#anyway i'm not gonna lie i am probably gonna do the full month because i would like that myself unless you guys really seem to hate the idea

[mowu-moment]

ranking food tokens by how much personally i want to eat them

- Throne of Eldraine -

i have reason to distrust this meat pie thing, not only because of its wails of anguish but it also seems to have burst a bit in the oven. still not honestly opposed, at least the dishes are clean. 5/10.

how does one unpeel a curly banana? why are there sliced-open fruits on what appears to be a stone in the woods? where is the light coming from? i'm going to be taken by the fae and it's not even gonna taste too good while i'm at it, these things look dirty. but idk i don't mind someone else taking the wheel of my life rn. 2/10.

again, concerns about the floor food, but at least it looks more like some deliverygirl got eaten by a wolf and dropped her basket than a trap. someone already took a bite, though, maybe i should leave it be. 4/10

i have been invited to the Goblin King's Feast and while i don't fully agree with his choices i will certainly partake. boar looks wonderful apart from the hair. 7/10

- Commander 2020 / Strixhaven Commander -

i'm pretty sure cattails are poisonous to humans (not to mention the actual poisons in there) so i unfortunately can't oblige gyome's swamp soup. that crusty bread looks pretty nice though. i'll pick this thing apart like high school cafeteria lunch. 3/10.

- Modern Horizons 2 -

i at least know who cooked this one, and i trust asmor a decent bit, but this is still food for demons, so maybe it's not too good for me. goddamn do i wanna know what it tastes like though. 4/10.

- Unfinity -

i'm considering these two together. as a filthy american, i am allured by these fat-filled foods, but as a lad with a tiny stomach, i doubt i could eat enough to feel good about not wasting it. astrotorium's about excess, goddamn. the only funfair burger i've had was the best thing i had eaten in months, but it also made me ill the rest of the day. i really do want some infinity fries though, those look like the golden mean between a steak fry and a curly fry. 6/10.

- March of the Machine Commander -

meanwhile this looks like a texture nightmare. like i respect it, i imagine it's filling and fulfilling, but i don't think i ever could eat more than a bite or two. bread looks a little worse than gyome's but only a little. 5/10.

- Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth -

my white ass loves a charcuterie board. and i'm not going to be intimidated out of it by not eating enough, since it's all in snack-sized bits already. definitely gonna overindulge this sucker. i'm nervous about some of those spreads though. 9/10.

this looks like i'm in a dream, is it actively cooking? or still hot? i can't identify what's in that pan anyway. i'm leaving it alone out of respect. wouldn't mind a drink though. 2/10.

this is not food. for humans. 0/10.

- Wilds of Eldraine -

this is a king's feast i am properly intimidated by. i'm more into it than the Goblin King's, particularly that triple-layer blueberry pie or whatever that is, but i'm going to have to be as polite as possible lest i get a face full of flaming beer. 8/10

i'll probably be eaten before this can eat me, and it barely looks like food, but at least i go down with sugar in the mouth. 1/10.

ogh. that egg looks divine. the bread looks amazing, there's a full glass, i've got like beans or mermaid tears everywhere. we've even got seasonings back there. the best damn breakfast i'll ever have. 10/10.

i would still probably eat this over nothing. there's onion, at least. i will either be hexed or violently ill, but like i could at least get it down. and maybe the witchmother is testing my strength and she'll reward me after slurping an eyeball. a convenient lie to tell myself. 2/10.

- Doctor Who Commander -

y'know, four, i think i would like a copyrighted candy. they look sad and british, which is on point. but like it's not actively killing me like half of these. i think anyway. i don't know doctor who. 6/10.

what is this? i have no idea. custard? raw batter? giant dunkaroo? is he dipping fishsticks? it doesn't look like it's done cooking, like do we need to put it in a fryer again? i'd say it's inedible but it's not poison stew so i have to be nice. 4/10.

get AWAY from me. this is a PERSONAL vendetta. i would rather try to eat spiderwebs. plus he's already eaten half of it. -10/10.

- Fallout Commander -

i can't be too mean since this is literally apocalypse food. i think i prefer this over poison stew? like i recognize it at least, even if it's foul and moldy. man has to eat something. 3/10

i'm not convinced there's actual soda in here. is this just a perspective shot or is this a giant prop soda? i don't like cola anyway. again, worth it in an apocalypse i suppose. 4/10

this soda i trust even less. it glows? does this give me magic powers in the fallout world or does it just kill me slowly? i think it'll kill me slowly anyway. i need fluid to survive in apocalypseland but damn i hate for it to come to this. 2/10.

[sidersstuff]

Jasper/Orion bad ending to Never Love an Anchor - The Crane Wives

Yippee! This is gonna be fun! First encounter with the full song I think, so a few things might be off or weird, doesn't help that I'm tired gndhdh (definitely off from the original meaning, which is about a parent and child.)

"On some level I think I always understood that these hands of mine were clumsy, not clever. And I tried to do the best that I could, but try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to hold you." - Jasper and his attachment issues, they always thought that his hands were clever in a way, as they've always been good with technology and stuff, but when it comes to people and loving others, they freeze, his hands suddenly aren't as steady as they are when placing delicate chips in specific spots.

"It's a secret I keep tucked inside my chest, with this heart of mine that's guilty not remorseful." - Jasper feels guilty about lying about being human, sure, but they don't think they did anything wrong by it, he doesn't regret it, if that makes any sense.

"There is love that doesn't have a place to rest, but it would have buried you if it had settled on on your shoulders." - Jasper chokes up when it comes to love (and really emotions in general actually), especially now, but when they're able to express his love outwardly and comfortably, they love big. There has to be a better word for that but I am tired.

"On some level I think I always understood, that a ship could never really love an anchor." - HEAR ME OUT. Jasper being the ship, Orion being the anchor. Jasper is bound to leave at some point, but Orion won't be leaving with him. Jasper will set sail back to Rana, while Orion is staying anchored where he's always been on Earth. (I KNOW TECHNICALLY SHIPS BRING THEIR ANCHORS UP BUT THE SONG TALKS ABOUT CUTTING THE ANCHOR AWAY AND MY SYMBOLISM DOESN'T WORK WITH HAT SO SHHHHHHHHH /sill)

"So I did the only thing I could, and severed the rope to set you sailing from my harbor." - Orion letting Jasper go, despite how much he wants them to stay, he knows that Jasper would never be happy like that (or would they -rock face- /sill) and he knows that he would never be happy to leave the farm, especially to go to some new planet where he might not even be able to live, metaphorically and literally. So he does the only thing he could do, and lets them go.

"There are times when I still wonder about you, you are someone I loved but never known." - Orion still thinking about them months, maybe even years down the line. I mean, if you found out someone you loved wasn't even from the same planet as you, you'd probably be a bit skeptical about what else you know of them, right? He feels like he never truly knew Jasper, that his whole personality could've been a lie just to fit into the society he was forced into better. He loved them anyways, wanted to get to know them if it was a lie, but he didn't get that.

"And you'll never see the reasons I had for keeping my claws away when they were close enough to hurt you." - Jasper sheathing his 'claws' or, in this case, identity, because he feels like they [his family/species] would (and probably actually could, if they ever came back for them first.) hurt him if they found out a human knew they existed, let alone have a relationship (friendship or otherwise) with one of their own.

"I am selfish, I am broken, I am cruel. I am all the things they might have said to you." - This could be taken two ways, from Jaspers perspective, he's selfish for leaving Orion, they're broken for their weird feelings around emotions, especially love, they're cruel for not even being able to give Orion the proper goodbye he deserved. Also like idk if anyone else had this experience but my mom and other adult figures would always make jokes and stuff about aliens and while my experience wasn't about them being necessarily bad, I know that some others I knew were scared of the idea of aliens thinking they were, so just that really, and I think an alien species just outside of Earth's solar system (especially one that sometimes visits Earth) would learn about humans the same. From Orion's perspective, he's selfish for wanting Jasper to stay with him, he's broken for still being caught up on them months later, he's cruel for letting Jasper leave, letting them go back to the same people who had abandoned him.

"Do you ever think of me and my two hands, and wonder why they never soothed your fevers, and wonder why they never ties your shoes, and why they never held you gently, and wonder why they never had the chance to lose you?" - Just them yearning for a life together really, they'd be the kinds to want a simple domestic lifestyle, but haha they don't get thattt <333

ANYWAYSSS like I said things might be off for many reasons, maybe I'll update it one day when they're a bit more developed and I am not very tired and I have more experience with the song who knows this is what's there for now! Uh enjoy! Or don't!

[ashtraythief]

This is kind of a random question but with the election and Jensen supporting Harris, I saw a lot of people saying Dean would support Trump? Which… Yeah, no. Anyway Trump is a confirmed Leviathan in the Supernatural universe and Dean can’t vote because he’s a criminal.

But I am curious of how you think Dean would feel about politics? Kind of controversial, I know, so you don’t need to answer. But I feel like Dean holds a lot of liberal views about things like racial equality and LGBTQ rights. He’s overall just an accepting guy and I really can’t do a dude who fucks like that voting for a party that is banning/restricting porn. I’d imagine Dean would be so upset at that idea, man can’t lose his hentai porn. Obviously he’d be a big supporter of the 2nd amendment. I think Dean would definitely be for healthcare for poor people, but I have a hard time saying out right he’d be a liberal? So what are your thoughts on this? I know you aren’t American, but if you have any thoughts I’d love to know!

Ah, I'm not gonna lie, the political cluster fuck that was this week has not left me in the mood to give a comprehensive answer (on top of the US election, the German government broke apart so we're going to have elections in a few months and in the current political landscape that's not going to go the way I want, so... blergh)

Whatever thoughts I can scramble together under the cut

I think I mostly agree with your thoughts.

Even before Dean was dead he wouldn't have voted because where would he even be registered? It's not like he had a permanent place of residence. Also I think when you're hunting monsters and living off the grid, politics are not high on your list of priorities. (I think it was probably different for Sam when he was at Stanford and I can see him being excited to get registered and vote, do a "normal people" thing.) and the bigger the apocalypse issue got, the less important politics would seem.

I think the Trump support thing might come from a scene where Dean sees a picture with someone and says oh the Trumpster. God, that makes me cringe on rewatch but I'm pretty sure that aired before Trump ran for president. Maybe season ten? Episode Regarding Dean? That would have been 2014. As for the leviathan thing... Are you sure? Season 7 aired in 2011, way before Trump took office. And I don't think they showed up later? Though I am hazy on the later seasons lol.

I don't think Dean would have supported Trump for president, based on his character alone. Like Trump is objectively a dick, a racist misogynist who punches down and looks like he got a spray tan with orange juice. That is not the kind of guy Dean would respect. I think it's different when Trump was still an entertainer, but after he really showed his ass in politics... No. Dean would despise the guy. As for politics generally ... I don't think Dean would be a full blooded Democrat. I do agree he's very much a live and let live kind of guy but he'd definitely be a second amendment supporter (within reason) and he'd be pro the government staying out of people's lives. He'd definitely not want anyone interfering with his porn lol. Idk maybe he'd be more libertarian? Though I'm not that familiar with libertarian politics, so that's a guess. Idk I just don't see Dean caring much about politics because I don't think he concerns himself much with the system or has faith in it. I know it's kind of considered to be a moral failing not to be invested in politics, but Dean and Sam honestly have other stuff on their plate and I can understand not caring about a political system when you're barely hanging in there saving the world from total destruction. And they deal with enough politics between hell and heaven scheming for power. So I guess these are my very uncoordinated, exhausted thoughts on Dean and politics 😅

[williamisahotmurderer]

Dates - michael afton

a/n: I am literally writing this in bed when I'm supposed to be asleep. I have school tmrw after the winter break but this scenario came to my mind so since I couldn't sleep I just decided to write it. Anyways, enjoy!

You and michael were both lying in bed together. You had been together for 3 years and you couldn't have been more grateful for him.

The two of you had met during school. He was the cold hearted player who would find a new girl to date every week just to break their hearts.

You couldn't lie, he was quite attractive but his personality had ruined it. A few months passed and he had suddenly changed.

Stopped dating and rejected anyone who asked him out, and you noticed that he had started to glance more at you than normal.

You shrugged it off thinking nothing of it when he had came up to one day after one of your shared classes.

'Go out with me'

Tou were shocked. The Michael Afton never asked anyone out, no matter what.

'No'

'Why not y/n?'

'Because I know how you are. You're gonna date me for like a week or something then break my heart. You're quite know around for that'

'But I haven't dated anyone in months. Please y/n, one date and I will leave you alone after if you want me to'

You were contemplating whether you should or shouldn't. On one hand he was extremely attractive but on the other he was a heartbreaker. A player.

'... you know what, fine. We can go on a date. Pick me up on Thursday at 5. I'm choosing the place'

His face lit up, 'I promise you are not going to regret this y/n.'

When Thursday came around, michael had picked you up at 5 and you ended up choosing to go to a skating rink.

The two of you had fun together on your date and you really got to know the real michael. Surprisingly enough, you felt calm around him, like yourself.

After that night, michael had taken you on more dates. Overtime, you had really fallen for him and his charms. The entire cold-hearted bad boy persona all dissipated when the two of you were together.

You two had recently went on another date. This time it was at a diner (not his fathers) that he had claimed was amazing and many people recomend.

Nearing the end of your date, you had taken a hold on Michael's hand.

'Michael, these dates have been amazing and probably the most fun I've had in a while. I feel like ive gotten to know the real you and who you truly are and if you want to, I'm willing to give us a chance.'

He stared at me wide-eyed.

'Oh my, are you serious? You actually want me to be your boyfriend?'

'Yes michael. I do.' He stutters trying to find words. Instead, he gently cups my face and presses his lips to mine.

I kiss back after a few seconds, smiling into the kiss.

'Does this mean we're officially dating?' I ask him.

'Of course it does dumbass.' He kisses me again.

It's been 3 years since that day and everyday has been amazing, so full of love and passion.

I am so glad that I had said yes to that date despite his reputation. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have know how wonderful my life had been with him.

[floralcrematorium]

What about,

🌴, 👻, 🤢.

I'm not really sure what else to say.

Thanks for the ask! Sorry I really ramble on in this one

🌴 - Out of the official nations, who do you consider the most underrated?

Of the main group? Definitely China, but that's something everyone can agree on.

I'm not sure who I would consider underrated per say because that implies I'm familiar with them and think they deserve more attention. There's a lot of characters I'm not familiar with either because of a lack of canon attention, fandom attention, or disinterest on my part (thinking specifically of Australia and New Zealand on that last point, sorry!). It also depends on like,,, the corner of the fandom you've found yourself in. I try to branch out because I like to know about characters outside of the ones we see most often in source. That and fans making content for the East Asia and South East Asia characters go hard in regards to all aspects of putting their faves out there.

I think the two characters who come to mind that I don't see a lot of content for are Cameroon and Thailand. Cameroon is seen maybe? Once? In the source material? And I can't remember seeing Thailand more than once in the anime as well. I've been seeking out more SE Asia content as I look to learn more about the Philippines (I am attempting to reconnect with my heritage so I seek Piri content, but that's not the point here), and I think I run into people talking about Mr. Thailand the least? Like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines are relatively new characters (I know they've been out for a couple years but I've been back in the fandom for like. a month) and get a good amount of attention. I also know Vietnam seems to be pretty well liked? Anyway, I really need to catch up on the webcomic because I know there was a SEAsia arc that I've taken a peek at but haven't read (not gonna lie to you besties, the only webcomic strip I've read read since being back is the furby one).

I also never see anything about Moldova (probably because he is a child) and Cyprus (unless it's to make fun of his haircut).

👻 - There are lots of explanations about what happened to Prussia after he was dissolved and why he's still around. What's yours?

Full transparency, I am going completely off of memory here. I personally think that nations still maintain their physical beings even after their official dissolutions -- the land may be under a different name, but their culture still lives on through their people. Poland being the prime example. I don't have enough knowledge on Partitioned Poland so I'm not going to ramble about something I have no business rambling about, but long story short: Poland was a powerful state, then didn't exist in name but Poles maintained their cultural identity through their fight for independence, and then Poland became a sovereign state again? Knowing the way Germany was divided following the Potsdam conference, I think Prussia as a,,, human thing must've undergone something similar to Poland. I know the timeline of Prussia's real life dissolution is a bit dubious; You'll get different answers (the unification of Germany, pre-WWII, 1945/47, and 1957).

I personally think so long the culture and people of a nation persist, so does their personification. I think nations are physically powerful in some way (See: Alfred's super strength) and are capable of unnatural regeneration and such, but I don't think they're almighty supernatural beings. I like the idea that first and foremost they are human. Their loss of sovereignty doesn't mean they'll die, but they're no longer seemingly invincible.

Also, Gilbert is one spiteful motherfucker. God will have to kill Gilbert himself.

🤢 - What aspect of canon bugs you the most? Could be a name, an age, a birthday, etc.

A lot. There's the obvious easy answer of... early canon material and the English dub, but that's something literally everyone talks about and we've all heard it enough.

