out until office hours was over

As the day ended, Abigail Li picked you up from work that day. She insisted that if you’re not staying over at their house, the least thing that she can do was to make sure that you get home safely.

“Are you sure that you don’t want to stay over? I’ll lock Yongqin in my closet upstairs if it makes you feel any better.” Abby knew what her brother did last time and she made Ten apologize for the glaring at her. He did some half-hearted apology before glaring one last time and shutting himself back to his room.

“Relax. I’ll be fine. It’s been years since we’ve last seen each other. He probably moved on already.”

A sigh left her mouth.

“Fine. Don’t forget to lock everything when you sleep, aight?”

///

The first thing you did as soon as you got home was to lock everything just like what Abby said. You said that you’ll be fine to assure Abby, but you know you couldn’t be too sure about Yuta. First thing you did was grab a few chips and a can of cat food for Felice. The bedroom was the most secure part of the house so you decided that the best thing to do was to camp in there until the morning comes.

You held Felice close and stroke her soft fur to calm yourself down. She had become your most loyal companion on your path to recovery when you shut yourself from everyone else. She snuggles into your chest and purred lightly, probably sensing your uneasiness.

You used all your willpower to sleep that night but your mind was restless. Even after you stuffed yourself full, drank room temperature milk and fiddled on some fancam videos, you just couldn’t your mind off of Nakamoto Yuta.

The last time that you saw him was when you were crying nonstop at the police station as Abby and Sophie held you in.

Everything played out in your head like a film in cinema.

Na Yuta.

Awesome performer.

Awful person.

(This part may be a trigger to some readers so if you wouldn’t be comfortable reading this, skip to the next ///)

Everyone knew that he’s a player. That’s the first thing that he told you when you met him. It made him look dangerous, something you just need in order to spice out your cookie cutter life. Your parents just went into divorce and your life was going downhill.

He’s just a perfect distraction.

It went well at first, you became his muse. He’d shower you with love and gifts. He made you feel things that you never felt before. That didn’t last very long though.

Not even a year later, fights became a common occurrence. You finally understood how someone can love and hate a person at the same time. As soon as you realized the kind of guy that he is, you couldn’t get out. You made excuses after excuses and still waited for the time that he will change.

He’d go on tours and you would hear stories about him being seen with other women. Plural. Witnesses gave you a different description at every story that you believed it was ridiculous. It’s probably a colleague. Or it was fan and hew was just doing a bit of fanservice. That’s what you believed because that’s what he’d tell you every time you would confront him about it.

At the few times that you did caught him, he’d lie blatantly as if he didn’t just get caught. You couldn’t also count the times that he’d turn the table around and find some guy to link you with. It tricked you into believing that it was your fault that he did it. That he regrets being with you.

You couldn’t also fathom that you cried yourself to sleep because of him. He wouldn’t respond at parties and it would take him days before responding. He made you feel that you are never good enough for him, damaging your self-esteem and confidence in the process. And then he would go full circle and be over the top with surprises and gifts. He starts to go all soft on you and made you weak against his touch and kisses. It’s reminder that only him can make you feel that good, even if he’s also the one who caused you pain.

You also turned your back against everyone. Nobody could contact you for months. It was mostly you, trying to keep your ego intact. You can already hear them mocking you and will remind you that they told you so. He also convinced you that nobody else will love you like he did. The absence of your friends and family made you lonely. It was like they didn’t even miss your presence. And so you clung unto him more.

But everyone has their breaking point. At that point, you’re numbed out. You didn’t even cry as you saw him bringing someone into your own home. It was the wakeup call that you needed to get away from him. You finally realized that you didn’t deserve to be treated like trash and broke things off with him right then and there.

He didn’t like that one bit. He saw you as his possession and no one can take you away from him easily. Yuta started following you around wherever you’ll go and asked you to talk things out with him. He’ll pop in at your office, at the club where you would drink your troubles away, or at any possible location where he knows that you would see him. He was switching back and forth from begging and reminding you the memories you both had into going full psycho and texting you that you’ll regret ever leaving him.

It made you so paranoid that you just flat out refused to go outside at the fear of meeting him. The girls wanted to do something about your condition, and decided that the best thing to get your mind off of things was to surprise you on your birthday.

They brought your favorite food with them and decorated the party with your favorite colors. It was unexpected and you even apologized to everyone for causing them trouble. The night made happy that night and finally be able to smile for the first time in months. All was going well until everyone decided to go outside and take a group photo. Yuta popped out of nowhere and started dragging you away. You were crying and begging him to let you go but he insisted that he needs to talk to you and it wouldn’t take a while.

All hell broke loose. The guys rushed outside to intervene. Sophie’s then boyfriend (now husband), was a big, strong man and was able to grab him by the collar and beat the living crap out of him right in front of you. The sudden violence made you cry harder than earlier. There was nothing that you can do besides watch as everything go down. Both the police and the paramedics came right after and disturbed the whole neighborhood.

That day was still, hands-down, the most awful day of your life. The memory was so horrifying that your birthday is doomed for life. Nobody ever tried to do something for your birthday again, as per your wishes.

You strike yourself as lucky that you don’t have to go to a psychiatrist or drink meds anymore to sleep. Flashbacks make you shake a little bit, but at least that’s manageable. You cannot say the same thing about meeting Yuta once again.

///

“Here’s your stop. I’m sorry I couldn’t drop you off by Y/N’s apartment. The street was small and it would be difficult to turn the van around.”

“It’s totally fine. Walking won’t hurt me.”

Taeyong grabbed his duffel bag and his guitar from the backseat and steps outside the vehicle. He waved at them goodbye before the van went back to the road. He adjusted the straps of his guitar case and duffel bag so he can carry them both comfortably as he begins to walk towards your place.

It was eerily quiet at that time and something just didn’t feel right. He tried to shake the feeling off and increasing his walking pace. It didn’t take long before he can see the building from a distance.

He didn’t know if he was just imagining things but he could’ve sworn that he saw a dark figure lurking in the darkness surrounding your apartment. He muttered a series of curses made a run for it.

///

Your thoughts were interrupted when you thought you heard footsteps coming from outside your house. You were jolted awake and started going into panic. Your heart pounded so much that you can hear it ringing through your ears. You forced yourself to not mind the sound and convinced yourself that you’re just imagining it.

You felt your heart drop as you heard the front door opening and swung slowly. You can definitely hear footsteps just right outside your door. That’s impossible. You locked every single entrance that night. Mind is getting a bit hazy at this point from hyperventilating. Despite this, you grabbed anything that you can get your hands on and decided to face the intruder head on.

You opened your bedroom door just started wielding the thing you are holding at whoever it is that’s outside. You heard a loud thud at the ground and a guy squirming in place.

“Oh shit.”

You quickly realized who it is and threw the blunt object away, now realizing that it’s a tripod. You kneeled down right in front of him and started panicking again. This time, it’s for a whole other reason.

“Oh my god, Taeyong. Are you okay?”

---

#nct au #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct 127 #nct u x reader #nct taeyong #nct fic #lee taeyong #taeyong imagines #taeyong scenarios #rockstar au #journalist au #yuta nakamoto #johnny suh #mark lee #kim doyoung #nctcreations

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evabellasworld · 4 years ago

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Death of Mandalore

Chapter 17

AO3 Link | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

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Summary: After murdering Chancellor Palpatine of the Galactic Republic, Vanya Doyvesky joined leagues with both Death Watch and Darth Maul, hoping to reclaim her Mandalorian warrior heritage. But with broken promises and betrayal against Death Watch and Maul’s crime syndicate, the former Mandalorian Jedi had to choose the right path not only for her but for Clan Doyvesky as well.

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Pouring a cup of lemon balm tea from a porcelain teapot, Katrina carried a tray of cups as she entered her office, with Vanya sitting in front of her desk. “I got tea if you want some,” she offered to her older sister, placing the tray beside her. “Good for your anxiety.”

“Thank you,” Vanya replied, as she took a sip of her warm drink and sighed. “Where’s Maria?”

“She’s late, as usual,” Katrina told her. “Apparently, the Jedi punched her in the nose when he was trying to get the Duchess out of prison.”

She answered with a nod, continuing to indulge in her citrusy tea. Staring outside the window, Vanya gazed at Sundari, where the streets were surrounded with Death Watch commandos, and not a single citizen dared to wander in the streets. “So, what happened to the nightlife here?”

“Almec set the curfew from six in the morning till seven in the evening,” explained Katrina, as she sat down and faced her. “Breaking curfews would result in either an arrest or getting shot on sight.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It is what it is, unfortunately,” she rolled her eyes. “And as much as I have power in the administration as well, I don’t have much of a say in the decision-making.”

“But you’re his aide,” Vanya pointed out. “Surely you have the right to defy and compromise for the sake of the people.”

Katrina shook her head, her arms crossed. “The decisions for Mandalore were based on the administration's votes. If two-thirds voted yes, then I cannot do anything to stop it from happening. It is unconstitutional for me to interfere with the passing of the bill.”

“Well, Almec’s administration is corrupted and vile, so we cannot trust them to run the government, let alone decides what’s best for the people out there.”

Her lips tightened as she rubbed between her temples. “You know, now I finally understand why Satine wanted a peaceful Mandalore in the first place. Though her government is flawed when it comes to military, security, and culture, at least she puts her people first. Almec and Maul, on the other hand, doesn’t give two flying kites about them.”

“You know, what you’re saying is true,” admitted Vanya, her shoulder slumped. “Vizsla was bad enough, with violence and all, but Maul, he and Almec are the worst leaders of Mandalore. I was wrong about the latter. If we were all at home with Mama and Papa instead, none of this would have happened.”

“Vanya, please don’t say that,” Katrina held her hands together. “You did everything you could to preserve our clan’s honour. If anything, it was Maul who manipulated you into thinking that joining his side is the right thing to do.”

“No, Katrina, it was my fault,” she confessed, as she put down her cup on top of a small saucer, clearing her throat. “Because of me, we were part of the problem in Mandalore. Because of me, Satine was killed right in front of her lover and because of me, he cut off our friendship that we’ve built together since we were seven. So don’t you dare tell me that I did nothing wrong, because we both know the sins that I have committed towards my best friend, the Duchess, and my own people as well.”

Blinking back her tears, Katrina bobbed her head as she got up from her desk and wrapped her arms around her sister. “I’m so sorry, Vanya. I just want to go home, that’s all.”

“It’s alright, Kat’ika,” she spoke in a hushed tone, stroking her hair. “I miss Mama and Papa too.”

“I hate it here. I don’t like being cooped in this palace so much, especially when we can’t even fucking leave in the first place.”

“I don’t like it here either. I thought it was nice living in the palace, but now it feels like I’m trapped in a bird cage, waiting to spread our wings in the sky.”

Katrina nodded as she let go of her, brushing her cheeks with her handkerchief. “It’s not the same anymore. Back then, Maria and I could go outside and play in the streets. We would fly kites in the air, we could chase each other, and we even played marbles with the neighbour’s kid. Now, I don’t even see kids playing outside anymore and I feel terrible for restricting their childhood wonders.”

“Yeah?” Vanya’s lips curved a bit upwards, leaning against the chair. “Before I left, there was a girl that I was friends with at the playground. We would always be picking flowers and chasing butterflies while asking each other questions, like why is the tree so tall, and why do bees like honey so much, you know? We didn’t think much in the past, but now I wish I never took those moments for granted.”

“That sounds like something I would re-experience again,” she smiled tenderly, sitting beside her. “So what about those moments with Obi-Wan? Did you have a similar experience with him as well?”

Her smile disappeared as she took a deep breath. “It was my first day at Jedi training,” she recounted her bittersweet memories. “It was my first time being away from home, and I was nervous to meet my new classmates and my new mentor. I introduced myself in front of everyone, but before I could take a seat, I slipped and fell on my face. Everybody in class was laughing at me, all except for Obi-Wan, who helped me up and led me to my seat beside him.”

“Later when we were on a break, I was sitting underneath the cherry blossom tree all alone, watching the other kids play together. But then, Obi-Wan sat beside me and asked me whether I was okay. At that time, I answered yes since I didn’t want to be a downer but then, he noticed my frown and asked me again, and I finally told him that I miss my family so much.”

Vanya paused, before continuing her story. “Although he doesn’t know what it was like being away from family, he told me that my family loves me very much and that he gave me his pinkie and promised me that we would both have each other’s back, no matter what happens.”

“What did he promise you?” Katrina asked.

“I promise to stay, I promise to never lie to you, I promise to listen to you, I promise to never stab you in the back, and I promise I’ll always be the friend you need,” she uttered every single word that Obi-Wan had said to her that day. “But instead of fulfilling those promises, I did the opposite, and I hate myself for hurting him.”

Katrina’s eyebrows dropped as she watched her sister crying, covering her face with remorse. “Well, it’s not too late to repent and turn over a new leaf,” she advised.

“But it’s too late to repair my friendship with him,” wept Vanya. “I betrayed him and broke his heart, like a cruel person I am.”

“It’s no use crying over spilt milk. Besides, if we stay here any longer, we will never get to see Mama and Papa again.”

“But how are we going to explain everything to them? They’re never going to forgive us for letting Vasilia get killed in front of us.”

“Vanya, that’s not true,” Katrina puts her hand over her shoulder. “I’ve known Mama and Papa. They will mourn for her, like we all did in our cell, but they won’t blame us for her death. Believe me, they will understand what we’ve been through for the past few days.”

Vanya jutted out her lips, picturing their parent’s cordial face in front of her, their arms spread out. “You’re right,” she let out a sniffle. “We should head home. It’s what Vasilia wanted for us, instead of avenging her death.”

Smiling at her, Katrina was about to open her mouth when Maria burst in, panting. “Goodness me, what took you so long?” she raised her voice.

“Sorry about that, I was busy with shit,” Maria gave an excuse. “Anyways, what were you guys talking about?”

“Pack your things,” Vanya stood up. “We’re leaving this place.”

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yakumtsaki · 5 years ago

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I taste just like ice cream, bitch I am so icy, heart cold like an ice queen, that's why they don't like me 🎵

-What the hell was that.

Traditionally I start Union updates with semi-relevant song lyrics.

-Why did you start an update at all.

Because it’s time, Shajar! I took a holy oath in my 2020 simming goals post to update Unions once a month, and I’m already a month late.

-But nothing interesting is happening.

That’s never stopped me before. Now listen to Rico Nasty, cry some more about Sophie blowing you off, and shut up.

-Ugh please, I couldn’t be more over Sonia if I tried. I hardly ever texted her links to wedding pinterest boards and quizzes to determine if our parenting styles are compatible.

Did she ever reply?

-She did once and said ‘who dis’. Of course the letters unscrambled spell out ‘do wish’, meaning she did wish me to keep messaging her. I just don’t know where it all went wrong.

-Hey there, 17 year old girl, maybe you’ve had enough neat whiskey for the night? We’re actually running out of bottles.

-Beat it, ponytail, I need to dull my pain. I’ve just been stabbed right in the gut by the love of my life. Just like my style idol and general role model, space opera fascist Kylo Ren.

Shaj I really hate seeing you like this, and not just because the red neon light is super unflattering on your complexion.

-You can fuck right off too, I was perfectly happy with my dads who hate me and my imbecile sister and my brother who might as well not exist, noogie-ing people all day AND night long, but you had to be all ‘OMG IT’S SOPHIE MIGUEL SHAJAR GO TALK TO HER’. Life-ruining-moron.

But I was totally right about you two hitting it off, I mean look how sad you are now that she dumped- yea never mind, that’s not a good argument.

-Look what I can do even though I’ve had 46 whiskeys!! How you like me now, Sophie???

-You’re paying for all these broken glasses, I’m going to need your name and a credit card.

-Yes, fair enough, my name is Cyneswith Union-

-I LOOK GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT

Yea, you really should eat something to soak up all the alcohol. And not to kick you when you’re down, but you should also disregard all those cliches about ~a smile being the most beautiful thing you can wear~ because MAN. Watch out Joaquin, there’s a new Joker on the prowl.

-So.. 20 lobsters thermidor and our most expensive appetizers?

-Aha.

-Would you mind settling your bill now?

-Of course not! My name is Cyneswith Union and this is the credit card my parents got me when I was 6 because we’re super duper best friends! I love my parents! They don’t care about their other daughter at all, even when their other daughter is going through a really hard time because she got the emotional equivalent of a lightsaber wound in the gut. You know what, let me also get 20 bottles of your most overpriced champagne to go with the lobsters.

Feeling better?

-Well it’s hard to feel bad when you’re spending your parents’ money recklessly and with malice aforethought.

It sure is. Alright well, the sun is coming up, maybe we should head home.

-What’s the rush? What is going to happen if I don’t go home, my parents will get worried? LOL

God your life sucks. Ok let’s hit a couple more places.

-Greetings. Welcome to our establishment. I am a human employee from this planet.

Great, nice to meet you.

-I just want there to be no doubt that I am indeed an earthling, born and raised under the earth’s exosphere and not above it.

Leave us alone.

-And I’m the resident community lot sim with that one face template you hate! There must be one of us on every lot you visit!

-And I am here in my revealing outfit to use the dance sphere and make everyone uncomfortable!

You’re actually pretty, I need to keep you in mind for after Don Oates takes a wrecking ball to our genetics, but yea, let’s bounce, Shajar.

Time to visit the happiest place on earth, Deh'Javu Modern Art Museum, home to my favorite piece of art in any medium, The Toilet of Fire. Shove that Fountain up your ass, Duchamp. How we feeling, Shaj?

-This trash can reminds of Sophie :( She used to go around town throwing money she stole from charities in trash cans and then send them riddles for where to find them :(

Enough with Sophie, we’ll find you someone better! Like..