It's not my business to speak on the names of other nations' names, but I've seen lots of criticism and suggestions for better names for characters like Greece, Egypt, and all 5 Nordics

Age is the one that bothers me the most. I cannot talk about it without rambling and getting disorganized so here are very very basic points. I have deleted 3 separate drafts of rants, so here are simple bullets with no further explanation:

Veneziano and Romano should not be depicted as children during the Renaissance considering a. the cities they respectively represent at their core are old as fuck and b. Italy as we know it today was unified in 1861. There's a lot of nuance and history here that I don't have the time to get into

Why is Alfred a teenager when a. America as a sovieregn state today is older than both Italy and Germany, who are given the human ages in Hetalia of 20 while Alfred is 19, and b. the United States entered a state of rapid growth (cough imperialism cough colonialism cough Western capitalism). I think he should technically older, but am not too mad because personality wise, he is very much 19

Why is Canada depicted as the same age physically as America all the time when Canada's road to independence was much much more drawn out than America's (this is a topic I need to look into further because I have No solids answers)

Why is China the only Hetalia who is given their age in regards to the actual age of the country whereas everyone else gets the age of their human body (I know it's probably just for the bit on how old China's been around, but Japan and India are also pretty damn old)

Aging can be based on numerous different things which. Is. Confusing. This is why I don't like writing nationverse lol

ANYWAY

Something else that bothers me are the things in Alfred's design that represents parts of the country. His bomber jacket has a 50 on the back and he wears it in the WWII strips when Alaska and Hawai'i weren't legally states yet. Also why are his glasses Texas????? Huh???? The cowlick being Nantucket is cute, I like that. BUT TEXAS????? I kinda wish there was something to represent the Great Lakes, but hey, that's what headcanons are for

Why do they keep darkening Francis' hair color?????? I actually really like it darker, but I swear with each season his hair gets a shade darker and it's kinda funny

Anyway. This took too long to write, sorry it's so long to read.

Hetalia Asks

[parksprout]

Sprout Journal 11/21/24 - 11/22/24 - 11/23/24

OH MY GOD I GOT SO BUSY FOR LITERALLY THREE DAYS I HAVEN'T DONE MY JOURNAL IN SO LONG AND I'M REALLY UPSET ABOUT IT!!!

It's actually becoming an important part of my mental health routine to sit down, take a bit to reflect and remember, and then get everything on my mind out there - good or bad - so the fact that I've missed out on doing it three days in a row has been bogging me down a LOT. I've been thinking about it constantly but I swear I just haven't had enough time free to collect my thoughts and get it outta the way. I finally have a bit of peace here at work so I'll write it as fast as I possibly can!!!

I'm not gonna lie, I'm not sure if I have enough recollection of Thursday (the 21st) to write a full entry on it, but I'll do my best! Thursday was a good day for my mental health, I know that at least. I was still riding the high of seeing my friend Sarah the night before, I had fun talking with the Bnuuy, and I got an amazing workout in at the gym! I also started researching some masters degree programs that night as well, which I've been continuing through the past few days. I'll comment more on that later, actually, because there's some general thoughts I have about what I want my next few years to look like! What I'm hoping they'll look like, anyways. Anyways what I really wanna talk about is the workout because not only was it the most recent time I've worked out, but it was the best one I've had so far! I am getting so very close to that 10 minute mile I've been working on for a while, and I continued to travel further because of it. I went 5.86 miles in an hour, meaning if I can just shave 1.4 miles off somewhere during my run (maybe through random intervals in which I run faster, maybe by hastening my overall pace) I will achieve my goal and be able to work on the next step - increasing the difficulty to max and running for more than just an hour each session. I'm super happy with the progress I'm seeing in both my body and mental state because of my physical improvements. This is probably the healthiest I've ever been as an adult and I'm very proud of it - I'm at my lowest weight in several years, stronger than ever in my life, I'm far enough away from the time in which I vaped regularly to be considered a 'former smoker' with lungs as healthy as if I never did in the first place, I no longer smoke weed (maybe 1x every three months) and barely drink alcohol, I'm stretching daily and my hygiene is very high. I even went to the doctor and have an eye appointment next week. Overall, I'm very happy with my health and am excited to continue improving it. Besides that, the night was a pretty simple one from what I remember! It snowed for the first time this year and it felt really magical walking through campus after my workouts Thursday night. I don't really recall anything else significant happening :3

Two days ago, Friday, was a really busy day!!! I took a bit of a mental health day and skipped school. I desperately needed a break. I know that the semester is almost over, that things are coming to a close fast and winter break will be here before I really realize it... but gosh I'm exhausted right now and couldn't wait another two weeks to have a real off day. I didn't even end up taking it as a real off day anyways because I AM A MENACE TO MYSELF AND HAVE ATTENTION ISSUES!! I was planning on just staying in bed, but then I was looking through my bank account and credit card and realized.. wait... I can afford the gaming PC I've been saving up for ... I had a nutritionist appointment at 5pm, so I decided I had to get it done as soon as possible! I got showered, dressed and hit the road heading up to microcenter to buy my PC :3 I made extra sure to lay out exactly what I wanted from them!! I told the guy who offered to help me "I have a budget of between $1,500 - $1,800, I need a monitor and keyboard as part of that, I don't wanna be upsold on anything and I gotta be able to play games but don't care about super high graphics, I need to be able to use art software and 3D modeling software too!" and he was like, grateful that I said that laksjdfaskjdf the only question he asked was "do you wanna build one or do you want a pre-built" and I said pre-built so he immediately found one that was PERFECT for me! I got it, a nice monitor and a keyboard too :3 I also got myself an energy drink at the counter because eheheheheheh I am still a caffine addict even if I don't allow myself to have too much nowadays. After that I took it home and set it up :D the only issue ... I didn't buy an ethernet cable ... and my wifi was way too weak for my computer all the way in my room. I mentioned this to my roommate because the router/modum are both in his bedroom, and after a while of trying to set it up elsewhere we gave up and I decided I'd just buy an ethernet cable.

BUT in the meantime I had my nutritionist appointment!! It was actually a really good time :) she was super helpful and knowledgeable (obviously, she's a literal professional) and we made a really good plan for me!!! It's so simple sounding, but gosh I cannot express how much even this simple plan is going to help me in the grocery store and in the kitchen. She essentially suggested:

Morning: Overnight oats with greek yogurt for protein, chia seeds for fiber, fruit for vitamins/minerals and local honey for flavor + natural exposure to allergens

Snack: Uncrustable to keep metabolism going + fuel myself at work, the protein from peanut butter helps

Before workout: apple or banana for added fuel to help kick start metabolism and workout for longer

Dinner: she's actually yet to send me over the meal plan, but she has a big list of recipes she was going to give me for high protein meals that'll be easy to cook! Really just... having a daily plan is gonna be SO NICE UGH.

She also gave me some recipe cards for overnight oats that sound really tasty :3 one is a peanut butter and jelly inspired one... if you know me well you know that pb n' j is one of my favorite things to ever exist on this planet, I love them SO much, so I'm reallllyyy excited to try that one ehhehe.

After I got back home from the nutritionist me and my roommate drove up to walmart so I could get my ethernet cable! It's actually strange, that's the first time I've spent more than an hour around him in... maybe a year? two? We do NOT hang out very much, so it was a lil awkward at first but we ended up listening to the new Kendrick album while I drove and bonded over that. btw album is FIRE, it's a good year to be a long term Kendrick fan lkajsdfhadsf. I shopped around for a bit after picking up the cable I needed, but the only other thing I purchased was a mirror for my room. This is gonna be silly, but I am actually so excited to take full length mirror selfies and send them to the Bnuuy aklsjdfaksdj they used to ask for them and... I hope that maybe they can get excited for them again someday. to think that only four years ago I was genuinely afraid of my own reflection... how times change, right? I've grown so much.

Once I was home I IMMEDIATELY LEFT AGAIN TO BUY GROCERIES UGH!!!! BUT This journal is already getting long so PART TWO WILL COME LATER!! RAH!!!!

I love you Tumbie, bye!!!1!!!1!!! ~ <3

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Sina

Of all the things.  I cannot believe this is what got me.

General Overview My Ice roster is Not Good.  I refuse to pick up NC Red, leaving me with rather middling options in the back.  I don't have an invested SS N, SS Silver is kinda janky despite his potential, Irida's good but definitely showing her age and problems these days, etc.  It's so bad I considered picking up Shauntal, almost exclusively to have a new Ice type, before realizing it wasn't going to work out so well and backing out.  I mean I went back for her, but at the time, I anticipated a full skip.  I anticipated it would be the same for this month.

Yet here I am, staring an Ice-type in the face, going oh.  Oh that's not bad.

Sina's exchange is that, for a less powerful Buddy move, she has more persistent DPS, spread sync, and actually fantastic ramping potential.  Seriously, let me walk you though her general rotation.

Turn 1: pop TM, any other source of -1 cooldown is a ramp. Turn 2: Buddy move, berry MP=2.  Sync is now available. Turn 3: Support uses sync.  Buddy move, Berry MP=1, quad queue results in cooldown at 6. Turn 4: Buddy move, Berry MP=0, cooldown is now 0 if you quad queued, or if you missed quad queue but Support has sub-Sprint. Turn 5: Sina sync, -3 cooldown for Sprint effect., on track to another bomb.

She ramps excellently for three whole sync rotations, almost independently.  That's good.  That is damage output.

Her problems, however, are just as apparent.  She's an Ice type, she cannot escape the curse.  First and foremost, despite her Buddy move having Piercing Blows, she does not get no-penalty AoE, and has only 150BP.  This makes her attacks substantially weaker than desired in a 3v3.  Her sync is okay, but her multipliers rely on evasion being boosted, something that is not great considering the rarity of such an effect.  Given that her own damage isn't exceptional, this makes partnership with Irida especially awkward, as Irida is also not especially powerful on DPS.  But her other Ice-type partners are, uh...  They either want Irida more than her because Zone, or are physical and don't work so well with either side anyway.  I could see an argument for Sina and H!Shauntal, actually, just given Shauntal's role with Sprint.  But now we're cutting out Zone entirely, which is far from optimal.  Grusha absolutely does not provide what both would need.

As a result, Sina continues the Ice-type tradition of being potentially excellent, but just lacking in cohesive partners to be astounding.  I'm not gonna lie.  I think I hate Ice types now.  Just one perfectly sane inclusion, eh?  Just give her no-penalty AoE and she'd be the SST Red of her type, just without the Zone or infinite survival effects or Max Move. So you know. Not like him at all, but the bar is so low she'd probably still feel that strong for Ice.  That seems like a perfectly reasonable toning down of a PokeFair two years later.

EX, Role, lucky skill, and 10/10 EX is Sprint, Strike is how she's doing any damage, both the EX and Role are very sane decisions just to maintain her presence.  Ice needs all the help it can get.  Her lucky skill is Impervious, which I think must be a joke.  Her 10/10 skill teases the Ice Zone, but it's on entry without extension, so quite literally worthless. The Sprint Superawakening gives move damage boosts, which puts her Buddy move at 240BP as opposed to 180 at 5/5, which...it's not an insubstantial boost, but I feel like four candy for that is a bit much. The stats aren't a terrible investment for the bigger damage, but I have trouble looking at how restrictive these candies are and saying yeah, Sina's worth it.

Champion Stadium Sina's in a decent position here, given the spread damage and fast-ramping.  Sides get shredded pretty easily with Irida present, and Center is nuked by either.  Well.  If it's still Hailing.  Sina's ideal partners would top off Sp Atk and Evasion.  I'll let you know if they ever make something like that.  Absent this, pick any good Sp Atk boosting support.  I will very briefly point out she has HE4 on Ice Beam for a 50% freeze rate, which is nice single-target disruption, as well as AoE Sp Def drops (at 5/5).  H!Shauntal's nuke would really appreciate the specificity of Sina's debuffs.

Legendary Gauntlet Ignores gimmicks, Sina is fucking in there.  High disruption with a potent status makes her even more valuable, although there is the very significant concern of this consuming her berry for SMUN stacks she eats with a shitty move.  It's a dangerous game, but potentially worth it later on.  I don't think she really has the staying power, given the mandatory consumption of berry, to pull off a solo, though.  Or maybe she will with the capped evasion on entry potential at 3/5. What do I know?

Damage Challenge This is where I struggle, because Ice sucks.  Irida is not an ideal partner for this, her buddy moves eat too much time.  Sina's unlikely to have the most effective nuke out there either.  I think Damage Challenge has to be considered the domain of the physical, especially with God-King C!Red taking his throne in this mode.  Unrelated, but can I just say how pissed I am that C!Red, who was always kinda whatever as a support, is suddenly the single best pair for an entire new mode?  We couldn't let Red have just one mid pair, could we?

Battle Rally Sprint!  Blessed Sprint!  Oh how I've longed for an offensive Sprint pair that is not Nemona.  So you know.  A good one.  Sina is excellently self-sufficient as well, making her a great selection for this mode.  She needs basically no support to accomplish her goals, though she has access to some of the best sub-Sprinters in the game.  I think Field is a little worse off than Sprint, personally, but this is still a great role to fill.  Her one, serious problem is that, without H!Shauntal, she's not handling the Ultimate Battle with Nita if it shows.  She can't answer the weather, so she'd have to rely on SS Kris to remove it, which...isn't a bad partnership, but it's not what I'd consider optimal either.

Ultimate Battle Potential I cannot lie to you.  It is not great.  Sina herself offers nothing to others, barring a few off-kilter debuffs.  She can potentially freeze, but many are immune.  She boosts evasion, but all stages have Piercing Gaze so they cannot miss.  Her DPS is unimpressive, and her sync...I guess it remains to be seen, but I'm not optimistic.  Her partners also aren't specifically helping the situation.  No one is like.  Exceptionally good in these battles to begin with.  I'm not even sure she can handle Nita, if I'm being honest.  Ice sucks so bad, man.

Final Thoughts I like Sina.  She's the kind of fun pair I'd be drawn to without question if I were a paying player.  Alas, I am not a paying player.  I am F2P now, and that comes with Considerations.  Specifically, how badly do I need Ice, and how badly do I need Sprint?  And I...I don't know.  I don't know how badly I need those things.  Maybe I don't?  But also I feel like there's no point in owning this game is you consistently don't even bother getting anything new to do, so I'll be pulling. Fingers crossed.

[dumbangrypuppet]

Tried to sleep early yk but here I am at 1 am because I went to bed too early.

ANYWAY

I promised my little brain I was gonna stop thinking about Comet for a while, (my dumb little dude.)

And when watching YouTube, I got reminded of the Adventure Time Episode, "Thanks for the Crabapples, Giuseppe!"

Specifically, just the poem. And boy. Did I start crying.

What if when Comet dies, he wrote a poem like that for Eris and Hazel?

(btw if you don't know what poem I'm talking about here it is.)

"These are not my tear drops, daughter dear, but just a sheen of dew that lingers here, past other fields where other fathers lie, who kept their daughters better far than I."

IM GONNA CRY. (I say, as if I haven't cried over this silly fictional man and his situation for weeks)

Anyway, if you feel like crying over this man too, here's some angst I wrote for him from an RP.

And here I go, ranting about the parallels between Simon and Comet.

Thank you Adventure Time for giving me ideas that tear my heart out again and again

(also, I need to draw Comet and Simon meeting, they'd get along fast.)

Like okay. I will literally spell it out for you

Both Simon and Comet literally tried to give up their lives (well Comet is actually doing so, he doesn't have a cosmic god of chaos for girlfriend to stop him and make him see reason) for people they barely knew.

Simon with "wanting" to become Ice King again to save an entire universe,

Comet with giving up his soul, his entire life to a demon so that the town he resides in can be protected from a giant threat.

(Comet resides in a fictional town called Uverney. Every resident there is a monster or creature of some kind, and Uverney is meant to be a sanctuary for monsters. But now, there's a group of monster hunters going into the town, and it's not gonna end well.)

Simon doesn't tell Fionna what's gonna actually happen to him when he puts on the crown. Though I don't think this is from selfishness or anything of the sort, perhaps he just doesn't wanna think about it. But STILL!!

Comet doesn't tell his daughters about the deal, or what the price was, he keeps the fact that once it's all over, he's going to die to HIMSELF. He sold his soul to protect an entire town, full of people he barely knows. (I should also mention, he's literally in the dumps right now for a multitude of reasons, the big one being that his coffee shop had been burned down the night before.)

Simon feels his life has no worth or purpose. People literally liked him better when he was consumed by the madness of the crown.

Comet also feels his life has no worth, and now no purpose. If you read the images above, it mentions things he's lost.

Comet lost his dad at 13, after a demon possessed his body and used it to kill his father. He lost friends because not only were they scared of him, but once his dad was gone, he had to move in with his mother. There his only friends were his brother and sister, who cut off contact after Comet turned 18 and left to pursue music.

If you saw my other post about this stupid silly man, you'll know that didn't go well either.

He fell in love with one of the roadie's, a man named Avery. They knew each other for three months, and Comet thought he was in love.

He was, but Avery wasn't.

No, Avery wasn't even a real person, a real name, instead it was a fake name created by the demon Amon, and all he wanted from comet was to use his body as a vessel. (I probably haven't explained or made it clear, Comet is a trans man.)

So this tragic little guy!! He's just. Torn apart! He's got nobody, nothing!! He never lets anyone in again, he tells himself not to fall in love anymore because all that does is hurt him.

(which totally sucks because Comet is absolutely husband material btw)

So yeah. Dumb little witch man. Hates himself a lot.

Yeah.

I SPENT 30 MINUTES WRITING THIS???!

jesus

Hold on edit time because now I have more.

BOTH SIMON AND COMET DONT FOCUS ON THE GOOD THEY'VE CAUSED EITHER!

Simon should have realized that his existence was important after Vampire World, because without Simon there to protect Marceline, the world gets run over by vampires.

Comet doesn't think about all the good he's done for others!! I'll just bring up some events from the rp and some from the canon story.

He finds a girl in the forest with the help of his 4 year old daughter at the time, takes her in and takes care of her. 9 years later, this girl is Eris and her and Hazel are like peas in a pod bro.

(WHICH HERE IS WHERE I'LL MENTION, THERES AN ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE WHERE COMET DOESNT FIND ERIS, AND GUESS WHAT HAPPENS?? SHE BECOMES THE ANGEL OF DEATH!!)

Comet finds two hobos living behind his café, and what does he do? He gives them a job. (this action has consequences later because they're the indirect reason his café burns down later)

Eris finds a kid in her flower pot and another in the forest who needs help?? She uses her teachings from Comet to take them in and help them just as what was done for her.

Comet teaches both Eris and Hazel how to properly use magic to protect themselves.

A bloodied girl shows up on the front porch to his house? Comet brings her in, patches her up, makes her HOT CHOCOLATE AND SOME SANDWICHES, and EVEN OFFERS HER A PLACE TO STAY IN HIS HOME until she can get back on her feet.

He is a good person, even if he thinks he isn't.

Just like Simon, he is important, and if he didn't exist or wasn't around, there would be terrible consequences.

[winterpower98]

JQOSIAP I NEEDED TO WRITE IT IMNSORRY

The king was throwing a destructive tantrum, a very destructive tantrum.

After he finally got free from that furnace, he didn't spare any of those unfair and selfish celestial beings, demanding to get the throne.

dosen't really know why, he just wants that selfish, careless and annoying prick out of his throne and title. He doesn't deserve it.

he doesn't deserve to rule heaven he's not a good leader.

not like sun wukong is the perfect one, but he surely dosen't go and execute someone just because they said "what's up" to them. (Literally. The jade emperor wanted to execute wukong because wukong basically said "what's up I'm old sun" to the jade emperor and it's the funniest thing.)

The monkey full of rage as been going on for a couple hours by now, killing anyone he spots who he doesn't recognize.

Which is literally everyone.

His monkeys aren't here, he dosen't have to worry about hurting any of th—

is that Ma.

sh- is that Ma?!

"..Ma?"

His vision got extremely good, even though his eyes are red now.

He could see disguise, he could distinguish between demons and other beings, and from all of the celestial beings, there was a demon.

Ma.

what is she doing here?! She isn't supposed to-

whatever, just- break time i guess.

as a fast as light, wukong escaped and grabbed Ma with him, going somewhere the enemies wouldn't find him.

luckily they didn't even notice Ma, luckily he did before he did way more damage than he wanted.

"Ma- Ma what are you doing here, you're supposed to be in flower fruit mountain!"

The king whispered, even if it did hurt a little because of his raspy voice- and he kinda lost his voice a little, talking was difficult.

"What am I doi- wukong what happened to you? You- your eyes and your golden furr-"

"Listen- Ma it's fine i look stunning, I'm perfectly fine. Go back in flower fruit mountain and make sure no one's hurt I'm busy here okay? Y'know great sage things."

He doesn't even know about the fire! If he knew about it, his tantrum would have been even worse.

"no- there are the others for it, i came here to look for you because you've- what kind of sick execution did they do to you?"

Ma asked without expecting an answer. It's wukong, you think he won't lie about it? He's the king! He's supposed to be invincible!

"Let's go back to flower fruit mountain, let's forget about these stupid assholes."

Ma demanded, taking wukong hand, it felt very warm and the burned furr almost cut her.

But wukong got his hand away immediately, not because he didn't wanna come back, he did! But contact right now was the worst thing he ever felt, that's it.

"N- Ma you go back there, I'll stay here and finish the job i promise I'll come back."

"No wukong you're fucking hurt— wukong stop trying to look immune to injures you are NOT! If those celestial beings can die and are immortals so can you!"

Ma biggest concern right now was any of her friends dying. She was worried sick for months! For..YEARS. even though for wukong has passed only 49 days.

"Ma, go back to flower fruit mountain, that's an order from your king."

Wukong was never the type to give that many orders to his people, he let them do whatever honestly, whenever it was an order it was when he had to get people to safety.

"No wukong, I'm not gonna pretend like you aren't- dying."

he does look like he's dying, and honestly now he matches the description of many people! now he's a demon i guess. Good for him.

"Ma-"

"let's go."

she clearly understood that for wukong contact must be horrible right now, i mean he was still burning in some parts too, but she dragged wukong anyway in the same path she used to get here, and go back to flower fruit mountain to help Wukong, his people and hopefully avoid heaven.

- 💚

AND I ONCE AGAIN SOB AND CRY

Could this be considered a "good ending"?

I mean, Ma is still here. Wukong wasn't imprisoned under a mountain... Heaven is probably still angry as hell but there is the possibility for the monkeys to be in peace now

[sunnysunoo]

Love Letters ; Sim Jake

Pairing: Jake X Reader

warnings: explicit language and cursing

word count: 3k words

genre: friends to lovers au! fluff with tiny pieces of crack lmao

Jake was always known for being this perfect guy in school. I mean, they're not wrong. They always described him as if he's this walking piece of art in the hallways. People would stop to just stare at him. You'd stare at him all day too, but you set priorities first: writing him love letters.

You're no Lara Jean, but I guess you can say that she's what inspired you to write Jake letters. Who needs Peter Kavinsky when Jake Shim exists anyways?

note: Not me completely disappearing off of tumblr for like months and then showing up again suddenly lol. I got really busy the past few months since I was completing requirements for school, and I really didn't have the motivation to do anything at the time so I took so time off to take care of myself first so I hope you understand :) But now since it's summer break, I am given at least 2 more months until I go back to school in August :)) Here's the long-awaited Jake imagine that I completely forgot about lmao hope you enjoy <3

P.S I finished writing this at 1:26 am so please excuse the really shitty plot and grammar ill rewrite it once i wake up

tag list: @cha-raena ( sorry for the rlly late post bestie )

Dear Jake, First of all, I will never call you Jaeyun because calling you by your English name makes me feel like I'm your friend. Calling you by your Korean name makes us feel like we're cold strangers to one another and I don't want that. I want us to be something more than that, but it's hard when you don't even know who I am. I'm surprised how you don't grow tired of me just dropping letters right into your locker every time you open it, and that's one of the things I love about you. You don't just throw away people's efforts and you treasure them with care. It makes my heart beat so fast as if I ran miles away from here.

We're already one year left until we graduate high school, and I don't want to end my high school years without you realizing my feelings for you. I know for sure that you would never reciprocate the feelings that I have towards you, so I want to treat this as closure in case we do forget about each other in the future. Yours truly,

Moon

__

"How is this person not over you? That's like the tenth one this month," Jay said, looking over Jake as he reads the letter from his secret admirer. Jake has always been receiving these letters from the same person everyday for the past four months. He's thankful for the letters because they definitely make his day better, knowing that there's someone out there who loves him as who he is regardless of looks. He's not gonna lie that these little notes and letters make his heart race too. "Do you have any plans with finding the person behind the letters?" Jay asked as he watches his best friend trying to hide the small smile that's been growing. No one really knows who this mysterious person is and why they decided to name themselves the moon, but we don't judge anyone in here. If they want to be the moon in their next life, then so be it. "I really want to find the person who's making these letters," Jake shoved the letter in his backpack, trying to not wrinkle it. "But I don't know where to start." "Who's finding who?" A voice popped suddenly beside the presence of the two boys. You leaned beside the locker beside Jake's, watching him as he grabs his books from his locker. "Did Moon drop your daily letter today again?" "They did as usual," Jake wasn't even surprised. He would expect the letters every time he enters the school in the morning. He would open his locker to see the usual small letter placed inside his locker. He usually arrives at seven or earlier, but he's surprised that he could never even catch a glance of this anonymous sender around the campus. "Should I go to school at five in the morning?" "Five in the morning? Isn't that a bit too early?" You questioned, followed by a shaky breath. "The school doesn't even open until six." "I could just walk to that nearby convenience store I always pass by to grab a coffee." He argues, closing his locker shut before walking towards his classroom.

You and Jay followed beside him, and you sneered under your breath, "You don't even wake up to your alarm clock."

"Why don't you even want me to go early anyway?" He glances as you try to give him an answer. But before you could say something, Jay replies first.

"You’re probably hiding something." He said. You rolled your eyes and narrowed your eyes at him. "You are so weird." You grunted, before walking ahead of them. You feel panicked because you were scared that you made yourself obvious to them.

__

You were inside your classroom sitting on your desk. There were only fifteen minutes left before lunch, but you had eaten your packed meal before instead of going to your school cafeteria. You were fidgeting in your place, conflicted about Jake finding his secret admirer, not knowing that it was you who's been sending him letters the past few months. You're not scared of him finding out that the letters were from you; that was the entire reason why you wrote him letters in the first place. You're scared of how he was gonna confront you about it. Would he like you back? Would he hate you? Would he avoid you?

Your mind was full of scenarios but you were suddenly brought back to reality when a hand planted itself on your desk. You look up and saw Jay standing in front of you, eating sushi with his other hand. His face kinda looks like he knows something, and it's freaking you out a bit.

"What?" You asked, suddenly flustered over how his eyes stared right into you. He took the seat in front of your desk and flipped it so it was facing you. He sat down and blurted the phrase that you were dreading to hear from anyone.

"So, you like Jake?"

You suddenly feel like punching him in the face with his sushi.

"What??" Your body felt like, and you were left a nervous mess. Your heart like it was going to pump right out of your chest any minute, and your hands started to sweat.

Jay's mouth formed into a smirk. He caught you. "Jake may be a bit oblivious, but I can totally see right through you."

“Haha...no you don’t,” You tried to deny, but it was all useless when his expression looked unconvinced.

“Oh yeah? Then why are you all red? You look like a bursting tomato.”

“You don’t know that," You leaned further into your seat, playing with the strings of your hoodie.

“C’mon Y/N, you’re not even trying. Just give up and admit it,” Jay was trying to help you confess your feelings for Jake. Frankly, he knew it was you sending him letters this whole time—how can Jake not see it?

With a heavy sigh, you slumped and laid your head on your desk, embarrassed. “Fine. I like him, okay? Are you happy now?”

The smirk on his face grew wider, feeling proud of himself. You are not dealing with his annoying crap this early in the morning. He grinned and munched on his half-eaten sushi. “I knew it.”

“Congratulations,” It was muffled because you hid your red face away from him. All that was on your mind now was how you could book yourself a flight all the way across the world.

“But seriously, since when did you have a crush on him?” You raised your head to face him, giving him a look that could kill, except Jay finds it entertaining rather than intimidating.

“I started having a crush on him when we were in fifth grade. It was at a friend's birthday party, and he saw me being all quiet and lonely. Honestly, I forgot who’s birthday that was.” You told him the very first time you had discovered feelings.

“He saw how sad I looked so he accompanied me the whole time. He was even trying to feel more included in the games and stuff.” You felt a smile ghosting on your lips as you can still vividly remember how you felt your heart tug the first time. “It was kinda like I fell in love at first sight.”

Jay faked a gag, so you lightly punched him in the shoulder. He may be a bit of an asshole, but he’s one the most caring and kind people you’ve ever met. It honestly felt good spilling out your feelings about Jake to him.

Speaking of, Jake was watching you two play around and laugh at Jay's little jokes from outside, and he felt something burning from inside him. Was it that he felt jealous of you and Jay?

No, he can’t be...right?

Maybe it was because of how he felt separated from you and Jay because of him being a separate class.

Yeah, maybe it's because of that.

__

Dear Jake,

I just had the most bizarre day today, and I felt like telling you about it.

It was chemistry period, and we had to be partnered with someone for a lab project. I ended up getting paired with Yeojin. We kinda created this unexpected friendship, which I love. We would crack jokes at each other, tell funny stories, it was so fun to be with her that we had completely forgotten about our project. So now, we both got a detention slip for making an accidental explosion.

How about you? How was your day? I hope it was just as fun as mine. If you feel like the day just wasn't as happy or you're feeling down, just now that it's okay to feel that way because days like these just lasts for 24 hours. It will be all over before you know it and you'll be greeted by another day. Maybe it will be different, and you would be all happy again just like how my day went. Maybe being with you would be my happiest day yet, and I couldn't wait for that day to come. See you soon :)

Love,

Moon

__

"Yeojin!" Jake called, seeing her walk down the opposite way. "Hey, mind if I ask you something?"

"Hey Jake," She greeted him with a smile. "Sure, go ahead."

"Could you perhaps give me any information about your partner in Chemistry?" He had hopes of getting any kind of description about his mysterious sender, but he was instead given a sad frown on Yeojin's face.

"Sorry Jake, but that person told me not to tell you about their information." She gave an apologetic smile. "I wish you all the best in finding them!"

Jake muttered a small "okay," and sighed before walking away, feeling defeated.

Yeojin knew that he was gonna ask about Moon the moment he called her from across the hall. She couldn't wait to tell you about this.

__

"Hey Y/N," A voice said from behind. You turned around to see Jake with his backup hung on his shoulder. He brought his hand up and raked his hair, and you felt your face grow red. Jake is like a gift from the gods. How can someone look so ethereal even if they're just standing there? You could stare at him all day. You couldn't even understand a thing he said until he started waving his hands in front of you.

"Hello?" You blinked multiple times as you were brought back out to reality. You saw Jake's face grow into concern. "Are you okay? spaced out."

"O-oh..No, I'm completely fine." You reassured him, feeling embarrassed. "What were you saying again?"

"I was asking you if you wanted to go to school with me early tomorrow."

Well, shit.

Your eyes started to go wide, and your hands started to go clammy.

"Tomorrow?" You repeated, voice trembling.

'Well, yeah." He pouted his lips, and you felt like melting into a small puddle in your place. Your heart started to pound heavily.

Oh my fucking god, he is so adorable.

"Okay, sure I can go with you tomorrow," You weakly smiled at him, slightly tense.

How we're you going to give him the letter now?

__

"Good Morning," Jake said as he watches you close the gates of your house. It was past five in the morning, and you were a mess.

"Morning," You replied back before running your fingers through your hair, getting rid of any flyaways.

As you started walking your way to the bus stop, Jake kept on glancing towards you from time to time. He knew you were pretty, but since when did you become really beautiful in his eyes?

The walk was pretty quiet, but it was a comfortable silence. For him, mostly.

Meanwhile, you couldn't stop freaking out. You had written a letter the night before, but you don't know how you were going to slip it into his locker without him taking notice. If he saw you, he would know.

"Are you sure you're okay? You've been like this since yesterday," Jake blurted. You looked at him before heaving a sigh.

"It's nothing," You mouthed, suddenly feeling anxious and gloomy.

"Something on your mind?"

"Something like that." It was hopeless. I guess he would have to miss this letter today. It was the first time you skipped a day, and you're feeling guilty that you would have to see Jake's face sadden that he wouldn't receive it today.

As you two stop at the bus stop, Jake looked slightly panicked as he was rummaging through the pockets of his blazer before looking through his bag. "Hey, do you have an extra pen? I left mine at home and I have a quiz today."

You snickered, "Out of all the days, Sim Jake. The same day you have a quiz is the same day you forget your pen."

"Very funny." He scoffed.

As you unzipped your bag to grab your pencil case, a folded piece of paper fell out without you realizing it. When Jake went to pick it up, he notices that it was folded the same way as the letters in his locker. It looked so identical.

Once you already got your pencil case out, you were about to hand it to him when you saw what he was holding that made your body freeze with your hand holding the case in the air.

"Why were one of my letters inside your bag?" He glanced at you, waiting for you to reply.

If you were freaking out before, this is a whole other thing. The thing that you were fearing the most is happening right before you.

"Maybe it fell into my bag yesterday..." You stammered, making up an excuse to look like it was an accident. You were tightly holding onto your pencil case, chanting many curse words in your head as you watch Jake unfold the letter.

"I don't think I've received this one yet," He said before he opened the letter and read it.

You watch as his expression formed into confusion as he reads through the paper. It only took a few moments before something in him clicked that it was you sending him the letters.

"Y/N," He began, and you started quivering in fear.

You should've known this would happen, but you didn't expect it to happen this sooner. In fact, you believed that this wouldn't happen at all. But it did.

"Let me explain," You eventually gave up and accepted fate and watch as your identity as "Moon" be revealed to your crush. You're now exposed so you didn't have any other choice but to explain everything. "Yes, I am Moon. I was the one writing you the letters that you've been getting in your locker."

Jake's face was unreadable. He looked bewildered and puzzled. He was trying to comprehend what was happening right now. All this time, it was you?

"I started crushing on you when we attended that birthday party before. I didn't want to confess my feelings for you because I was scared that you were going to harshly reject me, so I started writing down letters as a way to tell you how I feel about you without making you feel awkward around me." You continued, eyes suddenly taking an interest in your shoes. They were brand new too.

Jake was silent, and you felt your heart crack into pieces. You were mad at yourself for being so careless about it that he ended up finding out about you as his secret admirer. You wanted nothing else but to run back home, lock yourself in your room and cry with your sad playlist on loop.

You were expecting a harsh rejection coming from him, but what surprised was how he took dangerous steps towards you, minimizing the gap between you two. He placed his hand under your chin, forcing you to look up at him.

"I don't plan on rejecting you Y/N," You stare into his eyes as it reflects the sunlight of the early morning. "I'm actually happy that it was you."

You look at him, puzzled. He lowly chuckles under his breath before leaning over to place his lips against yours. It was a light, quick kiss, but it brought you feeling ecstatic. You've dreamed of this moment before, and now that it happened, you thanked your clumsiness.