..your aunt! Get the hell out of here Brit Brit, you’re taking up townie space.

-I won’t be long, Gunther’s amazing close-up portrait of my hair was rejected by the museum so I’m here to set this shithole on fire.

In other words Gunther just painted a canvas black and called it a day?

-His art doesn’t cater to plebs. Yes, offense.

Our old friend Ugly Teen Townie is here so finally we can have some fun. Shajar had gone almost 12 hours(!) without noogieing someone and I was starting to worry for her health.

-Yes, yes, I’m starting to feel like myself again..

Good for you, Shaj!

-Hope you’ve made peace with your God, Ugly Teen Townie, this water balloon is filled with horse feces!

-WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET HORSE SHIT

-I ordered it from some guy named Leod McGreggor.

-How about a another joke, MuRRAY?

-What?!

-Now you say, ‘no, I think we’ve had enough of your jokes’. Say it!

-No, I think we’ve had enough of your jokes.

-What do you get when you cross a mentally-ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? Now you say ‘call the police, Gene!’

-Call the police, Gene!

-I'll tell you what you get..

-YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE. HAHA oh man! Good stuff.

Alright I’m starting to feel bad for Ugly Teen Townie, first he had to come to all the toddler birthday parties during the Victoria/Komei era and now this, he has suffered enough at this family’s hands. Time to go home, Shaj.

-Not so fast!

Wow, the Countess and Mrs. Crumplebottom on the same lot, top 10 anime crossovers.

-I have been sent here by the Limp Dick Vamps United organization to recruit Shajar Union.

Ugh you people are still around? Haven’t heard of you losers since the Count wouldn’t let Victoria bang him, which I’m still annoyed about.

-Indeed we are, and it’s clear Shajar is ready to join us, dedicating her life to evil deeds without romantic distractions. I have no idea what Crumplebottom is doing here.

-I’m here to recruit Shajar to my own organization, Bitter Sims Worldwide Alliance. We’re always on the lookout for new members who want to spread their misery to their fellow Sim.

It sounds like it’d be more effective if you guys just merged your organizations.

-I will NEVER merge my organization with someone who displays her bosom like a common whore.

-Eat a dick, Crumplebottom!

-MAKE ME, FANGTOOTH

-Alright here I am, what the fuck do you want?

-Shajar, it is a pleasure to meet you! Ardent admirer of your work.

-What work, freakshow?

-Torturing everyone around you, what else!

-What? I don’t torture people around me, if anything they torture me.

-Why don’t you talk to me about it?

-I’d rather not, you look like a bejeweled snowman.

-Look deep into my eyes, Shajar..

-And now look deep into my razor sharp teeth..

-Ugh fine, let’s talk.

-Is that Victoria and Komei’s teen granddaughter hanging out with a vampire?

Yes it is Kennedy, keep it moving.

-God, wtf is wrong with this family.

Nothing now that you’ve been removed from our social circle, go away! Just kidding, you’re an icon and I’m marrying you in at some point.

-Hard pass.

Your loss, hombre.

-It definitely isn’t.

-If I had known your turn on was vampires I would had set you two up!

STOP SETTING UP TEENS WITH ADULTS, LAKSHMI. And Shajar’s turn ons isn’t vampires, it’s fitness/fatness. Body positive queen.

-Well, Shajar, you alphabetically listing all the people who have wronged you while I was trying to kill Crumplebottom telepathically has made for a very productive conversation. We’ll be in touch.

-Thanks, Countess, it’s been real.

Shajar!!! Who cares about Sophie when you might bag a hot, rich vamp??

-Meh.

I’m gonna need you to be more excited about this prospect because a vampire spouse might just be enough of a draw to beat the comedic factor of fucking Don Oates turning us into an unintentional uglacy and I’m doing whatever I can to avoid my fate.

Ugh.

UGH

UGHHHHHHH

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO VICTORIA

-GET FUCKED, BROKEN FACED WEIRDO

God I miss you Vic 💔

-Donnie-bear, not to be not-nice, but mopping your pee off my front lawn is not exactly what I pictured doing during this date.

This guy won’t even mop up his own piss, what a catch.

Wow, manipulative much?? You are a piss piece of work, Donaldo.

-Don’t think we forgot about you, you 10-nice-point disgrace!

-VICTOR NO

-GET THAT MOP READY

-Finally, some peace and quiet.. Just me, alone with my broken heart, pondering my hopeless, loveless future..

-💗💗💗OMG SIS THERE YOU ARE. DONNIE AND I MADE OUT!!! 💗💗💗 But then grandma’s ghost scared him into soiling himself.

-Good for grandma, hopefully next time she gives him a stroke. Now shut up and let’s eat in silence while I ponder my hopeless, loveless future.

-Okie dokie! 💗💗💗

-Um, I think mine has vomit in it.

-Yea I did that, but it’s just whiskey and lobster, if anything it increased in value.

-Awww thanks sis! 💗💗💗

-Stop patronizing me, you little bitch. God I want to poke your eye out with this chopstick so badly.

-I love you too Shaj! 💗💗💗

And I hate both of you. Where’s your brother, I haven’t paid attention to him in 3 days.

-He went upstairs, I think he’s pusshurt we forgot his birthday LOL

IT’S HIS BIRTHDAY????

-Don’t feel bad, I forgot it too! 💗💗💗

GODDAMMIT. WULF! WULF WHERE ARE YOU

-I’m here, I just grew up and dare I say it could not have gone better!

Really?? Finally some good news! Let me look upon you-

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

WULF WHAT THE FUCK

-I was Mozart musical genius boy but now I’m a sk8ter boi! Character development!

Ok this is the most iconic birthday look since Gunther grew up in the pirate costume, we’re obviously keeping it.

-Great! And as if the fact I’m a Wyatt face template with 0 Jojo genes wasn’t enough to make me unelectable, I also rolled family! :D I’m doing everything I can to ensure I live that sweet motherlode spare life!

Honestly you should had picked another outfit cause now that you’re dressed like this I unironically want you to win. Hoisted with your own petard.

#gen 2

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5sosbitchfest · 5 years ago

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Alrighty, Nonsters. We currently have 290 Asks in our box! As much as we might try, I know there is NO WAY we’re going to be able to get through all of them. Everything exploded this weekend when MessyGate went down! I don’t want to ignore any asks just because I already answered a similar one. So, I’ve tried to gather as many similar Asks as possible to let your your voices be heard. Y’all are definitely NOT alone in your feelings. Get ready for a lot of opinions on Messy’s Twitter Drama.

Also, if you sent in an Ask and we haven’t answered it yet, please feel free to resubmit it! I do try to scroll through all of them but it is a daunting task and personal stuff and work make it difficult for me to get through everything in a timely manner!

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Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’m really disappointed in Luke and this band in general, the way they deal with things. “honest policy” with messy? So he knew all of this and it was okay? Or he confronted her on this and he is okay with what she has done? I’m not sure this whole thing would be a deal breaker for me, but it certainly would make me real mad at my SO and some whiny excuses wouldn’t be enough to make things alright. Radio silence would’ve been much better than that story he posted, made himself look like a fool.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls will sooner or later become their downfall if their management or them does not realise they should rely on other things than bringing relationship up front to sell their music. I find it extremely bad that they are behaving as if nothing happened, I hope there will be changes once touring will be possible again and we won’t see these girls tagging along everywhere or being brought up in interviews all the time but somehow I’m not counting too much on that.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder if Luke knows everything that Messy got exposed for or just the parts Messy wanted to show him. Bc Luke said in his Story that he wasn't online lately so maybe he wasn't on Twitter too and Messy just showed him the parts that make her look good and he still doesn't know that she spoke bad about Ashton or how she stalked the fans also after she knew that they didn't hack his email adress cause he wasn't on Twitter so he couldn't see the screenshots.🤷‍♀️

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm just waiting for the day one of them date someone who isn't a part of their circle. tired of them passing around the same toxic girls.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls are just digging a whole for these guys and they want be able to get out of it soon

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: It was a chicken move for Sierra to do it as a reply and no one has talked on twitter that she deleted it because they probably think her deleting it is saying it wasn’t true

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Am I the only one who thinks that guys really only heavily interact with us when they want to promote something or say something about the music? I do understand they have lives so being on Twitter isn't number one priority and with all the drama that surrounds this fandom its very easy to not want to be online a lot, I just can't help but feel that way

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm talking about this messy situation (no pun intended) with my friend and she said to me that Messy should consider changing her career if she can't handle that not all people are going to like her. (that ofc doesn't include any form of harassment bc that's not cool)

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I really don't know how to feel about the Luke situation. At first I was upset and disappointed of Luke but now I almost pity him bc real or not either the management would want Luke to defend her or Messy. And I think Luke isn't the kind of person who would stand up against the management or Messy (even though it would probably be better for him if he would). And most people don't realise when they're in a toxic relationship so I can't really blame him. I just hope this ends asap.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I literally was so angry and frustrated with Luke and this whole situation yesterday that I couldn’t even look at him on my home screen, I had to change it. It’s really a disappointing thing to witness. Whether management put him up to this or he genuinely believes this toxicity is okay, I’m just very grumpy with him at the moment. He deserves better and WE (the fans) deserve better.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I think Luke really needs to be in a relationship with sb who either isn't famous and doesn't want to be or with someone who is famous bc they have a successful career too and who doesn't need Like to be famous.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’ve only seen a few accounts on Twitter who are attacking Messy and Crusty to the core and exposing every bad thing they’ve done with receipts for the sossies defending them! I’m happy that karma is finally getting to those con artist who think they can get away with anything

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: that recent lierra picture is photoshoped lmao. if you look at Sierra's hand you can see color coming off from it and her arm looks hella weird.her forehead looks hella weird and look couldn't have taken the picture because I doubt that he could stretch his arm that far and make a perfect picture. also we haven't even seen Sierra's face so I still don't believe they're together

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The Lemon pic was like a punch in the face (even though Petunia and Luke are looking cute there). But I've been asking myself lately if Luke has seen the whole drama going around on Twitter or just the posts Messy wanted him to know so the ones who make her look like the victim (and not the ones where she insulted Ashton or she made it clear that she stalked his fans). Cause Luke said he hasn't been online lately.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I mean we dont know how much of the story he truly is aware of and how much s changed to fit her narrative and get L to feel bad for her. Plus he was under pressure from management to do damage control and not standing up for his gf is a very bad look for outsiders who dont understand why she's at fault. It was a pretty neutral statement and he was obviously told to make the post so I dont blame him and just blame her more for putting him in the situation in the 1st place

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder how much toxicity happens behind the scenes, we know S is very manipulative and L is very much a people pleaser so.. and with how much they have to sell their "love" and "happiness" in the relationship. Minipulation is a powerful thing and it could explain why hes out of touch with reality, especially lately since he's isolated with her and doesnt have the voices of the band to raise any concerns and he's been getting skinny again and seems very "meh" rather than happy, idk

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel so disconnected with this fandom rn. I feel like no one is streaming CALM and that makes me sad bc it's such an amazing album. The boys aren't even online anymore, everyone is mad at each other and now Luke comes up with this shit... tbh I wish I would wake up tomorrow and see him tweeting something like yeah I'm sorry about my ig story I still love y'all lmao

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Wait wait wait wait ive been gone from the fandom for a little while now and what the fuck is going on with Luke and S? What did S do that she made a fake ass apology for?? I’m so lost please help me! 😂

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm seeing a lot of my mutuals unstanning and I'm just so mad bc Sierra started this drama and got Luke into it and I'm sad that people are leaving bc of this, it's just too much toxicity and it shouldn't affect the band and their connection with the fans but with Luke saying this he makes it seem like he supports the ugly things she does

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I am a Luke stan and I've always loved him bc he has inspired me so much through the years but when he does this things it's like...damn. I feel like he's invalidating the fans' feelings by being like "if you don't like my girlfriend, ur fake" like he has never noticed me on Twitter or anything but my biggest fear is to be blocked by him or just ignored bc I don't like her (although I never expressed it publicly) n yeah anyways :// It feels weird

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Going back and re-reading the DM’s messy literally confirms that she accesses Luke’s account by saying “we couldn’t get in” or some shit like that

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I hate being a luke stan, sometimes it just seems like he doesn't care? he always puts these toxic gfs before the ones who adore him and pay his bills. might just move into Cashton's lane. unproblematic kings.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: He literally posted a picture of him cuddling her and petunia within the hour

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The saddest part of this situation is it’s like a repeat of Arzaylea. Luke has no idea what a respectful, mature relationship is. We saw it with Arz and were seeing it again it’s just a little bit different. He stays being controlled and manipulated by toxic partners. I really think homeboy needs to be single for a WHILE and focus on himself. He needs to unlearn the things his past and current relationships have taught him about love because if I know anything, it’s that this ain’t real love.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Is it bad that I just want the larzaylea drama back?? Like everyone could at least agree on their feelings then...

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Just checked messy’s insta and of course, everyone that still supports her filled her tagged with just the single picture

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel like the reason Sierra is getting away with what she’s done is because she isn’t that known. Like yeah she’s associated with 5sos, but they’re also like not that big which is probably why it’s getting swept under the rug. I’ve only seen the 5SOS fandom calling her out for her actions. If this had happened with a well known celebrity, they probably would’ve been dragged and been trending on Twitter. I might be wrong but I feel like this is what’s happening which is just unfair.

#kirby #luke #lemon #messy #messygate #messy's twitter drama

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mutsu-province · 5 years ago

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Wager

Title: Wager Fandom: Samurai Love Ballad: Party/Tenka Touitsu Koi no Ran: Love Ballad Pairing: Date Masamune x MC Rating: PG-13 Era: Modern Day Word Count (MS Word): 3,959

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才子佳人　（さいしかじん） [saishikajin]

(n) well-matched pair

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"You should totally meet my cousin."

Anyone who heard such a statement would have been puzzled as to why one had to mention one’s relative who was not present at that very moment, but given that her situation had been rather odd as well, she should not have been surprised.

It was stupid, really, on how it all began.

After living in the Ancient Capital her whole life, the moment the opportunity presented itself for her to be able to study in the East Capital, she seized it and never looked back. Sure, she got a bit homesick at times, but more importantly, she had her freedom.

It was not known to all that she was from an old samurai clan, and a conservative one at that.

Which meant that everything she did was scrutinized, from the way she dressed to where she studied. As such, she went to one of the few 'Super Science High Schools' in the country from elementary until high school, and her family, albeit reluctantly to allow her to pursue higher education, expected her to go to the equally elite Kyoto University, if only to keep an eye on her.

Instead, she opted to enroll at the University of Tokyo, specifically, to a course that she had been interested in ever since she could read a book: the Liberal Arts, with her specialization being Japanese history. Ironic, as she had been subjected to math and science most of her life, only for her to pursue a degree in the arts.

Not that her family had been against it, but they were rather disappointed that she was going to university when she could have simply gone through a marriage meeting in order to get married soon after her high school graduation.

The last thing she wanted was to become a pawn to her family, which was why she opted to be as physically distant from them as she could possibly achieve. It was by pure luck that she managed to get a scholarship for the famed TouDai, and with her situated in Tokyo, that meant less meddling.

Sure, it made year-end family gatherings a little bit awkward, but it was on them, not her. She had no desire to follow their wishes; she did so once, just to please them, but it made her miserable in the end.

Never again would she allow herself to be manipulated.

Pushing aside any thought of her estranged family, she asked, "... Excuse me?"

The other person grinned before chuckling. "Oh, sorry about that. Just that… you remind me of my cousin. He's pretty knowledgeable about history too, and would probably appreciate seeing the famed Red Gate with his own eyes."

"I… see." she decided not to tell the stranger that the ancestors of her childhood friend had a connection to this Red Gate [1], lest it invited more talk. It wasn’t everyday that some stranger came up to you to discuss about Japanese history, and no matter how much she wanted to stop and chat, it simply wasn’t done upon the first encounter. "Well then, if you'll excuse me…"

"Sorry for the sudden outburst though." The man scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "You a junior?"

She nodded tentatively, which made the man grin. "Nice, I'm a junior too. Komaba Campus, yeah? Guess I'll see you around."

She found herself nodding again before turning away, heading back to the station.

"Itou Narumi!"

She stopped in her tracks and looked back at the man, who was now grinning widely at her. “I’m Itou Narumi.” he repeated. “Nice to meet you.”

Despite her hesitation, she found herself smiling a bit. "Tamura Aki. Nice to meet you."

----------

While their initial meeting had been rather unusual, she quickly became friends with Narumi. It turned out that happy-go-lucky man was such a people-person that he had made friends with everyone in their year in no time, though curiously, he somehow chose to spend most of his time with her whenever possible. Of course, that brought about rumors regarding their relationship being more than friends, but he had been quick to tell her that she was, in his opinion, better off with his cousin.

As to who that cousin was, she had no clue, other than said cousin did not reside in Tokyo, and was a year older than both of them. When she pressed her classmate for more details about this cousin of his, all he did was smirk.

“In due time, my friend. In due time.” the words sounded ominous, but to her, it was simply typical of master showman Itou Narumi to keep people in suspense.

Which was why she was now in a Shinkansen bound for Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture as soon as her summer break started; her original plan was to attend the Sendai Tanabata, held yearly during the 6th until the 8th of August, but somehow, somehow, Narumi had managed to convince her to make changes to her plan and, instead, head over to Sendai a few days before the start of the festival. She protested over the lack of funds; the cost of a Shinkansen ticket was no joke, nor were the hotel prices. A yearly event like Sendai Tanabata surely meant that the cost of the lodging would skyrocket, but her friend told her that she did not have to worry too much about her lodging. Rather, she could stay over at his family’s place in Sendai, which she had declined initially until he pestered her to simply accept her blessings. In the end, she reluctantly accepted the offer, though making a mental note to simply go back to Tokyo just in case the arrangements did not fall through and took a turn for the worst.