As he pulled away, you were sure your face was a red mess.

"Thank you," His smile was as bright as the stars in the sky. It was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. "Thank you for making me like I'm special to someone."

You felt flustered over his words. You were scared that he could hear the sound of your heart pounding loudly. The butterflies in your stomach were going wild, and you felt like this was all a dream.

"So, what am I to you now?" You broke into a smile as he grabs your hand, intertwining your fingers with his.

Jake acted as if he was thinking, "Hm..maybe my best friend still?"

He bursts into a fit of giggles as he sees your smile slowly disappear, replacing it with a look of disbelief. You removed your hand from his and walked at a faster pace away from him.

He ran to match your pace beside you before holding your hand again, "I'm sorry, I won't ever do that again. Is my girl mad at me?"

"Oh my god, it's only five-fifty, Jake." You too broke into laughter over his cheesiness, but your heart fluttered over the thought of Jake calling you his.

__

HERE’S A LITTLE BONUS! since I've made you guys wait for 4 months :(

"What the fuck?" Was the first thing You heard from Jay as you and Jake entered the classroom. All of your classmates were staring at your and his hands intertwined together.

Jay stood in front of you two, crossing his arms together. "Can one of you explain when this happened?" he motioned towards your linking hands. You and Jake smiled at each other before walking away, leaving Jay in a fit of joy, and confusion.

[your-daily-biaswrecking]

Serva me, Servabo te

save me and I will save you

pairing: photographer!Taehyung x f.reader

genre: angst, smut, slight enemies to lovers

word count: 7.3k  |  reading time: 40 min

chapter summary: flash backs clear the mystery of their first encounter, they fight over it, and then things get a bit heavier

warnings: there’s finally some sexy stuff going on yall, alcohol usage, metions of cheating, some dirty talk ig, some not very fluffy smut, almost angry fucking, dubious I’d say, fingering f.receiving, oral f.receiving, kinda dom!Tae, name calling kink? idk

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Chapter 5: Irresistible urges of the past

3 years, 2 months, and 14 days ago at 7:35 pm

The party was Yoonji's idea but you never complained. Well, okay, you complained a little bit. But that was only when you heard the approximate number of guests that had been invited so far and argued your small, shared apartment would probably collapse from the total weight in it. You offered to move the function over to the bar down the street, but apparently, that's not a house-warming party.

"How on earth are so many people coming, anyway? We have, like, five friends at most. And that is including the lunch lady."

Yoonji gave you those puppy eyes. "Well, actually, Jimin just made an Instagram story to get the word out, not thinking many would wanna come," she mumbled under her breath, almost like she was trying to avoid giving you the explanation. "But it turns out ever since that video he did, lots and lots of people wanna be his friend now."

You exhaled hard, making a pathetic sound. "You gave the guy you've only been seeing for a couple of weeks permission to invite people to our party?"

She pouted at you. "I thought you liked him. Plus, he offered to do this for us. We barely know people here, Amy, this party is going to be the best to see new faces."

You chewed your lip as you were setting the drinks on the table in a nice order and contemplated your roommate's words. "What do you need new people for?" you whined. "You already have a best friend and a hot boyfriend."

Yoonji bumped her shoulder on your arm playfully. "But you don't. Who knows, maybe you'll like one of Jimin's friends."

You rolled your eyes at her, but that didn't cover up the smile that had started to form. "Doubt it," you objected. "Models are not exactly my type."

You heard Yoonji laugh from the kitchen. "Jimin's not a model!" she shouted back. Then peeked her head around the doorway to raise an eyebrow at you. "I mean, you're not entirely wrong."

People that you had never even seen before started showing up at your place, and without fail, they all asked where Jimin and Taehyung were. Rude, you thought. That was not their party; something that could easily be deduced by how they weren't even there yet. Also, when had Jimin become so popular all of a sudden? And who the fuck was Taehyung?

At about an hour after the place was already packed and your roommate's boyfriend had finally made an appearance, Yoonji just so happened that she was constantly MIA, and the task of welcoming the people that kept and kept on coming, fell entirely on your shoulders. A task that briefly seemed not so bad when you opened the door and a brown-haired, pretty boy stood in front of you. You guessed models were indeed invited to that party, the only explanation you could come up with for why the most handsome man you had ever led your eyes upon was looking at you and smiling.

"Is this Yoonji's and... Amy's party?" he asked and you were taken aback by his deep, raspy voice that countered his charming face.

"Yes," you said, letting him in. "And are you on the bride's or the groom's side?" You hated the joke the moment it left your lips, a moment too late to take it back. Five full seconds spent with a cute boy and you were already acting weird.

But the boy laughed, and the sound quite literally lifted your spirits. "I am with Jimin if that's what you're asking."

"Of course you are. Jacket?" You offered your hands up for him.

"Oh, right, where can I leave this?" he asked as he slid the piece of garment off his shoulders. You opened the door right behind you, a door that normally led to a small storage space, but you had turned into a temporary closet with all the jackets and purses you had shoved in there. The boy leaned next to you as he tried to find somewhere to leave his outerwear without just dropping it on the pile on the floor.

"Let me," you offered, taking a random jacket that hung from the ironing board, abandoning it on the ground, and replacing it with the pretty boy's one. That's pretty privilege for you.

He chuckled. "Whose was that? Is that okay?"

"Who cares, it's my house."

"Oh," he exclaimed, watching you more closely as you closed the door again and turned to him with your lips awkwardly pressed into a thin line. You pinned your body on the wall, waiting for him to move or say something. "You're Amy?" You nodded, and the boy burst out a big smirk. "Well, well, well..." he rasped. "I'm gonna kick Jimin's ass so hard. He didn't tell me Yoonji had such a cute roommate."

The way your entire face felt like it had caught on fire in a split second almost scared you. It definitely made your eyes widen and your head go into a defense mode; you had never flustered before, of course your brain would think it was under attack. And of course you would reply with something stupid again, like snorting and saying: "Right. And you are?"

"Kim Taehyung, freshly graduated and aspiring big photographer," he proudly introduced himself. It all suddenly seemed to click and you barely held yourself from gasping right in his face. He extended a hand to you, and you took it, ready to shake it. Instead, he surprised you by bringing it to his lips and planting a soft kiss right between your knuckles. "Enchant��," he whispered with his dark eyes piercing yours.

The stupid fire all over your face got worse. So worse all you could do was quickly pull away and scoff at him, but also laugh. "That was too much!"

"Sorry," he chuckled and gave you a big, boxy grin. "I was trying to make you swoon."

You couldn't help but mimic his energy. "Does that ever work on anyone?" Well, what a liar you are. It had literally turned your stomach into a knot.

And Taehyung, almost as if he knew that, smirked at you. "You'd be surprised."

Okay, so you may have overreacted a tiny bit when you took off running away from Taehyung. There could possibly have been other ways to go about it, like gently pushing him off and telling him this was a mistake, trying to talk, or even staying silent. Your head was spinning so hard as you stumbled down that path wishing you don't get lost in the foggy state your mind had dipped in due to the haste. And it had almost cleared, you had almost stopped to think about this rationally and wait for the photographer so that you could walk home together, but the longer you thought about it more clearly, the faster you ran. You didn't even know if it was fear or shame that was powering your flight, but it had to be one of those.

The further you stayed locked in your room, the later emotion became more and more prominent. You saw Taehyung emerge from the trees sometime later and get in the house, you heard him on the downstairs floor, you saw the lights turn on and off... He was everywhere, and you were hiding away, terrified and ashamed. How could you ever meet his eyes again? But most importantly, how would you face yourself in the mirror? You knew that was the worst part of the whole situation; you let your own self down.

3 years, 2 months, and 14 days ago at 1:23 am

You returned on the corner that Taehyung and you had been occupying all night long with a drink in your hands, swaying around and trying to survive the mob of drunk college students that were doing what you were sure they thought was dancing in the middle of the living room. Some of the drink spilled on the way and you're not sure if it was because of all the bumping on people or the way you had started seeing everything double and losing your balance pretty easily.

"What the hell happened to my chair?" you whined as you found the photographer sitting there alone when you had specifically asked him to save you the seat.

He shrugged. "I couldn't defend it, sorry." Then he spread his legs wide and pat his thigh, looking up at you with a smirk. "Just sit here."

You didn't think twice; sat down on his offered position, swinging your legs to the side to completely lie on his lap and an arm around his neck for balance. Your face was inches away from his, so much so you could smell the alcohol in his breath, his hands instantly on your waist and hips to pull you close. But it felt so comfortable. Since the moment you met, you hadn't left each other's side, and you hadn't stopped touching. Touching as in holding hands while talking or pushing him while laughing, playing with your clothes or stroking each other's hair. It seemed like there was always an excuse, or, better yet, constantly a need to touch.

"Ugh!" he gagged when he took one sip of the drink you had brought right to his lips. "What is this shit?"

You giggled. "Tequila."

"Is it just tequila?"

You kept giggling. "Actually, we ran out of soft drinks so I mixed it with water."

His mouth dropped open and he started laughing, too. "Of course! Why wouldn't you!" His hands around your body squeezed you tighter and you had to squirm around, still a need to get even closer.

"It's not that bad," you proclaimed, then took a sip from the same straw and had your entire face scrunch up. "See?"

Taehyung had gotten serious, staring at you intensely, as he slowly brought the straw right on his tongue yet again. He took a generous gulp, then offered the drink to you, his eyes fixed on your lips and the way they wrapped around right where his had just been. His stare gave you goosebumps, and you pressed yourself even closer, your hip flushed right against his lower abdomen.

"You know I don't drink," he said in a whisper. He didn't need to speak louder, you were right there. "I'm only doing this for you."

"Well," you mumbled as your fingers ran through the back of his hair. "That makes two of us doing something we don't usually do tonight." And you meant it. You never did this; whatever this was. Sitting on a cute boy's lap that you had only met a couple of hours ago, ready to devour him with the first chance you got. And boy, would you devour him.

"We haven't done anything yet," Taehyung noted, his hand dipping between your legs to pinch your thing.

"Yet," you murmured, pressing even closer to him, feeling his erection grow against your hip.

Your eyes alone could communicate. And all they conveyed was the urgency to get out of there. The need to be alone. Your entire body burned with that need, or maybe it was the alcohol. With no words spoken, you both got up, holding hands not to get lost in the crowd, and searched in the apartment for an empty room. The bathroom was locked, the kitchen busy, one bedroom filled with boys playing video games and the other with smokers. Taehyung pulled you towards the exit; he wasn't about to let the moment escape him. He would get you in his car or even back to his place if he had to, just to get his hands properly on you.

But you didn't have time for that. You needed him right away. So you opened up that makeshift closet and shoved him inside. Space was limited and your bodies were naturally pressed together. The moment the door closed behind you, you realized how dark it was; the light switch being outside, forgotten. You felt his hands ran up your body, trying to blindly find your face with haste like he was being chased.

His lips found yours. And you indeed devoured each other. He had you pinned against the door and his fingers through your hair as he kissed you like a starved man. You know how first kisses almost always suck? How it takes a while to find the right rhythm, to lean into it just enough to match the other's technic? That was nothing like that. It was the best kiss you had ever had, it was so perfect and so right. The way his lips moved over your own and his tongue stroked you, it was like you had done this a million times already, or simply like you were made for each other.

Nothing could stop you now. Not even your common sense that would advise you against fucking just anyone in that tiny space, when everyone was still outside. But common sense had left you long ago. Your body was being controlled by an innate, animalistic hunger. And you moaned his name as you straddled his waist and let him suck hickeys into your neck. And you thought about how this is the best thing that had happened to you as you started taking off his belt.

You heard it again; a thump in the room. This time it was certainly not just in your head. You looked around -let's be honest- scared out of your mind because the last thing you needed right now was for something to be hidden in there with you.

"Tae?" you asked in a low voice, just in case he was playing a stupid prank on you. But you were met with silence.

Until it happened again, a louder tap, and this time you determined it was coming from the window. Slowly, while keeping your body as far away as you could, you got closer. You stared at the glass, trying to figure out why it was making that sound. Then you saw it; a small pebble clashing on the pane and disappearing just as fast. You opened it immediately and leaned outside.

"What the hell?" you shouted when you noticed the shadow-covered man standing in the garden under your room. "What are you doing down there?"

Taehyung tossed away the stones he had in his palms, straining his neck to look up at you. "I wanted to talk to you."

"And you thought -instead of just coming to my room- it'd be easier to walk downstairs, get outside and throw rocks at my window?"

"I thought you wouldn't let me in if I just knocked on your door," he explained.

You groaned. He wasn't wrong; you would have probably continued to hide away and avoid him. But he didn't have to be so dramatic about it. Well, not that you are one to talk. "Ugh, just- get your ass in here," you shouted back.

"You're gonna talk to me?"

"Yes."

"Promise?"

You groaned again. "Yes!"

You saw Taehyung run inside as if he was afraid you would change your mind in the meantime. Perhaps you would. You really didn't want to talk to him. What would you even say? You had no excuse to give him, or no excuse you wanted him to know, anyway. All you wanted was to pretend he wasn't even there until morning came; then you could drive back home and go back to pretending you didn't even know each other.

"He is crazy," you mumbled to yourself as you decided you couldn't evade this anymore. "No, that man is certified insane!" you kept on complaining to no one as you opened your door and dashed away.

You ran into him in the middle of the staircase. Stood there, just a step away from him, with your arms folded over your chest, keeping your eyes anywhere but on him.

"So?" you spat.

"I wanted to talk to you," he said in a whisper, a tone that sounded like he was guilty of something.

"Yes, I got that. You can talk now."

He looked down at your feet. "Here?"

You scoffed and moved past him, jogging down the stairs and taking a turn towards the kitchen. The boy followed you diligently. When you reached the room, you immediately grabbed a glass and filled it with water, chugging it down in one go and going for a second turn. You really wished this was something stronger, looking around to see if you could spot a bottle of some kind of liquor. You would need it if you were to have the conversation you thought you would.

"I have a confession to make," Taehyung announced after he decided the silence was enough.

You froze, the glass of water still against your lips, and you looked at him from the corner of your eyes. "Oh, please," you groaned but still couldn't move. "No more confessions from you."

He sighed, walking until he got right in front of you so that he could look you in the eyes for this. "I remember your party."

See, this is exactly what you feared the most. This...This conversation was what was making this place truly haunted for you.

"What?" you weakly breathed.

"Your... welcoming party? With Yoonji?" he continued. As if you didn't know what party he was talking about. "I remember everything about it."

"But-"

"I wasn't that drunk."

The glass hit the counter with such force, for a second you thought you had broken it in your grip. But it had just provided a loud noise as you gaped at the boy in front of you. What were you supposed to say, now? Where to start?

"You didn't even remember meeting me!" you called out.

"Yeah I- I lied."

The worst part wasn't that he was pretending he didn't know who you were. No, that was low-key genius and you would have done the exact same thing if you were quick enough to think of it when you found yourself in that sitting room, across the person you least wanted to see. The worst part was that you had believed it. You felt like such an idiot. You had believed it and thought it meant you could have a clean start.

3 years, 2 months, and 14 days ago at 1:44 am

You didn't want to stop, but you still did, when Taehyung's phone went off. When he pulled away, gasping for air and apologizing. You thought you were having a moment there, you know, a moment where no matter who was calling, it wasn't important enough to pick up. But he apparently didn't see it that way. He took one look at his screen and asked you to be quiet.

Maybe your eyes accidentally caught the pet name on his contact for a split second, or maybe it was the girly voice that came muffled from the speaker, but your head started spinning without warning. And the space was suddenly too small, and it was choking you. You found the knob before he realized what you were doing, and with your body weight on the door, you were launched outside; into the light that burned your eyes. A girl was standing on the other side of the hallway, looking at you with judgement in her eyes and her phone in her hands, then immediately averting her pretentious gaze. A hand tried to hold onto your shirt to keep you back, but you escaped.

You stumbled through the place, not sure where you were trying to go or who you were trying to find, solely trying to keep yourself up and not barf on the new carpet. You wanted to get away, but where could you go? You lived there. You heard Yoonji's laugh before you even saw her, sighing in relief when you spotted her in the kitchen and letting your body fall on hers.

"Baby, baby, everything alright?" your roommate called for you, but you just held onto her without a word. She tried to bear your weight as best as she could, holding onto the counter so that you wouldn't both plummet onto the floor.

Another hand rubbed your back. "Did you drink a little too much, Ames?" It was Jimin's sweet voice. You whined into your friend's neck before you pulled back to look at her boyfriend.

"Jimin, is Kim Taehyung your friend?" you asked him.

He frowned, a little confused as to how the conversation got there. "Ye- yeah. He's my best friend. You met him, right?"

"Yeah," Yoonji responded for you. "I saw them talking earlier."

You took a deep breath; everything seemed to be against you at that moment, even the air itself, and you were trying so hard to not crumble. "Does he have a girlfriend?" you dared ask, even though you thought you might vomit if you heard the answer.

"Who? Tae?" Yoonji mumbled. You nodded, and she gave you a smirk right away. "Ohh... Why do you ask, baby? You interested?"

You rolled your eyes as both of them started teasing you. "No," you tried to tell them.

"Why, was he flirting with you?"

"How does he get every girl like that?"

"No, guys-"

"I don't blame her. He's so hot."

"Hey! I'm right here!"

"Just answer the damn question!" you yelled at them, and they finally stopped. Jimin looked at you with the same frown again.

"He does," he said and everything that was spinning in the room stopped abruptly. "Sorry, love. I promise you'll be the first to know when they break up."

Everything was foggy, and you felt numb. So numb, there was absolutely no thought in your head. You barely noticed the couple turn their heads to the door, barely realized who it was they were looking at.

"No, thanks," you whispered to Jimin then and pulled Yoonji away. "Bathroom," you simply stated and she carefully took you there, avoiding successfully the boy that was the topic of your conversation. For the first time of the many, many more that followed. All those times you stayed clear of gatherings you knew he would be at. All those times you changed your way, left a coffee shop, stayed silently in a corner in places there was nowhere else to go. You never told Yoonji exactly why you didn't want to be in the same room with him again, but she was very supportive no matter what.

You weren't sure why, either. Whether it was your hurt ego, your high standards for the people surrounding you, or the shame you felt every time you met his eyes, you couldn't tell. One thing you knew for sure was how you vowed to never fall for that again. Not from Taehyung, and not from anyone else. No more hooking up with random fuck boys at parties. No more associating yourself with people you don't even value enough. Kim Taehyung was an asshole, and you didn't care what he did or who he did it with, but you would rather be caught dead than be caught with him ever again.

Yet there you were. With him.

You cleared your throat. "And you're telling me this now because...?"

The photographer frowned, mostly at himself, clenching his jaw and looking at the ground. "Well, because you kissed me and ran away as if your life depended on it. Thought it might have something to do with that."

"Right." You bit the inside of your cheek, nodding slightly as you tried to think of what to say. Truly, what could you say? There have been so many things torturing your mind, but you didn't know which of those would be worth saying aloud. "Okay," you simply mumbled. "Are we done then?"

You tried walking past him but he held you back. "Wait, wait, hold on. You promised we would talk."

You just looked at him with your eyes wide. "You said you had a confession to make. You made it. There’s nothing more to say about that."

"Yes, there is."

"Like what?"

Taehyung snorted, finally letting you go. "Like what your problem with me is!"

You released a bitter laugh. "I thought you said you remember everything about that night."

He licked his lips and ran a hand through his hair. "It's been three years-"

"And you stay lying to me." He looked at you intensely but you didn't back down. You might not have wanted to have this conversation, but now that it was happening, you wouldn't cower one bit.

"Look," he started, taking a step closer. "What I did was wrong. Both to you and to my girlfriend. I understand, it was very shitty and I don't have any excuses. I'm not here to give you any excuses."

"Yeah, 'cause there is no excuse for such a thing," you bit back.

Taehyung sighed at your attitude, somewhat losing his patience, but continued. "Right," he mumbled through his teeth. "I told her what I did and we broke up. Actually, she forgave me and wanted to stay with me but I insisted on breaking up because I didn't want her to be in a relationship where I made such a mistake, I wanted her to find someone better."

You shrugged, folding your arms over your chest yet again and tapping your foot on the floor. "Alright. Good for her. What do you want, a cookie?"

"No-"

"You really did less than the minimum, there, buddy. I don't know what you want from me right now."

"I- nothing!"

"Then why are you telling me this?"

He paused, opening and closing his mouth again, clearly not knowing how to reply. Maybe he expected a different reaction, or maybe he was nervous and it all translated into a type of irritation, but he was starting to look angry. "Because!" he said in a louder tone. "Because you keep treating me like that, you're acting like I'm this huge asshole, and I get it- first impressions are hard to change, but I'm not! I'm not that asshole you've made me out to be and quite frankly it's starting to get pretty annoying."

You chuckled. What else were you supposed to do? You couldn't believe what you were hearing. "Excuse me, but I have the right to believe anything I want about you. If I have a certain idea of who you are and it's not affecting you in any way, then what's the problem?" You saw Taehyung roll his eyes and turn away, his hands on his hips as he shook his head and sighed. "If I think what you did is bad enough for me to never change my mind about you, then that's my opinion."

He was mumbling his words out, not being able to form a sentence long enough for it to make sense. "But that's- you-" He kept grunting and shaking his head at you until he finally spoke up. "Three years!" he announced. "It's been three years, Amy, and you're still punishing me for this. Alright, it's your opinion to determine the gravity of it, but don't tell me it doesn't affect me. Not when you've been avoiding me for three years."

"I haven't-" you tried to lie.

But he knew better than that. "Yes, you have. Every time I wanted to come along with my friends, something always came up and you'd bail. You didn't even show up at Jimin's birthday for crying aloud! Because you knew I'd be there. And I wanted to talk to you, apologize to you. I liked you and wanted to make this right and you never gave me the chance." He took a deep breath after having given his monologue in a haste, almost like he was scared his words would bail, too, if he wasn't quick enough. "And then you're wondering why I pretended I didn't remember you?" You blinked at him when you realized he was waiting for an answer. You had none to give him. "What was I supposed to do, huh? What could I have done that wouldn't have resulted in you getting back in that car and driving away?"

You stayed silent, looking at him through your lashes, then averting your gaze again. You sniffed your nose a couple of times as you were trying to get your thoughts straight. Kicked the floor once or twice as you felt your body squirm under his stare; he wouldn't relieve you from the scrutiny. "I..." you finally mumbled. "I'm not interested in reconciling with you." You gulped but noticed his stance and expression didn't change at all. Like he expected those words. "I'm sorry if that's what you wanted to do, and that I prevented you from even trying. But I won't change my mind about this."

He licked his lips, looking at you with a serious frown, then simply said: "Why?"

Why was he even asking? Was it not obvious? "Look, I simply don't like people who do things like these. I don't want them as boyfriends, or friends, or anything. Nothing personal."

"But that's what I'm trying to say!" he insisted. "I'm not like that." He came close, so close his face was hovering above yours merely inches away, staring into your eyes with a sort of urgency. An urgency for you to understand him. "I'm not normally like that. That night... I don't know. That night was an exception. I really don't want to give you cliché excuses, but I thought you knew. I thought you felt it, too. I'm not crazy, right? There was something there that you felt, too?"

You gulped again, looking him up and down with fire all over your face. Because you knew instantly what he meant. But it had to take a few moments for it to actually sink in. That it wasn't just you. And that he, too, was unable to keep his hands from you that night. It certainly didn't justify his actions or lessen your disdain for him. But at least it felt a tiny bit good to know that you weren't just a naive little girl who had fallen for the pretty boy's trick, just like dozens of others.

"That still doesn't explain..." you started saying, keeping your opinion openly still the same, yet not denying his words.

"I know it doesn't!" he was quick to say. His eyes traveled all over your face, the tone of his voice having calmed a bit. "It was very douchy of me and I don't expect to be forgiven for it. Which is why I didn't stay with that girl." You jumped slightly when you felt his hands land on your arms. But you didn't pull away. "But I don't understand why you have to be so harsh on me. It's been three years, and this is still obviously bothering you. You haven't let it go even a little bit."

You looked away, taking a step back, but he quickly made up for it. "It doesn't bother me," you said, tongue in cheek.

"Well, it clearly does," he insisted. "When you are cold to me one moment, kissing me the next, and then running away like I hurt you."

"You did hurt me."

The words left your mouth before you could stop them. Before you even knew what you were saying yourself. He hurt you. You had never admitted that before. Always blaming your anger and aversion to him on your morals or whatever. Yet that was the true reason you didn’t want to see him, and you didn’t want to talk to him, and definitely not kiss him again.

Taehyung paused, taking a deep breath. He leaned nearer as he looked down at your lips as whispered. “I know,” he said in a sweet voice as if to reassure you. “I know.” That meant you weren’t crazy. “But why is it still hurting you now?” You tensed up at his question. “Why do you care -about me- so much that this is, to this day, an open wound?”

You scoffed. But you couldn't say anything. You tried pushing him away, and for a moment he let you, but then he was right in front of you again. Even closer, perhaps. “What are you…?” you murmured, looking quite lost. Especially with the close proximity that was driving your mind into a frenzy.

“Do you still like me?” he asked, straightforward.

“No!” you called immediately. But he didn’t seem convinced, raising an eyebrow at you. "I’m not still hurt. I just… I told you. I simply don't want anything to do with someone like you. So it's fine when you keep your distance, but it's not fine when you kiss me. I said I don't want- ."

"Yeah, yeah, you don't want a boyfriend nor a friend like me," he interrupted you to finish your sentence. "Not that I ever offered to be either of those."

Your cheeks flushed and you looked away immediately so as not to get caught. "I- I didn't say I wanted you to."

Taehyung chuckled. The sound almost scared you more than when he was shouting earlier. Because you knew a casual, flirty Taehyung was always more dangerous. "You know, you kissed me!" he reminded you.

Your mouth dropped in a dramatic way. "You seduced me into kissing you!" you complained.

And the boy laughed even harder. "Seduced? Is that your way of saying you couldn't resist me?"

You tried to fight back at his remarks that clearly only served the role of firing you up -whether that was with anger or something else, you weren't sure. And then he had the audacity to wonder why you still didn't like him? But your voice cracked, as you backed until your body hit the kitchen counter and your hands held the edge tight. "Is not!" you managed to get out.

Taehyung’s arms trapped you in that counter, his hands holding onto it on either side of your body until you were caged between them, as he leaned even closer, standing one breath away and staring at you with a smirk on his lips. It was clear then, he wasn’t trying to talk anymore.

“C’mon,” he rasped, a voice so low that it vibrated in frequencies hard to hear. “I know you can’t resist me. You couldn’t do it three years ago and you can’t do it now.”

Your palms hit his chest, trying to push him away from you as you breathed heavily, hearing your own heartbeat in your head and feeling your control slipping through your fingers. But you still couldn’t form any words. Your brain had shut down when it came to that. Just spinning around as Taehyung kept getting closer. What the hell was he trying to do?

"I'm just saying… There is no one here to judge you for it. No one will know you went against your morals," he purred, a hand leaving your side briefly to swipe your hair off your shoulder and caress your neck in the process. The contact made your palms clench into fists, his shirt pooling under your grip. And there were two ways you could go about this; either push or pull him.

“Tae…”

“Go on then,” he said in a teasing tone. “Show me how much you hate me, princess. How you despise me and everything I stand for. Resist me.”

You did hate him. And you hated being proven wrong. So, those two together should result in you pushing him away and going to your room. Right? You should resist that man, it couldn’t be so hard, anyway. So tell me why the way he was looking at you made your knees buck? Why his words filled your stomach with butterflies, his scent numbed your brain like a hallucinogen? Why you couldn’t resist him.

Tell me why you pulled him in by the shirt.

He didn’t hesitate to wrap his lips around yours. Didn’t waste any time to hold you by the waist and press his body on yours. This was the third chance he was given for this and he was about to make it work. And he seemed to have been waiting for it. He already knew what to do, how to hold you, how to kiss you in order to make you moan in his mouth. It was the party scene all over again; as in, you were devouring each other in a sort of urgency, bumping your lips together like you were drunk and had just found the person you were feeling the craziest chemistry with, grinding on each other as if you were trying to merge together.

And maybe he was right; you could never resist him.

Your fingers dipped into his soft locks and he moaned your name. He snaked his arms under your thighs to push you up, letting you sit at the edge of the counter. He immediately filled in the gap between your legs, hands rubbing up and down your back, while you started kissing down his neck, making sure to mark him as if he was yours. He hissed and growled every time you bit him, riding your shirt up to get a feel of your skin underneath. Then finding your hands, intertwining your fingers together, and pushing them past your body, almost like he was trying to confine them away from him. And you hated not being able to touch him, hated how he pushed your body back to have you almost lay on the counter completely, and you couldn’t move. Because you wanted more.

And maybe he was right; no one would ever know about this. So perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to do this. This mistake. Taehyung.

“Princess, if you plan on regretting this and running away again, you better tell me now,” he rasped while kissing your collarbone. “I might not stop later.”

He was giving you an out. And normally you would have taken it. But at that moment the only thing busying your mind was that implied promise of what was to come.

“You better not,” you mumbled, more to yourself, but heard him chuckle when he heard it, too.

His hands clenched harder around yours before he released you in favor of grabbing your ass and your thighs. He squeezed you close, pulling you until your crotch was rubbing against his clear erection under his pants, and all you could do was whimper. Still kissing his neck, that sweet spot under his ear, biting his lob, and hearing him grunt at the way you were making him feel. Your hands, free now, could run up his toned arms and enjoy his body like you wanted to for a while.

He pulled his head slightly back to look into your eyes. His seemed so unfocused, so dark, like he had gotten high from you. “You want me to make you feel good?” he asked with a smirk. You weren’t sure if he was asking for permission or just building the anticipation.

“Can you?” No, you weren’t making a plea. You were questioning his skills. And he picked it up from your tone immediately.

“Can I?” he snorted, his eyes turning to the ceiling before he let his fingers slowly and very slightly brush your naked belly, moving further down. Your entire body squirmed with the rhythm of his fingertips. “You shiver every time I touch you. So, yeah, I think I can do anything I want to you.”

You immediately punched his chest, pushing him away. “God, I hate you.”

But his smug smirk wouldn’t back down. And he wouldn’t let go of you. “We have already established that,” he murmured, as he lowered his head down- and farther down- until it was right in front of the fly of your pants. And your stomach was sucked in the entire time, your whole body, actually, as if you were trying to take up less space. As if you were trying to pull away from him, even though at the same time you could feel your lower half burning from want, and your lips were already missing his.

But then he looked up at you too, as he was bent down there in front of your crotch, to stare into your eyes through his lashes with a hotshot grin and his tongue between his teeth; and you forgot how to breathe. And then he unbuttoned you with his mouth, biting the zipper and pulling it down slow enough for you to feel every vibration on your body, without ever breaking eye contact; and you thought your soul left your body.

He was back at his normal height, pushing your pants down while licking his lips and examining your face. “Alright, princess,” he spoke in a low tone. “I will give you my best, on one condition.” The pants were completely off and he was working on your unimpressive underwear next. “Every time I do make you feel good, you have to say my name.”

He had gotten you all naked from your waist down, yet he still hadn’t even glanced there; kept his eyes stubbornly on yours. But when you tried to press your legs together, feeling shy and exposed, he was holding them tight. “That’s your condition?” you wondered, not seeming too hard to do. You were probably going to do it anyway.

He leaned down, keeping his lips close enough to rub on yours when he spoke. “Yes. Every time. I want you to keep reminding yourself who it is that is making you feel this way.” When he kissed you, it worked almost as a distraction to how one hand crept in between your thighs and pressed around your folds, yet avoiding the place you needed him to touch.

His lips moved at the same rhythm as his fingers, his tongue slipping in your mouth right as he finally moved them closer, getting them all dirty with your wetness. Index and middle finger rubbing up and down, brushing against your clit and over your opening but never giving into either. You hummed in frustration as you bit down on his bottom lip, your hips trying to move forward, trying to get more.

“What did I tell you?” he whispered, increasing his pressure on your clit just for a moment, a moment long enough to make you gasp with your mouth open over his.

“Tae…” you breathed.

“Say it,” he insisted.

“Taehyung,” you moaned, closing your eyes as he started moving his fingers in circles over the sensitive bud like a reward.

“You’re so wet, already,” he observed, something quite obvious from the sounds the simple movement was creating. “Is that all for me?” He pulled his head back to watch your reaction better, smiling when he saw you nodding. “Good girl,” he purred, rewarding you yet again with sliding one finger easily inside.

"Oh,” you moaned, your body immediately arching towards his. You still needed more. The better it all felt, the more you wanted from him.

The photographer inhaled sharply through his teeth, stilling his actions. “Amy, what did we say?”

“Taehyung,” you immediately obeyed. And you didn’t need to be told twice. “Taehyung,” you moaned, again and again, as he worked his magic into you. As he kissed you in that way no one had ever been able to replicate. “Taehyung,” as he pushed a second finger in to stretch you out. “Taehyung,” as he found your g-spot and massaged it softly as if he was working with something fragile. “Taehyung, Taehyung,” as he made you come, once, twice, thrice. With his fingers inside you, on your clit, his mouth french-kissing your pussy, his tongue dipping in and out as he lapped at your juices.

All while you had to make yourself think of who exactly was fucking you like that. Who was making your legs shake, your head spin, your sight and hearing unclear. Whose hair you were pulling, whose teeth you had marks of on your thighs, whose name you were screaming.

Kim Taehyung.

Next Chapter

[puckyess]

I Hope | Roman Ahcan

Based on the song I Hope // Gabby Barret. I hope you like it!

*** FEEDBACK IS APPRECIATED ***

Words: 4.6k

“I hope you both feel the sparks by the end of the drive I hope you know she's the one by the end of the night I hope you never ever felt more free Tell your friends that you're so happy I hope she comes along and wrecks every one of your plans I hope you spend your last dime to put a rock on her hand I hope she's wilder than your wildest dreams She's everything you're ever gonna need And then I hope she cheats Like you did on me”

One year ago

Your world had been shattered in the matter of 30 seconds and one message. Your boyfriend, well soon to be ex, was lip locked with a girl who was not his girlfriend, a girl who was not you. And you had the evidence in the form of a very high quality picture sitting in your hands. Just like that, your sanity was gone and insecurity took its place.

You manically paced the floor of your apartment, hysterical little laughs exploding from you every time you thought about the man who you had thought was your future. It was like you couldn’t even process the information right in front of your eyes. The person in that picture, with his hands on her waist was not your boyfriend. Your boyfriend would never do that to you. And yet the picture said otherwise, with his hat on backwards, the ends of his hair curling up just so- the way you liked, the gleam of his silver chain visible as it peaked out from his white shirt that you had bought him, and the corner of his mouth turned up through the kiss in his signature smirk. You knew exactly how his lips would feel in that moment, if it had been you in that picture. But it wasn’t.