“Oh, and if you didn’t know, the place’s actually very near Zuihoden; you can be there as soon as it opens at 9.”

And that was how she fell for the scheme, hook, line, and sinker.

While most of the people she knew had known about her interest in history, what they were not aware of was that she was one of them, namely, a rekijo.

Calling her a ‘female history buff’ was still too kind; rather, she was obsessed with simply one man who made his mark in history.

While she did not go to the extremes of living, speaking, and breathing anything related to pre-Edo period, the way she was obsessed with learning and reading about her favorite warlord was another story. Every new book and magazine that featured him, without fail, she would buy it and read it, even if the information on said book had been something that she already knew. After all, she knew she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she overlooked anything related to him.

As to who her favorite warrior was, it was the One-Eyed Dragon of the North, Date Mutsu no Kami Masamune, the man who founded the city she was to visit.

Upon admitting this tidbit to her new friend and explaining why she was going to all three days of Sendai Tanabata, a smile that she could only describe as ‘scheming’ made its way to Narumi’s face before saying, “... I see. Well then, your Sendai trip should be interesting, yeah? Why not stay longer? I’m sure my cousin wouldn’t mind entertaining you.”

If it was only possible to cancel the trip, but the history buff in her was screaming at her not to, and to even take this as an opportunity to have the best Tanabata experience possible. She was never one to join festivals, especially since it was always humid in the summer. Besides that, she always had a part-time job lined up for a few weeks during summer vacation as she had bills to pay and money to save up. It took her two long years to save up for this trip, and she would rather not let the moment pass her by.

… That, and it would be totally embarrassing if she cancelled out on her friend, who had actually managed to convince his cousin to tour them around Sendai and the spots around the prefecture. Narumi, it turned out, had gotten the same cousin to agree to house her for the duration of her stay, and for free. When she asked why she had to stay at a total stranger’s place instead of his family home, it was then he told her that while he had been born in Miyagi Prefecture, he and his family moved to Hokkaido and settled at Date City. [2]

To her own embarrassment and shame, she then couldn’t help but quiz him about the city he grew up in, as it was related to the Date clan. Thankfully, her friend was more than happy to tell her about the history of the place.

“Honestly, you’re the only one I know who actually wanted to hear about where I grew up. Mention ‘Hokkaido’, and everyone just assumes that you’re from Sapporo.”

She shrugged. “I’ve read about Date City and didn’t want to assume, so I thought it would be better to ask you directly instead of making my own conclusions.”

He nodded solemnly. “You’re awesome as always, Acchan!”

While, at first, she was not very fond of the nickname, she realized that Narumi-kun didn’t call her by that to make fun of her. Growing up, a majority of people made fun of her and her name, mockingly calling her ‘Megohime’ whenever she starts blabbering about Sengoku Period history related to her favorite warlord or when they find out the characters to her name.

“No wonder you’re so fond of that warlord; you’ve even named yourself after his wife! Just how obsessed are you, really?” [3]

For the most part, people assumed that her name was her alias when, in fact, it was her real name. Narumi, to her own surprise, asked her how her name was read, even after seeing the way she wrote it.

Now that she thought about it, Narumi was truly a nice guy; at first, it seemed really suspicious as to why he would go out of his way to be so nice to her, even if they became friends recently.

Then again, he's always been like that to everyone.

Quickly relieving herself of distracting thoughts, she began to reread the list of places she would like to visit while she was in Tohoku. Now was her chance to truly visit the place she had always dreamed of; the very region her favorite warlord had ruled… just thinking about it was enough to make her want to scream in happiness.

She reached her destination a little before noon, and immediately after exiting the Shinkansen, the university student took a photo of the sign that indicated the station name, trying her best not to either burst into tears or simply scream.

She still could hardly believe the fact that she was finally here.

In Sendai.

“Don’t you start breaking down on me here.”

She hardly had any time to gasp as soon as she realized that Itou Narumi was now walking towards her, and had went out of his way to pay the platform ticket [4] just to see her.

“Why are you even here?!” she could barely keep her surprise down.

“Been messaging you for ten minutes. Guess you were too giddy to reply back? We’re not even at the castle ruins yet!” upon hearing his teasing, her face flamed, knowing that he spoke the truth.

Unable to counter what he had said, she proceeded to hit him on the arm, prompting him to yelp in surprise and in shock.

“... Come on, let’s just go okay. I bet your cousin’s waiting for us.” with that, she began walking towards the exit, eager to begin her exploration of the region.

With her back turned, she missed the calculating smirk on her friend’s face.

“Yes, he’s so looking forward to meeting you.”

----------

If only publicly throttling and assaulting his cousin wasn’t a crime, he would have done so as soon as Shigezane made it out of the ticket gates.

Despite being younger by a year old, his now soon-to-be disowned cousin was such a sleaze that he could not believe he got outsmarted by this… this… schemer.

Date Masamune being uncomfortable with women was the biggest understatement of the year within his family, and the fact that there was a woman trailing behind Shigezane was the biggest indicator that this happened to be the very person he had to take care of during her entire stay in Sendai.

Inwardly, he cringed, irritated at the fact that he assumed that the ‘buddy’ Shigezane mentioned over at LINE was male. While he wanted to blame the other man for the situation he was currently in, Masamune knew that the burden fell to him to confirm all the details. He had been so busy lately that it was highly likely that he overlooked the messages. That, or Shigezane seemed to have been intentionally been vague and rather pushy that he had no other choice but to agree just to get him to stop spamming their LINE chat.

Typical of Shigezane to use his so-called “persuasion skills” to force the other person to simply give in.

Resisting the urge to roll both of his eyes, he sized up the person who was to be his house guest for the next few days.

Surprisingly, up close, she was a rather small thing, the top of her head barely reaching his cousin’s chin. While he was no fashion expert, even from his good left eye, he noticed that her hairstyle reminded him of how women from the Heian Period, who kept it very long, but the hair on the sides of her cheeks were cut short.

… Not that she had a face similar to the Heian Period women depicted on those scrolls.

She looked… well, she was definitely a looker in that blue-green summer dress and short-sleeved cardigan, if he had to admit it. With eyes the color of ruby and her burgundy locks cascading just above the middle of her back, Shigezane’s… whoever she was, she was guaranteed to catch a man’s attention, himself included, even though he was no good in dealing with her kind.

She had seemed rather soft-spoken when she bowed at Kojuro after Shigezane did the introductions. To his surprise, she seemed to refer to his cousin by a different name, one that he couldn't quite catch.

Before he could ponder on it further, Shigezane interrupted his thoughts.

“Masa! Sorry for the wait! My buddy’s here now!” it was hard to miss the cheeky grin on his cousin’s face. “She spent her time on the platform taking photos of the ‘Sendai Station’ signboard like a tourist!”

He also did not miss the glare she aimed at her cousin, who was either oblivious or was simply ignoring her anger.

Inwardly, he shook his head and sighed, knowing that since he had to honor his promise, he might as well steel himself for the upcoming chaos.

“I’m Masamune.” he said, bowing at the girl.

Curiously, her face lit up. “ ‘Masamune’? Is your name written the same way as — ”

For some reason, he felt annoyed upon hearing where her query was going. While he was aware that there were many ways to write the name, still, hearing it from her was enough to stir something in him other than indifference.

“Yes, I write my name the same way as the Date Masamune.” [5] he said curtly, not wanting to explain further.

Like his more famous ancestor before him, he was named thus, which he thought was not a bad thing… though it got annoying when even his right eye had somehow tried to imitate the first lord of the Sendai Domain. While the issue with his eye was not due to smallpox, he felt uncomfortable about it, which was why he chose to cover his affected eye with part of his hair and, at times, a medical eyepatch.

To his surprise, a smile made its way to her face. “That is such a cool name. Nice to meet you, I’m Aki.”

He ignored the way his chest warmed upon seeing her smile. “Let’s head out before we run out of parking space at the museum.” Masamune found himself saying before turning around to head for the parking lot.

“Museum? Seriously? Her first time in Sendai, and you’re thinking of bringing her to the museum?” came Shigezane’s unfiltered commentary. “That’s boring and you know it!”

“Got any better ideas?” Kojuro asked curtly, sounding rather exasperated that the carefully planned schedule was being challenged by the very person who asked for a favor.

“I don’t mind going to the museum.” Aki said, seemingly sensing the tension in the air. “I think it’d be great to learn more about Sendai! I mean, we are off to Sendai City Museum [6], right?”

“We are.” Kojuro confirmed. “I trust that you don’t object to that, Tamura-san?”

“Of course not.” he heard her say in affirmation. “I’d love to see the history of this city! Anything goes, really!”

Despite his misgivings about this woman, he found himself admiring her, if only just a little. They’ve only met, after all, and who knows what kind of woman she really was underneath all the politeness. His own mother had been loving and kind until she found out about the condition of his right eye; despite modern-day explanations that there was nothing wrong with it, she clung to old-fashioned beliefs that he had been cursed by their ancestors.

… Now’s not the time to think about that.

He needed a change of pace and a change of scenery; he was on his final year in the university, and had been pushing himself too hard. Upon the advice of Kojuro, he decided to actively join the festivities for this year’s Tanabata. As heir of the Date clan, he had been tasked by his father to tour a group of tourists from overseas around Zuihoden, his famous namesake’s mausoleum complex [7]; while he was uncomfortable with public speaking, he knew he had to overcome this. Someday, he would be giving out lectures about his family to the general public, and the sooner he became more comfortable with his clan duties, the better.

“Are you all done talking? Let’s get moving.” upon looking back to see if everyone was following suit, he noticed that she was carrying her backpack and pulling along her rather large-sized suitcase. Upon seeing the sight, he found himself frowning.

Walking over to her, he said, “Give me that.”

“I’m fine—” just when she was about to protest, he cut her off and grabbed the trolley handle of her suitcase. “Uhhh…”

“Forgive my cousin for forgetting that he is supposed to be a gentleman and should be carrying your stuff for you.” Masamune then directed a glare at his cousin, who at least looked a bit less smug after getting called out for his mistake. “Your backpack, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m good.” she said, shaking her head. “I can carry this at least.”

“Very well. Let’s stop wasting time here.” pulling her roller suitcase behind him, he began to head for the rooftop parking.

----------

Shigezane found himself smirking as soon as his cousin’s back was turned. Beside him, Kojuro was frozen on the spot, unable to process what he had just seen.

Not that he could blame him; Katakura Kojuro served as Masamune’s guardian and mentor since childhood, and knew very well that Masamune could not abide women. And yet, the heir to their clan had been cordial, polite even, and to a woman he had only met for the first time. There was still some awkwardness to the way Masa conducted himself towards Acchan, but that was a start at least.

“... Is this what you meant when you said you’d be going home for the summer holidays?” Kojuro asked in a soft voice as both of them followed the two from a distance. “I was surprised to hear that you wanted to visit Sendai in summer, when we all know that you’d rather go back to Hokkaido and escape the summer heat in Tokyo.”

Instead of denying it, Shigezane figured that he might as well spill the beans to the older man. After all, his plan of setting up his cousin and his new friend wouldn’t go as planned if Kojuro kept trailing after Masamune like a mother hen.

“You’d never believe me on this, but Tamura Aki is the perfect girl for Masa!”

As expected, Kojuro sighed in exasperation. “... Are you serious?”

It was his turn to sigh in exasperation. “Why wouldn’t I be serious about this?”

“You manipulated her into going here just to meet Masamune-sama?!” Kojuro asked, irritation evident in his voice. “That is low, even for you.”

It was his turn to get angry at the accusation. “Excuse me, but Acchan wanted to attend the Sendai Tanabata; all I did was steer her to Masa’s direction. Wouldn’t it be great if they get along?!”

“This is highly inappropriate—”

“Oh please, Kojuro, we both know that deep within your heart, you want him settled with a good woman and take care of his babies in the future like a doting grandma.” for the second time that day, he ignored the glare aimed at him, though he grinned widely at the embarrassed flush that made its way to the man’s cheeks. “Just your luck, she’s perfect for him.”

When even his childhood guardian did not look convinced, he added, “She doesn’t know anything about the clan, nor our families.”

“You both are from TouDai, are you not? How does she not know?”

“I never told her; I go by ‘Itou Narumi’ [8] in school, and she doesn’t suspect that we’re related to the Date clan of the old Sendai Domain.”

At this, Kojuro simply shook his head, as if to give up trying to process whatever it was that he was saying; which meant that, for now, it was his victory.

“So please, could you not get in their way, at least, until she and I leave for Tokyo?”

Shigezane knew that Kojuro was torn; it was a gamble, as it was not known at this point if his ward and a strange woman would actually get along. Not to mention, the possibility of her being a gold digger and hurting Masamune was something that the member of the Katakura clan was mulling upon.

Shigezane directed a prayer to his ancestors to, for once, enlighten the old man and allow him to let go of his overprotectiveness towards Masamune, albeit temporarily.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that Masamune wasn’t as fragile as he thought he was, until Kojuro beat him to it.

“... I will humor you just this once, and will allow your friend to be close to Masamune-sama during her stay here. However, one suspicious move from her, and I send her back to Tokyo, along with you.” Kojuro leveled his gaze at him, and for once, Date Shigezane felt as if he was a toddler again, as the look in the older man’s eyes felt eerily similar to his childhood days whenever he was scolded for getting into trouble.

Still, if the gamble paid off…

“Don’t you worry, old man, you’ll like her.” ignoring the eye twitch in the other man’s eye upon hearing the word ‘old man’, Shigezane grinned. “In no time at all, Masa’s gonna fall in love with her, and you’ll have babies to take care of!”

“... You’d better be right about this, or I’ll never forgive myself.”

----------

Notes:

[1] Red Gate - called the 'Akamon'. Tokyo University's main Hongo campus used to be the residence of the Maeda clan in Edo (Tokyo).

[2] Date City - located in Hokkaido. Members of the Date-Watari clan (Shigezane's descendants) moved to Hokkaido during the Meiji period. There is a museum in Date city that displays Date Shigezane's armor.

[3] “No wonder you’re so fond of that warlord; you’ve even named yourself after his wife! Just how obsessed are you, really?” - Date Masamune’s legal wife’s name is Megohime (愛姫).

[4] Platform ticket - when you want to see someone off at the train station and want to go past the ticket gates, you'll need a platform ticket to go in.

[5] Date Masamune’s name - It’s written as 政宗. There are actually eleven ways to write the name ‘Masamune’ in different kanji.

[6] Sendai City Museum - as the name implies, it's a museum within the city of Sendai that tells the history of the city. At times, the museum displays rare items related to Date Masamune or to the Date clan.

[7] Zuihoden - mausoleum complex where Date Masamune is buried.

[8] Itou Narumi - Date Shigezane’s name (伊達成実) can also be read as such, as shown in the game’s event story.

----------

Welp, I started writing for Date Masamune too.

First fanfic for him, and I was bold enough to even try a modern-day AU setting; I guess this is what happens when you keep on visiting Sendai and doing fanfic research while you’re there...? I love Sendai a lot though, which is why I keep coming back whenever I get a chance to do so.

I’ve set Masamune’s MC’s name to be Tamura Aki (田村愛姫), with the kanji for her first name being similar to Megohime’s, though only read differently. I chose the family name ‘Tamura’, as Tamura was the clan that Megohime belonged to before marrying Date Masamune.

Hope you all enjoyed the first chapter!

#slbp fanfic #slbp fanfiction #slbp masamune #date masamune x mc #koiran #koiran lb #現代シリーズ

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virmillion · 6 years ago

Text

Love is a Four Letter Word

Summary: Everyone has magic, and it’s really nothing special at all. Just another skill, sort of like a sixth sense. Roman is not particularly fond of his brand of magic, and sets off to find Thomas—the one person rumored to not have any magic at all.

Ships: platonic logince (more like acquaintances tbh)

Words: 12,758

Warnings: implied major character death, Less Than Happy backstories, some bullying, unhappy ending, let me know if there’s anything else needing tagging

Check it out on ao3!

Roman shoulders his bag up higher, nodding a farewell to everybody in one swift motion without directly acknowledging any of them. He glances over the crumpled piece of paper one last time, reassuring himself that he knows what he’s doing. Past the end of the line is a man free of magic by the name of Thomas. Sticking the page back in his pocket, Roman triple-checks that he has more than enough money for a train ride that long. At the very least, it should be enough to get him well past the reach of anyone in this city.

Everybody falls over themselves to bid him farewell as he makes the trek down to the train station, trying to offer absent smiles to anyone drawing near enough to see his expression. Their words all sound the same after an incredibly short while, all impersonal pleas for him to stay, to help.

“Roman, please hang around, I need your magic to lock down my boyfriend!”

“Roman, can you use some of that energy to bring up the positivity for after you’re gone?”

“Roman, would you bloom this flower early so I can impress my wife?”

“Roman, I need you to funnel me some confidence for my interview tomorrow!”

It only becomes more obvious with every plea that chases him further from the center of town that these people only kept him around to boost their own spirits—always at the expense of his own happiness, but no one ever asks about that. Not when they can get manufactured love for free. Sure, it saps Roman’s energy to use his magic, but doing so is the only way he can feel wanted anymore, and isn’t that enough to justify exhausting his supply for these people? No, he doesn’t know their names, their faces, their histories, but at least they keep him around.

Roman has been waiting for weeks to board a train heading in this direction, all the way to the end of the line. He passes the engineer a fistful of bills, requesting to ride the train as far as it’ll go. The engineer nods him on, seemingly unsurprised by the destination. “Passenger cars are that way. Bit of a bumpy ride near the end, though.”