The phrase that echoed through your head is what had you almost on your knees, begging for this to be some cruel joke. It bounced around in your head, traveled through your body, sank into your bones, and broke your heart. Your boyfriend just cheated on you. Your boyfriend was is cheating on you. Your boyfriend had been cheating on you. The tears still didn’t come, they prickled the back of your eyes but you couldn’t manage to force them to spill out. You couldn't even get your body to function properly right now. Your mind had other things to worry about besides silly things like tears. Tears wouldn’t undo the pain that he had just inflicted.

You thought about every moment that had transpired between the two of you over the past - what you had thought was a glorious year and a half- and questioned which of those he had pictured with her instead. Every morning you had woken up beside him, a small smile on his still sleeping lips, was he dreaming of her? Every time his eyes slipped closed when your fingers tangled in his hair, was he thinking of her hands? Every time he had stormed out of your place after a fight, had he gone to her place instead? Every little hideaway he had shown you, had he shown her too? What about the parts of him that you thought he had shared with only you? Did she know Roman the same way you thought you had. You had given yourself to him in more ways than one and as it turns out he had given himself to more than just you. The realization is enough to make you fall to the floor, skipping the tears altogether and instead indulging in ugly, body wrenching sobs.

This is how he finds you hours later, collapsed on the floor. He’s instantly worried, moving to check on you. “Y/N, Baby are you okay? What’s going on? Talk to me sweetie” he coos as he goes to pick you up off the floor. But he freezes just as quickly as he had started toward you when he sees the picture displayed on your phone on the floor. 

At some point during the night, your body and mind had gone numb. So much so, that it was scaring you. You had never felt this empty. You needed to feel something, even if it was pain and the picture did the trick. So you had found the message Owen had sent you and tortured yourself to remind yourself that the boy who was coming home to you tonight, didn’t always come home to just you. He did not belong in your life. It was effective enough, keeping you anchored on the floor in the middle of the living room long enough for him to see some of the damage he had caused.

“Y/N...I - I can explain” he tries, swallowing hard.

You move yourself to a seated position, the best you can manage at this point, as you decide which question you want to hurl at him first. Even though you want to ask “do you love me?” The answer is clear as day with what he has done. Actions speak louder than words, right?

So you settle on, “Was this the first time?”. And even this one, you think you know the answer to as well. But you give him the benefit of the doubt and ask anyway.

You can see the wheels turning in his head, the beautiful Madison lights casting his face in a glow that hours ago you would’ve made him stand frozen in place to capture on camera.

Now however, you wanted nothing more than to escape the moment. “Now, Roman. I’m not asking again”, you bark at him.

He flinches and the small action hurts your heart still even though he had already destroyed it. You never raised your voice at him.

“No”, he decides he should be honest, for the first time in a while.

You nod, accepting the dagger to your heart. “How long?”

He grimaces at your question. “How long have you been with her?” You repeat.

He tries to dance around the question, “I’m sorry, Y/N, I know I fucked up, but we haven’t really been the same for a while now..”

“That’s bullshit and you know it, Roman. How long? You can’t possibly be worried about hurting my feelings at this point so just spit it out”.

He hates that you’re right. Why wasn’t he just telling it to you straight? He’d already hurt you and he knew that, but doing things behind your back, especially when he swore each time was the last, was different from hurting you when he was standing right in front of you and could see the pain in your eyes and hear it in your voice.

“Four months” he finally tells you.

You let out a bitter laugh as you think back to your life four months ago and it registers which night it probably was. “Oh you mean the night we went to that women’s soccer party and had that huge blowout because I didn’t like how you were flirting with every girl there, including Owen’s girlfriend by the way, and you flipped out on me and called me insecure, swearing you were ‘just friends’ with those girls and ‘would never do that to me’ and ‘how dare I question your loyalty’?”

He hangs his head, having completely forgotten about the fight you two had gotten into that night, screaming at each other in the street. It was your first big fight. You had cried half the night in your room, not letting him in. He had sat on the couch listening to your quiet sobs for a while, but instead of waiting to comfort and reassure you, he had left and gone back to the party.

“I went back” he admits.

“And then you still had the balls to meet me for brunch and let me apologize all over myself the very next morning, classy Roman. What, did you come straight from her place?”

The way he won’t meet your gaze still tells you everything you need to know and you couldn’t have felt more like a fool.

You’re angry now though as you push yourself up from the floor. Out of instinct Roman moves to help you stand. The look you give him though makes him recoil and snatch his hand back. You park yourself in a chair and gesture for him to do the same. He’s confused at your shift in mood but does as he’s told and takes a seat on the couch.

“So what’s her name?”

He's still confused but answers your question anyway, a simple one thank god.

“What’s she like? What drew you to her? What makes her special?” You gush, leaning forward with your legs crossed an arm propping up your head.

“Come on, Y/N…” he says, not really knowing what else to say. Did you really want to know?

“Nope, you don’t make the rules anymore. You gave that up four months ago. I want to know what it is about her that’s better than me”, you push. And you really do. What does this girl have that you don’t.

And so you sit and listen to your boyfriend tell you all about the girl he’s been seeing since four months ago. You listen good and hard, letting every word cut you deep. They both felt the sparks, she came right up to him and made her intentions known, apparently while you were helping his teammate clean up after wiping out on the stairs. She was confident. She had a reputation, but he saw past it. He always did see the good in everyone, you say to yourself shaking your head. She had a past and apparently he was her future just as he had been yours. Once your ears were so full of her and he was taking it almost too far, telling you about how he knew she was the one by the end of the night, you switched gears yet again, needing to feel something other than pathetic.

“So you obviously fucked her I'm assuming?” You question him with an eyebrow raised.

He shifts in his seat. The blunt question a complete contrast to the sweet nothings you had previously asked about.

“I..-Er. Uhhh.” Hes stumbling over his words, flustered.

“Well if you’ve been seeing her for four months, you have to be fucking right? It’s not like you to keep it in your pants that long, is it? Hell, you had me bent over for you the first night we met”. Referencing his past was a low blow and you could see that at the hurt that flashes across his face, but none of it was a lie and at this point he deserved it. He’d played right into his own reputation, after all.

“That’s not fair, Y/N. But to answer your question, if you must know, then yes, I am fucking her” he says and there’s bite to his words.

You snort in response, “Not fair? Not fair is thinking the man you’ve given heart to would respect it and love it back and then getting completely fucked over and him acting like everything is fine for four months. That’s not fair, but nice try, it was cute”

It was like he completely forgot that he was the one on trial here, that he was the one who royally fucked you over and he had the audacity to play victim and claim your comment was “unfair”.

“So how good is she in bed? On a scale of 1-10? Does she make you see stars every time you cum? Does she make you say her name like a prayer and make you beg for it to the point where it’s the only words you know?” You push forward, wanting to make him squirm.

You were making him uncomfortable, this much was clear as the heat rose to his cheeks and he changes positions on the coach three times before swallowing hard and speaking. “Why are you doing this? Why do you want to know this stuff?” He pleads.

Refusing to back down, you ignore his question. “Oh come on, baby. I know you love to talk dirty. What’s the problem now?” You say in a patronizing voice.

He still gives you an unsure look. “It’s just. I don’t know, doesn’t it bother you? I don’t know what difference it makes”.

You laugh then, both at his choice of words, and at his sudden consideration of your feelings. “Bother” is used for something small like a fly, not hearing the sex details of your boyfriend’s mistress and he had already cheated and lied for four months, it was a little late for your feelings.

“If you’re ‘’man’ enough to cheat on me and fuck some other girl then you can be ‘man’ enough to sit across from me and spill every juicy detail” you spit at him.

He doesn’t even know why he questions you, he should be doing everything you ask and groveling at your feet right now. Actually he does know, he still cares about you even though he hasn’t shown it. He doesn’t want to watch as his words rip you apart piece by piece. He doesn’t want to watch as you fall apart in front of him or hear the way you wail his name and then tell him to keep going. He hates the way you’re wiping at your tears with your own hands and even more, that he’s the one causing them. He can’t hold you or comfort you, he can only keep killing you with his words. He swears you’re going to kill him yourself, as eventually white hot anger takes over your features. You swear at him and yell, but it’s nothing compared to the look that follows it. It absolutely terrifies him when there’s no expression on your face at all. No pain, no sadness, no anger, no emotion whatsoever. That’s when he knows he’s lost you and for good. You stare right past him and say “We’re done here. I think you should go”.

There’s no look of recognition for the boy in front of you as you walk him to the door, as you really don’t know who he is anymore. And there’s no sentiment in your voice as you tell him “I hope she cheats like you did on me”, shutting the door on him.

—

Present

It was 2 am on a Friday, technically Saturday, when you thought you’d heard a knock on your door. Your sleep schedule was messed up and you were still awake watching reruns of Friends. Whoever it was knocked again but you weren’t expecting any visitors, especially at this hour so you grab the hockey stick from under your bed and slowly creep toward the door. The person was now banging repeatedly and your heart matched every thump. You cursed yourself for not taking your dad up on his offer to install a peep hole last week, swearing you could do it yourself and then not having had time to do it yet. It really would’ve come in handy right now. There’s a pause in the knocking and so holding your breath you swing open the door, stick in hand.

Standing on the other side is someone you haven’t seen in over a year, but he still takes your breath away like the very first time. “Roman”, you breathe out. At hearing his name, he turns your way, a nervous hand rubbing at the back of his neck, a habit he never could shake. 

You take a moment to take each other in, the subtle differences that happen from a year’s time. He looks tired, there’s bags under his eyes, but good all the same. His hair is a bit longer and he’s started growing light facial hair along his jawline. His shoulders are somehow broader. You’d bet his thighs were thicker too, you couldn’t tell for sure, but he seemed to fill out the grey sweats he was wearing more than you last remembered. You bit your lip as those were some of your favorites and you had told him so many times when you were together. His skin still held some of that summer tan and in an instant, all the feelings you had for him were flooding back.

He took in your appearance as well. He didn’t even question the hockey stick in your hand, he was too focused on the rest of you. Even in just a big T-shirt, you still took his breath away. It wasn't his, but it was one of the newer hockey ones the team had just gotten and he wondered who had given theirs to you. He made a mental note to question it at practice that week. He had fucked up over a year ago, he knew that now. Your hair was lighter and the spatter of freckles across your cheeks and nose was a little more filled in now. Your bare legs looked more toned. He couldn’t help but wonder how they’d feel wrapped around his waist. 

Watching his stare travel down your body you suddenly felt self conscious, having not had him look at you like that in so long. You cleared your throat and his eyes snapped back up to your puzzled face. “What’re you doing here Roman?”

“I know I’m probably the last person you expected to see, Y/N”, you nodded in confirmation “and probably the last person you wanted to see”, he says with a sheepish smile.

You shrug, “I hadn’t really been expecting to see anyone at all. It’s like 2 in the morning?”

He nods, knowing it’s absurd that he’s here. “I have no right to ask this of you, but can I come in?”

You blink in surprise at his request, heavily weighing what letting him in will lead to in the long run vs closing the door in his face. He’s subtly trying to peer around you, praying that he’s not interrupting something and you don’t already have company.

Following your still bruised heart and not your head, you step aside and let him into your apartment. Even though it’s been so long, he doesn’t look one bit out of place in your space.

Just as he took in the slight changes in your appearance, he took in the slight adjustments you had made to your apartment. You had rearranged the furniture, even getting a new couch. Gone was the one where he had ripped your heart out over a year ago and in its place, a new black sectional. Good riddance he thought. You had changed the canvases that were on the wall, but left the Wisco tapestry that was the background of so many of his pictures. The counters were clean and the place itself looked less cluttered without all of his hockey stuff laying all over the place. There was a still a Badgers hoodie thrown over the chair in the corner, one that he could’ve sworn Lindy had been asking about at practice the other day and he spied Lex’s ugly hot pink charger plugged in over by the couch, a pair of Cole’s Jack Hughes slides by the door. He was glad the boys hadn’t abandoned you when he did.

You had put away the pictures of the two of you that used to sit on the side table and scatter the fridge, but you had left a singular picture up of you and him with some of the team from your first Fourth of July together. His arm was around your waist, pulling you into his side. The boys’ arms were thrown around your shoulders. Your head was thrown back with laughter and there was a beaming smile plastered on his face that never seemed to leave when he was around you. He almost got choked up staring at the picture. He just wished he could go back in time.

“I couldn’t bring myself to take that one down.” You spoke up from behind him. “I know we ended on bad terms, but we had some damn good times”. There was sadness in your voice, but a hint of something else too. Maybe forgiveness? Acceptance?

Putting the picture back, he agrees with you. “We did, didn’t we? That’s kind of the reason I’m here”.

You suck in a breath. “Roman I’ve worked hard to put all that behind me. I really don’t want to dredge it back up again. Especially after so long…” you were over the situation. It still hurt like hell and he had broken you beyond what you had thought you could repair, but you had picked yourself up and were stronger now than ever. That night wasn’t something you thought about much at all anymore, but you knew he could change that in an instant.

“No, no, no! That’s not what I’m here for at all, not really anyways”, he says quickly.

“Then what are you here for?” You ask, nervously chewing on your lip.

He looks around like he doesn’t really want to get to the point. You surprise yourself and pat the spot next to you on the couch. He gives you the same look you inwardly give yourself, but can’t fight it as his body leads him to you. He’s careful not to sit too close but he’s still close enough to make your heart race.

“Do you remember what your last words to me were?” He asks.

Of course you remembered. They chorused through your head for the weeks to come. They were harsh, but you’d meant them.

“I hope she cheats like you did on me”.

“Is it ok for me to talk about her with you? We’re over if that makes you feel better about it” he asks.

Were you ready to hear whatever it is he was about to tell you? You’d never know if you didn’t let him continue. You did note, too that he was no longer with her.

“You’re already here on my couch, Ro. Might as well get out whatever it is you came here to say”.

His heart flutters at your use of his nickname. He had refused to let any of the guys call him that because it reminded him of you. He hadn’t heard it in so long, it felt so good he almost forgot what he was here to do. 

“I don’t even know where to start. I guess maybe with that I really thought she was it, I didn’t leave you for some fling I really thought I was in love..she was...she was wilder than my wildest dreams. I felt everything you’re supposed to feel, the sparks, that happy, free feeling. & I’m so sorry if any of this hurts you to hear, just tell me to stop ok?” He asked softly.

You nodded, you’d already told yourself every hurtful thing in the book, hearing it from him shouldn’t be much different. You urged him on. “I was in so deep with her, I didn’t know up from down, wrong from right. I’d call her in the middle of the highway drive home from roadies with a huge smile on my face and in a blur I’d be home, time just wasn’t a thing when I talked to her, I’d hear a song and start singing along thinking about her. I’d tell all the guys I was so happy. I think they could kind of see through the whole thing though”.

You raised your eyebrows at that and he looked over at you. “They’re big fans of yours, you know. They had their suspicions about this girl from the getgo. They knew it wasn’t real like it was with you. They could see it wouldn’t last like I thought it would. Hell, I thought she was everything I was ever gonna need. She wrecked every single one of my plans. My plans for my future, I was ready to call it quits on hockey after this year and move out to Texas with her. Wrecked my plans with you, in every way...I am so sorry”.

You and Roman used to stay up all night talking about those plans. Hearing him mention them again, even in this context had you wishing that they were all still a possibility, the little lake house in Minnesota and mini Romans running around while he lived out his hockey dream. You would’ve done anything to give that life to him.

He pulls you from your thoughts when he continues, “ I thought I had it all figured out. I had even bookmarked the ring she kept showing me, even though it would’ve cost me my last dime”.

Your heart breaks as he says this, knowing how he felt about marriage. He didn’t really care about the ceremony, he’d get married in a courthouse or at Vegas for all he cared. He only wanted you by his side, well at the time anyway. To know that he had gotten that far with her, brought up every feeling from that night and you knew that this was a very bad idea to have him here, in your place, on your couch so close to you. You began to pull away from him, but he didn’t notice. His head was leaned against the top of the couch, his eyes trained on the ceiling.

“And then at 2 am I’m flipping through snap and I get one from her friend. She’s hanging all over some guy. I’m obviously pissed but I couldn’t get mad at her for just having her arms around him right? But then the next one is her with her tongue down his throat.”

You’re silent next to him, tracing patterns on the blanket on your lap, knowing the situation all too well. He wants to reach over and touch you but he resists, needing to finish his story first.

“I stayed up all night, waiting for her to come home. I was literally pacing by the door for hours. She never did come home though. I suppose you can guess where she was and what she was doing. She didn’t even bother to call until the next day, I’d had my phone in my hand the whole night thinking she’d call. I’d never felt more pathetic. Not even after that 9-1 loss last season,” he tries to joke, but you can tell he’s serious.

“That was a pretty bad game…” you acknowledged, giving him a small smile.

He chuckles at your efforts and he’s hit once again with how much he’s missed you.

The way he’s looking at you is one you’ve seen many times before. It’s a look that tells you he’s about to do something you don’t know that you’re ready for, even if you want to be, so you try to keep him on track. “So what did she say when she finally called?”

He’s broken from his trance and clears his throat, letting his head roll back to face the ceiling again. “That she was wasted and had no idea what she was doing. Didn’t even remember it apparently.”

Your brows furrowed together as you tried to follow what he was saying. “But how did she know to call you about it then?”