“Where would we be without some good old ominous foreshadowing?” Roman mutters to himself, slipping through the cars and tamping down the bubbles of joy trying to stir in his stomach. He’s already wearing an oversized turtleneck to hide his face, so there’s certainly no need to broadcast his reputation as the resident magicker of love to the whole train.

None of the cars he sees are empty, but the third to last one is about as close as he suspects he’ll get. Just one passenger, who’s busy fiddling with a pile of shiny silver shards in his lap. They share a brief nod, acknowledging each other’s presence the way only two complete strangers can, after which Roman allows the neck of his shirt to slip just a little lower down his chin. The guy doesn’t seem like the type to jump up and fawn over Roman for a little extra cheer boosting his day, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Roman has seen many a person desperate for his help simply for the sake of an easier day, completely ignoring how much it saps his own energy. Hopefully this trip will solve all of that.

Roman continues on to the third to last seat—three is his lucky number—and exhales as quietly as he can manage, resting his head against the glass and watching the incessant crowds waving from the station. He doesn’t recognize a single person among them.

It’s pretty obvious that they’re searching for a sign of him through the tinted glass, hoping to siphon off just a little more love before he goes, and Roman wonders whether his resolve will hold out long enough to avoid that. He almost wants to leap through the window and into their adoring arms, to feel them welcome him back home, even if he knows it will help absolutely anyone except himself. Better not to, given what happened the last time he gave too much. Roman is terrified of ever giving too much again. He feels himself on the verge of breaking this time, and he might’ve just let himself give in, were it not for the train engine rumbling to life and knocking his head against the window.

Roman allows himself a soft, agitated ow under his breath, wincing as he presses his palm to his skull. By the time the pain wears off, the station is shakily bouncing off into the distance. He doesn’t allow himself to watch as it disappears.

The steady rocking of the train drags him into a fitful sleep, promising no rest behind his closed eyelids. His dreams are messy, just distant flashes of memories, of things he should’ve done, should’ve said, things he wishes he hadn’t and the letter R swirling in in dizzying circles around his head, hammering his brain like so many wasps forced through a long winter with minimal warmth and food. Amidst his short bouts of wakefulness, he tries to ignore the pounding headache on the rise, instead watching the rolling hills of lively green give way to dirt and mud, then to hundreds of thousands of barren tree stumps, all melting together in a mix of nothingness that envelopes his dreams in a cushion of hollow green love.

When he wakes, Roman shouts the name ricocheting inside his head, then immediately claps a hand over his mouth. He holds it firmly in place with the other, then glances at a beanpole of a man hovering to his left.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine,” beanpole interrupts. The guy that was messing with the silver stuff when Roman first boarded. Beanpole jerks his chin toward the window, then offers a hand to Roman. “Train’s down. Everybody off.”

Roman absently takes his hand, looking back at the window. Depot town. Not the most clever name, to be sure, but he’s got nothing against this place. Well, one thing, but it’s not a big thing. Well, it’s a pretty big thing. Well, it’s actually the only thing Roman can hold against a place, but it’s fine. He’s fine. It’s the worst possible place this train could have broken down, but it’s fine and he’s fine and everything’s fine, so stop asking.

“Name’s Logan,” beanpole continues, leading Roman to the front of the train. “Guess you slept through the announcement, since you took so long to hear me asking you to get up. They hit some problem in the engine or something, and they’re enlisting anyone that can offer specialized magic to fix it.”

“That’s, um, I don’t think I can help you there. My name’s Roman, by the way.”

“Pleasure. I wasn’t asking for your help, merely informing you of the situation. At which stop were you intending to depart?”

“I don’t know its name, but whatever the last one is.”

Logan stops at the last step leading out of the train, turning around to squint at Roman’s face—well, as best he can, what with the turtleneck in the way. “End of the line guy, hm?”

“Something like that.” Roman shuffles off the train behind Logan, glancing around the town. Well, the area just before the town—they pretty much broke down right outside civilization, not to mention that the designated train station is well near the opposite end of the town. Certainly not ideal. “Did they say what was wrong with the train?”

“Just that it’s down. Something with the machinery. I’ll figure it out.”

“Why you?”

Logan whips his head around—sharper this time, almost indignant. “Why not me? Why anyone else but me?”

Roman pulls his lips between his teeth and looks away, his face flushing bright red under the scrutiny of such an imposing figure. “Never mind.”

Logan sighs and pulls off his glasses—there’s an odd green glint along the lens, something Roman hadn’t noticed before. He watches Logan hold them aloft with one hand, lifting his other as if to present them to an enraptured audience. With a simple flick of his fingers, the glasses wobble themselves into the air, hovering a few inches above Logan’s open palm.

As the glasses levitate on their own, listing just a touch to the right, Logan whirls his hands around them, pinching and pulling as if he were trying to knot a length of string without overlapping the loops. Slowly but surely, the sleek frames stretch and pull at each other, separating into hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny pieces sparking with bright blues and fiery purples. The sparks flicker off, and Roman flinches away from one on instinct—even showy magic can scar.

There’s a soft pop, like someone blowing a sharp puff of air into a closed pair of hands, and the glasses click back together, almost identical to when Logan began his little charade. The only thing is that now, well, they look ever so slightly different. The green of the lenses is much more prominent, almost a pastel tone that nearly blocks out Logan’s eyes when he replaces them on his face.

“Neat party trick,” Roman says finally, uncertain how to react to Logan’s flat manner of demonstrating his magic. Most people only tend to use their magic when they need it or when they’re hassling Roman for favors, not to impress some stranger beside a broken down train.

“It’s not a party trick,” Logan says, rolling his eyes. “I manipulate any technology I’ve taken the time to sit down and understand, which includes those that I’ve built.” He adjusts his glasses, as if it wasn’t obvious enough that that’s what he was talking about. “What I just did, crossing these wires, fusing those pins, what you so callously called a party trick? I switched around the core function. I can now effectively see any major malfunction that may not be immediately apparent to untrained eyes.”

Roman instinctively crosses his arms over his body, not wanting to know what major malfunctions might lie under his thin cotton shirt.

“Not like that, that’s a different setting. This is more for inorganic creations, like the train engine.” Logan gestures to his left, surprising Roman with how quickly they’d arrived at the front. “Remember what I was saying about specialized magic?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m the specialized magic. Thanks for the entertainment. It shouldn’t be long before the train is up and running again, though I wouldn’t hang too close by. Don’t want any techno flares flying off at the wrong moment.” Logan flashes a grin as he holds up a finger, letting a burst of sparks shower from the tip like fireworks. Roman takes the hint, quickly backing up to join the small group huddled a decent distance from the tracks. Not too many people staying on this far down the line.

He watches as Logan kneels beside the engineer at the base of the train, the pair quietly mumbling to each other as Logan waves his slender fingers around a large sheet of metal. In a flash, it smoothly glides off and hovers in the air over Logan’s head, easily poised to slice through skin at a moment’s notice. Logan doesn’t seem to care. He only leans in further, picking at some of the pieces inside the train, none of which Roman can see through Logan’s body. Quickly bored with watching Logan’s relatively still back, Roman glances around at the other stranded passengers.

A few talk amongst themselves, debating whether it’d be worth it to just walk the rest of the way to town and grab a drink while they wait for the specialized magickers to do their thing. Others lean forward over an invisible barrier, desperate to see what kinds of tricks the magickers can pull off with such a large and detailed engine, but clearly hesitant to get too close. There’s a lone mother standing off to the side, desperation in her eyes as she tries to maintain her composure while soothing her wailing baby. A few of the passengers that were discussing getting drinks shoot her nasty looks, but these, of course, do nothing to silence the distressed child.

“You told yourself you wouldn’t do this anymore,” Roman mumbles under his breath, more of a soft chastising than a reminder of a promise destined to be broken the moment it was made. He focuses in on the sound of the mother’s soft voice, amplifying it in his head until her hushed tones, her reassuring coos, her indescribable love flows like a serene river through a spring of endless flowers in his mind, growing and expanding and opening the world into the hope and joy and life that supports the love flowing through it all.

Roman takes this energy, feels it course around his heart, doing cheerful little loop-de-loops and excited hops that lift the corners of his lips, and he sighs softly, picturing his breath floating on the breeze, buffeted by the whispered gossip of the cherry blossom petals dancing across the landscape. He imagines his breath taking life, a pure wave of bright blue that almost blends in with the picturesque sky above, drifting over the heads of the grumbling passengers, teasing at the ends of the mother’s hair and lifting the tips as if there were fairies playing hide and seek on her shoulders. The mother’s voice takes on a new strength, bolstered by a laugh with no source as she bounces the baby and smiles in relief at its face, watching those rosy cheeks puff up with a big breath as the baby inhales the delightful air and releases a bright, burbling laugh, an elated giggles that echoes back into the wind, returning Roman’s joy to the air and spreading a thin layer over the world with the rebound of its happiness.

Roman smiles to himself, feeling the muted sparks of magic intertwine with the spirits of the passengers, all of whom seem to exhale just a little bit in tandem with the baby, suddenly filled with an inexplicable and untraceable sense of rightness. Something in their lifted attitudes allows Roman to forget just how much energy that one sapped out of him.

He glances back to the engine, where he can almost see Logan’s stiff posture relaxing as a display like an explosion of colors shoots out from his hands, whipping his hair up into a quiff for just a moment before it settles back into its usual stern state. Logan sits back on his haunches and cocks his head to the side, pointing at something as he speaks lowly with the engineer.

Specialized magic, indeed.

“Ahem, your, ah, your attention please, esteemed passengers!” the engineer calls, rising to all his four foot eleven glory. Roman turns to face him along with everyone else. “We have gotten the train back, ah, back in working order, it seems, but we want to, erm, we are going to run a quick diagnostic check to ensure the problem will not, eh, reappear.” Roman is pretty sure he catches Logan rolling his eyes at that, but the tint of his green lenses makes it too hard to be certain. “It will probably take us, erm, at least a couple of hours, so I suggest you all, ah, head over to Depot town and see all the attractions they have to offer and enjoy!” This is met with far fewer grumbles than might be expected, and Roman tries not to preen at the knowledge that his magic played some part in that. “I hear they have, eh, an excellent selection of pubs!”

Roman gnaws at the inside of his cheek, watching most of the passengers turn toward the town. One of them lags behind to walk beside the mother, and they both share a hearty laugh when the baby does whatever baby thing it is that they find so funny. He looks to the engineer, who is profusely shaking Logan’s hand, while Logan looks just a little bit bewildered as he adjusts his glasses.

Once Logan finally frees himself from the engineer’s grip, he ambles over to Roman, who busies himself looking anywhere but at those green glasses. “Y’know,” Logan says, removing the frames and scrubbing at them with the underside of his shirt, “I am pretty good at what I do. I’ve fixed many a mechanical issue, simply by applying my knowledge regarding the technology at work behind the problem. What I do not understand is how a train engine, the exact model of which I have never personally seen before, suddenly put itself back into working order with me only needing to lift three fingers in the process.” Logan cocks his head to the side and peers at Roman, a strangely personal expression without the glasses to deflect his gaze. “It usually takes at least five.”

“Magic’s funny that way,” Roman says with an uncomfortable laugh.

Logan lingers on Roman’s face a moment longer, just beyond what could be called reasonable, before he straightens and looks toward the town. “I suppose it is. Let me buy you a drink, and we’ll discuss what else is so funny about magic.” Roman swallows thickly and nods, watching Logan take a few steps toward the town as he begins whirling his fingers around his glasses again. It’s not until Logan gets a solid fifteen feet away that Roman realizes he’s supposed to walk with him, and he trips over himself to catch up.

“You ever been to Depot town before?” Logan asks, holding his glasses over his head and squinting through the lens at the sun.

“Once or twice,” Roman says. Try a hundred times.

“Interesting.” Logan puts his glasses back on and turns to Roman, quirking his mouth to the side. “I don’t know if you could tell based on the mechanical manipulations, but I’ve just reworked the lenses to allow me to see when someone isn’t being entirely honest with me.”

“Oh, is that—I, um—okay, I did come here a lot with my family when I was little,” Roman admits.

“That so?” Logan chuckles softly and shakes his head. “Well, if I may be so candid in return—” He drops his voice to a whisper, forcing Roman to strain to hear it. “These aren’t truth-seeing lenses. I just know when someone’s a bad liar.”

“I am a great liar!” Roman protests.

“That so?” Roman is quickly getting tired of this refrain. He wonders how many more times he’ll have to hear it. “I suppose you’ll have to show me around town, then. I certainly don’t know which pub is the best.”

“Definitely not that one.” Roman waves a hand toward the bar nearest to the front entrance of the small town, where all the other passengers are flooding in like a line of ants. “They put it up to attract tourists like us, but the good stuff is way in the back, like a little secret for the locals.”

“Makes sense.”

With that, they weave their way through the town, careful not to trip over outcroppings of metal gears and wooden planks lining the dirt paths. Roman points out certain buildings as they pass them, returning excited waves from people who know him well enough not to question why he’s here without his family in tow.

“So over there’s the mill—they bring all the best raw wood in there, and the top magickers get their pick of the lot, since they’re usually sworn to funnel about ten percent of the work it brings them back into the town’s funds. Hey, Sigma, how goes it?” Roman nods to someone sitting in front of one of the only shops in town, lazily floating a steady stream of water from one pot to another. They wave back at Roman, the distraction big enough to shatter the rainbow of water over their head, the flow crashing down and soaking their hair.

“Stop doing that!” they shout, shaking their head and sending droplets flying.

“How else will you learn to focus?” Roman retorts with a laugh. The water charmer makes a motion like a conductor cutting off an orchestra, easily drawing all of the water into one big ball just beside their ear. A wicked grin crawls onto their face.

“Run,” Roman says softly, nudging Logan’s shoulder. As that smile grows, he says it more insistently, picking up the pace and urging Logan to “run, technerd, run!”

Logan complies easily, his long legs allowing him to keep up with Roman as they sprint away, dodging the drops of water that come hurtling for their heads.

“Sigma,” Roman huffs, “has never been,” huff, “one for,” huff, “practical jokes,” huff huff huff.

“It might help if you didn’t trick them into drenching themselves,” Logan points out, not struggling for his own breath in the slightest.

“Did I ask you?”

“You didn’t not ask me.”

“Well, I’m not un-didn’t asking you now.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

Roman forces his feet to slow down as they approach a pathetic looking building near the outer limits of the town, where there’s hardly anything but homes and patches of dirt with a little more life than the other patches of dirt. He leans hard into the front door, ramming his shoulder into it a few solid times before it flies open and he goes sprawling across the floor.

“I believe I’m about two pages ahead of you now,” Logan says, bending down to offer him a hand. He helps Roman to his feet, and Roman can’t help but wonder whether that will be a recurring theme with this guy.

“Roman!” an angry voice yells from behind the bar. “I thought I told you to stay away!”

“Hey-ho-de-low, Jackie,” Roman says smoothly—well, as smoothly as anyone can say something so ridiculous. “What if I said I brought a peace offering? A technerd to fix that juke of yours?”

A sturdy little lady who just about tops out at Roman’s chin rounds the corner, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “I didn’t ask for no techie guy in my shop, either. Where’d you hide your family this time, huh? Where’s that boy y’had on your arm? Where’re the fancy stories and lies about why you didn’t bring your brother back around?”

“Your juke has been broken for ages,” Roman says, neatly dodging the other questions. “Let me let you let him fix it.”

“I never agreed to any such thing,” Logan sighs, but he grins at Jackie anyway. She returns the smile—an odd move, in Roman’s opinion. She never smiles at people she hasn’t met before. Although, despite her temper, Jackie always was a charmer. Maybe she just doesn’t like Roman. Of course, that’s an absurd theory, but it’s the only one he’s been able to come up with. Maybe Roman just isn’t that smart.

He moves for his usual seat in the corner, pressed up against the window with one wobbly stool and one wicker chair. He goes for the stool. To the sound of Logan and Jackie discussing the jukebox’s latest malfunction, Roman spins the stool round and round, until it won’t turn any way but right, and rests his chin on the windowsill.

Right out there, in the middle of that large ring of messy tire tracks dug artlessly into the mud, he allows his thoughts to wallow in their own emptiness, swirling up eddies of the forgotten carelessness of childhood hidden in the green grasses, the whole mess struggling to grow against the world of dirt trying to choke them out.

Roman sprinted across the open field, baring his teeth to the wind and imagining someone was using the sun as a camera to capture his every movement. He let out a whoop over his shoulder and yelled, “I’m eating bugs!”

“No you aren’t!” a voice behind him whined. “Stop eating the bugs!”

“I’m gonna eat all the bugs!” Roman insisted. Quick as a whip, he hit the dirt and dragged his hands through it, smearing the colors over his teeth. He spun around and grinned, feeling the mud squelch under his knees. “Look at all these yummy bugs!”

“You’re so gross,” Remy informed him, tripping over his feet as he stumbled to a stop beside Roman. “You didn’t even eat them, liar!”

“Did so!”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

“Did not! I can still see them all up on your teeth!”

“Nuh-uh!” Roman didn’t even flinch as he ran his tongue over his lips, wiping off the mug and flashing his not-very-pearly whites. “See? Ate ’em all! Told you so!”

“Guh-ross!” Remy shouted, planting his hands on Roman’s shoulders. He shoved him backwards, cackling as his brother’s back made a spectacular splashing sound as it collided with the mud.

“You’re gross,” Roman retorted, burrowing his short fingernails in the dirt. Before Remy could dodge it, Roman tossed up the chunks of earth, laughing without a care in the world as they splattered across Remy’s face. “Told you so! Told you so!”

“Boys!” a sharp voice yelled from the building at the far side of the mud ring. Roman and Remy both froze, taking in each other’s filthy faces.