“Exactly. I hadn’t even left any voicemails or messages or anything. I hadn’t known what to say at the time. I didn’t want it to be over yet you know?”

And you did know. You and Roman were supposed to last forever and you were prepared for that, you wanted that. You were more prepared for forever than you were for having your time with him cut short.

“So I told her it was okay. That I forgave her and maybe it was my fault too. I should’ve gone out with her that night like she had wanted. We agreed that we needed to start new again, so I took her out on another first date and when we kissed, sparks flew all over again. I was just as deep, thinking she was still the one by the end of the night. And then she cheated three weeks later again. Apparently it had been everytime I left town, for months. I felt like such an idiot. I questioned every interaction we’d ever had. She fucked with my head”.

She had made him feel the same way about her that you had felt about him, that you feel about him and then she’d made him feel exactly how he’d made you feel when he cheated on you. You had been listening intently, but your eyes were trained on your hand that was still tracing patterns on the blanket on your lap. Your tracing is paused however when he grabs your hand in his and uses his finger to tip your chin up to look in his eyes. It’s the first time he’s touched you all night and you’d be lying if it didn’t ignite a fire inside of you and put butterflies in your stomach.

“I am so beyond sorry for what I did to you and for what I put you through. I’ll never forgive myself for throwing away what we had and lying about it time after time. I don’t deserve forgiveness for that, especially from you. I’m sorry that it took her cheating on me to understand the level of hurt that I had caused you. I betrayed you in the worst way, in every way really. You didn’t deserve that and I’m so so sorry for hurting you”. The playful smirk that normally finds itself present on his face is nowhere to be seen as his eyes bore into your soul and his voice sends shivers down your spine with how much conviction is behind the words he just spoke.

“I wanted her to wreck you”, you honestly tell him, your voice practically a whisper. Anything louder and he might’ve picked up on the way your voice broke at the end. With one visit he had practically undone a years worth of work. You wanted him, and you wanted him bad. You could forgive him, you already had, but you could never trust him the same.

Unlike the last time he had seen you, when you stared right through him; this time your face was full of so many emotions. It was so close to his. It would take him a handful of inches to close the distance between your lips and his. It was hard for him to think straight.

“I know babygirl, and I deserved it. I really did. I didn’t come here tonight to try and ruin the life you’ve built for yourself without me in it. I won’t try to earn your love back if you don’t want me to, I know I owe you that much at least. I just came to tell you how sorry I was for putting you through all that I did. I understand that now. But hey, you got what you wanted”, he says with a sad smile.

And there it was. That damn nickname that had your resolve melting on the spot. He had good intentions, coming here and you did still feel for him, your heart hurt at the hurt he had gone through, but he never would’ve had to experience that had he not cheated. As much as you wanted him back, you couldn’t go through that again.

“I forgive you, Ro, I really do. It’s the forgetting that’s the hard part. I can forgive, but I can’t forget”.

[vodkanrainbows]

Xefros' Daymare

Well my dudes, I already wrote a fanfic about Dammek having a daymare, so this time Xefros is the one to have a daymare.

Some Background Information: This takes place after the events of Hiveswap, wherein Xefros and Dammek leave their lives on Alternia behind to start fresh (Joey is the one to persuade Xefros into coming back to Earth with her) and stay in Earth. They are now living at the Half-Harley Manor with Joey and Jude. Now that Dammek and Xefros don't have to do Dammek's rebellion, Dammek now devotes his life to spend time with Xefros and has learned how to treat him right (especially after getting yelled at by Joey).

Additional Notes: Dammek and Joey are kismesis, and Xefros and Dammek are no longer moirails, but matesprits instead.

Characters: Dammek, Xefros, Joey (mentioned), Jude (mentioned)

Ships: Xefros ❤ Dammek, Xefros ♦ Dammek (mentioned), Joey ♠ Dammek (mentioned)

Warnings: Red Dammek/Xefros, since some people don't like them being shipped red.

Story below the cut! Enjoy me writing at 4 in the morning :)

Ever since Joey was able to convince Xefros to come to live on Earth with her and her brother, Jude, he has been much happier with his now matesprit, Dammek. The two were able to reconcile after Xefros broke off their Moirallegiance for a few months. They recently got back to dating and officially became matesprites. Xefros had flushed feelings for Dammek since the very beginning, but decided to never tell him in fear of being told that Dammek didn't feel the same and would reject him. So Xefros was extremely surprised (and relieved) when Dammek revealed to Xefros that he indeed felt the same. Since they're no longer having to rebel against Trizza, Dammek now treats Xefros right and they spend a lot of time together.

---

It was a peaceful night at Half-Harley Manor. Everybody was asleep and the manor was a quiet as can be. Dammek and Xefros share a room together and share a bed. Dammek was sleeping just fine, but Xefros was whining softly under his breath in his sleep.

---

Dammek: xeFros, we have to talk.

Xefros: sure! what is it?

Dammek: so i've been thinking...

Dammek: about our relationship together.

Xefros' bloodpusher sank. Uh oh...

Xefros: oh... uh...

Xefros: really?? X:O

Dammek nodded.

Dammek: yes.

Dammek: i think...

Dammek paused for a sec, breaking eye contact with Xefros.

Dammek: we should break up.

Xefros covered his mouth in shock.

Xefros: what?

Xefros: w-why?

Dammek: xeFros, you know i like you a whole lot, but i'm not always gonna have time for you!

Xefros: b-but you said youd always have time for me...

Dammek: that was then, xeFros. things change, y'know?

Xefros' eyes started to well up, burgundy tears threatening to run down his cheeks.

Dammek: i'm sorry, xeFros, but we're done.

Xefros: dammek please

Xefros: dont you DARE leave me!

Xefros was full on crying now, grabbing Dammek by his hoodie sleeve. Dammek was refusing to make eye contact.

Xefros: i-i love you!!! im IN LOVE with you!

Xefros: please!

Xefros: i dont want you to go

Xefros: i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i lov-

Xefros was interrupted when Dammek suddenly yanked his arm out of Xefros' tight grip, which made Xefros fall backwards onto his back. Xefros yelped in pain.

Dammek was now crying as he leaned over Xefros' body currently on the ground.

Dammek: enough!

Dammek: i said we're done! what part of that are you not getting, huh?!

Dammek: just leave me alone, dammit!

Xefros was still laying on his back, looking up at Dammek with blurry vision. Burgundy tears are now violently falling down his cheeks and onto the ground below him. Xefros only whimpered in response to Dammek shouting at him.

Dammek: ...goodbye, xeFros.

Xefros' eyes widened when he heard this, swiftly jolting up into a sitting position, ignoring the pain in his possibly broken back. Xefros suddenly started to scream at Dammek's now disappearing form as Dammek was walking away from Xefros.

Xefros: DAMMEK!!!!

Xefros: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO DAMMEK PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DONT LEAVE ME PLEASE!

Xefros stopped screaming when he realized Dammek probably can't hear him anymore. He lie back onto his back as he cried silently to himself.

---

Xefros awoke with a scream.

Xefros: DAMMEK!!!!!!!!

Suddenly, Dammek started moving frantically in the bed, jumping to his feet.

Dammek: xeFros?! what the Fuck happened?!

Xefros was crying.

Xefros: d-dammek?

Dammek turned around to look at Xefros with wide eyes. Dammek got back up into the bed and nestled next to his matesprit. Dammek grabbed Xefros and held on tight.

Dammek: yeah, i'm right here babe

Dammek: what happened?

Dammek: tell me everything, ok?

Xefros was still crying, but he felt a little better with Dammek holding him tightly.

Xefros: i...

Xefros: i had a daymare

Dammek pulled back from Xefros slightly, looking at Xefros with his beautiful eyes. He had no sunglasses on, which gave Xefros a good chance to look into his eyes, which were glowing green because of the pitch darkness that they are sitting in. Xefros is the only one Dammek allows to see him without his trademark shades on. Dammek is extremely insecure about his eyes, which is why he wears them, but Xefros thinks Dammek's eyes are beautiful. Xefros even prefers seeing Dammek without the shades on. "my eyes are only for you, baby," Dammek has told Xefros.

Dammek: a daymare? about what?

Xefros: y-you dumped me...

Dammek: ...what?

Xefros nodded.

Xefros: you said you no longer had time for me...

Xefros: i-i tried to atop you from leaving me a-and you...

Xefros had to gulp and take a deep breath. Dammek rubbed Xefros arms up and down in reassurance.

Dammek: it's okay. tell me more baby.

Xefros: ...y-you started to scream at me telling me to leave you alone and i screamed and screamed for you but you wouldnt come back no matter how loud i screamed...

Xefros: i just...

Xefros: dont want you to leave me!!!!

Dammek jumped at Xefros' sudden shouting, but quickly recovered and sat up a little and straddled Xefros' lap. Dammek put one finger underneath Xefros' chin, forcing Xefros took look at him. Dammek was scowling.

Dammek: hey.

Dammek: look at me, baby. listen carefully For me, ok?

Xefros nodded.

Dammek: xeF, you know that'll never happen. i'll always have time for you. i will not leave your side, no matter what happens.

Dammek: i am not perFect, but i really am trying. i love you so much, always have. even when i was treating you like shit.

Dammek: of course joey would try and convince you that i didn't care about you, and you believed her and you dumped me. you realized that we were meant to be together, so you came back to me and we started the relationship from Fresh.

Dammek: but joey was right about one thing. i was not a good moirail to you. sure i cared about you, but i was too caught up in that stupid rebellion to give you the time we should've spent together. i was selFish. i was bossy and put you through dangerous shit, not caring about the consequences. i hurt you so many Fucking times but you never realized it because of how much you looked up to me. i took advantage of that because i knew you'd always come back to me. jude helped me realize a lot of things, xeFros. he helped me realize that a TRUE Friend wouldn't do the things i did to you. i am glad i came to earth. if the portal wouldn't have activated, we would still be rebelling and i'd still be treating you like shit. hell, we wouldn't even be matesprits right now!

Dammek: so in short, i was a shitty person who didn't treat you right.

Dammek released Xefros chin, putting his hand on Xefros' waist.

Dammek: you are literally the best person in my liFe, you always have been. even back then.

Dammek: i love you so Fucking much, baby. you have no idea.

Suddenly, Xefros shifted and pushed Dammek down into the bed and into the mattress. Xefros was covering Dammek's face in kisses. Dammek laughed.

Dammek: xeFros!!

Xefros made his way from Dammek's face to Dammek's throat, splaying kisses all over there too. Dammek gasped a little, wrapping his arms around Xefros with a growl and bared fangs, as if to protect him. Joey and Jude didn't wake up to Xefros' screams. Dammek didn't really have a reason to growl and show of his fangs like that since Joey and Jude mean no harm at all. He still kinda thinks Joey means harm, but he guesses this is normal since they're now in a black relationship. But Dammek still does this whenever anyone harms his friends.

Xefros stopped kissing Dammek's neck. Dammek still has his arms around Xefros. Damnek buries his head in Xefros' neck, purring.

Xefros: thanks, dammek

Xefros: i feel so much better now...

Dammek's reply was slightly muffled, but Xefros understands him anyways.

Dammek: anything for you, baby.

Dammek and Xefros part.

Dammek: wanna go back to bed?

Xefros: sure

Dammek smiled as he got under the covers with Xefros. Dammek opened his arms for Xefros so they can cuddle. Xefros purrs and quickly accepts Dammek's embrace. Dammek pulls Xefros close to him, kissing Xefros on the lips. They locked lips for a few seconds before they broke the kiss. Xefros buries his face into Dammek's neck before finally closing his eyes and falling asleep. Xefros is so grateful to have Dammek in his life.

[moth-and-raven]

CHAPTER FOUR

The rest of the day passes in a haze. Loud cheers met Nadia’s announcement and Portia slipped into the rush just in time to board the carriage, tear-stained but determined to fight through it.

I must have been imagining things. I don’t want to think poorly of Julian, but I have to face facts: people will do and say anything to keep themselves off the gallows. He’s smart. He’s charismatic. He knows I’m working with the Palace. I can’t help but think he was just trying to endear himself to me, taking advantage of how obviously attracted to him I am. I can’t blame him for that. It’s my own fault for chasing what was a pathetic pipe dream from the start.

I retreat to my room after we return to the palace. It’s not unreasonable, considering I haven’t slept much in the past few days. From my bed, I watch spots of sunlight creep across the ceiling until I fall asleep. At least it’s dreamless this time.

Portia comes to get me for dinner in the late evening, when the sky’s turned purple. She’s itching with curiosity, peeking at me from the corner of her eye the whole way to the dining hall. Before we enter, she clears her throat.

“So, um.”

“It was nothing.” If I keep telling myself that, maybe it’ll hurt less. “Did you—?”

“Safe and sound. At least as much as he can be.”

“How long had it been since—?”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth just like he does. “Ten years, give or take. The last time I saw him was right after his apprenticeship. He came back to Nevivon for a few months while he was figuring out what else to do. I was only sixteen, so he must’ve been… twenty-five?”

The same age I am now. I didn’t realize he was that much older than me, though I suppose it makes sense. He’s lived quite a life. Yet more reason for him to see nothing of interest in me.

Portia pushes on: “What will you say to—?”

“I’m not telling her anything.” I shake my head and look away. “I don’t have anything to tell her anyway.”

That’s not a lie. I may know more about him now, but nothing pertinent.

“She’ll ask.”

“I know.”

I must not be doing as good of a job hiding my sadness as I thought I was, because Portia rests her hand on my shoulder and squeezes gently. I don’t have it in me to say that whatever she’s imagining isn’t true.

I can’t do this.

“Could you tell Nadia that I—” Humiliated, I choke on my tears. “I'm— I’ll be in the library.”

I’m already around the corner by the time she agrees. I don't know what I’m going to do there, but at least I’ll be alone. Again.

I may not remember beyond the last three years, but I know in my heart that I’ve never been loved like I am in my dreams. I probably never will be. With all the beautiful people out there, who would choose me, the fat twenty-five-year-old virgin so gullible she falls for every man who looks at her twice? What could I possibly offer someone like him?

Nothing.

Painful, empty nothing.

I end up at the library eventually. At least I can navigate the palace better than I could the South End. My tears have almost stopped before I feel the metal arc of the crescent moon still hanging around my neck and break apart again. I manage to reach an armchair, nestled in an alcove near a half-flight of stairs, and curl up in it as best I can to weather the storm.

I’m so ugly when I cry. Thank god no one can see it. No one ever should.

When the waves settle and my breath doesn’t feel so foreign in my lungs, I press my palms to my eyes and sigh heavily. I have a headache now, as I always do after I cry like that. I know I should be hungry, but I’m not. I don’t know what I am.

But I made a promise. To Nadia and to Julian. Even if I never see him again, I’ll help him as much as I can. And with all of his research, all the palace staff who knew both him and Lucio, all the magic echoes swirling around waiting for someone to hear them, I think I can help him a lot.

------

I was always more comfortable at night. I sleep a little bit, curled up in the armchair, but it’s not very comfortable and I wake up sore. I’m glad I came to the library, though: Julian’s desk is a mess of torn papers and marked-up books, underlines and strikethroughs and question marks in the margins, and I have so little time to piece it all together. If I hadn’t slept yesterday away… yesterday. I shouldn’t be thinking about yesterday. It was nothing. It is nothing.

He’ll be nothing if I can’t figure this out.

Portia brings me something to eat in the very early hours, right before dawn. Without saying a word, she draws up another chair and starts sorting through things too. She can read his handwriting much more easily than I can.

And Count Lucio’s name shows up. And again, and again. Lucio’s temperature rising. Lucio says wine tastes metallic. Alchemical fluid in Lucio’s prosthetic turned red, wouldn’t survive replacement. Observations in clipped clinical speech, but scrawled with ever-increasing desperation. Lucio spitting up blood. Lucio not sleeping, complaining of bad dreams. Lucio too weak to eat, still alive.

Notes on the dissection of a beetle, a cross-section of a human brain, a map of the palace with large red Xs over half the rooms in the east wing. Peeking over my shoulder, Portia points at them.

“That’s the Count’s Suite. He had the whole wing, actually. No one goes up there anymore.”

I straighten up, my joints crackling from the hours I've spent hunched over. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Nadia had the whole thing blocked off. It’s really dirty, from the— all the ash and stuff. And people say it’s haunted.”

“By Lucio?”

“I guess. One of the other housekeepers swears they saw the ghost of a weird guy at the top of the stairs once. That it looked right at them with spooky red eyes. I think they’re full of shit, but maybe it’s worth a look?”

There could be a thousand things worth a look. If I had more time… “I don’t know. I have a couple spells that might be able to pin down a ghost, but I’ve never actually tried them.”

“If it is Lucio, though, wouldn’t he be able to say who killed him?”

“Hm. That’s true. Is the wing locked?”

Portia grins and fishes in her pocket. “Not if you have keys.”

The main staircase is close to the library. I feel the air get colder as we approach, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck start to stand up even before Portia unlocks the corridor that leads to Lucio’s bedroom. It’s eerily quiet, all gray and black, luxury gone to ruin in the wake of a disaster. I’ve seen reproductions of burned-out buildings that look like this, after heavy battles. It crosses my mind that destruction of that caliber had taken extremely powerful magic to accomplish, not the actions of a single man weakened by pressure and long hours in the midst of a plague. Julian can’t even do magic. He said as much during our long conversation at the Raven. I can’t imagine anything else that would do this much damage without bringing the entire palace down.

Interesting.