“Bet she yells at you,” Roman muttered, getting to his feet without bothering to dust off his pants. No use trying to hide it now, anyway.

“Bet she doesn’t,” Remy said in a stunning imitation of Roman’s voice. “Older siblings always take the blame.”

“Not if I’m really good at crying.”

“Not if I cry first!”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Remy only grinned, putting on a burst of speed as he ran for his mother. Roman shook his head and laughed, sprinting to catch up, and if he stuck out a leg to trip his brother on the way and take the lead, well, the past is the past, what’re you gonna do about it?

“—his peace, he doesn’t get much of it,” a familiar voice says, floating over the cotton candy skies and ripping Roman out of his sugar-sweet memories. He blinks and shakes his head, trying to ignore how much the green has faded from the grass outside.

“Sorry, what?” He looks up at Jackie and Logan, the latter of whom is staring at him with confusion. Not nearly as bad as the former, whose eyes betray naught but pity. “I’m fine.”

“Didn’t ask, but I guess I’m glad to hear it,” Logan says, settling himself on the wicker chair.

“Drinks for you boys?” Jackie asks. Roman hates the way she softens the edge of her voice when she looks at him. She never used to put on that tone when he still brought Remy around. Granted, it’s kind of his fault that can’t happen anymore—by which he means it’s entirely his fault, which means it’s also his fault that she’s taking that tone, but that doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it, does it?

Roman’s lips feel chapped. “Just a couple waters would be—”

“Your hardest ciders, please,” Logan interrupts. He waves off Roman’s protests, continuing, “I’m buying, remember? No worries.”

Roman nods, forcing his eyes not to stray toward the window. There’s a reason he hasn’t been back here in years. “Thanks.”

“Now, do you think you might want to tell me what your deal is with this place?”

“Not really.” Roman briefly considers pulling on some of the upbeat music pouring from the jukebox, wrapping it around Logan’s head and forcing some semblance of tranquility into his mind, but no, bad idea. It was a mistake to cheer up that baby earlier, a taste of what he knows he can’t have. He swore off of messing with emotions a long time ago, back when there was nothing he could do to keep himself in check. No more.

“Think this might help loosen your nerves a little,” Logan says, pushing a mug of cider across the table. Roman hadn’t even noticed Jackie setting it down. He takes a tentative sip, all too aware of the way the other patrons along the bar are very pointedly not looking at him. Having a reputation to precede you isn’t always a good thing.

“Fine, I’ll go first,” Logan says. He takes a long swig from his own drink before plunking it down on the table, ignoring how some of the foam splashes out onto the wood. Roman traces his eyes along the grain of the surface, remembering when his dad let him sit in on the magicking process of converting a useless tree stump into functional furniture. That always was his signature move, wasn’t it? Magicking life into things that were long dead. Well, most things. Even his dad wasn’t one to magic life into things that never had any business being alive in the first place.

“The town where I live—well, used to live—was incredibly strict about when and how we could use magic.” Logan stares into his mug, and Roman has to wonder whether he hears the words leaving his mouth. “They didn’t like that I could disassemble things at will and put them back together according to my tastes, thought I might get carried away and start taking apart people.”

“That doesn’t—”

“Make sense? Sure it does. Remember how I said I can manipulate any technology I take the time to sit down and understand? If you think about it, people are just a different kind of technology, and I was studying to be a surgeon, and, well, one suspicion led to another, and that obviously made some people uncomfortable, so I left. And I left again. And I left again, and again, and every single town I went to was exactly like the last, all nice and welcoming until it came out that I could do more than just basic reparations on junky radios.” Logan furrows his brows, glaring harder at the ripples in his mug. “Well, huh. Didn’t mean to say that last part.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I can manipulate any technology I understand.”

“Right, that’s how you—”

“Fixed the train and did my studies, yes, but more than that. I can do that to almost anything, even intangible things, if given the right parameters.” Logan clenches his fist, and Roman almost thinks he sees the frames on his face flicker like a flame. “I don’t like talking about it, but you’ve obviously got some stuff blocking your system, and since you clearly helped me out with the train—no matter how much you try to deny it—I’d be willing to return the favor, but only if you’ll consent to it.”

Roman tries to laugh off the notion that he had anything to do with the train, but Logan isn’t buying it. “Don’t kid yourself, obviously that train didn’t just fix the engine on its own. We’ve been over this. You don’t have to tell me what your magic is or anything like that, I get it if you’re one of those ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ types, but have you ever turned on a garden hose to full blast and stepped on the line about halfway down?”

“I—er, yeah, why?”

“That’s you. You’ve got some personal nonsense blocking the main flow in your system, and if you don’t release it soon, it’ll explode on its own, and it’ll do a lot more damage than if you let it leak out slowly right now.” Logan leans in with an earnest look on his face, much more sincere than anything Roman had come to expect from him so far. “I’m trying to help you here, Roman. You need to release it now, or you will regret it later.”

Roman takes a long pull from his mug, wishing he was talking to the mother and baby from the train rather than this oddly perceptive stranger. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Logan blows out a large breath, puffing up his cheeks and looking past Roman at the ring of mud outside. “I can take apart your psychology, physically and metaphorically speaking. You’re holding something in, and you need to let it out.”

“I don’t need to do anything of the sort,” Roman snaps, watching the liquid slosh around in his mug. “Nor do I appreciate your trying to say as much.”

“I merely wanted to make the offer,” Logan relents, raising his hands in surrender. “You are free to refuse my services, if it so please you, in which case I will make no further advances.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” Roman mutters, looking up as the main doors swing open. Great. Just who he wanted to see.

“Heard the old love magicker rolled into town!” a gruff voice jeers. Sigma peers out from behind a man who has to be almost seven feet tall and two hundred stone. They mouth an apology to Roman, who just stares blankly back.

“Just get lost, Trev, would you?” he sighs, pointedly not making eye contact as the pair crosses the room in a few long strides to leer down at him.

“Aw, that don’t sound like much fun, does it, Sigma?” Sigma stays silent, only looking closely at Roman’s mug. He glances down to see the ripples taking the vague shapes of letters—probably some half-hearted apology—so he lifts the cup and turns it over, letting the contents splatter onto the floor.

“Hey!” Jackie yells, but she doesn’t sound too upset—at least, not upset enough to do something about it. She merely hangs back and watches the scene unfold. After all, no one’s ever helped before, so why should she lift a finger now?

“Hear you skipped town to keep your magicky love a secret,” Trevor continues, slamming his hands down on the table. “Little boy got too popular with his little love spells, came crying home to Mom and Dad—or, wait, you can’t do that, can you? Don’t got no one to cry to anymore, do you?”

“Shut up, Trev,” Roman whispers, hoping the agitation in his voice will mask the way his words wobble like dictionaries balanced on cooked noodles.

“Wittle baby gonna cwy to the pawents he don’t have!” Trevor whines in a shrill voice. Roman rests his hand on his cheek, all too aware of Logan’s stiff silence across from him. What good is having a silent observer around if they won’t do anything?

“That’s not your information to share,” Roman mutters, wishing Sigma would defend him and knowing full well they won’t.

“Well, somebody’s gotta tell our newcomer here about your deal, don’t they? Guess it falls to me, since you don’t wanna go clarifying it yourself. Forgive me if I decide to embellish some of the details, you know how I am with the dramatics.”

“Shut up,” Roman says again, wishing his voice were stronger than it is.

“Roman,” Logan says. Yes, very helpful addition, thank you for your groundbreaking contributions to this conversation. “Roman,” he repeats, more insistent this time. Roman glances across the table to see Logan removing his glasses, waving his hands in that familiar way again.

“Oh, the glasses are off now! Wittle Roman got a wittle techno dork to help him?” Trevor cackles, folding his impossibly oversized arms and giving Logan a once over. Seriously, his biceps are like sausages on steroids. “Just stay out of this, kid. It’s for your own good. Nothing worthwhile ever comes out of hanging around this guy, y’got that?”

“I don’t know that I’d say nothing,” Logan replies coolly, swirling his fingers faster now. Roman watches, not sure whether to be horrified or amazed as the frames split apart into tiny spears, their tips sharp enough to pierce metal. The flurry of miniature blades organizes itself into a sheet of steel, poised directly in front of Trevor’s face. Logan slows down his fingers, keeping the pieces in a careful rotation mere inches from Trevor’s eyes.

“Woah, okay, let’s just take it easy here,” Trevor says nervously and, as Roman is happy to note, with some degree of fear in his voice.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Logan says with a sickeningly sweet smile. “I’m simply demonstrating my magic for my friend here, while maintaining a casual discussion with a fellow patron of this fine establishment. Trev, was it?”

“I, uh, I didn’t—”

“Neither did I, but here we are.” Logan jerks his head to the side, hard enough that Roman is genuinely concerned he might snap his neck, and the needles rearrange into the silhouette of an arrow that rises to Trevor’s forehead. Something in Roman’s gut twists at the achingly familiar sight. “Anything else you’d like to share with the group, or should you like to be excused?”

Trevor makes a sound similar to that of a kicked puppy before bolting for the door, leaving Sigma shaking beside the table. One pointed glance from Logan, and they’re gone.

“Wh—you didn’t—I mean, I would’ve—you could’ve—” Roman splutters, watching Logan calmly reassemble the shards into normal frames on his face.

“I did, you wouldn’t have, and neither would I,” Logan says. “Now, you are naturally under no obligation to explain what all that was about, but I would recommend filling me in, if it so pleases you. I do think I’ve earned it by now.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Roman admits. “No matter how much I want to. So there’s this guy—”

“Isn’t there always?”

Roman pouts. “There’s rumors of this guy, Thomas, who doesn’t have any magic.”

Logan seems taken aback by this, and Roman finds a considerable amount of satisfaction in having silenced him. “People have had magic for thousands of years, even in just trace amounts. Surely he’s got some semblance of it.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.” Roman shrugs, trying to decide how to proceed without bringing up the reason he even started looking for Thomas. “Anyway, he lives out near the end of the lines, of any train there is. I’ve never seen a station that reaches farther than this train’s last stop, and I want to find him.”

“Why?”

“I want to know what it’s like to be free of the magic.” Roman clenches his fist against his thigh, feeling the mud rings outside burning a hole in his back. “I want to know if he can pass it on.”

“You want to take his inability to do magic? Sounds kind of antithetical, no?”

“Well, yeah, but I just—I need to know if it’s true. I need to know if there’s an escape.”

“An escape from what?”

“From magic, from magickers, from all of it, I don’t know. I don’t want to deal with it anymore, with any of it. I just want to be done.”

“What kind of magic could you possibly have been stuck with that’s bad enough to hate it so much?”

“Hate? I don’t think it’s physically possible to hate my magic, actually.”

Logan twists his mouth to the side and considers Roman for a long moment. “Did it ever occur to you that this Thomas—whether or not he actually does exist—lives so far out of reach because he doesn’t want to be found?”

“It has crossed my mind,” Roman admits. “I just want to be done with my magic. I don’t want to mess up again.”

There’s another commotion from near the door—friendly faces, this time, but they sort of remind Roman of starving raccoons. They peer around the room before their eyes come to rest on Roman’s face, and from the way they almost seem to salivate at the sight of him, he knows exactly what they want. He wants no part of it.

“Roman, won’t you please fix my relationship—”

“Roman, my grandmother is sick, can you pull some sunshine—”

“Roman, I love your magic, is that enough to fuel me with—”

“Roman!”

“Roman, I love the idea of you—”

“Roman!”

“Roman, I haven’t seen your parents in a while, is it true that you—”

“Roman, where’s Remy these days, did you scare him off? I thought it was just a rumor that your love—”

“Roman!”

“Roman, what happens when you run out of—”

“Roman, can I have some of—”

“Roman, I love your—”

“Roman!”

Roman feels sick. He hides his head in his hands, propping his elbows on his knees and wishing his stomach would stop turning as their words bounce around his skull, Roman Roman Roman Remy Roman Remy Remy Roman Remy Roman messed everything up and everyone knows it and Remy knows it and it’s too late for Remy so it’s too late for you, Roman, what ever will you do with all the love you can’t have when no one will give you more?

“Right, that’s enough of that,” Logan says suddenly, swiping Roman’s wrists out from under him. He jolts up, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder as Logan yanks him to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Logan ushers Roman out the door, leaving some coins and bills on the counter for Jackie and ignoring the shocked looks from the other patrons of the bar, all of whom quickly trade their surprise for awe as they realize this really is that Roman, right there in front of them.

“Logan, I—”

“Don’t need to tell me anything that you don’t want to. Keep moving.”

Roman bites his lip, numbly leading the way back to the station, where the train is slowly pulling up to the appropriate departure area. All in working order, then. No more engine problems.

He moves to step on board, only hesitating when he no longer hears Logan’s feet behind him. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Nah,” Logan says, looking back at the station. “Jackie was telling me about a bunch of things that need reparations around here, and it’s a neat little town. Think I might hang around a while, try to fix it up for them. Maybe get to work on repairing some of these people’s attitudes, too.

“I—” Roman falters, uncertain what he could possibly say to Logan after all that just went down. “It’s love, I think.” Logan says nothing, doesn’t even nod for Roman to go on, but he does anyway. “I take different types of love and put them into different places and forms as it’s needed, and I did it wrong this one time, just one time, just one mistake, a big one, and, well—” Roman glances at the engineer, who impatiently waves for him to hurry up and get on board already. “I burned the only bridges that I had, and it was my fault, and I can’t take it back. That’s what all that was about, because Trevor and Sigma and Jackie and, well, everyone—they all got caught up in the fallout. Trevor’s the one holding the biggest grudge, I think, since he was such good friends with—um, well, y’know, with one of those bridges. I—”

“That will more than suffice,” Logan interrupts, gesturing for Roman to board the train. “You needn’t bare your soul to the first stranger that shows you any semblance of decency, you know.” With that, the door slips shut, barring Logan from having to see Roman’s confused expression.

Roman wanders down to the car he arrived on, collapsing on the third seat and wondering where all the sudden candor came from. Didn’t Trevor’s magic have something to do with compelling honesty? Although, Roman could’ve sworn Trevor condemned magickers after what happened last time things got out of control. Maybe he just had a special passion for condemning Roman, and that one mistake was the nail in the coffin that Roman built for himself.

He glances down at the cushion of the seat, shifting uncomfortably against an odd lump as he belatedly realizes that this was where Logan was sitting when he first boarded the train. He fumbles around with a blind hand beneath him, feeling for the source of the discomfort as the train sputters to life, sending him lurching forward. At the same moment as his head slams into the next seat, something dislodges from the cushion beneath him. His hands fumble through the air to catch it, carefully clasping around the figure and hugging it to his chest. Once his balance adjusts to the steady rocking of the train, he opens his hands and peers into them, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

A little 3D heart, vaguely pixelated with all the different pieces of metal and plastic lacing together to create its surface. Roman squints at the thing, turning it under the weak light of the train’s overheads, but there’s no note, no pull tab, no secret compartment, no nothing. Just a heart, and everything Roman is left to interpret from finding it. Did Logan know?

Maybe Roman’s reputation precedes him more than he realized.

----------

“End of the line,” a voice announces over the train speakers. Roman slowly rouses, blinking as his eyes come into focus on the little heart still clutched in his hands. He stuffs it in his pocket, careful not to tear the fabric on the sharper edges, and moves for the exit door. On his way, he tosses a flippant wave toward the ceiling, just in case there’s security cameras watching him go or something. A little politeness can go a long way.

He stumbles out into a cool, dark night, populated only by the densest of shadows. The sole clue that the train station is even designed to be used beyond as a set piece in a creepy picture is the dilapidated set of tracks that end just past the edge of the building, and even those on their own are a pretty flimsy sign. Once the train finishes looping around the track to reposition itself for the return to the inner cities, Roman plops himself down in the middle of the rails and lies on his back to stare at the sky.

As if the travel time weren’t a big enough hint that he’s farther from home than ever before, the stars above look completely different, almost unrecognizable compared to those rare nights in Depot town, much less back home.

Home. Roman turns the word over and over in his head, his thoughts dancing around that saying. How did it go again? Home is where the heart is?

Roman gives a hollow laugh in cheers to that, feeling the outline of the metal heart in his pocket. Hearts, as in love, which is something he never earned enough to make a home with. Foolish of him to try, really. A breathing mannequin in princely makeup, designed to give love, to spread hope and joy, but never to dare try receiving it. He’s not that kind of magicker, something of which he’s all too aware. Everybody seems to know that better than him.

He runs his hands over the dirt beneath him, feeling how solidly it molds around the cold metal tracks, and wonders whether Remy would appreciate the texture. Always did have a thing for mud and dirt, he did. Mom hated it to no end, which just made it that much funnier that Remy couldn’t go ten minutes without another smudge of brown across his cheek.

Roman allows himself to smile at that, trying to ignore the stirring in his chest at the memory of Remy’s toothy grin, how excited he was to show off the latest bruise or scratch to Roman, how his face would light up when Roman joined in on the fun.

All of it gone in an instant, because Roman was too selfish to acknowledge the part of it that Remy actually cared about. The part that everyone cares about, much more than they ever cared about the person behind it. Not that anyone asked. Not that anyone ever asks.

He rolls onto his side and curls up in a ball and waits for the night to pass.

“This you?” a voice demands. Roman blinks blearily, wondering how long he’d been asleep. Not very, if the stars shining proud overhead are any indication. Unless it’s the opposite, and he’s been asleep for days. It’s anybody’s guess, really. “Hey, wake up! This you?”

He reaches up toward the sound of someone shaking a paper in his face, rubbing at his eyes and trying to make out the contents of the page amidst the darkness. A wanted sign, with strikingly accurate details about his magic, his past, and a picture of his face that’s unnervingly spot on, but—

“Why did they make my forehead so big?” Roman whines, dropping the page and glancing around for whoever handed it to him. A hand snatches the paper back, and a pair of eyes appears inches away from his own.

“Look, I’m not exactly an artist magicker, but I did my best,” that same voice mutters from beneath the eyes. “Let’s just head over to the station, okay? You squinting like a bat in sunshine looks really stupid.”

“Your face looks really stupid,” Roman mutters, walking toward the station anyway. He’s been in weirder situations. Mostly because people get too much enjoyment from toeing the line with pestering him about his magic, but still.

“You don’t know how my face looks, but I can assure you it’s worlds better than yours.”

“I look amazing!” Roman’s protest echoes on the hollow breeze of the night, but the voice doesn’t return a snide remark this time. He continues on, seemingly alone, to the lamely flickering light at the station, half expecting someone to jump out and shout at him.

Beneath the sole light bulb, Roman waits for the owner of the voice to reappear and join him on the bench. No one shows up, so he starts talking to the stars instead. “How did you get that information about my magic, and about my family?”

“I think it’s pretty generous of you to call them your family,” the voice says from somewhere over his left shoulder. Roman turns to trace it, but the sound shifts to the shadows beneath his shoes. “You refusing to share information doesn’t mean no one else is allowed to know it. Especially if they know which shadows to shine a light on.”

“Doesn’t give you the right to go spreading it around with a crappy wanted poster.”

“Who said I made more than just the one copy?” The paper reappears in the shadows just past the reach of the station light, and accompanied by the sound of fingers snapping, it disintegrates. “I know what should and shouldn’t be shared. Give me some credit.”

“How am I supposed to do that if I can’t even see you?”

“Right, because seeing is believing. I always seem to forget that. Almost like it isn’t true.” Another snap, and those eyes materialize where the paper shattered. They stare at him like a feral cat, poised to attack. “Now have I earned your credit? Does your seeing me count as believing?”

“Pfft. Hardly.”

“How about now?” Another snap, and Roman finds himself on the edge of Depot town, watching everyone shutter their windows for the night, watching Jackie kick out the last few lingering drunks, watching Logan in deep conversation with Trevor as Sigma keeps a ball of water hovering over them.

“How did you do that?” Roman demands, whirling around with his fists raised.

“Right, because it’s so easy to fight a voice.” There’s an obvious tint of mockery this time, and Roman starts punching at the air. He feels ridiculous, but he doesn’t have it in him to care. “Hey now, no need to be so rude.” Another snap.

Back at the end of the line.

“How are you doing that?”

“You tell me. I’m just bending the shadows. You’re the one connected to the locations and the times.”

“I—what?”

Another snap. Back to Depot town, but it’s different than before. It’s daytime, for one thing, but artificially so. The moon still hangs among the stars, but they wear torn veils of sunshine and clouds, the rips in the fabric shining a spotlight on the mud ring, Roman follows the lines of pure white to the center and walks closer, not entirely certain why.

“No fair!” Remy’s voice echoes across the field. The boy stumbles over his feet, rushing to catch up to another silhouette while trying to hold up the cardboard box around his waist. The crude scribbles along the side try to make it look like a car, but they aren’t the most effective of artistic statements.

“Take me back,” Roman says coldly, desperately trying to tear his eyes away from the scene. But he can’t.

“No, I really think we should watch this play out,” the voice replies.

“I’m gonna beat you!” Roman’s voice shouts, but it’s not this Roman, not now, not quite. His lips move in time with the words, but nothing more than a strangled squeak escapes his throat. Other Roman, the littler Roman, is taunting Remy. What Roman wouldn’t give to hold them both back in the safety of this moment, for just a few seconds, to yank them out and hide them at the end of the line until the awful moment has passed. But he can’t.

As it is, he can only watch as the boys chase each other around the mud ring, bashing into each other with their cardboard boxes and making vroom vroom noises as they go.

“Sneak attack!” little Roman yells in time with Roman mouthing the same words. Little Roman drops his car and produces a long stick from within, grinning triumphantly. The fury of the moon masquerading as a sun burns down on it, and Roman can almost see smoke curling out of the tip, dark and grey and angry.

“Take me back,” Roman pleads, more desperate this time. He can feel the tremors of his voice all the way down to his feet, shaking the ground and sending his knees wobbling.

“Just another minute,” the voice says, completely unfazed. “Don’t forget, we’re only here because you brought it up. I’d happily return to the station if you would let yourself abandon this whole charade.” Roman feels something inside himself shatter as he watches the leaves spiral upward around the boys.

“That’s cheating!” Remy complains, watching little Roman fling his arms to the side. Roman can almost taste the negative pulls of love rising in his own body, and he hates it so, so much, the way the heat of the sun burns in his throat as his smaller self absorbs it, combining it with the dewy sweetness of the grass, the richness of the life in the mud, before it filters over his fingers, twice as bad now that Roman feels it both in his own hands and in his smaller self’s hands. He can feel it eating away at his skin as little Roman sends the emotions blasting into Remy’s chest, knocking the stick sword aside as if it were even less than the mere twig it already is.

“Please take me back.”

“Almost there.”

Roman can hardly stand to watch, yet he can’t force himself to look away, as the wind whips harder, faster, tearing the beautiful pink petals dancing in the air to shreds as they zero in on Remy. Roman falls to his knees, pleading with his younger self not to do it, but it’s far too late, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Say you love me!” little Roman demands, his voice forcing Roman’s jaw to move in time with the words. It might almost be a sweet sentiment, were it not for the millions of shreds of leaves hovering over his head like an arrow, poised directly above Remy’s heart, the moon in the sky using the stars as the bow waiting to release it.

“I—I—” Remy splutters, shaking his head. “This isn’t funny anymore, Roman, I don’t like this game anymore.”

“Say you love me!” little Roman insists, and the words are like a stab to Roman’s heart as he hears how awful, how hopelessly desperate and venomous they sound. They taste like poison as they spill from his own lips.

“Roman, please, I don’t—”

“Just say it before I go completely empty!” little Roman howls. With every quiver of his voice, the leaves over his head split again and again, more and more pieces of the love little Roman is desperate to give, more and more pieces of the love Roman has long since learned he cannot receive. Not unless someone gives it to him freely. No one ever has. Roman learned that the hard way, and here he is taking the same lesson again. He can’t look away.

Remy is frozen, a wild panic in his eyes as he searches for an escape from the sharpening arrow. A wilder look falls over little Roman’s face as he grows desperate, the lines etched in his skin wearing deeper, tearing claw marks over the surface that spawn into scars on Roman’s face. “Please, Remy, I need you to say it!”

“Roman, I don’t—”

“Roman!” an achingly familiar voice shouts from the door of the house nearby. Both Romans whip their heads around to see their mother racing barefoot through the mud, her shoes abandoned at the door. In a flash, she’s at Remy’s side, knocking little Roman out of the way and gathering the smaller boy up in her arms. She shoots little Roman a look of pure disgust, and it’s enough to curdle two stomachs at once, across the span of several years. “What were you thinking?”

“I—I don’t know, I just—” Little Roman’s lower lip wobbles dangerously, and Roman feels his own resolve shaking. His mind does everything it can to ignore the way the arrow overhead is spinning now, slowly breaking up into several smaller daggers. They shake and sink, trying to collapse, but they can’t. “I just wanted him to say he—”

“What, that he cares about you enough to let you force him to give you the magic back?” Though she’s not talking directly to him, not this him, not now him, Roman feels his heart shattering at the hatred in his mother’s voice. “Did it never occur to you that we don’t say it because it hurts too much? Just because you can give that love freely, it doesn’t mean we can, and it certainly doesn’t mean we’re obligated to.”

Roman lifts a hand to warn his mother, watching aghast as the leaves pick themselves back up, a sharper arrow than either of the ones before, aimed squarely at her heart, all the love in the world that little Roman could possibly muster, now a weapon Roman wishes he could turn away. She doesn’t hear him.

The arrow splits in two, one for mother, one for brother, and for a split second, Roman makes eye contact with Remy. The desperation in his face is enough to turn Roman’s heart to stone.

The arrows fall.

Roman’s world shatters.

A snap. The end of the line. “Well, that sure was an exciting little encore, wasn’t it?”

“You son of a—” Roman hisses, building up all the power of the moon back to its natural state, the knowledge of how many lovers use that little sphere as a landmark for their affection, a perspective around which to dance, amidst all the small creatures of the night and the life of the grass tipped in dew and the hum of creation buzzing down the train tracks, whipping it into a storm and bringing it down in tandem with his hands to smash the source of the voice into the ground, flatten and pound and hammer it until it has no chance of escaping, and when it’s all said and done, Roman pants heavily, bent over his knees and letting the energy of the twisted thing he calls love drain out of him.

“You certainly know how to put on a show, I’ll give you that,” the voice says from over his shoulder. Roman feels his body pulling in the energy again of its own accord, but the voice continues on unabated. “Have you considered that I’m just a figment of your imagination, a cursed fragment of your own mind? A shadow among shadows to remind you of all you’ve thrown away?”

“A shadow among shadows,” Roman repeats. He laughs, an empty sound that rings as dull as a cracked bell. In an instant, he pulls in all he can from every painstaking detail of each brick propping up the station building, funneling it into the sky and willing it to tear a hole directly through the secondhand sunshine dripping from the moon. “Any guess where I got the idea for that exciting little encore?” There’s a flash of brilliant light and a bang of sound, and a silhouette appears for a split second in Roman’s peripheral vision.

His whips around and seizes it, wrapping his hands around its throat and squeezing, squeezing, hating the image of the arrow that glows behind his eyelids like stolen sunshine whenever he blinks.

The silhouette still has those achingly empty eyes, which are hazily focused at best—they look over Roman’s shoulder, watching something take shape behind him. Roman glances back, stunned into silence when he sees that oh-so-familiar shape of the arrow of leaves. He swallows around a lump in his throat and slackens his hands, watching the leaves collapse to the ground as harmless debris. With every inch his hands relax, the leaves scatter weaker and weaker into the breeze, normal pieces of nature and not awful tools for something that only a heretic would call love.

The silhouette rocks to its knees and coughs, hacking up every ounce of air as it rubs gentle circles into its neck, and Roman scrabbles to get away from it. Even in the aftermath of that flash, he can still make out those eyes, still almost see the reflection of Remy hiding behind them.

“Like I said, putting on a show,” the voice says, sounding all kinds of broken and tattered. “What was it you called your magic again? Love? That’s a laugh, really, I can’t believe you’d call that love.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, but I do, don’t I? We both saw that little scene of yours. I’m not the one that made that happen. It’s your own connection to the world through the twisted thing you call ‘magic’ that brought you there. You’re the one who was so desperate for love, he would throw away his family’s lives for the chance to get it.”

“Shut up. You don’t know anything.”

“And yet here we are, me knowing all this information about you, and you knowing nothing about me. Do you think I didn’t notice all those times you pleaded for someone to love you before? Do you think those dark nights in empty alleys on your own were really so private? You’ve just been waiting for someone to say they love you, and I’m here to break the news that it’s never gonna happen, so you might as well accept it now.”

The silhouette lurches closer, a smattering of purple appearing around his neck. They pulse in time with Roman’s heart, a feeling like fire lighting up on his hands. He wipes them on his pants, trying to separate the bruises from what he doesn’t want to believe he tried to do. Grabbing him by the front of his shirt, the silhouette pulls him up to his feet with impossibly strong hands, pressing their faces together even as Roman tries to resist, tries to ignore the faint details masked almost completely by the shadows surrounding its features.

“What was it you wanted to hear again?” it asks. “Love, was it?” There’s an agonizing ache behind the voice as a clear face takes shape over top of the blank silhouette, an awful recreation of his mother’s face, undercut by the same purple bruises. When it opens its mouth, it has her honeysuckle tone, and Roman feels his stomach turn. “Oh, Roman, darling dearest, I love you.” It shifts, cycling through an impossible list of features and expressions before settling on something gut-wrenchingly similar to his father’s face. “Hey, kid. I love you, you know that?” Another shift, this time to a face that Roman doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to picture, hates it hates it hates it let me go—

“Look at me, Roman,” Remy’s voice says, now aged well beyond any years it had the chance to experience. Roman can’t make himself look, but he feels matching bruises appear on his own throat with every second he ignores the face. Selfish, disgustingly selfish how he forces himself to look just to make the pain stop, but when he meets those eyes, he sees everything all at once—the arrow, the fall, the love that tore apart his mother, his father, ripping through Remy all at once as if it weren’t love but hate, hate, hate hate hate coursing through Roman’s veins as he meets the eyes that have no right being on this bastardization of Remy’s face and hears those awful terrible words echoing through his body, shaking him to his core. “I fzzt you.” Remy raises an eyebrow, trying again. “I fzzt you.” He smiles, an awful toothy expression. “Seems even you can’t imagine him saying it. Think I like this face best.” Remy leers at Roman, eyes wide enough to show the burning white on all sides. “I hate you.” Remy cocks his head to the side and grins, dropping Roman to the cold metal tracks and vanishing.

The voice does not come back.

Roman hates how relieved he is to drown in the silence. He’s starting to think finding Thomas might not be worth all this trouble, and that realization is enough to crumble the last of Roman’s dwindling spirit.

The shadows fold in around Roman as he buries his face between his knees and feels his body shake, his skin prickling as if it were being stabbed by millions of tiny arrows.

And he lies there.

And

Lies

There.

“Well, this simply won’t do,” a new voice, a warmer voice, a softer voice says. Roman doesn’t move, doesn’t even open his eyes. “I see that shadow boy got to you first. Can’t imagine what dark corners of your mind he brought to light to get you like this. I know you can hear me, but you don’t have to say anything. I’m going to pick you up now, okay? Lift one finger if you can hear me and don’t want me to do that.” Roman doesn’t move. “Okay, I’m picking you up now. Please stop me if you’re uncomfortable.” With that, Roman feels a sturdy set of arms wrap around him, lifting him carefully into the air.

Then, oddly, the arms seem to expand, growing more arms like branches on a tree trunk, completely enveloping Roman in a soft blanket of tentative warmth. He stubbornly keeps his eyes shut, still feeling all those tiny arrows, still hearing the echoes of that cold voice in his head, still seeing Remy’s eyes stare out as his whispered those damning words.

He loses track of how many times they play over in his head, I hate you I love you I hate you I hate hate hate hate hate you Roman I hate you, simply letting them wash over his soul because he doesn’t know what else to do with them. They must reach a breaking point eventually, because he falls back into himself in time to feel the blanket retracting, returning to a normal pair of arms, gently laying him down on what feels like a mattress. Roman stares at the backs of his eyelids,, wondering whether they’ll force him to start talking soon.

I hate you, Roman.

Surely it wouldn’t have been possibly for the voice to replicate it so perfectly without hearing Remy say the words himself. Right?

“Now, you’re under no obligation to talk about what happened if you don’t want to. Trust me, I know how thorough that shadow boy is about people who find themselves out here.” The return of the kind voice is jarring in comparison to the cold anger flickering in Roman’s head, the reassurance in this tone almost enough to convince Roman to open his eyes. Almost.

“I’m sure you had some idea of what you were doing if you made it this far,” the voice continues, “so you’re probably here because you heard about that Thomas character.” At this, Roman’s eyes fly open. The voice laughs softly. “Thought so. Nice to see you’re alive, at least.”

Now having no choice but to keep his eyes open, Roman sits up and surveys the area. A greenhouse, it looks like, incredibly humid with the sun beating in—when did it turn to daytime?—through the concentrated glass and reflecting off innumerable green leaves and yellow flowers and brown dirt. The person owning the voice almost blends into it all, his skin a dark tan and his fingers stained green, his hair a sandy blond and his bare feet covered in scrapes and dried mud.

“Name’s Patton. Pleasure,” he says, extending a hand to Roman. Roman stares at it, uncomprehending. “That shadow boy,” Patton tuts. “Never does know when to quit, does he?”

“Can you blame me?” the colder voice asks. “This one’s a downright monster.” Roman leaps to his feet, brandishing his fists like the arrows he so hates, searching for the source of the voice and hearing a low growl escape his lips. “Whoa, Patton, you see? Call off the dog, yeah?”

“What have I told you about harassing our guests?” Patton chastises. “Go on, get out. You’re only permitted around here at night, and you’ve lost even those privileges for the next couple days.” Watching Patton converse with the distant voice is a silly enough sight to relax Roman, who lowers his fists and settles back down on the mattress. “Now, onto you. How can I help you? A name would be beneficial to me, at least.”

“Uh, Roman. I, um, I came here to find Thomas.”

“Roman,” Patton repeats carefully, chewing on the second syllable. Something twists in Roman’s gut at the sound. “That so? Yes, yes, we’ve established the reason you came here, but in order to help you, you need to tell me why you wanted to find Thomas.”

“I want to know how he did it. How he escaped having magic.”

“I would hardly call it ‘escaped.’”

“So he does exist, then.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, where is he, if he does exist? I want to get rid of my magic, and if you can’t help me, I’d like to get going sooner than later.”

Patton cocks his head toward the more crowded section of the greenhouse, folding his arms and squinting at Roman through mud-splattered glasses. “He’s in the back, but I don’t think you’re going to like what you find.”

“I don’t think I asked you.”

“I don’t think you didn’t ask me,” Patton mutters, stepping aside as Roman darts past him. Roman barely remembers to keep his feet under himself as he barrels for the back of the room. Nothing in the world could prepare him for how sharply his heart stops.

“It’s a statue,” he whispers, staring in confusion at the cold marble figure. “He’s just a statue?”

“Just a statue,” Patton confirms, appearing behind him. “Just an idea of a person, for people like you who want to believe in that idea. But I know you didn’t really come here to get rid of your magic because of some fairy tale idea, did you?”