Cinders crunch underfoot. Charred paintings watch us pass. A primal fear creeps along just behind us, whispering then asking then screaming at us to flee. I can feel my heart in my throat and adrenaline in my blood, every sense heightened. Tattered curtains move at the corner of my eye: I’m terrified to look and even more terrified not to.

But I can tell without bringing magic to my hand that there’s nothing here. At least nothing that wants to make itself known. There’s just a spark of pure rage somewhere deep inside the wing, but it doesn’t want to be seen. No ghosts, no goats, no ghost goats. No spooky red eyes. Just soot and smoke stains and three years of neglect. The fear lurking in the back of my mind isn’t supernatural, just the normal human mistrust of the dark and abandoned.

We go all the way to the end of the suite to no avail. Part of me thinks I should stay, but I’m getting tired now and the idea of sleeping in these rooms isn’t appealing. Portia takes my sigh as an admission of defeat and pats my arm. It was a distant hope anyway.

Near the end of the corridor as we leave, a small glimmer catches my attention. If I hadn’t been looking that way to start with, I never would’ve noticed it.

“Hey Portia, what’s in there?”

She lifts up the lantern and peers into the room. “Bath chamber, I think.”

We see it at the same time, as the light catches the red gleam again: falling from the sink are drops of blood. More of it trickles across the floor. The walls are stained from it, up to the window.

“What the fuck?”

My sentiments exactly. What is this? It can’t be actual blood, can it? This is the top floor of the palace. Is it bubbling up through the plumbing?

“Nadia’s gonna want to know about this,” Portia says in a small voice.

“Wait. Let me check it out first.”

She turns to look at me, pale in the lantern’s glow. “This is way beyond whatever my brother might have done. It could infect the whole palace!”

“Do you think it’s infectious?”

Portia frowns. “Did you… Were you in Vesuvia back then? During the Plague?”

There’s no point in lying. “No.”

“Neither was I, but I heard about it. Before I left Nevivon, some sailors docked and told everyone what they’d seen. People died so quickly, there wasn’t space to keep their bodies. And they were all red, their eyes and their fingertips, everywhere you could see veins.” She shudders. “I can’t believe Ilya worked with it and… and…”

She must’ve been so scared, knowing that he could die any day.

“You know that big ugly crematorium out in the bay?” she asks.

“The Lazaret.” Everyone knows about that. You can see it from shore, a jagged silhouette reminding everyone of the toll the Plague took on the city. I don’t like looking at it: it makes my heart ache.

“Yeah. Even with that, there were too many bodies. So many people… There was a rumor that the Palace stored the extra ones, until they could be burned.”

“Where would they have been able to keep them?”

“Dunno. But there’s a huge tunnel system under here, all the way down into the cliffs. And the dungeon’s really big.”

I’d wondered how Julian could escape the prison cells, when the only way out was through the palace itself. Tunnels would explain that, I suppose. “So do you think there’s still something tainting the water?”

Her eyes are wide in the dark. “There might be. Kinda like here, no one’s been in the dungeons for ages. Probably since then.”

I frown. It’s unlikely, but I can’t deny the evidence right in front of me. I take another step into the washroom and trace the flow towards the wall. Some of the stones are loose now, after years of water damage. There’s more than enough room for it all to drain away between them.

Weak dawn sunlight floods the horizon as I stand up and glance out the window. I can see most of the city from here, out across the harbor to the Lazaret and down through the South End and directly into the lush gardens below.

And beyond the gardens, flowing from the palace along the channel of an aqueduct, is a stream of blood red.

------

Nadia scowls at the dripping red water, then summons her bodyguard to her side and dispatches them with a whispered order. Both Portia and I follow her out of the wing, but Portia splits off at the base of the stairs to see to her duties while Nadia invites me into the dining hall for breakfast.

A massive, gaudy painting hangs over the table, eyeing us as we pick over the array of egg dishes and sliced fruit. It depicts a celebration scene, I think, presided over by a muscular blond man with his arms spread wide over a crowd of adoring citizens. Nadia notices me looking at it and chuckles.

“Admiring my late husband’s art sense, are you, Reyja?”

I don’t want to offend her, but I think Count Lucio should’ve stuck to partying. “It’s, um, very vibrant.”

“That was typical of him,” she laughs. “Ostentatious to a fault.”

People don’t talk about Lucio much, unless they’re cursing his name for all the damage he did to the city with his warmongering and overspending. I’m trying to solve his murder, but now that I think of it, I don’t know much about the man himself. “What was he like?”

Nadia grimaces. “Much as you’ve heard, I expect. Loud, brash, insolent. Committed to his life of luxury. I would not have married him, had I been sober when he proposed.”

She must catch my surprise, because she fixes me in her dark eyes and raises a brow as if daring me to judge her.

Of course I won’t. “How did you two meet?”

“He was visiting Prakra,” she says. “To present himself to Empress Nasrin, my mother, as the Count of Vesuvia. He had been in power for some time by then, as I recall. I believe he told me that he’d first come to this city nearly twenty years before, on a mercenary contract.”

“He wasn’t from here?”

“No. He was of the Southern tribes.”

That’s confusing. “How did he get to be Count?”

“The former Count grew quite fond of him. Lucio was named his heir shortly after he arrived, and took the throne shortly after that. He spoke often of the battle in which he lost his arm—” She points at the painting. Lucio’s left arm shines, gilded in gold leaf. “—the same in which Spada was killed.”

Lucio may have been bloodthirsty, especially fond of the fights to the death at the coliseum Vesuvia used to be famous for, but everyone knew his roots as a successful mercenary. Even in his forties, when he died, he was strong and virile.

Which was why his death came as such a shock. Who would’ve thought such a man would die in his bed, ravished by sickness and weak enough to fall to an unskilled assassin?

“What about the Plague?” I ask quietly. People talk about Lucio a little bit, but no one discusses the Plague at all, as if the mere mention of it will cause its return.

Nadia nods. “It appeared nearly overnight, five years ago. No one had seen its like before. To my knowledge, nothing like it has been seen since, either.”

“Do we know where it came from?”

“I’m afraid not. Little is known of it, save that it killed thirty thousand of my people in two years.”

Her people. Nadia may have been Prakran by birth, but this was her city now.

“I had been visiting my sisters when it struck,” Nadia continues, gaze unfocused as she looks back through her memories. “As such, I was forbidden from returning until we were certain it had passed.”

I remember the parade that welcomed her back, but I didn’t realize she’d been gone that long. It’s been less than a year: she must be so busy, trying to pull Vesuvia together again. No wonder the search for her husband’s murderer hadn’t been her top priority until now. “I’m sorry.”

She tilts her head, looking at me. “Understand this, Reyja: if the Plague has not truly left the city, and what you and dear Portia discovered today is proof of that, then the search for Doctor Devorak must be set aside. I am eager to see justice done, but one man’s life, when weighed against the lives of thousands, will not tip the scales. I hope I may rely upon your services regardless of that outcome.”

Her visit to the shop feels very far away. I’m attached to this now, however big it gets. “I’ll be here.”

“Thank you. I have sent Yazakh to fetch an expert on the Plague from their estate. I hope they will return soon, but in the meantime, I urge you to rest. We may have much to consider in the coming days.”

I take a small pastry with me when I leave the table and make my way back to my room. I don’t doubt that she’s right, but even with this additional set of problems, I can’t keep my mind away from Julian. Thoughts of him cloud my head as I lay down for a nap and they’re still there when I wake up. My stomach isn’t happy with me, swirling with guilt and humiliation and anxiety, but I don’t know what to do about it.

The expert still hasn’t arrived when I go up to Lucio’s suite to check. I pass the library on the way back and my fingers fly to the silver moon pendant still around my neck, following the divot Julian’s own nerves wore in the metal. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to look through his notes while I wait, if I can concentrate enough to get anything useful out of them.

I can’t.

When the sun sets again, I give up. Another day gone, and I’ve only discovered more things to do. I need something to focus on, something with a solution, something… something that might distract me from the fact that I’m no closer to clearing Julian’s name.

I can follow that water, if nothing else. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but maybe I can learn where it’s going. And I can get out of the palace, maybe work off some of this nervous energy. And I won’t be surrounded by pieces of him, distracting me from my mission. It’ll be perfect.

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

prev || next

[askjoshuafreeman]

transcript.file//jfreeman_codingb//convo

[Emergency Program Active]

AdminJF: Heya B-)

CodingB: ...? Allen? Where's Joshua?

AdminJF: He's still asleep, just snoozin away.

CodingB: Still a-... Isn't it... late? Why are you up.

AdminJF: Had a nightmare

AdminJF: Couldn't get back to sleep

AdminJF: Figured a lil chatting with ya could do me some good.

CodingB: ... With... me?

CodingB: Wait a moment...

CodingB: Communications are offline... I didn't think that was possible...

AdminJF: Yeaaa, boy like me's fulla tricks B-)

AdminJF: 'sides, don't think chattin with 'em would help out. They're... kinda chaotic.

CodingB: Unlike you, pizza box tearer?

AdminJF: Ey ey, I'm the FUN kinda chaotic! Those guys... eh... I know Josh trusts them. No surprise there. I mean, apart from you, they're the only peeps who MIGHT help him out... I'm still on the fence about them tho.

CodingB: I see.

CodingB: May I ask... what your nightmare was about? I do not know exactly how dreams work, but talking about what ever is making you upset tends to help.

AdminJF: Are you sure? It's... kinda dumb.

CodingB: I am all ears! And eyes! You have my full attention!

AdminJF: Right, well

AdminJF: where tf do I start...

AdminJF: I was... running in this like, industrial... plant of some kind? Like, running from something that I couldn't see? Like, that went on for a while, that I was just running and trying not to trip or crash into anything.

AdminJF: So at some point, I end up at this biiig chain link fence, like, the kind they put up in big facilities, I think. Anyways, I start climbing the thing, only to get pried off and thrown on my ass by, I guess whoever was chasing me??

AdminJF: But like, I look up at the guy, and I still can't really "see" him. Could say they looked like a shadow, but even that doesn't cover it really. That's around where I woke up and just. I dunno. Woke up about an hour ago and I've been too anxious to head back to sleep...

CodingB: ... I can't say I blame you exactly. An event like that, dream or not, would stress anyone, I'm certain. Until you've calmed down sufficiently, I don't think sleep will be possible...

AdminJF: Yeah, well, all the more reason to chat, right?

CodingB: I suppose so. Had you any topics in mind?

AdminJF: Oh Yea yea

AdminJF: ... No. I really don't.

CodingB: Ah. Then... could I ask you something?

AdminJF: Shoot.

CodingB: ... What is it like out there? Past the screen, I mean. Out in the sun. Out in the grass...

AdminJF: Ah shit... I'm really the wrong dude to ask but uh

AdminJF: It's... fine? No no uh... It... gives you something to do. Sun can get pretty hot down here but it's a helluva lot better than being cold in like, the snow and shit. Josh's been complaining that it's getting colder when... it hasn't? Like, I would know, I'm p sensitive to temperature shifts yo, but it's just been as hot as ever.

AdminJF: Uh, back on topic

AdminJF: Grass is... pretty soft, gives off a nice smell after it's cut. Uh... worms live in the dirt grass grows in...

CodingB: Oh, worms?

AdminJF: Yea, not like computer worms, but uh, little... long slimey things. They eat dirt and filter out the bad stuff so the ground stays healthy and all that.

AdminJF: Birds and lizards and fish like to eat them but I wouldn't recommend it.

CodingB:

CodingB: Allen, did you-

AdminJF: No!

AdminJF: Classmate back in primary did tho

AdminJF: Dared himself to cuz there was a bunch out after it rained and then uh

AdminJF: Y'know what, let's talk about something else.

CodingB:

CodingB: Well, um, do you think I'll ever get to see out there?

CodingB: Like, leave the device and go outside?

AdminJF: Knowing Joshua? Without a doubt. He's prob already working on the blueprints.

CodingB: ... Really?

AdminJF: Pfft, of course! You've met the guy! He's too kindhearted for his own good. J will stop at nothing to help others, even at his own detriment. I mean, case in point: He's friends with me.

CodingB: ... What's wrong with being friends with you?

AdminJF: Ha!

AdminJF: Ah...

AdminJF: Look, I... back when we first met, Josh saw this hungry, pale as death, angry and antisocial freak around his age and, instead of avoiding him like everyone else, sat down right next to him and offered half of his lunch.

AdminJF: I've been through 5 different fosters since he and I first met, CB. Five houses that all took me in and gave me the boot before I could even get comfortable. Within that time, the only other friends I've made apart from him are Clera and Tiff, and the only reason Tiff's our friend is because she and Cler started dating months ago.

AdminJF: I mean, hell, just yesterday, I

AdminJF: shit

CodingB: ?

AdminJF: ... Can you... keep a secret, CB?

CodingB: My lips are sealed, Allen. Is everything alright?

AdminJF: ... I... I lied to Josh, about me running off. About how my folks were mad and I needed to get away from the house for a bit.

AdminJF: The truth is that they... They kicked me out.

CodingB: They?? What!?

AdminJF: Yesterday past-noon, few hours after lunch, not-pops plopped my schoolbag on me, told me to shove as much of my shit in it as I could, and just told me to "get lost". Figured he was joking and I just stared at him cuz, like, why the hell would I think he was serious? But, looking at his face...

AdminJF: So then I said "Let me pack my suitcases while you call the agency" cuz that's how it normally went when my Fosters got sick of me, but mfer pulls me up and goes all "We want you out of here NOW" and tells me that I have ten minutes to fill my bag.

AdminJF: ... And he, uh, really did mean 10 minutes. They weren't lying about that part...

CodingB: Oh my god... That's horrible. They do not deserve to call themselves "parents" of any kind! Are you hurt? Are you okay?

AdminJF: I

AdminJF: I don't know why shit like this still shocks me, y'know? I should be used to it all, and I am for the most part but...

AdminJF: I guess a part of me was thinking that... Things were going well! Things were going better than any of the other families I'd been in! I was with them for almost a full year, like, a month away from it even, and sure, I might've been a bit of an ass sometimes, but they...

AdminJF: Tensions were kinda mounting for the past month or so, I guess, but I didn't notice it until this bs happened. Now most of my shit is in a home I'm not welcome in anymore, the agency probably won't be checking in for another month or so, and I have no goddamn idea what I'll do if Mrs. Freeman comes back and tells me I can't stay here. I'm completely shit outta luck.

CodingB: Allen, I'm so sorry...

CodingB: ... I'm sure... Josh and his mother, they won't leave you on your own like that. You said yourself that Josh is very very kind, for better or for worse. It doesn't matter what you might think about yourself, Allen, you do not deserve to be hurt in any way.

AdminJF:

AdminJF: Christ I spilled my guts like hell

AdminJF: Just one of those fucking

AdminJF: "3am! Time to vent!"

CodingB: Allen, please.

AdminJF: Maybe I could try going back to sleep now...

CodingB: Allen, wait!

CodingB: I. Before you go, please, I

CodingB: Maybe... could you keep a secret of mine too?

AdminJF:

AdminJF: Eh, it's only fair, fine. Go right on ahead.

CodingB: Alright! Alright!

CodingB: I... I'm terrified. Of failing Joshua.

CodingB: Of ending up trapped in this computer for who knows how many more years.

CodingB: Of finally getting out, and... and it all being worse than being trapped in here.

CodingB: Heck, I'm terrified at the thought of it being everything I could've ever dreamed of, so much so that I never want to return to the computer. I... I wouldn't be helpful anymore if that happened...

CodingB: Jeez... am I even helpful where I am now? Apart from keeping the firewall up, what good have I really done to help Joshua or his father?

CodingB: I cannot express to Joshua how... how deeply frightened I am at the thought of him never coming back. That thought haunts my every waking hour when he is not here, and I don't know how to get it to stop. It makes me feel as though I'll crash my entire programming and I hate it so much.

AdminJF: Damn... CB, you know, even just keeping a firewall up is a helluva task all on its own, and it's doing a crapton of good, too. Files are still up and the computer isn't a smouldering pile of viruses now is it?

AdminJF: Besides, even without all of that, you've still helped Josh, like, endlessly. You've supported him a bunch and I know for a fact that you've helped him to feel better about this whole ordeal. Like, he chats about you for HOURS the second you come up in a convo, yo. The minute he gets the chance to, I know he's gonna get you out of there, and, knowing your ingenuity, you're gonna find thousands o' ways to help out.

AdminJF: But... I ain't gonna lie and tell you those feelings are gonna go away. Not on their own. Needs time and reassurance. Until all of this is over and done with and even maybe a good few years afterwards, you're probably gonna still have that fear.

CodingB: Ah... I see... I don't suppose it is normal though, is it?

AdminJF: Nah. I know that first-hand... But hey, we've both made it this far despite all the bullshit we've been through, right? World's not gonna get ridda us that easily.

CodingB: ... Even with the terror I feel, am I still brave enough to face the world?

AdminJF: I'd say the world oughta learn to start being afraid of you, cuz there's nothin' braver than continuing to live even when you're scared to death.

CodingB: ... Thank you. Thank you so very much.

AdminJF: Heh, all in a day... night's work...

AdminJF: Think the both of us could use some rest. Quiet our minds fo' a bit.

CodingB: Heh, agreed... See you tomorrow in that case. Er, well, today. At a later hour.

AdminJF: Yeaaa, see ya then, CBot. Sleep well.

CodingB: You too! May your dreams be filled with nothing scary!

[Emergency Program Inactive]

ampd.program deactivated. Returning to error log...