“Yes, I did,” Roman murmurs, staring at the statue, at the complete lack of life in its eyes. It was a lie, wasn’t it? It was always a lie, he never really had a chance. “I came here to get rid of it, all of it.” Something hot and wicked coils up in his chest.

“That so?” Patton rests a hand on Roman’s shoulder, ignoring how he flinches at the touch. Actually, he squeezes harder, holding Roman still. “And why is it that I don’t believe you, hm?” His nails dig in deeper. “Maybe it’s what you’re doing to my plants.”

Roman glances around to see all the petals and leaves and branches wilting, browning, slowly dying, their colors filtering through the air and into his lungs as he starts gasping for breath.

“My strongest love has always been for nature,” Patton continues, his grip almost too much to bear. “I pour my heart and soul into my plants, into growing life from the ground and letting it blossom into the air, and I think that’s pretty evident right about now.”

Roman hardly hears the words, still taking in more color, more light, more life, more love from Patton, feeling the room squeeze out its very essence into his body as he pulls and pulls and pulls, his gaze drifting back to the statue, to the dead silence behind those eyes.

“Go on,” Patton murmurs, an impossibly loud noise amidst the silence Roman has created in the room. “Fill an empty husk with love and see what happens.”

Roman can’t exhale, taking in more and more and more air and colors and life and love, his lungs well past full as he swallows more breaths than he can take and he’s choking on all the love in the room, all the energy Patton is funneling into his plants which are spitting it right back out into Roman’s throat and then he sees Remy in his head and looks closer at the statue’s eyes and it hurts, oh God it hurts, and he’s coughing and sputtering and releasing the colors and the life and the love in broken breaths, barely noticing as his body collapses beneath him, not strong enough to hold up his throbbing head, emptying himself of all the colors and the life and the love in his heart that he’s always given, the thing that hurt the worst when he took it for himself, all spilling out in a rush like a slash across the chest and filtering into the statue and flowing around it, the petals of the smallest flowers floating up and dancing around its head like a wreath as Roman exhales and exhales and blessedly exhales and when he’s finally empty of it all and there’s no more love left to give, Roman wonders whether this is what the love he’s always yearned for feels like.

Patton nudges Roman’s still form with his toe, wincing at the way the skin squishes like mud. “That went better than I expected it to, given how much you had to pull at the shadows.” He looks up at the statue, at the flowers slowing their rotations around its head, each coming to rest along the shoulders. His foot strikes something solid.

“Oh, now that’s interesting.” He reaches down and feels around in Roman’s pocket, producing a little metal heart from within the fabric. “We’ll call it an offering.” He lays it at the statue’s feet, and if he were a sentimental man, he might comment on how for the briefest of moments, a spark of life flashes behind the statue’s eyes before it falls dead and silent once more. In the instant after the light disappears from the face, his plants turn a brighter green, growing a solid few inches in mere seconds. “Change the name and restart the rumors.”

“On it,” the voice says. A very familiar wanted sign materializes behind Patton. By nightfall, word had traveled all the way back past Depot town and to the inner cities and into deaf ears that have already forgotten the person who could spin the sunshine into hope. Past the end of the line is a man free of magic by the name of Roman.

In the darkest corner of a neat little pub tucked away in Depot town, beside a jukebox slowly breaking apart its inner machinery, a man disassembles his glasses. He watches the pieces swirl around his head like a crown as he crumples the paper into a ball and stuffs it in his pocket. “Jackie, I’m heading out again. Got a train to catch.”

Tag List:

@sakurahayasaki @erlenmeyertrash @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @milomeepit @leesacrakon @virgilmood @mollycassmith @zerogettie @five-hour-anxiety @ashrain5 @allthemetalsoftherainbow @faacethefacts @rileyfirstname @sassy-in-glasses @virgil-has-a-houseplant @redundant-statements-for-400 @zennyo @extremistwateragenda @breloomings @jamthefan @narniasfinestavengingsociopath @crownswriter123 @rosesandstuff @dedaartist @unring-this-bell

#sanders sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #mine #labhwrites #major character death tw #bullying tw #yaLL this. was supposed to be like 5k max as a qUiCk BrEaK from my big bang #that clearly did not happen #i wrote it all in one night but still #oof homeboi got Long(TM)#also i. have no idea what happened to the plot after that line break like??#roman snatched the keyboard from me and wrote the ending himself bc that is. Not How I Expected It To End #uwu catch me posting stuff explicitly for the validation that comes with doing so #i came up with the title first and it s h o w s

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thecandywrites · 6 years ago

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Isthantari- The Series- Panda

Oh my god guys! So I got to work with the amazing super amazing @pandainfinitely but in particular her under her writing blog @pandaswritingandmonsters and THAT’S ACTUALLY A PICTURE OF PANDA, ISN’T SHE GORGEOUS?! Panda gave me SO MUCH to work with while also giving me license to do whatever the hell I wanted which was super fun and my imagination went WILD. It was so fun, this was SO MUCH FUN and DELIGHTFUL to write and I’m so sorry for taking so long to give this to you because I’ve been working on it (*cough* hording it *cough*) because I got to include one of my dream passions, lamp work beads and jewelry which is a hobby I WISH I could indulge in but alas my finances could never support it. BUT I CAN DREAM. So this piece is also really self indulgent for me and we have a lot in common. so that made this commission even better, also why I got a little crazy with the length. Hope you like it!

Isthantari Series- Panda and Jinx

You sighed in boredom as you dusted the space behind the counter at the jewelry store you worked at. It was actually an artisanal bead store that had a lot of artists who worked with lamp work beads or even carved beads and ceramic beads too and each section of the store belonged to each artist as well as being organized by color and the owner was very good at making sure if your beads sold, you got paid commission for them thanks to an amazing cataloging system. You worked the counter in addition to providing a small patch of beads to the store itself. You preferred to work in strictly black and white beads and the problem was...was that your beads were popular with only a few people who liked the black and white aesthetic but otherwise, the more colorful beads sold better than yours did and you earned more money from the hours you worked at the shop more than you did from the sales of your beads, which was getting a little depressing.

At least the music on the shop’s radio was good, you had the freedom to change the station and listen to what you wanted while you worked and there was an essential oil diffuser on the counter that you could control the scent of the essential oils that were used while you worked to keep the place smelling nice and fresh and you could read when there was a lull in foot traffic or if the store was dead and all the tidying up was done and you could have your phone on you at all times and even had your own business cards and you got to indulge in the little bistro’s extremely good coffee and food every time you worked since it was right next door and the pay was actually decent because it was technically a small business but your boss was amazing and made sure that all her employees were paid well, like better than a living wage including health insurance and happily let you and the other artists work the front counter and work in her work shop in the back, letting you use her vast array of tools for free and her stock pile of materials at a deep discount in exchange for a percentage of your bead sale commissions and actually paid you the same hourly wage for working in the work shop that she did working the front counter because she was an avid lamp work bead maker herself and it was a very mutually beneficial arrangement where everyone made money and the business would take turns featuring each artist and their work in the front window for a week at a time or during the festivals the front window would feature everyone so everyone got a bump in sales. The business itself was located in a little strip of stores right across the street from the park so even the views were lovely and you had decent foot traffic in the spring, summer and fall when the weather was fair, and the air conditioning made working the summer months great and the heater was more than adequate in the winter, really, other than your beads not selling well, you didn’t have much to complain about your job, the hours were nice, the pay was nice, your boss was super nice, granted some of the other artists were kind of snobby but you didn’t really deal with them often, the owner did and she would work the counter so you could get your breaks and she was always prompt, taking her own breaks around yours when she wasn’t creating in the back herself and she worked almost every day and the business was closed on Sundays and the other artists liked to work on the weekends when there was more business and they got a chance to showcase their own beads to the customers so that left you working Monday through Thursday and technically it was part time but you still got benefits as if it was full time and you made enough to pay all your bills and support yourself well all on your own and feed yourself well and even save a little bit of money here and there and splurge on yourself every once in a while (*cough some amazing high end chocolate from the chocolate shop a few shops down, nail polish, your growing collection of shampoos and conditioners because you liked to experiment with any and all you could and sushi cough*) so you couldn’t complain and your apartment was relatively close by and was a decent aparartment too so even the commute was nice. And one of your favorite things was on your way to work, listening to a morning show on a local radio station called ‘Second Date Update’ that showcased the sometimes hilarious exploits of other single people trying to date and reminded you to stay picky when choosing a boyfriend because there was some creeps and crazies out there. I mean some guys (most in your gentrified down down area) who actually still think they’re entitled to their dream girl who’s a solid ten while themselves barely crested a three and had nothing to offer but shallow and manipulative personality traits, fidoras and a neck beard while thinking they were the alpha males and a dream of a catch while the only women on earth to think that were their mothers and literally no one else. And from those you learned to stay far, far away.

You got done dusting before a mother and her toddler came in and you watched them, mostly keeping your eye on the toddler to make sure they didn’t start grabbing the beads and mixing them up or trying to ‘steal’ them. Not that kids were naturally malicious and out to steal everything they could get their hands on but kids that size and age usually liked shiny things and those shiny pretty things sometimes found their way into their little pockets. But the kid was surprisingly well behaved and actually listened to it’s mother when she told him ‘not to touch’ all the beads and you were impressed when the kid actually listened. She put together a really pretty necklace using some really nice beads from a variety of artists as well as the others that were simply in stock and belonged to the store itself as the little kid happily hung onto it’s toy and simply stayed close to his mom which got you to smile proudly. However when she went to check out, you noticed the kid become enamored with the glass case that was part of the front counter and proceeded to lick it and smear it’s face and hands all over it and made it’s own ‘masterpiece’ out of it’s spit.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, do you have a wet wipe or something?” The mother asked as she noticed what her son had done and gently scolded him for it.

“Don’t worry about it, I got it, he’s fine, have a great day and come back soon!” You invited her warmly as she nodded and got her son and got out of there and you took a Clorox wipe to wipe it up. Hey, it could have been much worse and the kid had actually been adorable. You wished more kids were more like him than some of the little monsters that came in.

As you finished wiping it up, the door chimed as another customer came in.

“Welcome to Artistry Beads.” You offered robotic-ly as you finished wiping up the mess before you stood back up and turned to face the new customer and dropped you Clorox wipe when you saw what had come in, a Jika, not just any Jika, but an unusually tall one, Jika were usually six feet tall and black and yellow and had a green sheen to their black, this one had to be seven feet tall though. It’s black having the prettiest purple sheen to it.

“Hello.” He greeted you and you forgot how to talk for a moment, that voice. His voice was smoother than black velvet.

“Hi, I’m Panda, sorry, sorry, my real name is Mary, friends call me Panda.” You stammered nervously as you took in the sight of him as you watched him bend over and pick up the discarded Clorox wipe on the floor and hand it back to you.

“Oh, thank you,” you thanked him as you watched him, completely unable to take your eyes off of him like he was hypnotizing you and you didn’t mean to stare, staring was supposed to be rude but you couldn’t help it but he didn’t seem to mind. Not by the super charming smile he was giving you.

“Can I call you Panda then?” He asked as a giggle suddenly left you as your face stained raspberry.

“Sure.” You nodded as you bit your lips to keep your face from splitting in half from smiling too widely.

“Do your friends call you Panda on account of your hair?” He asked as he tilted his head to consider your black and white hair. The left side of your hair was so platinum blonde it was practically white while the right side of your head you colored black and your hair was chest length and your glasses were thick black rimmed glasses and your blue eyes popped form your super pale complexion, you had a black nose ring and two silver lip rings.

“Yup.” You nodded even though there was more to it than that but most people assumed that about you and because of your naturally shy personality, you weren’t usually comfortable telling everyone everything about you, you usually guarded your personal life pretty fiercely.

“Uh, so, what brings you in? Can I help you look for anything in particular?” You asked, trying to get back into your customer service mode.

“No, just passing by, the store looked interesting, thought I would stop in and check it out.” He said as he gestured to the store.

“Oh, well, in that case, look around and if you see anything you like, let me know or if there’s a project you’d like to work on, just let me know.” You invited as you gestured to the shop before you went back and stepped behind the counter again and took your seat in the very comfortable chair behind the cash register. Another wonderful thing, you got to sit at work as he moved throughout the store, looking around at everything, all his hands clasped regally behind his back as he did so before he stopped right in front of your section and seemed to look at your beads with great interest which normally excited you and made you happy but this made you very nervous for some reason as you hoped and prayed he liked them before he reached out hesitantly and picked four of them up, one in each hand and studied all four at the same time with help from his compound eyes as he turned them in the light.

“So...people make..jewelry then, from these beads?” He gathered as he looked from the beads to the sample jewelry that hung artfully on the displays.

“Yep.” You confirmed from the front before he put one of the beads back and picked up your business card that was with your bead section.

“You made these?” He asked curiously as he compared your business card’s picture against you.

“I did.” You confirmed as you just couldn’t help yourself as you came over to stand next to him.

“How?” He asked which got you to laugh as you went over to a ‘how to’ book, one of the better ones you had and flipped it to the pictured diagrams that showed some of the techniques that were common and showed him that as he quickly read the page before he seemed to flip through the book, reading all the pages incredibly quickly.

“Fascinating.” He breathed in awe and you snorted a laugh as he looked at you curiously.

“Sorry, that’s what a character on a TV show, his name was Spock, that’s what he said about things that intrigued him.” You explained.

“I know, I’m very fond of the show ‘Star Trek’. In fact it was that show that tempted the Jika to make contact with humans to begin with. Jika and Vulcans are very similar in many respects.” He explained with a wry grin. “Excuse me,” he excused himself to go get a large basket to put the book and several others in before he bought out all of your stock. Like, he literally bought- Every. Single. Bead.

“So...what are you going to be making with all of these?” You asked as you rung him up as you tried not to become overwhelmed because this had literally never happened to you before.

“A truly great thing.” He smiled proudly.

“Ok,” you nodded in agreement with a bashful smile.

He happily paid for everything and you literally had to print the receipt twice, a copy for you to keep and a copy for the owner Jackie and when he left the store, he quickly flew away instead of walking down the side walk and you literally squealed in delight and just had to jump up and down in excitement.

“Jackie!” You squealed as you took her receipt and ran to the back of the store to her.

“Jackie, Jackie, Jackie!!! Look! Look! Look!” You squealed as you showed her the receipt as she paused in making her own beads to look at you and then the receipt before her eyebrows shot up.

“He bought all of my stock, like he bought some books but otherwise bought all of my beads!” You squealed in delight before she followed you out to the front of the store to see that your section did indeed get cleaned out and even the few demonstrative necklaces that had your beads on them sold.

“Holy shit, I have some supplies to order so you can make more.” Jackie giggled as she checked the business account on her phone to see the money already in her account and cleared and went ahead and made an order for supplies for you and got other artists to come in and work your shifts so that you could spend your time in the work space to make more.

“Congratulations Panda!” She gave you high five which you readily returned and mentally already made plans with what you were going to do with the money and how you were going to celebrate and the whole day you felt like you were floating on air and you wore the brightest smile ever. Looking over at your section and seeing it bare was so exciting, that had never happened before. Usually you could make the few beads that sold throughout the week on a Friday, but now you had an entire stock pile to replenish and you eagerly looked forward to those weeks where you would feel so accomplished.

Then you looked at the receipt. Prince Jinx Kizu. OH GOD HE WAS A PRINCE. A PRINCE LOVED YOUR BEADS AND BOUGHT YOUR BEADS, ALL YOUR BEADS. OH THIS WAS THE GREATEST THING EVER. Oh you couldn’t wait to rub Samantha’s nose in this. Samantha was the snobbiest of the snobs and always seemed to be so god damn smug because her beads sold on a regular basis and she made more in commissions than hours at the store and rubbed that in everyone’s faces. Ha! A royal Jika liked your beads. That just made this victory even sweeter. You took yourself out to eat after work, stopping first at the coffee shop to get a bag of your favorite coffee then at the chocolate shop down a few stores down and got yourself a box of your favorites, even the chocolate covered strawberries and the chocolate baskets, little hand held baskets made out of pure premium chocolate that were full of berries and then went to the hair salon and got yourself a new set of shampoo and conditioner then you went to the Asian fusion bistro a little further down and got yourself all the sushi you could eat. Really, it was the perfect day, like the greatest day ever.

For two weeks, as soon as you seemed to get more beads to get into stock, he seemed to return to buy them all out again and he only wanted your black and white beads which was an ego boost you were not expecting but that you embraced whole heartedly. Each time he came in, you talked a little more as he asked polite yet very thoughtful questions which you readily answered.

“Seriously, what are making with all of these?” You asked with a laugh as you cashed him out yourself.

“A sculpture.” He finally admitted.

“Really? Wow.” You blinked in surprise.

“I don’t mean to be creepy or perhaps obsessive or...” he paused as he seemed to struggle to find the right words to use, usually he was always so composed. It was actually very adorable to you.

“I don’t find it creepy or obsessive, I find it complimentary.” You assured him as he seemed very relieved to hear that.

“Oh good.” He breathed in relief before he seemed to want to say more and seemed to debate with himself for a moment.

“Is there anything else?” You asked once you finished.

“Actually, yes, would you like to do go out with me or do you have a significant other yet?” He finally asked and you nearly choked on your own spit.

“No, no, I don’t have a significant other, I would love to go on a date with you.” You rattled off super quickly, as your felt like you were tripping all over your damn self.

“Great, when do you get off this evening?” He asked charmingly.

“Six,” you gulped.

“Great, and is there a type of cuisine you prefer?” He asked.

“Sushi.” You immediately answered as he grinned wider.

“Perfect, I’ll see you in a little bit then Panda.” He grinned victoriously and if you had not been sitting down your knees were sure to have knocking together and you would have fallen on your ass.

When he left you squealed in delight again as you quickly ran to the back.

“Jackie! I’m sorry, I gotta go home early today, I have a date that I need to get ready for.” You told her excitedly.

“Uh, I really need you here...” Jackie grimaced.

“But I have a date! With Prince Jinx! He just asked me out! Tonight after work! Is there anything I can do?” You pleaded desperately.

“Tell you what, you got an hour because I have a doctor’s appointment in an hour and a half that will undoubtedly take the rest of my day.” She told you.

“Thank you thank you thank you! I’ll be right back.” You agreed as you got home and in a flurry got dressed in a really nice little black dress and tried to curl your hair and grabbed your makeup to do at work and came back just in time and did your makeup behind the counter, using the mirrors you had there to make it look amazing.

You ticked down the hours and you even closed five minutes early and waited anxiously for him to arrive and he landed right outside the door right at 6 and you scrambled to get to the door to unlock it for him.

“Hey! Let me just grab my purse.” You told him as you quickly went around the counter to grab your purse before you locked up the store again.

“So where are we going?” You asked excitedly.

“Well, if your comfortable, we could go to Momo.” He suggested as your eyes went wide with excitement. Momo was the best sushi place in the city. It was also nosebleed expensive.

“Yeah,” you agreed.

“Would you mind if we flew?” He asked as he nodded to the sky.

“Uh, I can’t...fly.” You frowned.

“I know, would you mind if I carried you?” He asked as he held out his hands towards you.

“Oh my god, yes please!” You giggled as he then bent over and picked you up bridal style before he took off as you held onto your purse tightly and squealed in delight as you looked out over the downtown area in awed amazement as he carried you so that one of his arms pinned the hem of your skirt to the back of your legs so that you weren’t exposed to the people below.

“This is so much fun!” You giggled in delight before he found the restaurant and gently landed and put you back down before he led you into the restaurant and sat down at the bar in front of the sushi chef who greeted him in Japanese and welcomed him back before Jinx introduced you to the sushi chef, Yato.

“Hi,” you waived before the chef suggested the private menu to Jinx in Japanese.

“Yato wishes to make us his special menu, does that sound good to you?” Jinx asked.

“Yes, please.” You nodded excitedly before Jinx continued to converse with Yato who smiled and nodded and got to work as Jinx gathered the menus and handed them back before a sake was brought out and served. It was by far, the best sake you had ever had the pleasure of drinking before you were served tempura, sushi and sashimi that you knew cost a small fortune but you didn’t care. You were on a date with a prince who could afford to buy out your stock of beads as fast as you made them. He could afford to treat you like a princess for a night at least.

Jinx was even impressed at your sushi etiquette and your appetite since you were able to keep up with him for the most part and the sushi was downright divine and Jinx was practically a perfect gentleman and his conversation was very amusing and delightful, he was funny and just a little mischievous and outgoing and gregarious and your mouth almost hurt from smiling so much while your sides almost hurt from laughing so much. He found your piercings to be very cool and was envious that humans seemed to be able to get all kinds of things pierced and tattooed and lamented that Jika would die if they even attempted such things and the fact that they could adorn their bodies in a myriad of ways and have things like clothing styles and preferences was very amusing to him and how he appreciated your affinity for just black and white. How you could still create such amazing variations with just the two colors astounded him and how he had fallen in love with the way you could still do so much- with things that appeared to be so simple and how you had perfected your techniques and usually you would been a little wary of so many compliments but you could tell he was actually completely sincere which had you swooning.

When you got to the point of being absolutely full did the food finally let up. But the chef made you a to go order to take home with you which you nearly started crying because you were so going to live on that for however long it would take to eat it all as Jinx got a to go bag as well and you were delighted when he took your bag and carried that for you as well and even though he only carried you with three arms this time, it was still more than enough for him to carry you back to your work before he kissed your cheek sweetly and left again, making sure you got into your car safely and had your to go order. You felt like you floated in your car all the way home and when you came into work the next morning, only a few moments after opening up, a giant flower bouquet was delivered from the flower shop along with practically a case of a few of every kind of chocolate from the chocolate shop a few stores down accompanied it. It was the largest bouquet of flowers you had ever gotten, ever. Like almost ridiculously large and you couldn’t help but giggle and laugh and when you found the card, your heart jumped and fluttered in your chest when you saw it was from Jinx.

It was a request to go out to dinner again along with his phone number to text him your answer and that if you were not interested in another date, to simply enjoy the flowers and the chocolate along with compliments on how refreshing and wonderful your company had been. It was literally the most perfect example of gentleman-like behavior and there was no way on earth you could refuse his offer of a second date, you wanted, no needed another date with Mr. Perfect Gentleman. It took less than a minute to get that phone number into your contacts and for you to text him your response and it took exactly 3 seconds for him to text you back. You got absolutely nothing done the rest of the day but texting Jinx, eating the case of chocolates until you playfully flirted with a diabetic coma and a stomach ache, drinking your coffee and adoring your flowers, appreciating the vast array of flowers he had chosen, appreciating their blooms and scents and artful way they were arranged. Jinx then texted you the circumstances around him wanting to date you along with the warning that it could be dangerous and that you would have to keep your relationship with him off of social media which was perfectly fine with you and you were completely undeterred by it. If anything the hint of danger was a thrill. Like one of those romance novels and all that fanfiction you inhaled on a regular basis. You closed up the shop and nearly dropped your flowers when you saw Jinx waiting for you by your car as a surprise.

“Hey! I loved the flowers and the all the chocolate!” You beamed happily as you practically launched yourself into his arms, setting the flowers on top of your car to kiss him eagerly and moaned and keened when he kissed you back hungrily and pinned you to the side of your car as all four of his arms and hands touched and caressed your body in a way that ignited a fire within you as you clung to him as you wrapped yourself around him and you pulled away just long enough to catch your breath because his kiss stole your breath away.

“Come with me,” he invited although it sounded like an order but you found yourself eager to obey whatever he would command you.

“Ok.” You agreed before he had you put the flowers and the left over chocolate into your car before he picked you up and had you wrap yourself around him and kissing him again and you were too lost in the kiss to notice you were now flying through the air and in a flash you were in a bright blue beam of light and then you were transported onto the Jika home ship as he flew you through the halls and to his room before he set you down onto your own feet again before he showed you the sculpture he was making out of all your beads and to your astonishment. It was...you. Almost a life size version of yourself with two large gemstones, which looked like glowing sapphires in place of your eyes, but otherwise it was of you. Almost a perfect replica. It was the most amazing thing you had ever seen.

“It’s me.” You realized as you reached out and touched the statue on the cheek noting how he had melted clear class over the surface of the beads so that it was smooth to the touch. The artistry needed to achieve this was greater than any you felt you could ever possess. You...didn’t feel worthy.

“Does it please you?” He asked as he watched you carefully.

“H-how did you do this? How did you make this out of my stupid beads?” You asked as tears rolled down your cheeks as you were in awe of it’s beauty.

“Your beads are not stupid, your beads are magnificent, each one is a work of art, greater than this, because you are magnificent and you take sticks of glass and transform them into little masterpieces all on your own. It seems like such a waste to use them on such a project when each and every single one should be showcased but you inspired me and I wanted to create something for you that would be magnificent enough to be worthy of you and your own magnificence. So I selfishly used your own creation to bring you glory. Would it be better if I tried to make my own beads for the sculpture?” He asked worriedly at the sight of your tears.

“No, it’s just...I will happily make you any and all beads you would ever want, I had no idea you were taking my own work and making it into so much more. Yes, this is magnificent and I am both honored and humbled by the fact that you would put so much effort into such a thing. Why? Why did you make this for me?” You asked as you walked around it, touching the sculpture in reverence and noticed how he had every single detail about you down perfectly. He had every kink in your wavy hair perfectly accurate, he had your height perfect, he had every curve of your body perfect too and he had built you in the black dress you had worn on your date while your face and hair was that of the first time he had met you as you realized he must have made your face first since that was the most done while your limbs were still under construction as you noticed he had his own small mountain of supplies too.

“When Jika meet our Isthantaris, there is a drive in us to make a gift perfect for her, to win her favor. It isn’t done yet, but hopefully when it is finished, you will still like it.” He explained.

“Isthantari? Like a soul mate?” You asked curiously.

“Kind of. In Jika culture, in a royal batch, there is only one future queen and dozens of potential consorts. I did not particularly like the queen from my batch, she was weak and she had the worst personality, she had no creativity and no imagination yet was severe against anyone who did. And even the current queen, who killed the last one, is vicious, remorseless, but stronger than any queen I’ve ever met. She demands respect and loyalty but besides the threat of death, does nothing to earn either despite her high intelligence. The job the former queen gave me pays very well because as a consolation prize for not being a consort which, in of itself is a joke, because while you get to mate with the queen and father offspring, your mind atrophies and you become little more than a drone with genitalia and completely at her mercy, which she has very little of to begin with, if any at all while all of yourself and all of your energies get used up in providing her and caring for her because she is the center of the consorts’ world.” Jinx explained. “But a couple of years ago, my brother grew close to a doctor he was working closely with and he promptly fell in love with her kind heart and he became completely devoted to her and she in turn is just as devoted to him which is a relationship dynamic no Jika could ever hope to dream of. Since then, others from my batch have found others, mostly human women who actually love my brothers for themselves and in turn my brothers refer to them as their very own Isthantaris that they get to keep to themselves and never share with another Jika while the Isthantari’s continue to have their own fulfilling lives and careers. Isthantari is usually reserved for the queen Jika. The English translation of the word means ‘one I am devoted to for life’ and devoted carries with it that you are devoted to them in all and every sense imaginable and that everything you are is devoted to them and the care of them but while we may be totally devoted to the Jika queen, they are never devoted to us. So when I met you, you were a being worthy of such devotion. You’re beautiful, you’re talented and creative even inside the parameters you give yourself. You’re gentle, kind and funny and sweet and your scent is outstanding. Like it’s so much better than any queen I’ve ever encountered and I admit I was extremely pleased to learn that you were single when I searched for you on social media and so I endeavored to try to make a good impression with you and tried to get to know you and make this for you so that I could win your favor and that you would like me.” Jinx admitted.

“Like you? I practically am in love with you at this point.” You confessed and faster than you were ready for he had picked you up again and was kissing you deeply as you wrapped yourself around him as you felt yourself surrender to him.

“Please mate with me,” he pleaded desperately as he tried to slow things down to give you a chance to say no, he just...wasn’t very good at that.

“Hell yeah,” you readily agreed as he used all four hands to undress you before he flew you over to a nest like bed that suddenly appeared out of the floor before he practically pinned you to the bed as his cock appeared from the seam at his base and your eyes widened in excitement and happiness. Oh yeah, this was going to work and you were going to have so much fun.

“Make me your Isthantari.” You purred as his duct seem to pop right out of his collar bone and a mango puree looking substance came out of it.

“What’s that?” You asked as you pointed to it.

“Royal jelly, we make it for the queen to eat while she mates with us,” he explained. “The other Isthantaris say it’s delicious and it’s unique among individuals.” He added hopefully and that was all the invitation you needed to lick it up and your eyes rolled back into your head from pleasure as you moaned loudly. You were not prepared for how god damn fucking good this was. Those chocolate berry baskets at the chocolate shop? Yeah, fuck those, this, oh thiiiiis, was like those baskets, super ripe berries, heavy on the blackberry flavor but with...like wine, like the berries themselves had been also drenched in wine with that divine premium chocolate, like super sweet black berry wine. Lord. Have. Mercy! You were in trouble. Fuck human men at this point, you were jumping hard over the species divide and those other girls were onto something big. Oh god then he entered and you moaned again as you sucked his royal jelly down, wrapping your mouth around the duct and sucking hard because your tongue and your brain was flooded with happiness and your tummy was overjoyed because while too many sweets could give anyone a tummy ache, oh no, your tummy was so happy to receive this and craved more as his touch left you feeling feverish.

His large manhood stretched you full while not being so large so as to be uncomfortable at all, there was a slick substance on the surface that left your womanhood feeling tingly and electric in the best way possible while heightening your own arousal and that bulbous head was rubbing against your G-spot perfectly and your own womanhood was gushing. It was like he was torturing you with sweet pleasure and you couldn’t get enough. You were pretty sure you would die if he stopped now. He rutted into you roughly and fuck all if you didn’t want it as you grinded him and your pelvis met his thrust for thrust and soon you were flirting hard with that knot at the base and you wanted that, all of it, inside you ASAP.

“Please, please, more, I need more, I’m so close, oh my god,” you managed to plead in between sucking down that heavenly and downright addictive royal jelly and panting through your nose as bliss and ecstasy overloaded all your senses. You loved the feel of his weight moving above you and pinning you to the divinely soft bed as one set of hands was scratching deliciously down your back to your waist and then your pelvis, hips and ass as the other set of hands had alternated between tweaking your nipples and squeezing your breasts while stroking down your front to tap your clit or simply try to spread your legs wider so he could get himself into you.

“From now on, you will be my Isthantari, you will never mate with another Jika and you will be mine. All mine.” He growled as he did his best to pop that knot into you and when he managed to finally grab you by the waist and hips and forced you down while thrusting up so hard, your whole body shook in recoil that threatened to break the suction your mouth had on his duct but it was exactly what was needed to finally pop that knot inside, making you cry out in a keening whine through your nose as your mouth was suddenly stuffed as full of royal jelly as your pussy was with his cock and besides the sensation of being stretched and stuffed, which was a tiny twinge of discomfort with the biggest dose of pleasure ever as his arms then wrapped tightly around your body, holding you in place as he emptied himself into you. Himself grunting and growling and snarling from the exertion which was a symphony of music to your ears as you gulped down all the royal jelly until his duct didn’t give anymore and you smiled smugly yourself when you played with the duct with the tip of your tongue which earned a giggle and a shuddering moan from him.

“Careful Love,” he playfully warned you which earned a giggle from you too. “How do you feel? Do you feel ok?” He asked attentively as you felt his antennae tap around your head softly as his hold on you loosened a little while his hands stroked your body lovingly.

“I feel better than I’ve ever felt before. That was the best sex I’ve ever had in my life too. Yeah, I feel better than ok.” You giggled as you nuzzled into his chest as he pet and ran his fingers through your hair affectionately. If it wouldn’t actually put you or him in danger you might as well put ‘Isthantari Panda’ on your business cards.

When his cock finally started to shrink and the knot receded, did it finally pop out place and a cascade of cum came flowing out of you, you watched it in surprised awe. All that should be hurting, having that much in your womb should have killed you with pain, but you felt nothing of the sort, simply sad that he wasn’t in you.

“No wait, come back, I want more.” You playfully teased as you gestured to his cock because you wanted to go for round two already even though you hadn’t completely come down from your first peak entirely yet.

“Well all you had to do was say so my Isthantari.” Jinx purred before he moved down to kiss you and get you heated up in no time, his fingers dipping side your pussy which threatened you with over-stimulation but fuck all if you didn’t want so much you’d beg for mercy. But you had a very good feeling he would give you anything and everything you could ever ask for, including mercy. After round three did you finally pass out in bliss, staying the night with him in his nest, curled up in his embrace and completely entangled in him as he wrapped you both in a thick blanket which kept you perfectly warm while still also breathing so that your body never felt over heated or suffocated or sweaty.

In the morning, he dressed you in dress made out of his silk which he had died black just for you with a white robe like coat/sweater and even a bra and panties made out of black lace spun from his silk too and despite having no underwire, cradled your breasts perfectly and was the best, most comfortable and breathable lingerie you had ever come possess as he Jinx explained that Isthantaris spent their lives surrounded by their consorts silk and insisted you should do the same and you couldn’t argue with that because was it not only soft but highly fashionable and fit your style perfectly while also fitting your body perfectly because it was literally made for you. He flew you back into work, you got your flowers and chocolate out of your car as he then treated you to breakfast from the cafe near by and he was absolutely doting.

It was a matter of weeks before he moved into your apartment with you, his weapons simply taking up a closet you weren’t using as he continued to spin you custom clothes from his silk, keeping to your either black or white clothing tastes, although that wasn’t to say he also found a way to detail the items with a touch of tasteful splash of golden thread in designs that had you be the envy of everyone who saw you, especially Samantha who was suddenly supremely jealous that not only had your beads become a sudden hit, the sales of them surpassing even her own sales but that they continued to sell out just as fast as you could make them as Jinx continued to buy them and make the sculpture at your apartment, using techniques that Jika tended to use in battle of super heating their weapons so that the ammunition was usually molten materials that melted or disintegrated their enemies and their ships and was one of the many factors in Jika being the most feared and respected armed forces. But instead of destruction, he was using these weapons and techniques for creative purposes and you couldn’t be happier or prouder of the results, just like you couldn’t be happier or prouder of him or your relationship with him and he even used his pay to get you a nicer apartment and he even got you a ‘wedding’ ring, black titanium and a huge white diamond with black and white accent diamonds and because of his interest in your beads meant that the other customers suddenly became interested in your beads too which meant that the price of them could go up since they had become popular and sought after. And now things couldn’t be more perfect, you were gaining recognition and popularity for your talent and passions, you still had a great job and promising career, you had a ‘fiance’ who loved and adored you and treated like a princess and indulged you every chance he got and even the other Isthantari’s were super nice and welcoming and you felt like you were in a secret yet inclusive and welcoming club. Everything was perfect.

#exophilia #alien boyfriend #monster boyfriend #monster lemon #alien lemon #Isthantari #Isthantari the series #aaah this was so much fun I really hope you like it #yes it got ooc and mary sue and I don't give a damn #I love it the way it is

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